What a night. This isn’t a political blog (thankfully: I think there are now officially more of those than there are people on earth) but there’s no point pretending that something epochal didn’t place in the US yesterday and, although the consequences of Obama’s victory will take many years to fully unravel, as I said in yesterday’s also-not-a-political-blog-mostly-about-politics the impact on the world and America’s relationship with it – and therefore, ineluctably, the global economy – will be profound. In many ways it already has been: no-one of the many, many millions at home and abroad watching and listening to the new president-elect at his apotheosis, nor to McCain as he delivered a supremely honourable concession speech, will be the same again. Even if they did have to stay up til 6am GMT to do it.
But the election’s over now and the reality of what still seems slightly unreal will sink in over the next few days. It’ll be very interesting to see how the global markets react to events in the US – and even more so to see how the outsourcing sector deals with the news. So far people seem to be pretty sanguine (my ol’ interviewee buddy Oscar Sañez in the Philippines certainly doesn’t sound too concerned) and it’s true that in the short-term the global economic situation is a much more pressing influence than concerns over the future actions of the chief-to-be. Longer-term, who knows? I’ve asked the Magic 8-Ball but all I got was “CONCENTRATE AND TRY AGAIN” and I got stuck on the first part.
Away from the world of politics and into the sphere of SSON events: I’m looking forward to the 8th Annual Shared Services & Outsourcing Exchange 2008 in a couple of weeks. My colleagues have pulled a blinder with a fascinating CFO forum for the first plenary session; I hope to be putting the audio track of this session up on the site pretty rapidly on my return (assuming I remember the CD this time) and will be grabbing people on-site for interviews and, hopefully, some good old-fashioned scurrilous gossip. If you’re there, come and say hello – if not, I’ll give you all the juice (within reason) after the fact.
Before that – and unfortunately (for me) lacking my presence - Shared Services México kicks off next week and promises to be a humdinger. I’m going to be looking a lot more closely at shared services in Latin America over the next few months and as well as bringing you presentations and interviews from a range of events, I’m also hoping to get your own stories of operating in the region. If you’ve got any feedback on the sector in Latin America please do let me know.
Time to go. As a parting gift, here’s a picture of a goat on a pole. Enjoy.
Jamie
Tags: BarackObama, BPO, election, Mexico, OscarSanez, Philippines, sharedservices, US
