Is it just me or is this account getting worse by the day? You'd think I'd rejoice in its sticky sweet HR-approved drivel the more drivel-y it gets but I'm actually starting to feel bad for these people.
Anyway, Life at Deloitte took a risk last week and asked one hard-hitting question:
Power Lunch question: what is the biggest thing you do to keep that work/life balance?
I can think of one way to keep work/life balance, and it doesn't involve life at Deloitte. Or, as a certain GC regular said, "not work in public accounting."
So, how do you keep your work/life balance, whatever the fuck that is?
And can someone please tell me what a "Power Lunch" is? I get the feeling it involves a Snickers bar and a big ole pile of work.
Every two years we go through the same ritual. Jingoistic flag waving, the non-stop talking head of Bob Costas, and a hyped-up athlete (Lindsey Vonn is this year’s model). Add a bunch of schmaltzy, sappy, million-dollar commercials.
Welcome to the Olympics folks, originally intended to celebrate pure (amateur) athleticism, and now unabashedly worshiping pure consumerism. The Olympics games party like it’s 1998. The commercials are out of step with the somber mood of the age, depicting faked optimism. The feel-good machine of Madison Avenue did not take a break even on the day that the Georgian luge racer died.
Perhaps that is why the commercial from Deloitte stands out among the cacophony of hyperbole for its sobriety and clarity. The commercial is straightforward and engaging: using imaginative line drawing to represent Olympics sports, it depicts the pure thrill of competing in the games. Delivering its message through titles only, it avoids embellishment with its almost haiku-like script: “combine perfect movement through time and space, with the heart and drive of a champion, and you are golden”. Simple, clever, to the point:
The spot does not try to draw a direct comparison between Deloitte and the athletes. The connection is implied, cleverly, by using the Deloitte “green dot” from its logo as the “athletes” in the spot. Brilliant. And of course the spot is made more effective because it is relevant to the games. Mark this commercial on the credit side of the ledger.
Bravo Deloitte.
Avi Dan is President & CEO of Avidan Strategies, a New York based consultancy specialized in advising professional service companies on marketing and business development. Mr. Dan was previously a board member with two leading advertising agencies and managed another.
When George Soros announced he was essentially shuttering Soros Fund Management and his infamous Quantum fund after almost a decade of declining new client money, you could almost hear the jaws drop around the world. But one person was not surprised: Ellen Schubert, chief adviser to Deloitte’s hedge fund practice.
Earlier in the year, Schubert actually described Soros’ new strategy pretty well when she shared a new trend among startup hedge funds; bypassing clients that aren’t friends or family to avoid hitting the mandatory SEC registration requirement for funds managing a minimum of $150 million.
When Bloomberg told us Soros was out, they made Dodd-Frank sound like a dirty word writing “There’s a two-word explanation for closing what was once one of the world’s biggest hedge funds and consistently one of the best-performing — with returns of about 30 percent annually in its first 30 years: Dodd-Frank.”
How many more hedge fund managers will follow Soros’ lead? And how many of them could blame Dodd-Frank for their departures from other people’s money?
Soros’ fund was exempt from rules that require private investment advisers to register with the SEC but those exemptions will not be an option come March 2012. Which could or could not have something to do with Soros’ decision, though that’s doubtful given the fact this decision has been in the making since 2000.
Before you go!
Are you Looking for a fresh accounting career opportunity?
Going Concern now has thousands of open accounting jobs.
