Taking AIM

12 June 2010 at 5:47 am Dick Langlois Leave a comment

| Dick Langlois |

Aha! So that’s why nobody met me at the airport: I was supposed to be in France. Actually, I’m in the UK, traveling around as a Visiting Fellow of the Academy of Advanced International Management (AIM). I will be giving a series of talks under their aegis in Lancaster, London, and Edinburgh. I am now in Lancaster, where my host is Martin Spring, an operations management guy who is interested in modularity and contracting in the delivery of complex services like engineering. My first stop in the UK was Nottingham, where I refrained from any tax protests let alone progressive redistribution of rents. (This despite the ads for the new Ridley Scott-Russell Crowe movie prominently displayed on all the busses.) But I did speak at the Nottingham University Business School, which is home to the likes of Paul Windrum and Peter Swann.

Today I hope to see some of Lancaster, possibly including Williamson Park. Among its highly specific assets is the pictured Ashton Memorial, built by James Williamson, Jr., Lord Ashton, who made his fortune in the linoleum trade. (According to the city council website, he was able to afford this grand edifice because he paid his workers so little.)

During the trip I also plan to stop in at several conferences, including DRUID (for one day), the ISNIE conference in Stirling (where I am likely to view a flesh-and-blood Williamson), and the Schumpeter Society in Aalborg. If I can, and if the material warrants, I may try a little live (or at least half-dead) blogging from the conferences.