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A DANCE THROUGH THE FIRES OF TIME

9511 OPEN UNIVERSITY – 1990s part 1

By some miracle, just as my job at Mentor was proving disastrous, almost out of the blue I found myself the academic role I had been search for most of my life. It was just like coming home. The job suited me down to the ground, and my manager and most of my colleagues were a joy to work with.

Indeed, when I heard that I was being offered the job of Lecturer at the Open University (OU) I felt almost as if I had won the lottery. In fact, so glad was I with my good fortune that I started with its Open Business School (OBS) before my official start date!  In turn they were so desperate to get people on board, especially to write the first level course of the MBA, that I was immediately hired on consultancy basis.  This consultancy was a very enjoyable change from the stresses of selling Mentor packages. 

In fact the marketing course in the Diploma, which was to be the heart of this foundation course,  was - to put it mildly - basic. On the other hand, the only way that the OBS could actually pull together the complete foundation course was to literally encapsulate all the existing Diploma courses.

At the time this looked horrendous, because the courses stretched about five feet along a bookshelf.  However, the students were not required to do all of them; since study guides were written for each one.  We rationalised this as being that the students got a good education, and had the rest of the Diploma material (which was enough to provide two to three years of further education) thrown in for free. Fortunately the students agreed with this viewpoint.

My consultancy job, therefore, was to write a guide to the marketing course.  In fact, my guide ended up being almost as long as the original course itself.  As I have said the marketing course was very basic, and I had to put in a lot of extra theory in order to make it intellectually challenging enough for the new MBA students.

The team producing this foundation course used to meet either in the Technology Faculty of the University or in the London Region HQ.  It was a good team to work with. It was led by Ian, who had been the Dean of the OBS before that time, and was then the London Regional Director.  Also on it was Sheila Cameron, who was the OBS manager at Oxford Region, plus Lewis who had previously been in technology – and whose office at the OU itself we used. Supporting it was one of the best course managers I have worked with. It was, in fact, very high-powered team. This was fortunate, since we needed to get the whole year-long (one credit) programme out in less than a year.  At that time the OU used to measure its courses in credits -- one credit was equivalent to a year of full-time study -- where in later years this changed to the national standard of points.

As I have already hinted, I found this work delightfully relaxing. It was true that to attend the regular weekly  meetings I had to travel from Ashford to the University, 50 or 60 miles along the motorway, but this was before the M25 became a solid traffic jam  and -- in any case - going out of London it was against the peak-time traffic.  Anyhow, I spent most of my time writing; basking in the sun in Windsor Great Park. I had always enjoyed writing and now I found it even more enjoyable.  This was a good thing, since the next decade and a half of my life were to be given over to writing for the Open University.

When I eventually took up my position in OBS, I drove down the main avenue leading to Walton Hall to find it lined with glorious daffodils. Somehow it really did feel like coming home, which for the next ten years it was.  Indeed, every spring thereafter -- when the daffodils came out in their thousands -- I felt the same warm feeling.

At first were just a handful of us, probably not many more than a dozen in total, on the top floor of the administration building. There was little camaraderie then, but that all the changed when we moved to Stony Stratford.

As by then my work on the foundation course, B800, of the MBA had more or less finished, my main job was to be the Chair (in maintenance) of P677 which was the very basic marketing course in the Diploma.  My predecessor had been somewhat of the disaster, and had not had his contract renewed, but I later heard that the University he moved to actually valued him highly; success really does depend on finding the environment which matches your talents.

There was nothing I could do to the course, since it was -- in OU terms -- in maintenance.  In essence this meant the course team chair's job, my job, was just to run it in the field. You weren't expected to make dramatic changes to it, though I did to other courses later on. It was only when a course got into development or production, that was either a new course or a significant revision of an existing course, that large amounts of new material were written

Accordingly I spent much of my time, with my various course managers, running residential schools and exams. This sounds as if it was a relatively light workload.  But, with approaching 1,000 students on these courses, it actually was quite onerous.  On the other hand, after so much time in the wilderness, I loved it.

Indeed, it had its pleasures.  At that stage most of my schools were not too far away.  The one I used the most was at Dunchurch, which was about 50 miles north of Milton Keynes.  It was a nice easy drive up the M1 and then the M1 spur.  The other main one was down at the Civil Service College near Ascot.  Both of these had excellent teaching facilities and the rooms were comfortable.  But we also went to the occasional hotel such as the one just on the outskirts of Oxford, which had the extra benefit of a swimming pool. One of my joys in those days was waking up, having a bath, and then going for a swim before eating a full English breakfast.

These weren't even the best of the venues, though, since those in charge of allocating the venues made certain that Andrew Thompson, as Dean, went to the best one of all. That had its own golf course where he spent most of his time playing rounds.

Unlike my colleagues I never taught any of the sessions.  I didn't feel that, as course team chair, I wanted to get too close to the ‘sharp end’.  I was worried that it would unduly influence my thinking about the course.  Instead I spent on my time gathering input from the tutors who were teaching the various sessions.  Indeed, working with these tutors was a joy.  Some came from industry, but most came from other universities and colleges.  I learned more from them than from my colleagues at the Business School. Equally, I didn't mix too much with the students.  I suspected that they would be on the best behaviour with me, where they were more relaxed with their tutors.  Accordingly I put most of my effort into getting them to build their relationships with tutors.

Instead, I always chose to be the course director. It sounded like a high status job, and I suppose in some respects it was.  If the course director was not there then the regional director had to step in to take responsibility.  But, in reality, I spent most my time rushing around, sorting out the details and doing all the photocopying.  I used to have a school assistant, usually from admin in the local region, and we used to work well as a team. It was, I suppose, a responsible job when things went wrong; but almost a non-existent one otherwise.  In the event, my courses were well bedded in, and didn't throw up any major problems.  At that time though, on one of the other courses in university, the course director had to deal with a tutor being murdered by one of the students!

One problem for the future was that I got friendly with all of the tutors and, when one of them asked me for a reference for the job as a lecturer at the OBS, I gladly gave it. Unfortunately, the ultimate problem was he turned out to be Tony Stapleton; who was later on to be my deadly enemy, who did much to undermine my career – and ultimately to force me out of the OU!

On the other hand, I really only had one problem student.  He was on an international marketing weekend school. Surprisingly, I can't remember these schools, as my comments on this course elsewhere demonstrate, but I now realise we must have we must have had residential schools for P671. That shows you just how much impact they made on me -- though to be fair this course was only run once a year. Returning to my anecdote, I first ran into problems with this student when, on the first morning of the course, the domestic staff came to me and complained that the he'd been sick all over his room.  They were charging the extra for cleaning the room.  I went to see the student, to make certain that he was well again after his illness.  His only comment was "I had a skinful last night".  That didn't endear him to me.  Later on I failed the same student because of his overall work on course. Even though it wasn't examined, he failed every stage.  He came back very angry, and that's when I had to point out to him that one of his essays, which had called for understanding of how you set up foreign operations, gave scarcely the best of answers. He had graphically described the bribery that he normally undertook on his overseas selling.  I was very tempted to contact his employer, but I didn't.  God knows what he was like to work with. 

P671, covered international marketing.  It was an unusually short course.  Where P677 was quarter of a credit long, three months equivalent as were most of the Diploma courses, P671 was only an eighth of a credit -- in other words just about six weeks long.  Even so, somehow in addition to a weekend residential school, we also ran a day school.  Even this was quite impressive; since we used to hold it in the boardroom at the BBC in Regent Street.  We sat around the table with a massive portrait Lord Reith glaring down on us. The BBC at that time thought that the OU was one of its departments, and we made good use of this.

It was, though, not a very good course since it concentrated on the routine administration of exports.  It was one of the few OU courses which had been sponsored, in this case by the BOTB - the British Overseas Trade Board. We never really made a success of such sponsored courses, because the sponsor's demands usually meant that courses themselves never met the academic standards we would have wanted nor the students’ own needs.

As it soon became clear that the existing (P677) marketing course was inadequate, I put forward a proposal for it to be replaced by a new course.  After some considerable discussion, this was eventually agreed.  Accordingly I set out to produce a half credit, six month equivalent, course for the Diploma.

This was going to be highly innovative in a number of ways.  Not least of these was we were going to produce a full credit of material, so the students could tailor the course to suit their own specialty. In this way, for example, those in the consumer industries could specialise in market research and advertising and ignore the details of selling and production; though they still had to learn something about these.  On the other side, those in industrial sales could focus on selling to the exclusion of market research. We were well on the way to producing all this material. Indeed, where everyone had been dubious about whether we could deliver this novel approach, it looked like we were going to be successful. Not only that, but I decided – in conjunction with CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) - that it was also going to feed directly into the CIM Diploma, so that students could -- if they did the whole full credit -- claim membership of that as well.

To achieve all of this, I worked with a big team - largely picked from the tutors - to put in all the best marketing theories and examples of practice that I could find.  As I always did in these circumstances, I also went through every marketing book I could lay my hands on. It is perhaps a terrible thing to say, but textbooks are based on the skill of plagiarism. This is not just because it is easier to copy ideas, which aren't a breach of copyright, from others but because otherwise we wouldn't give students the whole range of theory -- most of which has inevitably been produced by others.

The net result of this was that course was bulging at the seams with marketing theory. Indeed, this one of best courses I never managed to finish.  Regrettably, about 18 months into development, Andrew Thomson got sidetracked by the new initiative to produce practical qualifications. These NVQs were being promoted by the lead body in our area, which was the Management Charter Initiative (MCI).  The problem that this posed for me was that their definition of what was required in the Certificate and Diploma was totally contrary to that incorporated in the design of my course.  Or at least it was once the results of their literally years of deliberations were finally published. This proved to be the very reverse of the ones they had previously spelled out, and to which we had been working. 

Initially they had seen the Certificate as providing a general education and then the Diploma as being more specialised; so my marketing course would have been ideal for that. The problem was that, over time, without telling any of us MCI had changed their mind. This was no problem for other universities and colleges, since in their case the lecturer just walked into the classroom and changed the emphasis in his presentation.  In our case, though, we had hundreds of pages of material, all of which had to be totally rewritten.

Even worse, the new proposals were garbage.  At that stage the DTI had taken over responsibility and were specifying a curriculum which literally was devoid of marketing.  The original initiative for these new courses had come from a series of investigations by Constable & McCormick, in which Andrew Thomson had participated; and hence his enthusiasm for the work. It had found that British management was very poor, certainly worse than in the United States; and accordingly they needed much better education. The problem was that MCI had, under the DTI, commissioned management consultants to do a survey to find out what these (incompetent) managers did -- since the (perverse) intention was to copy these.  Remember that previous research said that what management currently did was poor -- so copying it meant inevitably that the result had to be poor teaching.  What was worse was that, when the DTI took over direct control, it looked at what it believed was being proposed and then put this through the filter of its own bureaucratic experience. Thus, if anything, the final specification was really designed for the civil service. At the end of all of this, the so-called dedication to marketing was just one sentence which quite simply said "Understanding Clients and Customers!" This became the name of the new marketing course, chaired by another lecturer, and – despite the fact that it did contain marketing material (quite a bit of which was derived from my book which by then had been written) – for the next decade or so this confused other academics trying to fin the marketing content in our syllabus.

The farce went on when MCI started authorising organisations to deliver their education.  We had terrible troubles meeting all the standardswhich were required of us. As, of course, we were the best in the field, I wondered why this was; especially when we were constantly told nobody else was having problems.  Then the wife of one of my colleagues, who worked for a consultancy which had never done any training before, applied for accreditation on their behalf.  They got it immediately. I asked how this happened, and was told it had simply answered yes to all the questions! I then asked MCI how they were monitoring the suppliers to ensure that the agreements, and standards, were maintained. The simple answer was that it had no problems, since once the box was ticked it was not their business.

The net outcome of this was that I was left with no course, but a mass of marketing material.  As a result, I sat down and, over the next year, rewrote this into a marketing textbook; which was my textbook on marketing. It was also used as the basis for the marketing element in the MBA. This was published by Blackwell, and was to become my most successful book.  Over a ten-year period it sold something like 50,000 copies and maybe earned me something like £100,000 -- though, as this came in at a steady rate of £10,000 a year, it wasn't immediately evident.

As I explained earlier, in 1959 OBS moved to a new site, away from the OU campus, at Stony Stratford. This was some ten miles away from the OU, but -- due to the excellent road system within Milton Keynes -- I could get there in not much over ten minutes. The only problem was that, as it was on the High Street, parking was difficult if you arrived late; but that now seems to be a problem wherever you work – no employer seems willing to invest in a sufficient number of parking spaces for their staff.

It was the bottom floor of a speculative office development, albeit a small one. It had been fitted out well and was very comfortable – even if we did miss our contacts with the rest of the university. In many respects, however, it proved to be an ideal environment. There were only around 30 of us in total - including all the secretaries - and less than a dozen academics. The best thing was that the photocopier was located in a space in the middle, so that when you did the photocopying – of which we all did a great deal - - you tended to meet everyone else who worked in the school. Accordingly, not merely did we know what was happening in everyone else's area but we also became firm friends.

Most of the people within the school turned up every day to work with everyone else. All this could not have been more different to later on, when 300 of us were ensconced in a beautiful new big building where most people didn't even bother to turn up once a week. It was not surprising that the atmosphere became very different then.

Indeed, at Stony Stratford we went beyond being friends in the workplace to becoming almost a member of an OBS family. The only exception to this was David Asch, who started out being director of the MBA programme and then, having rowed too often with Andrew, gave up this post and more or less disappeared from the school. This boded ill for later developments. The rest of us, though, used to go out at lunch together to the local pubs. We used to go mainly to the Bull. This was one of the famous pair of hostelries, the Cock and the Bull. These two inns, on the High Street, were famous in olden days because they were the last overnight stop before London. Before going to bed, people used to tell each other stories, hence the origin of the ‘cock and bull story’.

The Bull had a bar on ground floor which was pretty basic, but did acceptable sandwiches so we used to eat there. Alternatively, if there were more of us we used to go round to the pub on the square where we used to order more substantial food. As with a lot of other pubs this has now changed to effectively being a restaurant -- which is these days more profitable than selling beer.

We used to socialise outside work as well. We occasionally had dinner as a group, including Pat and some other wives, in Ruby Tuesday's -- which was a mid-range restaurant on High Street. But, like so many other restaurants, it has long since been replaced. Then we would go back to Julia's house, just behind the High Street, for coffee. Julia, incidentally, was the administrative assistant, who spent much of her time planning our move from the OU campus to Stony Stratford and then back again to the OU. She was ambitious, and made full use of this to further her career, but she was also very much the social centre of the group. When she moved on to join the Civil Service we missed her contribution. We also used to indulge in other events. I well remember one Christmas party which was in fancy dress. All of this camaraderie certainly led to a very relaxed working atmosphere.

Of course, the main reason for the happy atmosphere was Andrew. There were still some problems, for he was quite easily swayed by his kitchen cabinet. In particular he was very friendly with one of the BBC producers. But Andrew never held a grudge and was always fair with everyone. He was one of the best bosses I have worked for.

My own contribution to his own happiness was bringing him into contact with Rosie, one of the course managers, who he later married. At the time Andrew was divorced, but Rosie -- who was about to get into her own divorce -- was keen on him. Accordingly, I was delegated by the girls in the School to accompany Rosie to a meeting of the Milton Keynes Chamber of Commerce; and then to leave her stranded there, so that Andrew had to take her home. This was beginning of a love match which had few equals. Unfortunately, some eight years later, Rosie died. She was a chain-smoker and developed asthma, very bad asthma, which eventually led to a heart attack. Andrew consoled himself, after a couple of years, by getting back together with his previous girlfriend and marrying her; and moving to New Zealand.

But it was a lovely atmosphere, and was -- for five years while Andrew ruled the roost -- one of the happiest experiences of my life.

Eventually I moved on, in a natural progression, to corporate strategy – and the course B885 ‘The Challenge of the External Environment. This, in turn unexpectedly moved on to futurology and became my most successful course at the OU.

Thus, after I had been at the OBS for a year or so, we had started development work on various electives for the MBA. As I said earlier, we had already managed to rush out the first year foundation course -- which was very well received. The next mandatory course, which was corporate strategy being developed by David Ash, was something of a nightmare though.  It was running late on every front and in fact missed its first target launch date. As a result, we ended up with a lots of very dissatisfied and worried students; who were wondering how they could complete their MBA.  In particular, our tutors came under a great deal of pressure at residential schools from the students on them.

Back to the electives though, these were parcelled out to the most obvious candidates -- the specialists in the Business School.  Well that's not quite right for, since there weren't that many of us in the Business School, most of the courses were actually led by people from the rest of the University; though most of these did later become members of the Business School.

I was quite keen to do one of these courses.  However, the courses were really meant be cross-functional -- though in practice most the turned out not to be.  In this context marketing, which was seen as my baby, had no place.  Eventually, after much pestering from me, Andrew tossed me a bone. He asked me to bring together a team to consider another elective.  He implied that I probably wouldn't get the chair of it, but at least it gave me something to do.

The title of this new course, which became B885, was set in stone as 'The Challenge of the External Environment'.  The slight problem was that none of us knew what this meant -- not even Andrew.  I later found out that, the day before he tossed it to me, he had been visiting Unilever and had asked them what courses they thought were important. They had said "...well one of the new things we want to look at is the challenge of the external environment." In this way are major decisions made!  When I asked for guidance, Andrew waved me away with statement "Let's have your ideas." Of course, that suited me down to the ground.  He gave me a completely free hand.

Accordingly I did two things.  First I recruited what was probably the biggest course team that OBS ever had seen; there were something like 30 academics on it.  Thus, I didn't just recruit from within OBS but went out to the other faculties - in particular social sciences and technology - and recruited their best academics to join.  In practice this wasn't too difficult.  OU academics loved being in at the first stages of a new course.  It meant they could mould it to their own prejudices.  Regrettably that was usually not enough to keep them on to do the writing and production, but all I wanted anyway was to pick their brains -- and this I was able to do very successfully.

Thus, every three to four weeks or so, we had a meeting of this new course team; or at least the proposed course team since it hadn't yet been agreed.  With so many of us, the only place we could meet was in the church hall opposite the Business School.  Despite there being 30 of us on this course team, we got on very well together and the atmosphere was both very friendly and productive.  In this manner we spent the first year thrashing out what the course should be about.  This was in the good old days, when a typical course in the area took three years to develop. 

The last year was actually getting it out of the door in terms of printing and distribution. The middle year was the writing and production of the course. In practice the first year was the most important – creative - year, when everyone talked and talked and talked.  The people who arrived later in the OUBS could never understand this.  They only saw the need for the latter two years.  The reality was that the first was the most important year. That first year was when you got your head round the subject and worked out what the shape of the course would be.  In the case of B885 we were very fortunate, in as much as we actually had 3½ years to deliver.

The second leg of my work was doing in-depth interviews with the leaders of large organisations, typically the CEOs of the multinationals.  In this way I met the CEOs of multinationals such as Esso, Booker, Chef & Brewer and ICI.  Basically, my intention was to find out what they wanted a course called the challenge of the external environment –whatever that might be - to be about. We had already realised that, in essence, it was the external interface with marketing, covering the STEP functions; Sociology, Technology, Economics, Politics.  Indeed, in the team we had fairly quickly divided the course down into these four blocks.

The fascinating thing which emerged from these interviews, however, was that almost all the CEOs - when talking about the external environment - actually talked about the future.  To them the external environment equated with long-range planning. 

This, then, was the perspective which was to take over the course; that of long-range planning and in particular of scenario planning.  This was something of a surprise, but we all became fascinated with this and -- as I say -- it permeated all the course.  Most important of all, it permeated the TMA's, the Tutor Marked Assignments (essays) which the students were to produce as a major contribution to the marks they received.  As such this, as much anything else which contributed to students passing or failing the course, made scenarios the central focus of the course.

After a year of earnest consideration, we decided on a structure for the new OBS MBA course with -- as I've already said -- four blocks covering the STEP factors (Sociology, Technology, Economic, Politics).  Overlaid on this was our view of the future, especially that delivered through scenarios.

I was fortunate in as much as I was able to delegate each of the four sections to one of the individual members of team; and with one exception they did remarkably good job. It was an excellent way of writing, since the 'block-heads' themselves wrote much of the plot but also pulled in and supervised other experts in the field.  I strengthened that on technology, which was led by a lecturer from technology, Rod, by pairing him with one of our most experienced regional managers, Norman, who had just retired.  They did a superb job, though unfortunately Norman died soon after the writing had reached the draft stage.

The economics block was something of a problem, since the professor of economics from social sciences found his department disintegrating around him and in turn he was then pushed out of university. Fortunately another of our regional managers, who was an excellent economist, was able to come in and bring together three other specialists to write the various parts of.  Thus, we were able to get a quite sophisticated look at the future of economics -- which then saw transaction cost economics as its leading edge.  Politics was handled by a half-time lecturer, who was one of my friends. He was, at the time, the political adviser to David Owen - one of the founders of the SDP.  He was also quite wealthy in his own right.  I well remember him saying, when asked how he managed to visit the OU when his home was in Cornwall, saying that of course they had a house at Oxford as well as, I later found out, a barge moored on Chelsea Reach.

Sociology was supposed to be run by someone from social sciences.  Regrettably, I had terrible trouble with him, since he was renowned for always being late on delivery.  Eventually I replaced him with an academic from Lancaster University who did an excellent job. The social sciences lecturer was shattered that anyone had the courage to sack him from a course team!

I did the linking elements, which revolved around long-range planning. We worked very well as a team, and were able to handle the fact that - as was usual with large teams - two-thirds of the members disappeared as soon as they were asked to write anything. We were still left with plenty of support.  In any case, in a rather underhand way, I set all the deadlines for delivery of the written material a year earlier than actually needed.  This meant we had everything ready well within time.  Even sociology, where we had to switch authors, came in with sufficient time for it to be fully edited.

This also meant that I had just one editor.  Nancy was one of the best editors, and she and I worked very well as a team.  Indeed the whole team worked very much as a pretty close family, and we never had any arguments; unlike the later maintenance team where Tony Stapleton's politicking fomented a number of arguments. The worst thing I had to do was to discreetly get rid of one of the members who actually insisted on writing lots of material, but really wasn't very good at this. Fortunately he went off to Peking for a year and I was able to block him out of the course when he returned after that.

Because we had so much time, everything went like clockwork. The only thing that went wrong was the residential school. I had decided on a very ambitious project, where students negotiated with each other in teams to get through a project against local politicians' wishes.  One side played the politicians and the other the commercial interests.  In order to make sure that even this worked very well, I spent something like £30,000 on running a dummy residential school, which I ran in myself; and everything worked perfectly.

Unfortunately, what I learned from the experience was that you must take note of intrinsic knowledge.  For I knew exactly what was needed, and controlled everything very tightly.  When we had to rely on tutors, who hadn't had anywhere near as much experience of the case study as I had, the whole thing fell apart. Ultimately, over the next year or so, we had to completely replace the case study.  As I say, the lesson is that if you going to test something you must test it in exactly the right conditions. Eventually we abandoned the whole residential school, though that was more a case of the economics involved; cutting the unnecessary residential school reduced our running costs by something like 25%. 

When I arrived at the OU the practice was that every OUBS course had videos, in theory about the subject, produced by the BBC. We were not allowed to use anyone outside the BBC to produce these.  In any case the BBC then had very good facilities locally.  At that stage, indeed, on campus at the OU it had one of the largest studios outside of London.  Gradually, over the next decade though, the BBC withdrew large parts of this support.  First of all it shut down the studio -- since modernising it would have cost too much -- and then it gradually moved to the idea of 'producer choice'. This meant that they commissioned most of the material on the open market, and expected us to do the same.  For a long while, though, we still had our own dedicated BBC producers and staff; and all the editing facilities still were on-campus

Having the BBC make our videos was a great idea, and the documentaries produced were superb.  Indeed, the outside world thought that the documentaries were at the heart of the OU teaching methods.  In fact, they represented relatively little of the academic content.  Eventually we reckoned they produced something like 5 percent of the academic content but cost something like 50 percent of the overall (set-up) cost.  Even so, they were great in terms of marketing, since they portrayed a very professional image for the OU -- which enjoyed significant airtime; on BBC2 in particular.

This filming was led by a core team which comprised a producer and a production assistant.  These were the ones that I, as course team chair, worked with for more than two years. When we were on location the numbers escalated, so that a minimum crew would comprise myself, as the academic, a producer, a production assistant, a camera operator, a sound-man and often an assistant cameraman who hiked the equipment around. When, on TV, you see someone like Michael Palin all alone in the depths of the Sahara, you should bear in mind that behind the camera there are probably at least six other people. I can assure you that you are never alone with a camera crew!  In addition to these, of course we had the drivers who moved us around.  In the UK all of these tended to come from the Open University BBC group.  Overseas it was very different, since we hired local cameramen.

My main experience with the BBC was, of course, on B885. We started in the United Kingdom, where we filmed segments with the Rover group - as part of the technology block.  This was interesting, though we only ever penetrated as far as their design studios.

The most interesting of the UK filming, though, came with filming a case study at ASDA.  This was when ASDA was starting its climb to be one of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains.  Via my contacts, I had managed to get the requisite access agreed with its marketing director, and to film in his staff in their annual planning process. It meant that we went behind the scenes at their head office and also in a number of their stores. It was a fascinating story. Not long afterwards, however, most of the senior management team were removed; as a new CEO was brought in who was very good at handling the City – and hence massaging their all-important share price! This in turn led to their later takeover by Walmart.

Our next venture was into Europe, to film segments about the television industry.  For this, and much the rest of the filming, I shared the material with a course in social sciences; led by my compatriot Richard who was chair of that course.

Our first port of call in Europe was the European Commission.  This, at the beginning of the 1990s, was when the familiar three legged building -- the Berleymont -- was the headquarters of the EEC, as it then was. The building was later on shut down and covered in plastic for more than a decade, since it turned out to be full of asbestos. Mind you, the European Commission (EC) is nothing if not professional.  They had their own television studio in-house -- with a full three camera set up -- so that we didn't need to take in our own crew. What is more, within a matter of minutes of the interview finishing, the tape was sent down the line to the BBC in London.  The interview was with one of the Commissioners.  The most impressive aspect, though, was the two interpreters.  Before the commissioner started speaking they literally didn't know in what language he would be speaking -- he was fluent in English, Italian, French, and German.  In fact he spoke in his own language, Italian, but the interpreters clicked into place in what seemed like a millisecond; and were translating from Italian, as recorded on our tapes (which didn't even need to be edited), at high speed.

From Brussels we flew down to Cannes. The event at Cannes was the industry film and television show.  This is not the same as the one where all the starlets parade along the beach.  But it is very much an industry convention where everyone sells products to each other. The conference centre in Cannes is one my least favourite buildings.  It's even worse when you get into the exhibition hall of the convention itself.  It is full to the brim with stands, with narrow rows between them and a ceiling by which is barely seven feet high.  Accordingly, it was not easy to get good shots of what was going on, it was like shooting in your back bedroom, and in practice we used very little of the footage we shot..

Even so, the buzz was marvellous.  There was no real celebrities around, though I was planning to see a small press conference with Muhammad Ali. Unfortunately I travelled up in the lift with him, and I was so horrified by what Parkinson's disease had done to him -- he was a shambling wreck of a man -- that I couldn't face attending this press conference.

The main thing, working with the BBC, is that you live well. So we ate at a number of very good restaurants. Above all though we ate at Roger Vergé's restaurant.  However, we couldn't get into his best restaurant, the Moulin, since you had to book several months in advance for that.  But we did manage to get into his second restaurant, the Almanderie.  The food was superb, though the portions were minute -- since it was at the time when (as cuisine minceur) you were supposed to have a lot to small, exquisite dishes.  But it really was a superb culinary experience.

The highlight came, though, when we were allowed to film the Warner Brothers party at the end of the conference.  This was in the suite which had an enormous balcony overlooking the Croisette. It was full of the most glamorous television people, though there were few stars that I recognised –even though my colleagues said that there were several soap stars there.  I enjoyed myself, for once directing the film crew in their work.  If you can imagine anything more attractive, at an industry bash, than having a BBC crew to film you, then you get some idea of the atmosphere.  Everyone preened themselves to be on television. I remember, in particular, a couple who looked like they had the best days of a B film career behind them, preening themselves ready for a last appearance on celluloid.  Unfortunately I couldn't persuade the crew to actually film them, and as we swept by I have rarely seen such a despondent looking reaction

The food was reasonable, but I ate far too many quail eggs - it must have been about 20-30, and felt rather the worse for wear afterwards.

The real benefit of these jaunts was, though, the people we interviewed. I especially remember the senior management of Toyota, whose common-sense view of the business world was more than refreshing. But there was also Howard Stringer of CBS, whose take on the future of television was so incisive. Indeed, I also remember subsequently interviewing the (Conservative) Home Office minister responsible for television in the UK. Our interview lasted a bare 10 minutes, but he then interrogated us for another hour – until our producer got up and said he had another appointment! The most fascinating aspect of this was that, at the time, the minister was conducting a review of the BBC’s charter, and – as it was obvious that we knew more than him on the subject – he was picking our brains as to what he should do! It was not the only time my views potentially had such an impact, much the same happened with UNESCO, but this time he was posing the questions  (in effect) to a team from the very BBC he was supposed to be regulating!

I was very keen to film Toyota in Japan, but everyone else said it couldn't be done.  First of all, my fellow academics said, we'd never be allowed to film on the production lines.  In fact, when we got to Japan, we found that not merely could we film on the production lines but they had a special visitor centre through which something like a quarter of one million people a year passed; to be shown all over the production lines.

Then they said we couldn't afford it.  This was true, in as much as taking a full crew to Japan would have been prohibitive.  Fortunately I managed to get in touch with the deputy ambassador in London and after a meeting with him -- which was fascinating not least because of the way that the women in the embassy (including the English women) moved to the side and bowed to us as we went past -- he agreed to put our case to the Japanese government.

I think they were much more impressed by the BBC, or at least the idea of the BBC, than the OU. Anyway, whatever the reason, they agreed to fund our filming in Japan.  We still had to pay for the core team travelling there, but they would provide the rest of the crew.

It was a nightmare getting there, since it was at the time of the start of the first Gulf War.  This meant that the airlines had moved there staff facilities to the next  - safer - point down the Gulf.  In this way we had to make two stops in the Gulf, each of an hour or more long.  This managed to get us to Hong Kong just after the connecting flight had taken off for Tokyo. As the BBC had put myself and cameraman on the cheapest flight, where the director and production assistant much more comfortably went over the Pole, this meant we had to wait another four hours for the next flight -- even though regular flights were taking for Tokyo every half-hour.  The cameraman retreated to the hotel room, which was booked for us, and caught up on his sleep.  I decided to take a tour of Hong Kong.  I picked up a taxi outside the hotel, which was in Kowloon, and asked the driver to take me round Hong Kong.  What I hadn't reckoned on was the fact that the Kowloon taxi drivers know nothing about Hong Kong Island and I found myself directing him around it.  In addition it was pouring with rain. Even so I saw many of the sites of Hong Kong, with most impressive being from the Peak, looking down on the skyscrapers below us.

We eventually took off for Tokyo and landed there after something like 30 hours travelling time.  I collapsed into my very comfortable room at the Intercontinental.

The next day we set out on filming in some style.  The Japanese government had provided us with a minibus, the rear of which had been converted to carry our camera equipment.  This vehicle was essential, since it had a government driver who had to keep on circling around the various locations; where there is very little parking available in Tokyo.  In addition they had hired for us an assistant cameraman, sound-man and, most important of all, two interpreters.  Of course, we had our own cameraman, who had flown out with me.

In those days we were still filming on 16mm.  The changeover to digital was just about starting, and we were already filming in the UK using such electronic media.  Overseas, though, we were still uncertain about the standard of the equipment.  Having said that, the assistant cameraman said that in Japan they were filming ballet with hand-held (or at least steady-cam mounted) mini cameras. Even so, the main difference between the two seemed to be the lenses. With 16mm the camera-man had to have a full set of lenses; costing something over £100,000. With the new digital equipment all that was needed was a single zoom lens. At around £50,000 this cost much more than a single standard lens; but only one was needed.

Our first interview was with the CEO of Toyota. It went very well, but the camera crew were as irreverent as usual.  Thus, getting his office set out and lit for the interview, they moved all the furniture around and in particular the plants. BBC camera crews love to see their victims framed by plants -- just as if they're in the jungle.  Unfortunately while moving everything around they broke at least one of his artworks.  But that's par for the course when you invite in a television crew.  The CEO gave a very workmanlike performance, of which the most memorable thing was - when asked what Toyota's strength was - he had no hesitation in saying it was its people.

The next interview was with the head of the main commercial TV channel.  We conducted this in their news studio, so we didn't have to bring in our own lighting. Accordingly our crew got down to moving all the lighting to the positions they wanted for our work.  Eventually the CEO strode in, and we did interview.  Of course all his staff were very deferential to him, but I thought they were getting a little bit nervous as we overran on time.  Ultimately we did finish and the CEO swished out of the studio again.  Then all hell broke loose, because it was about two minutes to 12 noon; and apparently they were going on air for the main news bulletin of the day at noon!  I've never seen so many lighting engineers moving so fast, switching the lighting set up around to the one they normally used for their own news broadcasts.

We then took ourselves off to Toyota City.  We got there by the Shinkansen, the bullet train.  This was very comfortable, and very fast when the track allowed. On the other hand, it slowed down quite frequently and overall was not significantly faster than the British Rail trains at the time.  It was comfortable, though, as we whisked along the coastal strip of Japan.  The most fascinating thing about the journey, though, was that it was almost all suburb, from Tokyo to Nagoya where got off for Toyota City.  Admittedly, in parts, there were ricefields - actually very small ricefields - planted amongst the houses; but the overall impression was of unending suburbia for over 100 miles.  The only time we saw anything different was the tea plantations as we cut through mountains; but they didn't last for very long.  At Nagoya we transferred to a minibus and drove to Toyota City. This was a city dedicated to Toyota -- to the four or five of its enormous car-making plants that were located there. We stayed in a very typical Japanese hotel, in which the rooms were minute and I never could get the air-conditioning to suit my requirements.  After a rather restless night we moved on to film the production lines.

The night before we went to the Toyota plant, however, we were entertained to a meal at the local restaurant by the managers of Toyota.  If I am afraid I rather disgraced myself in the eyes of the Japanese.  The key to this meal was that you had meat which was cooked in boiling broth heated in a bowl in front of you.  This was shared with the person opposite you.  To do this you used very long chopsticks.  I'm not very good with using chopsticks at the best of times, but these long ones were beyond me.  Accordingly I kept dropping the bits of meat.  This would not have been a problem, since I could do with losing weight. The real problem was that tradition said you had to feed the person opposite you.  Eventually the Toyota manager opposite me gave up and, losing face massively himself, had to feed himself!. 

This is a useful point to discuss the food in Japan.  Before going out to Toyota City we had lunch in a noodle bar. The food was the normal food that the ordinary Japanese might eat but even so it was excellent, and that time I was able eat the noodles with my chopsticks. In the hotel, the American owned Intercontinental, the first morning I tried the Japanese breakfast -- which was a variation on sushi -- but thereafter I had the English breakfast!  At Toyota itself we had a typical executive lunch.  This was a cold lunch packed in a box.  Seeing as we were having lunch with the board of Toyota, however, this particular lunchbox was filled with absolutely superb food; from the soya bean curd through, in particular, to deep-fried shrimp. Best of all, though, was the raw tuna with wasabi.

The following morning we were shown to one of the main assembly lines.  The assembly lines started with pressed steel sheets being brought in on pallets and fed in to the welding plant.  The pressed sheets came from their own on-site press shop.  The whole logic of Toyota City was a matter of scale.  Thus, the various assembly lines, I believe it was something like 16 at that time, were fed by the one engine plant serving all of Toyota City. They then had four press shops serving four assembly lines each.  All this was on a Just-In-Time basis.  Thus, the welding plant we were filming had only one pallet of stamped parts ready to go into it.  Just as the pallet was about become empty a forklift truck brought the next one in.  This was one of the great secrets of their lean manufacturing setup.

The welding plant itself was a joy to behold, with robots doing all welding and not a human being in sight. The completed chassis emerged to then be sprayed and baked in a tunnel.  Then began the painstaking process of assembling the rest of car onto the chassis; and again it was a joy to behold.  It was more like a ballet than an industrial production line.  It has to be remembered that the staff on this production line typically had the equivalent of A-levels and some even had degrees.  Moreover, they had been doing this for years. Accordingly their movements were literally choreographed. As they were very loyal, this was the pay-off for the Toyota claim that 'what mattered was staff'. Even so, they were not an oppressed workforce, since at the time we were there was some discontent; though it was only because they wanted their free meals to be served on proper crockery rather than on plastic one-piece dishes.

There were many things to learn from the assembly lines, which I had plenty of time to study while the rest the crew were filming.  First, it is not true that the assembly lines worked 24 hours without a break. Indeed, every hour or so the assembly lines shut down, and the workers made tea for themselves and sat around talking for ten minutes so.  Even more impressive, perhaps every two hours or so, klaxons sounded throughout the factory and the whole assembly line came grinding to a halt. This was because someone had found fault.  As soon as anyone on the assembly line found a fault, with what had been done before their position, they had to hit the red button on their station. This brought the whole of the assembly line to a halt for anything up to 15 minutes while they sorted out the problem. I suppose if I'd been a western time and motion man, I would have said this was unnecessary. You could always have highlighted the fault and then repaired it at the end of the line; and that would have saved them perhaps half an hour a day of production time. But that was not the point. It was the psychological drama of the line coming grinding to a halt, and everyone wondering whether it was their fault, that had made it worthwhile.  Nothing could better persuade the workers to maintain a high standard quality. 

Indeed, while we were there - watching mass-market Corolla saloons rolling down the lines - suddenly amongst them appeared the new Lexus small saloon. Thus, these were being built on exactly the same line. The standards that were needed for one of the best luxury cars in the world were maintained on the same track as the ordinary mass production saloons.

We were royally entertained while we were there.  We were even given our own Toyota deluxe saloon car to sit in, to keep out of the heat of the day.  Not only did it have air conditioning, but it was the only one ever made by Toyota which had a massaging seat – of which I made full use.

One final anecdote about their production lines.  Their production system was known to the outside world as Just-In-Time (JIT), but within Toyota it was known as Kanban.  This was literally the ticket that pulled forwards the parts, as and when they were required on the production line.  In the west, even at that time, this would have done been by computer. In Toyota City -- however -- it was literally a paper card. The most fascinating aspect of it was that these cards were collected, from alongside the assembly line, by a little old man on a tricycle. This man, on his tricycle, was at the heart of Toyota Industrial Revolution!

We were entertained at lunch by half the board of Toyota.  I found myself sitting next to one of the marketing directors.  We talked endlessly about what made Toyota tick, which I found fascinating, but the one-story I remembered was as follows.  When I asked him about JIT, he paused and then said “...well of course, when you get it right, JIT is easy",  then there was an even longer pause which he followed by "...mind you it took us 20 years to get it right". Incidentally don't let anyone tell you the Japanese have no sense of humour.  I think he was exaggerating, since I believe it took them about ten years, but in comparison with all the experts then flooding back to the UK from Japan - saying they would install it over the weekend - his point was very valid

Once we got outside again, we found who had been occupying the rest of the Toyota board.  It was Edwina Currie, the (ex) Conservative minister who had been fired for stirring up troubled about eggs causing food poisoning.  She was the local MP for the Derby factory which Toyota was just about to open.  She was quite overwhelming, dressed in a pink dress with white polka dots which was immaculate despite the heat. Best of all, she somehow oozed sex. I realised, much later, that this was just after John Major had dropped her when he became Prime Minister. Whatever the reason she was one of the sexiest women I have ever come across.

The end of the event was rather ignominious, for everyone - I think including Edwina - had to help push start our minibus; which had exhausted its battery while standing still with the air-conditioning running.  We took then took the bullet train once more back to Tokyo.

In Tokyo, we got on very well with the Japanese crew and, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, they took us out for our last evening. There were 10 of us in total. Apart from the two interpreters, and two OU academics rather than the usual one, this was fairly typical of a BBC documentary crew; which typically runs to six or more members behind the camera!

This evening was spectacular, not least for our producer getting very drunk.  He had been drinking saki, which was served hot and tasted a little bit like cider.  He just hadn't realised that it was so strong.

Thus, we were in one of the best restaurants in Tokyo.  When we first went into the restaurant we had to take the shoes off and continue in our bare feet.  However, when you went to the loo, of course, you needed to put something on your bare feet, so there were wooden sandals provided within the loo.  Hugh, the producer, who had already managed to put his hands through one of the paper screens surrounding the tables, decided he wanted to go to the loo. We were all sitting at the table, toasting each other, when we suddenly heard this clip-clop, clip-clop, coming towards us. We all looked around in horror to see Hugh walking back down the gangway with these wooden clogs still on.  Of course this was horrendous for the Japanese.  So we all desperately gestured, at which point Hugh, who was already quite drunk, said "oh shit" and  turned around to clip-clop all the way back to the loo again.

We then went on to a karaoke club.  I hadn't sung for some for years, not since I left school, but I still thought I had a reasonable voice.  I was horribly disabused of this, when I had to take my turn, and discovered I had an absolutely awful voice. It was so embarrassing, but it was not as embarrassing as Hugh; for, when it was his turn, he managed to knock over the neighbouring people's tables.  Surprisingly, the Japanese love drunks. It is part of their culture that drunks are not just accepted but are welcomed.  It's their way of letting off steam.  Thus, while horrendous to us in the West, at the end of the evening we would see many people staggering down the street and, worst of all, (in those days, at least) there were women among them. 

On the other hand, Japan is a very safe place to be. When I first arrived there I was so thirsty after my flight that I went out to get a drink from one of the machines they have – serving everything you might want – on the streets. Everything went well, until – as I was walking away from the machine – I heard footsteps running towards me. In London I would have been frightened that I was about to be mugged, but it turned out to be a teenage Japanese girl who handed me the change I had mistakenly left in the machine.

Despite all the stories about their impenetrable culture, the Japanese youth – at least – desperately wanted to be American. All the women’s clothes were Western, and even the dress dummies in the store windows were Western; which was silly, since the Japanese women literally are a different shape - not least they are shorter. However, their men have put on almost a foot in height since the war. Thus it is strange, as a 5’8” Westerner in their underground, having to stoop to go through the connecting tunnels.

I later found that the Hugh, when my compatriots had got him back to his room, had managed to pull down the shower screen while attempting to shower.

I regret Hugh had drunk so much that he was still drunk the following morning.  We had all been given presents by the Japanese crew.  Hugh was presented with a bright purple sash on which was written, in Japanese of course, "I apologise for my dreadful behaviour". Hugh, in his drunken state, insisted on putting it on again the following morning; and nothing we said could persuade him to abandon it!  We first went to MITI, where we did an interview with one of its leading managers. Somehow or other we managed to keep Hugh's purple sash hidden underneath his jacket circuit so it didn't show. 

In terms of the interview itself, this was where our two interpreters came into their own. Thus, we were able to have one interpreter sitting in on the conversation between the MITI manager and Richard -- my compatriot who was doing the interview – to translate for the MITI manager.  The other sat outside the room to listen, and feed back, the complementary translation to Richard.  Thus we were able to record a complete conversation without having to stop for the translations.  This gave it a very natural flow, and I would recommend it as the best approach if you can afford it.

We then went to the headquarters of the leading party in the Japanese government.  We were there to interview one of the government’s leading ministers.  Again we used the same double interpreter process and again it worked very well. In the meantime, though, we were having kittens in case the purple sash poked out from underneath Hugh's jacket. Fortunately it didn't.

Our final meeting of was at the Foreign Ministry, with the leading civil servant who organised the trip.  To my horror, at that stage Hugh did pull out his purple sash and waved it around and said “look what they gave me”. Fortunately the civil servant thought it was British humour, he apparently was a great fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus, so he roared with laughter and joined in the joke.  The rest of us were simply very relieved.

That evening we waved off the group who were going on to look at the possibility of filming in Korea.  It was a very merry occasion, and we all lined up outside the hotel waving to the people in the minibus going to the airport.  I don't know what the Japanese thought of us, but they also probably put us down as English eccentrics.

The following morning I went, with the cameraman, on our one day of sightseeing; to the only substantial temple complex in Tokyo.

Mind you, it was sightseeing in style, with an interpreter and driver – and a cameraman taking my holiday shots on 16mm film!

We went to Detroit for two things.  First of all we went to film the assembly lines at General Motors, for comparison with Japan. In this respect we failed. Although we spent a week in Detroit, waiting to do our filming, we never managed to achieve this part of it -- since the unions were negotiating a new deal and General Motors were worried that our presence on the production lines would jeopardise these negotiations. The other reason was to have a ten minute interview with the head of General Motors outside the US.

We were staying in the hotel in the Renaissance Centre, referred to by everyone as the RenCen.  This is a very modern building, rising 500-600 feet above the waterfront.  My room was pretty near the top and had one wall of glass, in front of which was a desk. Accordingly, I spent most my time in Detroit sitting at this desk writing one of my marketing books -- I suspect it was one of the rewrites of my marketing textbook.  It was a very pleasant environment to do this.  My window looked out over what is referred to as the Detroit River, but in fact is the St Lawrence wending its way from Lake Huron in the north to Lake Erie in the South.  It was fascinating to watch the barges moving up and down the river.  Equally interesting was the movement of the crowds on the Plaza, in front of the hotel, with its spectacular fountain.  The other side of the river was Windsor, in Ontario in Canada. 

I guess I can say I have been to Canada, for I caught the bus through the tunnel under the river and spent a good half-hour walking up and down its very small suburban shopping street -- which was all that there was to Windsor.  On the other hand, I was very happy doing my writing -- as I always was -- at the same time as being able to observe the world going by, from something like 500 feet above it.

The Renaissance Centre was something of a fortress in the middle of Detroit. This was at a time just after the riots in Detroit when much of the rest of Detroit had been burned down.  As you travelled around, it was like being in a German city after the last war.  Every other house seemed to have been bombed out. Most of the population, certainly most of the wealthy population, had long since moved out to the suburbs.  The centre of the city was a very violent area, and every night local television reported two to three murders. Even so, one night when we were returning to the Ren Centre and Hugh was driving a car - and was, as usual, drunk -  I found it safer to jump out of the car when he suggested he drive us out into the country for even more drinks.  Needless to say, I was very nervous about jumping from the car, especially when I was approached by some panhandlers as I was coming to the RenCen, but I still felt that it was safer than being with Hugh in the car. 

In the absence of any filming, most of the time in Detroit was taken up with sightseeing.  One day, we drove north to the Lake that was between Detroit and Lake Erie. On another day we went out from Chicago to Dearborn where Henry Ford had set up a museum close to his factory.  It was mainly a transport museum, with some of the enormous steam locomotives that the Americans used in the 20th century, But it also had an eclectic range of  other exhibits, especially domestic items, he had collected.  Henry Ford was like a magpie, collecting anything that took his interest.

Then, of course, there was the eating.  We mostly ate at the Rattlesnake Club, which was one of the two best restaurants there. The first night I started with soft shelled crabs, which I found remarkably unappetising.  I suppose, however, it was timescale that was the worst problem. The people of Detroit, like most Americans, sensibly ate early in the evening and by nine o'clock everything was very quiet. But that was when the BBC used to eat. That was bad enough, but my internal clock thought it was about three o'clock in the morning.  Consequently I never really enjoyed any of the meals.  I knew they were superb meals, and more important even better wines.  In the end, the sommelier actually came and sat at our table, since she had never tasted the sort of expensive wines we were drinking.  I should point out  - in my defence - that this was not on expenses, except in as much as the BBC gave us an allowance; but this allowance was not particularly generous and we were spending considerably more than it in these restaurants.

The saving grace on my third night was that everyone wanted to go to the local baseball game, and I was able to satisfy myself with a hot dog bought from a vendor on the terraces.  This was marvellous, after all the midnight food. The game itself was the usual dull baseball game.  I suppose it's a short of form of cricket, but like cricket remarkably little happens.  I remember once watching a baseball game on television with an American family, and them getting tremendously excited because the pitcher had managed to arrive at a situation whereby the batsman had failed to hit the ball for a significant number of times, and this lack of anything happening was a record for the season!

This fixation with food extended to the whole crew. After much waiting around, we finally got to meet with the Vice President of General Motors; and were booked to do this at two o'clock.  I arrived there early, but his PR people became increasingly frantic as the time of advanced to two o'clock and then passed two o'clock.  Eventually at half past two the troops turned up.  They had been at lunch.  I wouldn't have minded, but they decided to stay on for an extra half-hour to have a desert.  TV crews are like this, nothing -- not even the Vice President of General Motors -- will keep them away from their food

The vice president was Jack Smith, who not long after became president of General Motors.  He was an interesting guy, and did a very good interview in the showroom at their headquarters.  But, for that one ten minute interview, we had to spend a whole week in Detroit.

The others left that night, but I hung around until the following morning, since I had an appointment with a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In the process I was able to spend another afternoon in Dearborn; but this time in the outside part of Henry Ford's museum.  As I said, he collected anything he could.  So the outside part was full of buildings he'd transported to Dearborn, including 18th-century mansions set up in their original style.  Above all, though, it was fascinating in that he had transported Edison's original laboratories there. As Edison's greatest achievement could be said to be his invention of the modern process of research and development, this really was fascinating.  It showed how his mind worked and how he had impacted modern research. 

The following day I went off to Ann Arbor wher, as I have said, I was due to meet the professor of international marketing who I was hoping would co-author my American edition. In fact he never did. I cannot say the town itself was interesting, in as much as it was just a conventional American town

I decided to take the easy way back by flying to JFK and then catching the daytime flight. I needn't have bothered, for it meant getting up at three o'clock in the morning to catch the connecting flight!

After Detroit, for the rest of our filming in the US, we switched to another director, Francis. I liked Francis much more than Hugh. He wasn't as bombastic as Hugh was.  Unfortunately, Richard didn't get on well with him -- not least because Francis was vegetarian and got up-tight eating in all the very carnivorous American restaurants to which Richard insisted on taking us. 

In New York we stayed at the G R Marriott; their normal top of the range hotel.  This was directly on Times Square, which was being made more acceptable; via a makeover which saw all the seedy sex parlours exiled.  The Marriott itself rose several hundred feet in the air, and the atrium which ran right the way up through the building was quite awe-inspiring -- unless you happened to be afraid of heights.  I walked out of my room to a waist-high wall which looked down something like 300 feet to the pianist playing below. It was, though, a comfortable hotel.

Our time in New York was spent filming the heads of the television networks.  We were hosted there, of course, by the BBC.  We often went to their offices, which overlooked the Rockefeller Plaza.  It was fascinating to see at first hand what we had so often seen on television.  The studio that they used for their news reports turned out to be literally nothing more than a cupboard, with the cameras sitting in the corridor outside. It could only have been about three feet wide and about the same deep.  In there sat all the famous correspondents, in front of a photographic a backdrop of New York, pretending that they were somewhere much more grand.

We went first to the head of NBC, then one of the top three networks in the US.  It was a pretty pedestrian interview, so we didn't use much later.  Then we went to VIACOM, one of the up-and-coming organisations in the TV industry, but again nothing much happened.  Finally we went to CBS which was then headed by Howard Stringer -- a Brit working in the US.  He was absolutely fascinating, and his comments on the future of television were remarkably insightful; just what you might have thought we wanted.  The problem, I now realise this is a problem with much of television, was that his explanations were quite long. Accordingly, they didn't fit the sound-bite character of the programmes we were making.  Thus, despite his very intelligent comments, even he didn't feature much in the final programme.

In terms of external locations, we also went to the New York office of CNN.  The studio there, which sat in the middle of the office, was bigger than that of the BBC but all the cameras in there were remotely controlled from the head office in Atlanta. Accordingly, you had the rather strange phenomenon of this room sitting in the middle of a normal press office full of reporters most of whom had nothing to do with it! Like most of the other ‘local studios’ around the world, it was in every respect an alien transplant.

I also vividly remember filming New York traffic from a vantage point in the centre of Fifth Avenue.  Mind you, there was no traffic island or anything like that. We just set up the camera in the middle-of-the-road, and the cars passed on either side of us. No-one seemed at all fazed by this.

Once more I had plenty of time for private sightseeing, and managed to get to Ellis Island for the first time.  I also managed to wander around Lower Manhattan including the subways under the World Trade Centre and then up to take the view from the top of the World Trade Centre.  The memory of that has an eerie quality now, in view of what happened a decade or so later. I also went on one of the piers on the East River, which was intended to copy what they had done to the waterfront in San Francisco. It was a cheap copy, but interesting none the less.

I was intending to go to the opera at the Lincoln Centre, but discovered that - even though it was a Sunday matinee and there was no one of any note in the cast - all I could get was a seat behind a pillar without a view of the stage. Even worse, the price was 150 dollars.  So, instead I went with the production assistant to a symphony concert on the same campus.

Another evening I went to see Jackie Mason, the Jewish comedian.  I like Jackie Mason but I found the whole atmosphere actually quite threatening.  The audience were almost entirely Jewish people and his jokes, which we used to think were against Jews themselves, actually took on quite a threatening nature against us gentiles in such a crowd.  In particular I remember going to the gents in the interval and, looking along the row, suddenly realising that - for an obvious reason - I stood out from everyone else! The best treat, though, was to see the musical 'City of the Angels', which was the massive hit of the season.  It really was wonderful even when I saw it again in London. In London though it wasn't taken as seriously, which was a shame.

Once more we ate reasonably well, though - walking to one restaurant - we were caught in a downpour. Within minutes there were street-sellers with umbrellas on every corner. We took a taxi, only to find the rear seat was inches deep in water. One restaurant I remember well was in Greenwich Village. It was very proud of its high standards, and had pictures of other top restaurants on the walls. Next to us was a picture of Roger Vergés restaurant in Cannes and we took great pleasure in telling the waiter that we had eaten there just a few weeks before. The problem with many so called good US restaurants is that they equate quality with sugar. On the other hand, the Carnegie Delicatessen where we had a salt beef sandwich and cheesecake was fabulous.

All good things come to an end, so we flew to Los Angeles.  We were aboard a Delta wide-body jet, but there couldn't have been more than a dozen of us on board.  Even then we got no particularly special treatment.  It took five hours. What we don't realise, in the UK, is just how the immense United States is.

The last part of our filming for B885 was on the West Coast, in Los Angeles.  In fact, we were there for just one interview -- with Jamie Kellner, the head of the Fox network.  We were also supposed to be filming one of the new sitcoms being filmed on the sound stages there, but -- once more -- this never happened.

So, again, we were on-site for nearly a week for just one ten minute interview.  Having said that, I suppose Los Angeles was better than Detroit.  On the other hand, it actually is not one of my favourite cities.  Richard, who pushed for this visit, was in his element. He knew a lot of the media people -- in particular the Jewish community who behind the scenes run much of Hollywood -- and he spent the week moving around with them.  The rest of us unfortunately had to make do with Los Angeles itself.

That's not to say we were uncomfortable, because our hotel in Beverly Hills was one of best in America.  It was one of the Marriott chain, but this time 'George W. Marriot' which was the name given to its prestige hotels.  You can tell it was good hotel, for staying with us while we were there was the US Vice President, Dan Quayle.  It was something of a strange atmosphere.  When you stepped into a lift you found it half full of men in suits talking into their armpits, with their other armpits bulging.  The Secret Service had taken over the hotel.  We later learned that protecting the Vice President there were perhaps 50 Secret Service men, with as many special agents from the local LAPD.

We never saw anything of the Vice President, and even when departing he was rushed out from the underground car park; the wrong way down the dual carriageway outside escorted by something like 50 motorcycle outriders.  As an indication of the lifestyle, though, we saw the medical equipment being brought in to be set up in the room near him.  They had almost a complete operating theatre installed.  Since JFK the presidency, or even the vice presidency, must be a worrying prospect for anyone.

The hotel rooms were certainly luxurious.  Thus, in my bathroom I had both the full-size bath -- unusual for the US -- and a walk in shower.  So, I was once more comfortable doing my writing.

Best of all, first thing in the morning I was able to swim in the hotel’s beautiful pool.  At least I should say pools, for they had one indoors and one outdoors.  I usually started in the indoor pool and then moved to the outdoor pool.  This was overlooked by a substantial office building in which Ronald Reagan had an office.  He was supposedly writing his memoirs overlooking where I was swimming.  I don't know the truth, since not long afterwards he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

The reason we had been able to afford this hotel, despite its very high list price, was first of all that Richard had managed to get us privileged status with the State Department - which meant that we could demand government rates; so that what would otherwise have cost several hundred pounds a night was only about £100.  More important, the hotel was part of 20th-century city, built on the old Fox back lot, and it had its own entrance to the Fox studios.  Thus, Jamie Kellner was able to walk from his office and come up to Richard's suite -- he had a much better suite than the rest of us -- to be interviewed.  Had we interviewed him in his office, on the Fox lot, we would have had to use their crews and that would have cost literally thousands of pounds extra.

Anyway, once more we had plenty of time on our hands.  The net result was that I and the others were able to go to the Getty Museum.  This was the first Getty Museum, but it was sumptuous enough even then.  I wasn't terribly impressed with its contents except for one painting.  Much has been made of the Vincent Van Gogh painting of purple irises.  It was just a bunch of irises.  Having seen it on television, I wondered what all that fuss was about; where it cost $50 million or so.  Seeing it in the flesh, however, it was stunning. I don't know what it was that made it so good, but it sent shivers down your spine.

The Getty was of course out at Malibu beach.  So I and the production assistant had to paddle in the Pacific there -- though unfortunately a wave came in went all over my trousers. It was not my favourite surfing experience!

I also went to the Annenberg travelling exhibition at the Los Angeles art gallery.  It was a collection of one of the turn-of-the-century millionaires, and it had a fabulous collection of impressionists.  I love the best impressionists and this collection certainly contained a number of them.

Surprisingly there wasn't much for us to do in the evening, so all we could do was eat at pretty mundane restaurants.  We tried to get into Spargoes, then the top restaurant, but there was a three-month waiting-list.  Thus, we ate in places which stressed quantity rather than quality.  In one I ordered the starter salad, to discover that it was a meal in itself.  I followed that with what was described as a bucket of ribs and to my horror I discovered that was pretty much what it was. There must have been a dozen beef ribs, which was bad enough, but they were covered in what was almost treacle.  It was really unappetising.

We never went down into Los Angeles itself this time, but held ourselves aloof in Beverly Hills.

I wasn't allowed to do the interviewing on videos, since Richard was always there and insisted on taking this role.  To be fair, I let him do the interviewing since he was much more experienced than me and did a good job.  On the other hand, I had to do the interviewing on my own sound recordings.

In fact, these were discussions between a number of participants rather than individual interviews.  Thus, we obtained the specialists in a number of fields, usually three of them, and asked them to discuss some aspect of the future.

I remember most fondly Jonathan Porritt, then heavily involved in green politics, being the ideal guest.  He asked me, before we started, what I wanted to get out of it; and then proceeded to deliver everything that I wanted.  The others were not quite so professional, but they were also amenable.  My only problem child was one of the directors of a multinational who literally dried, about ten minutes into recording.  Hugh, who was producing the recording, wanted to carry on; but I didn't think the commercial director would have been able to.  So I insisted on starting again, much to Hugh's disgust since it meant more editing.  In fact, knowing that he could always start again, the director had no problems with the second take

Perhaps the best recording of all was with three politicians, who of course were very used to having a microphone put in front of them.  These were the parties' representatives on the European Union, then the European Economic Community.  Thus we had David Howells, who headed the foreign affairs committee in the Commons for the Conservative government, and Menzies Campbell, who was Liberal party spokesman on Europe, as well as George Robertson, who was then Shadow Minister of Defence and later became head of NATO. I set the scene by saying that we were looking at the future of Europe, and I didn't want them to be embarrassed in six years time when the situation changed and their rhetoric was distanced by events.  Accordingly, they all dropped their normal party stances and produced a very good summary of how they actually saw the future of Europe.  Indeed at one stage, when some bickering almost broke out, one of them actually stopped the others by saying "Since we all agree on the main points there is no point in arguing about details".  This interview was recorded in a hotel near the House of Commons.  Immediately afterwards they trotted off the House of Commons, where they then indulged in a very bitter debate about their supposed differences on the future of Europe.  It is terrible what politicians have to do for their party.

Usually, though, we recorded in BBC studios.  Mostly these were modern sound suites, but we managed to get into a couple of rather historic ones. First of these was the BBC's concert hall, in the basement of Broadcasting House.  This was meant to take, of course, the full BBC Symphony Orchestra, so we were huddled in just gone corner of it.  The other one was in the studio at the BBC's overseas broadcasting operation, on the Aldwych.  This was one of the original studios. Best of all it had one of the very old, massive ribbon mikes you see in newsreels of the 1950s.  On the other hand, it still worked very well and we recorded the session without a hitch.

Not long after I arrived at the OU I considered undertaking a PhD. I was talked out of this by Jeannette Rutterford, the very capable Professor of Finance and the person with whom I chose to undertake my annual assessment. Her point was that she was sure that I didn’t want to go through all the humdrum routine needed, but wanted to undertake research which contributed to the advancement of business theory. Of course, she was right. Something approaching a decade later, when I had published dozens of papers, I realized that I could obtain a PhD on the basis of these publications. This seemed an easy way to obtain one, but it proved very much harder than I had imagined! In the first instance I approached the OU as the potential institution for this. When two years later, after a number of reminders had failed to even get them started on the process, I moved on. Instead, I took it to Leeds Metropolitan University, where my friend – Graham May – was the only other academic working in the field of futurology. He set up a team of professors from the School of the Built Environment (I think my PhD might have formally been in Town Planning, but I am not sure!) and their Business School. Even then it took five years (and approaching £5,000) before they finally accepted my synthesis. The summary of the synthesis was:

“Addressing the lack of standardised approaches to scenario forecasting, and especially of quantified performance reports on the techniques to be recommended, this synthesis describes a body of research and development work over the past decade. The initial aim was to produce a basic, standardised approach to scenario forecasting which might be used by a wider range of organisations. It - qualitatively and quantitatively - explored how such scenario methods are used; and then experimentally developed optimal approaches. The results exposed a gap in strategic planning and new theory for this was, accordingly, developed.

To extend the work further, to global scenarios, a new Hypothesis of Aggregated Expectations was then developed. This new theory underpins scenario forecasting in general, sheds light on why this may be successful in detecting trends in society, and allows more definitive maps of future trends to be produced.

In this submission, therefore, 13 refereed papers - along with extracts from 2 books - describe significant new extensions to the theory and techniques which underpin long-range planning. These are included after the end of the synthesis. Seventeen separate pieces of research were undertaken; eight largely making use of existing methods and nine based on new techniques and, in particular, extending the use of focus groups. Conducted over the ten years up to 1999, using a range of different techniques across different populations, they included direct input from nearly 4,000 respondents. The research methodologies used are explored in detail in the Appendix.

The end result was a standardised and comprehensively tested set of techniques, supported by new theory.”

I was finally awarded my PhD a couple of weeks after my (forced) retirement!

In the mid 1990s, as Life Long Learning (LLL) became the flavour of the month – but nobody was actually implementing this -  I proposed that the OUBS would benefit from instituting a higher level programme for MBA graduates; a ‘Fellowship of Business Administration’ (FBA). Regrettably, even though the project was widely supported within the School, it was killed by OUBS management:

However, around the Millennium it was resuscitated once more, and was also linked to Cranfield (in the form of Malcolm McDonald). It, thus, became another of my decades long projects! This time it was developed by me, at the time of the dot.com boom, to be part of a proposal for a web portal. In particular, the management of CISCO, then the richest company in the world, were interested in becoming partners in the project. The initial summary of this proposal illustrates what was at stake:

“What seems to be clear at this time  is that:

i)                                            Our investigations have shown that the most valuable e-commerce organisations, in the medium to long term, are likely to be portals; whose values will be derived from the numbers of members they control and the strength of their relationship with them. Whilst the focus is now shifting to B2B, which accounts for 90+% of e-commerce, we believe that - again in the longer-term - the greatest sustainable value will be generated by relationships with individuals.

ii)                                          Accordingly, there could be considerable value - both in financial terms and prestige - to be gained from creating a suitable portal for general use by the two million OU alumni, along with their families and friends, in addition to the 150,000+ OU students; most of whom are already members of the existing, specialised OU portal.

iii)                                        The key dimension in the new relationships will be that of member loyalty, based upon trust, and the Open University (OU), and especially the Open University Business School (OUBS), are the holders of a near ideal brand for this task; based upon a very special relationship with their groups of potential members. In addition, the OU has the academic power, and resources, to produce many of the key products demanded by the coming Information Society.

iv)                                        On the other hand, despite its relatively long history of developing such relationships at a distance - not least in recent years through its existing portal - it does not have the considerable technological expertise that Cisco has - along with the other potential members of the consortium. This expertise will be needed to build any mass-market, global portal; at the high levels of sophistication, and rapid response, needed.

v)                                          In particular, the OU needs a commercially-oriented partner -such as Cisco,  along with the other potential partners in the consortium - to profitably manage - with the flexibility and speed of response which is now needed - such a highly entrepreneurial venture.

vi)                                        It seems likely that, in general, the most powerful portals in the longer term will also derive their strength from their relationships with strongly-bonded affinity groups. This venture could offer a proven - transferable - model for such developments; and, indeed, might easily extend to incorporate such other groups - which could maintain their own separate, strong brand-identities under the overall infra-structural umbrella.”

I pursued this dream for the best part of two year, approaching a number of backers which included Richard Branson. In particular, I spent considerable time with Cranfield Business School. There, after their enthusiasm grew until we thought it was just a matter of a signature on the agreement, it was killed by the veto of just one person; their Dean. In OUBS, and in the OU, it was then killed by apathy on the behalf of management!

Towards the end of the 1990s, I went on to set up a new Masters Programme in Marketing with a specific leading edge course – B852, Future Marketing – which addressed subjects such as post-modernism and especially e-commerce. This course was actually launched, but was a disaster in terms of the numbers of students it recruited. Paradoxically, this was due to the abysmal marketing by the OUBS sales/marketing team. Whatever the reason, there was no getting away from the fact that this was horribly unsuccessful!

Thus were my later years at OUBS a failure, in terms of what had been my mainstream academic studies. Fortunately, there was considerable success elsewhere; as, in particular, the next chapter about Ethiopia illustrates.

Indeed, in addition to this, my very last project at the OU may be considered to be my final masterpiece. It is only briefly reported here – since the meat of it has already been the subject of several books and dozens of academic papers and of course the subject of my PhD – even so, the Futures Observatory had an impact on the international scene.

Thus, towards the middle of the 1990s, my research shifted towards the future. 

In the first instance I did some content analysis of the scenarios produced by students on B885.  This was interesting, and contributed significantly to the way we taught scenarios on later courses.  It didn't, though, provide much information about the future itself.  So I started a whole series of group discussions.  Ultimately I ran more than 20.  In the first place I ran some with B885 students at residential schools.  The technique used was developed over the first few of these, and this once more significantly changed the way we handled group discussions in general and scenarios in particular.  Thus, we developed a technique of using a group of six to eight people provided with a Post-It™ notes, on which they wrote their ideas.

We moved from the residential schools to work, in particular, with the Strategic Planning Society and Demos. I also ran a group discussion at the Henley centre -- as much to teach them the technique as for my own research. The biggest single client I had, though, was Surrey County Council.  We ran four sessions, for a total of almost 100 of the councillors and senior staff. It was a very effective process, as much for improving the lines of communication within the council as for predicting the future. 

In fact, I developed a teaching module based on scenarios which I eventually taught to half a dozen other organisations; including a pharmaceutical company and the Tavistock Institute.  This had the added advantage that I got paid for delivering these sessions.  On the other hand, Aberdeen College, who were taught in this way, later went on to sell the process much more effectively than I did!

To link all these activities together I called the project the 'Millennium Project'. This sounded grand, but in fact it really was only me.  Having said that, as I found out later, the process really demanded no more than one person. The most labour-intensive of the processes were the surveys, which we eventually used; first on B885 students and then on OU alumni in general.  But even these only required that I design the quite lengthy questionnaire. It was sent out by OU staff.  Once returned, the results were then punched in by an outside bureau, and all I had to do was to use SPSS to analyse the final results.  Mind you, these were the best quantified results about the future that anyone had ever done to that point. 

By the end of this time I was starting to get papers published in academic journals and to be invited to deliver papers at a few international conferences. The most influential of these was that held by the equivalent German organization, in the town of Gelsenkirchen in the middle of the Ruhr. The, of course, OU sent me the cheapest way possible, which involved me flying on a cheap airline, which soon after went bust, to Munchen Gladbach, again in the middle of nowhere.  I then had to travel cross country by train, not understanding the ticketing system. 

I eventually did arrive at the hotel which was basic but quite comfortable.  The conference itself was held in the conference room attached to the office complex where the centre had its operational HQ.  It was very good conference.  It was only the second time I had used interpreters.  It's quite an experience. Not least, when you crack a joke and are rewarded by a round the laughter, a few seconds later another round of laughter comes back as the interpreters then pass it to the rest of the audience.  But it was very good audience. Not least I met Mike Rogers from the European commission. He was very influential later in the work on the Future Observatory. Fortunately, my paper was very well received and I think that helped to make some of my reputation internationally.

As we approached the millennium, I began to feel that the title 'Millennium Project' had reached its ultimate limits.  Accordingly I renamed the project the 'Futures Observatory'. At the same time I thought it should become a more professional organisation. This involved getting it approved as a project by OUBS management, who very grudgingly gave it a budget of £5,000. I then went out and persuaded further four organisations to donate £5,000 each.  These were BT, as represented by Ian Pearson who was very influential in the whole project, Barclays Bank, ICI (where I did some private work as well) and ICL. In addition, though I never managed to get any money out of their financial processes, the European Commission (EC) provided some support -- especially moral support.  Mike Rogers was at the heart of this, and their clout helped us considerably when we came to publish material.

In essence there was a small core of supporters. This comprised myself, Ian Pearson, Mike Rogers and representatives from the other organisations.  We met once every couple of months or so, and each took it in turn to host the meeting. I remember, in particular, the meeting at Martlesham near Ipswich where BT labs showed us all their latest developments. We also had very productive meeting with the European Commission.  I remember it well, since we were in conference room which overlooked the roofs of Brussels as a snowstorm was starting.  To add flavour to the meeting we were sitting at the six-sided table on which the original Treaty of Rome was signed. Moreover, also attending was the new head of the European Commission Futures Group.  He had just come from launching the Euro, which he had previously been responsible for, that very day, and we were given a fascinating insight into the future of that currency.  At the time the euro was predicted to fail -- where of course it has in fact been a great success. Even more interesting was the fact he revealed that, at that time, they and the Americans were negotiating to have a combined reserve currency. That of course never took place, as Americans will never surrender any aspect of sovereignty. 

The best meeting of all was one, nothing to do with the Futures Observatory, organised earlier by Michael Rogers. I should explain that Jacques Delors, when he was president of the European Commission, had set up a futures group in his private office -- his cabinet -- and Michael Rogers was one of the specialists in this group.  Accordingly, he set up an international meeting which brought together 20 or 30 of the top futurists and experts from across Europe.  We sat around this massive circular table and discussed the future of Europe. There were some very interesting speakers brought into the meeting as well. I remember an interesting discussion with John Monks, then the head of the British TUC. There was also an ambassador to NATO, who made some very insightful comments on the future of international organisations. The talk over lunch, especially that with the DGs (Director Generals) who joined us, was also fascinating; as was that with the Head of the EC’s Interpreters. He told me about the impact made by Tony Blair, who had at the time just attended his first meeting with the other leaders. The meeting had turned into something of a love fest! All in all, it our own meeting was really excellent, and one in which I made many useful contacts.

Perhaps the highlight of the meeting, however, was the dinner on the final night; which took place in the restaurant used by the Commissioners.  Before the dinner, I noticed this tall gentleman being introduced to people at the other end of the bar and I was ultimately brought across to talk to him myself.  It was Jack Santerre, who was then president of the commission.  After a tricky start - when we tried to work out what language we should be speaking in until we eventually recognized that it would be best speaking English -- I tried to persuade him to support the Russian application for entry to the European Union.  Shortly before, the then Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin had asked for Russia to be considered as a member. Unfortunately, whilst being very pleasant, Jacques Santerre was quite dismissive of the idea.  Interestingly, his argument was that the long history of Russian governments, based on the boyar system, was what made it unsuitable – its more recent history of communism was not the major problem. 

After this seminar, organised by Michael Rogers, I was invited to join a group working with the other futures groups within the EC.  This was not of the President's office, but was at its think-tank in Seville. We had an interesting meeting in Brussels, to kick it off, even though the computer techniques their technical staff wanted to use failed miserably.  But I knew a number of the other experts and we still managed to come up with some good results. The next meeting was in Seville itself. They had an office building which was on the site of the Seville World Fair. I was staying in a modern hotel not far away from it. It was very comfortable, though - as it was the off-season - the pool was shut. Unfortunately, I arrived to discover that I had mistaken the date and was a day early.  Accordingly I spent a day sightseeing in Seville. The problem was that I was expecting to be there for just day -- and I only had the one suit I was wearing with me. Sightseeing in a suit is not good at the best times, and it was awful when it was raining all day and I got soaked most of the time. Even so, Seville certainly proved to be a more interesting city than when I visited it in the 1950s.

The next couple of days we followed the rather bureaucratic approaches centre set up by the EC’s staff. I tried my best to fit in with these approaches, but they were much more rigid than I was used to. Worst of all, there were commercial consultants also involved, who spent most of their time desperately trying to bid for new business. I become so annoyed with the whole process that -- having stayed course -- I resigned at the end of the meeting. This turned out to be a surprisingly profitable decision, since they then commissioned me - for something like €5000 - to write my report individually.  Thus, I was paid, where as a member of the task force I was actually losing money, as the expenses were so tight; and I had my name on the published EC report!

While it lasted, the Futures Observatory was very influential group.  Unfortunately, perhaps indicative of the short-term viewpoints of most organisations, almost all of the groups involved ultimately were disbanded.  The only one to remain was that of BT, and even that was privatised.

One of the few other organisations we, as the Futures Observatory, became involved with was the US equivalent of our own operation.  This was a much bigger organisation than our own.  Where there was just myself and Avril in the UK, and really that was all that was needed, the Americans had a number of staff in an office in Washington.  In theory they were actually part of the United Nations University, which is based in Japan, but we never saw any real evidence of that.  Their full title was the Millennium Project  of the American Committee of the United Nations University.

Even so, it was its two leaders who drove the whole thing forward. Both of them had come out of NASA and in particular out of the Apollo programme which put men on the moon. Ted Gordon, the older of the two, had been in charge of the third stage of the Apollo rocket.  He was particularly interesting, however, in terms of the part of project that was never completed.  The intention had been to launch a modified third stage which would have contained a full scale laboratory in its fuel tanks; which would have been landed on the moon. It would have provided the base for the American astronauts to remain on the moon for a period of time.  Like many other long range plans it was cancelled by Richard Nixon.  That was a tremendous pity since his decision put back the exploration of space by the number of decades.

The other, younger, leader was Gerry Glenn. He was a cousin of the American astronaut and senator, John Glenn.

However, both of them were intent on building the Millennium Project into an internationally recognized organization, and I guess they succeeded. Their form of research was slightly different to our own, with an element of Delphi thrown in (where Ted had been one of the original developers of this approach) relying more on interviews undertaken by the various international members.  Thus one of my main jobs was to visit the various opinion formers in the UK and interview them on the specific subject being investigated.  It was a fascinating experience, and allowed me to gain entry to meet some fascinating people such as the editors of the Observer and Economist.

Once a year it also enabled me to go to their own conference, where other members from around the world met to discuss developments.  Mostly these took place in Washington; the first was in the conference centre of the Smithsonian. I'd never realised that all the open space between Smithsonian buildings was actually occupied by underground administrative suites. The second was in the conference suite of the World Bank.  There were typically about 20 of us, from around the world.  I was especially impressed by the Russian delegate, a girl who had the inside track on the Kremlin and was an adviser to the Dumar.  But there were similar level delegates from all the countries.

However, events used to be dominated by Gerry Glenn who was a forceful character, especially after the Ted Gordon had a heart attack and had to take life rather more easily.  As you might expect, Gerry did not welcome my own interventions.

I guess the main difference was that their approach tended to be quite focused on the issues which Gerry, in particular, thought important. At that point in time my own research was, on the other hand, very open-ended. I quite simply wanted to map the future without any bias put into it by my own direct questions.

The last meeting I went to, before my heart trouble cut out my travel, was in Chicago. There we met in the conference suite of Motorola's University.  While we were there the Board of Motorola were having a crisis meeting at the other end of the building.  It was a period when Nokia and Ericsson had suddenly taken the lead away from Motorola in the mobile phone market. As a result, Motorola itself had lost its way. It was also when they had spent a fortune on developing the Iridium project of satellite telephones.  I remember the President of Motorola joining us to explain what they were up to, and in particular to proudly show us their new satellite phone. This was the time when mobile phones had already decreased in size to the point where they fitted into your shirt pocket.  The mobile phone he showed us was as sizeable as a large brick, much as the very first mobile phones had been.  In addition, it was not clear what the market was; since the Metropolitan market, which would where most mobile phones were sold, wanted miniature sets and the deserts of the world, where nothing else would operate, would hardly be full of affluent individuals. In fact, it was a disaster and effectively went bankrupt -- though it was, and still is, a major development for the Third World.

We were in Chicago because it was the venue for the World Future Society conference. At the time I was also head of the British chapter of the World Future Society. This was the first and only WFS conference I attended. It was held in the Hilton hotel, where I found myself in a room with two bathrooms -- I only used one of them!  It was an interesting conference and my main paper went down very well. The tradition was that people walked in and out of the various meeting rooms as people presented their papers, and you judged how successful they were by how few members of the audience you lost. In fact I gained a few people during my presentation and got a good round of applause as well as some interesting questions.

I went to Chicago dreading that the place would be the pits.  I suppose my image of it was very much that set by Al Capone. In fact, at the time, they were desperately trying to raze to the ground anything to do with him of the cosa nostra gangs. However, I thought they were going too far in destroying history.

The reality is that Chicago is a lovely city. That is mainly down to my favourite architect, Mies Van Der Rohe, who taught at the University and designed many of the city's most beautiful skyscrapers. In particular, I saw these skyscrapers on a walking tour with the Chicago Architectural Association.  It really was fascinating to see these wonderful buildings and to learn of their history.

I also went to the Chicago Art Institute which has a wonderful selection of impressionists.  So much for Chicago being an uncultured city.  At the time Richard Daley - son of the infamous Mayor Daley -- was a very successful mayor and had put in place some splendidly un-American (social democratic) policies. As a result, the city had become so attractive that people were actually moving back into it, from the suburbs.  Indeed, in the evening rush hour the traffic jams were going into the city rather than out of it.

Since I was first at university in the 1960s, I had wanted to work with the United Nations, and specifically with UNESCO.  In the 1960s I even was on the mailing list for the UNESCO news magazine.  Of course I was unable to fulfill this dream and went into advertising

Paradoxically, the first part of the UN I actually advised was UNCTAD.  This is its little-known trade body. Why I was invited to attend a three-day task force I simply don't know.  Somehow or other my name must have got on their great and good list.  Anyway, I was invited to join a task force talking about the education of accounting professionals across the globe.  This was just about the one business subject I didn't really know -- though of course that didn't stop me from going!

The meeting was in UNCTAD's headquarters in Geneva.  It was the first time I had been to Geneva, which I always thought was a place in the mountains.  Of course in reality it is quite low lying, on the Lake Geneva.  And, although it was approaching the winter, there was something of a heat-wave and I had to sleep with my window open! Because of all the UN personnel there, Geneva is a very expensive place to live, but it is a nice city and I eventually found some cheap places to eat.

It was the first time I had been at a meeting where there were interpreters, since the dozen or so of us at meeting that came from different countries.  It was rather strange to sit there, with an earpiece hooked over my ear, listening with one ear to what was being said in one language and hearing in the other the interpreter's translation of it.

I may not have known much about accounting, though in fact I had taught accounting at IBM and had been involved in it with the Open University, but the essence of the meeting was about education -- and distance education was the expertise I was able to provide.  I was never one to hide my light under a bushel, and I finished my contribution to the meeting with a well thought out series of suggestions as to how they could standardise accounting education worldwide.  In this context, incidentally, where for almost every other business subject the Americans led, in accountancy it was the British professional bodies which led; since the Americans only were allowed to organise by state. Anyway, I presented my ideas -- which I thought were excellent, but probably no one else agreed.

Of course I was later involved with the UN itself, and specifically with its Food Programme, in Ethiopia.

I was, even later still, involved indirectly, through its US Millennium Project which was in theory the American Committee reporting to the UN University in Japan. In fact, it really used the UN University as a cover for its operations.  I don't know if it ever reported back to Tokyo.

My biggest contribution came though because of contact through the Millennium Project.  Hazel Henderson, the very well-known futurist writer, was working with a UN task force and was also working with UNESCO on its meeting in Stockholm.  She arranged for me to attend that UNESCO meeting.

This was, I was to find out, a very important meeting of UNESCO.  It was the first intergovernmental meeting that had taken place for the best part of a decade. Its remit was to produce a charter of cultural rights -- equivalent to the UN's charter of human rights.  It was a large meeting, attended by representatives from some 170 governments, of whom 40 to 50 were government ministers and one was a Prime Minister. There were also 40 to 50 NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations), of which I was one!  The format of the meeting was a general assembly in which the decisions were made, which was the province only of the governmental representatives.  For these sessions the rest of us were consigned to the balcony of the large conference hall, to be mere spectators.  Even so, it was fascinating to watch the political machinations taking place on the floor.

However, between each of the main sessions there were individual break-out sessions on specific subjects which were fed back into the main meeting -- with the chairman of these reporting back the decisions taken by these more specialised meetings.  This was where I was able to make my contribution.

In fact I took full advantage of the opportunity, and made major comments on a number of subjects. I remember one in particular.  The Third World delegates were pressing hard for a strengthening of intellectual property rights.  I stood up and pointed out that, whilst I sympathised with their wish to protect their native songs and dances, one big advantage that they had against the developed nations was that they could use the intellectual property of these without paying for these; in other words with impunity.  In a strengthening these rights they were in fact the depriving themselves of unique advantages.  This aspect of the cultural rights was watered down after my intervention!

It was a fascinating meeting, and it was very invigorating to be involved in the decision-making at such a level. It also gave me an insight into just how such organisations are run at the intergovernmental level.  It also meant that I was able to report that the Futures Observatory was formally recognised by the UN as an NGO, though I don't believe anyone in the OUBS took me seriously -- but of course it was true.

The other main task force I got involved with was part of the second UK Foresight Programme, run by the DTI. This was the one where, I believe, John Daniels (the OU’s VC) brought me in.  On the other hand, I had never been impressed with the UK's Foresight Programmes, since they seemed to be mainly made up the great and good -- organised by industry sector -- telling everyone what had happened in the past rather than what would happen in the future.

However, in the second round it was decided to add on couple of specialist subjects.  One of these was the impact of ageing in the population. This had its own task force, and this was where I was assigned. It was the one task force which was not held ransom by any of the existing establishment pressure groups. It really did set out to look at the future.  We met every two to three weeks or so and presented various reports.  I joined with the representative from the Department of Education to produce one on the future of education for an ageing population. It ultimately proved to be a well managed task force, with civil servants doing their usual excellent job; and its final report was excellent.

I had been involved with public relations, in a general sense, since the beginning of my career.  I believed, and still do, that PR is the most powerful form of promotion.  The problem with it is that there are strict limits to what you can effectively spend -- but up to that limit you should spend every cent.

In PST I had a superb outside PR consultant who managed to get Delrosa mentioned in places you would never consider possible. She even managed to get it on the cookery pages!

By the time I'd got to IBM I had moved into a rather different area of the topic.  PR there was a function which was mainly concerned with minimizing exposure, in line with its principle that no publicity is the best publicity!  I did, though, work for a while with its corporate relations group who undertook its limited positive PR. First, I was a guest at one of their regular lunches for MPs.  More directly, I was accredited as ‘David Mercer, an IBM spokesman’.  This was the highest level of clearance.  Like the government, IBM had a number of levels. The first was 'it is rumoured that', The second level was 'IBM sources said'.  The third level was 'an IBM spokesman said'.  The final level, which I achieved, was the named IBM spokesman; that is 'David Mercer an IBM spokesman'. I did a number of interviews for a range of quality newspapers.  My greatest achievement, though, was to be seen in the form of a quarter of a page in the financial Times; effectively devoted to a biography of me.  I hoped I might get some job offers, but none materialised.  Even worse, not a single insurance agent contacted me!

I started on the PR trail with a vengeance when I was promoting the Futures Observatory at the end of the Nineties. In the first instance I got the launch of this reported on television, including BBC Breakfast.  I realised after that just what was needed.  They were more concerned about the background than about what I had to say. We filmed the material at Greenwich Observatory. As for the comments I was allowed to make, they insisted on using soundbites which were just a few seconds long. After such treatment, and when you next watch television, you realise just how short shrift commentators such as myself are allowed.  But there was method in their madness. Never mind the limited amount of information provided, the observatory in the background did reinforce the message; and made it memorable for their audience. 

I did a couple of other live programs, including Sky News. In these cases there was less opportunity for my spiel to be cut off in these situations -- but they still only lasted less than five minutes.  Even so, one of my colleagues, flying back from the States, actually saw my Sky interview midway over the Atlantic! What counts, at the end of the day, is that something of your message gets out to the millions of people who watch these programmes.

The television programme which got to the widest audience, probably about 8 million, was one run by Lowrie – then one of the up-and-coming interviewers -- about the future.  I and Ian Pearson were planted in the audience -- with radio mikes where everyone else had to rely on the hand mike Lowrie held -- and we were the main people interviewed.

Most of my work, though, was in terms of roundtable discussions on radio. I enjoyed these, since the other participants were usually very interesting people and the interviewer was usually more than competent.  Normally the half hour or so went by very quickly and some very interesting things were said. Typically, they were live.

I also did a reasonable number of one-to-one interviews, usually down the line. Occasionally these were on my own telephone, but most used the local radio station in Luton and where they were sent down an ISDN line.  These, again, were good fun -- though they rarely lasted more than ten minutes.  Among them I was maneuvered into one session with a 'shock jock'. This was when I was promoting the idea of the 'women's century' and, although I didn't know it at the time, the shock jock was trying to destroy me for this. Fortunately I spent most of the time agreeing with the things he said and turning them against him -- so that the disaster was his not mine.

Press coverage was also extensive.  I got a number of significant quotes -- typically lasting half a column or more -- in the majority of the quality papers.  I was even quoted in the Wall Street Journal. There was less coverage by the popular newspapers, the tabloids, but some was obtained.

Indeed, the most fascinating quote came a month after 9/11. Like many people I had been at home when 9/11 occurred. Within a matter of minutes, soon after the first plane hitting and long before the second, the BBC 1 channel had switched to live coverage of what happened. Right in front of our eyes we saw the horror of the planes crashing into the skyscrapers and then the skyscrapers themselves collapsing.  It horrified America and changed many things about the way we saw the world. It was also an indication of how media coverage had changed from the day-old reports in the newspapers to current television viewing of the events themselves. 

A month later another airliner went down, just after takeoff on from JFK. Again, it was almost instantly on the news -- since it was feared that it was another terrorist attack. I was sitting on the settee at home watching this when the phone rang.  It was the Mirror Newspaper newsroom.  From somewhere they had plucked my name out of the hat. Soon they were interviewing me, as I and their reporter watched developments on television. He also had the advantage of being able to see the Reuters news reports as they came in.  As the events progressed, we discussed  - in real time - what was happening. It soon became apparent to us, though not to the rest of the  world until much later, that this was just an ordinary aircraft crash. When the Mirror put the story on its front page the next day, halfway through the news item were my quotes. The most fascinating thing about it was how we were able, using modern media techniques, to develop our comments on events as they developed;  being – some three thousand miles away - able to see much more than even the on-site commentators were able to see.

In the meantime, the Futures Observatory having for the time being run its course with a meeting at the end of 1999 – our ‘Millennium Meeting’ - attended by almost a hundred futurolgists from around Europe, I set about a number of other projects.

One of these was obtaining a PhD. Thus, not long after I arrived at the OU I considered undertaking a PhD. I was talked out of this by Jeannette Rutterford, the very capable Professor of Finance and the person with whom I chose to undertake my annual assessment. Her point was that she was sure that I didn’t want to go through all the humdrum routine needed, but wanted to undertake research which contributed to the advancement of business theory. Of course, she was right. Something approaching a decade later, when I had published dozens of papers, I realized that I could obtain a PhD on the basis of these publications. This seemed an easy way to obtain one, but it proved very much harder than I had imagined! In the first instance I approached the OU as the potential institution for this. When two years later, after a number of reminders had failed to even get them started on the process, I moved on. Instead, I took it to Leeds Metropolitan University, where my friend – Graham May – was the only other academic working in the field of futurology. He set up a team of professors from the School of the Built Environment (I think my PhD might have formally been in Town Planning, but I am not sure!) and their Business School. Even then it took five years (and approaching £5,000) before they finally accepted my synthesis. I was finally awarded my PhD just two weeks after I retired!

In any case, there has always been one other compensation: my writing. I have spent much of my life involved in the use of words.  At a young age I just loved to read books and enjoy the wonderful word patterns they contained. By the time of my teens I also loved writing, and the main feature of taking my exams was the amount of material I wrote.

Throughout my working life, until I reached the Open University, the form of my writing generally was that of the business report.  But, in that genre, I was very productive. It was while I was at IBM that I started to write factual material for publication; though in fact it was never widely published. The first of these popular reports was that prepared for the Molesey Residents Association called 'Towards 2000'.  This, stimulated by the council structure plan, looked at the future of Molesey over the next 25 years. Then, further stimulated by the emergence of the Lib Dems who were breaking the mould of British politics, and following my work with the London Business School, I produced a report in draft book form called 'Alliance'.   This covered all aspects of future living; and you can find aspects of it scattered through this book as well as extracts from the report itself – which still, I believe, still are valid a quarter of a century later.

My published work only started when I was forced to leave IBM. Paradoxically it was IBM's group personnel director, John Steele, who suggested I might consider writing a book about IBM. Thus, while I was unemployed, I poured my feelings into the first of my published books: 'IBM: how the world's most successful corporation is managed'.  The title was thought up by the publisher, not me, but at the time it was a valid view of IBM's track record. It was, in many ways, a work of passion.  I loved everything about IBM, despite the problems I had had there -- which forced me out. At that time of course, IBM was then at its peak. I always liked to say that IBM started to deteriorate the day I left, but the fact it was it had already started to decline long before that.

I was lucky with my publisher.  Initially I went to Wiley, who were interested in it.  However, after a while they tried to put pressure on me to dish the dirt on IBM. Despite everything that had happened, I didn't see that was what it should be about. Accordingly I hunted around and found another publisher: Kogan Page. I was very lucky in that Philip Kogan was very dynamic entrepreneur, and saw my book as being important for him and his publishing house.

It is worth reporting, at this stage, that the success of any book, at least in terms of significant sales, depends much more on the enthusiasm of the publishing team than it does on the author. Books of mine that succeeded have done so because the publishers got behind them -- and promoted them.  Those that have been most successful have been pushed by the publisher where the others, albeit still of above average performance, were the ones where the publisher let them look after themselves.  Philip Kogan put in a lot of effort behind my first book, including the UK launch at a business bookshop in the city.  He was well supported in this by my best publishing editor, Richard Burton. The result was my most successful one-off book launch, selling something over 10,000 copies in the United Kingdom.  Philip also sold it overseas, including in Japan; where I made something like 10,000 dollars on the advance royalties. Unfortunately, although he sold it in the United States -- again for advanced royalties of something like 10,000 dollars coming to me (representing 50% of the overall advance royalties where Kohan Page took 50% for themselves) - the publishers there went into chapter 13 immediately after it was launched.  This meant that, though it was going to be a big seller in the US and Business Week had already taken photographs of me for a full-page article, any possible sales immediately disappeared out of sight.  Because it had already been launched we couldn't even sell it to another publisher.  It also meant that, because the publisher was in bankruptcy, I didn't even get my share of the advance royalties.

I then wrote a popular book, or so I thought, called the 'Sales Professional'.  This was a sales primer for new salesman. Philip, however, didn't get behind this to the same extent and it made only average sales – a few thousand copies.

Kogan Page was the only place where I was invited to their Christmas Party. I was expecting it to be very glamorous, but all the authors were as boring as me!

As I said, Richard Burton was best publishing editor I have ever had. When he left Kogan Page and went to Blackwell's he took me with. By this time I was at the University and had worked up a course, B823; which was meant to be the replacement marketing course for the new Diploma.  Unfortunately, the shambles over the Certificate meant that this course was cancelled, just as we were going into the production stage. The end result of this cancellation was that I was left with a large amount of very good material on marketing. Accordingly, I persuaded Richard Burton to take it for Blackwell's.

I set out to produce a marketing textbook which, rather like Samuelson a generation earlier, was beautifully printed and illustrated -- and totally comprehensive.  This was, in fact, my most successful book ever.  Over a couple of editions, and a decade of sales, it must have sold the best part of 100,000 copies.  Richard got very adventurous with it, and sold it into the United States - with two co-authors over there.  They were paid something like 100,000 dollars to modify it for the US and Blackwell's total spend must have been best part of a quarter of a million pounds for the launch.  Regrettably, almost immediately after it had been launched, it was decided to pull Blackwells out the United States. This left the two American authors to transfer it to another publisher in the US, so I probably only made about £10,000 in royalties on the book there.

I also persuaded Richard Burton to launch a dictionary version.  I must admit one of my reasons for this was that I wanted to put on my passport, where in those days you had your employment details listed, that I was a lexicographer. By the time the book was published, however, this line had disappeared from the passport. The book, again, was not a particular success, so perhaps I should not publish for vanity!

At this stage the Richard Burton set up his own publishing house. On the other hand, with his own money on the line, this time he didn’t take me with him. Even so, he was the best publishing editor I ever had.

Whilst I was with Blackwell's I also thought I had found the key to success, in that I managed to persuade Penguin to publish a book of mine --  'Marketing Practice'. Again, it was only a mediocre success.  The problem was that most people, having done their MBA, didn't ever again want to read about marketing.  Perhaps the main problem, though, was that Penguin at the time was going through severe difficulties.  I remember going in to see my publisher and him telling me that – just that morning  - the managing director had been fired. It was not a good sign!

The focus of my life thereafter, was futurology and the book that emerged from this was 'Future Revolutions'.  I was remarkably unsuccessful in pushing it until, out of blue, I was taken on by a very high-powered agent.  I don't know why Sonia Land picked up my book, I suspect it was a mistake on her the part, but she did. She was very high-powered, being a partner in Sheil Land - one of the biggest literary agencies -- who personally handled Catherine Cookson, who was then the largest selling UK author. I had a few meetings over the next couple of years with Sonia.  The meetings were wonderful. I used to a spend two to three hours with her, and we talked of everything under the sun. As I have said, she was very high powered.  She used to have Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson round for dinner -- though I should explain that the reason for this was that her husband was the CEO of one of major consultancies.

With her I backing I managed to get the book published by Orion. Again, however, although the publisher was keen to my book, his marketing department didn't get behind it.  In fact, they almost destroyed the launch which I had to organise myself.  Accordingly, even though it went into paperback, this also sold an average number -- a few thousand.  The same publisher also persuaded me to write a volume for a series of popular business paperbacks. My volume was 'Marketing for Managers'.  The series was not a particular success, and the Orion was so sold off to another outfit, who discontinued my books.

While all this was going on I had a book published under the aegis of the Open University -- for which unfortunately I got no royalties whatsoever. It was a reader from the B885 course, called 'Managing the External Environment', which was published by Sage and probably sold a few a few thousand. The follow-up, actually the first block of the revised course, was 'Marketing Strategy’ -- again published by Sage. The main feature of  this  -- apart from my excellent writing, of course -- was that it had probably the best designed cover of any book I have had published. 

Finally, out of the blue, Wiley's asked me to contribute to their series on the e-business. This was at the height of the dot.com boom.  Accordingly I produced another slim book for them, called 'Expression', which was about marketing in the e-commerce age.  They managed to sell this as a German edition as well, but it was not particularly successful, since they published it just as the dot.com boom ran out of steam. Sonia Land earned her money by actually selling this is as a two book deal -- with advanced royalties of nearly £10,000.  In fact the second book was never published, although I wrote it, since the whole series was discontinued.

That was the end of my career as a published author.  Thus, I have had a number of books published around the world - including in the US, Japan, Russia, Brazil and Germany - which were successful by normal standards.  I even had two books published which were extraordinarily successful by any standards. All in all, I calculate I must have sold almost 100,000 copies of my books in total; earning me perhaps £200,000 in royalties. As it came in over time, however, I spent it without really noticing -- and never felt rich.

My favourite occupation now is writing. I begrudge any time taken away from it.  It is, in many respects, a cathartic experience. It is, indeed, almost a physical pleasure.

I suppose one of the reasons for my pleasure now is the availability of word processors.  When I first started writing, when I was at IBM, every draft at the time had to be typed separately, and this was a real chore. Now it is a pleasure just changing a word or two to make it better -- without having to pound out the rest of it all over again. Indeed, my technique now depends on rewriting almost everything I produce a number of times -- perhaps as many as ten to twenty times.  This is partly because polishing makes it better, but especially because I get sheer pleasure from doing it.

Even so, until recently, my first draft was done in my own handwriting. I have tried setting out various headings to provide the structure, but in general -- and most successfully -- I just sit down and write what comes into my head. Rearranging is a matter for later.

I suppose before this stage there is the stage of research. It is true that, for example, in terms of my business books I have undertaken a great deal of research. But, generally speaking, that research has been stimulated by other events; as, for example, the courses cancelled by the OU provided such an important stimulus for my main textbooks. More generally I like to sit down and write straight out of my head. Most recently, as for example here, I produce my first draft by dictating it into a hand-held recorder. That in turn connects to the Dragon software on my PC, which converts it into text. It is perhaps only 80 percent successful, and that does not so much save typing work, but it can add a certain freedom of speech.  However, as in current case, this can still be something of chore. Even so it is essential to form the basis for the later writing.

I suppose it is the first revision that I enjoy the most. That used to be in terms of amendments, in red ink, on my handwritten first draft. Now of our course, it is on the material that is already in the PC -- derived from the dictated material. This is the stage of which I begin to shape the material and the actual content of material quite often comes as a much of a surprise to me as it will do to the reader!  It is, though, a very fulfilling process. Thereafter, I leave the material for a few days when I go back and edit it again. I do this for a number of weeks, as the final product is polished.  Initially there are quite significant changes, perhaps even to the structure, but later these changes are just better ways of describing the detail.

As I have said, I found this an almost erotic pursuit.  I suppose the essence of it is a form of self-congratulation; 'My God isn’t that wonderful work'!  But I really do enjoy creating the word patterns, and using the words themselves, to make the words really live; so perfectly balanced that they trip off the tongue or race through the brain

At the OU the process became even better than this. Indeed, by the draft stage, the course team had already commented on the ideas contained in the material -- and that added an extra dimension. Then the material was put out to critical readers, whose job it was to polish it even further; and to suggest changes which would make it better.  I am sure that many, if not most, other authors hate other people interfering with their work. I, on the other hand, love this stage since so many new ways of looking at the material enter into the equation. The final stage at the OU was the use of developmental testers. They actually did the course.  The advantage of this stage was not ideas for improvement, but evidence for deletion.  Almost invariably I found that the development testers found some material which was difficult and tedious.  Just as invariably, when I went back to the material I would find that I had put it in because I had a bee in my bonnet about the subject; and in reality it was irrelevant. The answer there was not rewriting but simply to remove it, since it was not serving any useful purpose.

In terms of fiction, however, creation revolves around genuinely cathartic experience.  It's getting down on paper something inside me which has to come out.  Indeed, it really was cathartic in terms of my first (unpublished) novel, set in the Bronze Age.  I am unaware of where the idea came from. But I built into it all the frustrations I had to deal with from the failure of my Computerland dealership. It was a wonderful way of getting such things out of my system.

Perhaps the same was true when I had my breakdown at the OU. I eventually managed to start writing again in terms of some science-fiction short stories. The subject of these were less connected to my personal experience, but they too were cathartic if unpublished!

I have never managed to get any of my fiction published, except for one story published on the Web.  Indeed, Sonia Land my agent regularly dismissed my work in this direction as being a waste of my time.  But, I have found the work cathartic, and that is reward enough.

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