Flying back from the most recent eSCM training in Paris, a note in Cara magazine caught my eye. It stated that ‘Aran sweaters were originally knitted in the 1920s to be work by boys for their First Holy Communion. The idea that drowned Aran fishermen were identified by their sweaters is a misconception based on a passage in JM Synge’s Riders to the Sea’. I know that I have spread the Aran fishermen stories – and always believed it to be true.
Urban legends have become such a part of our consciousness that I wonder when we will start to have reverse Urban Legends – all it will take will be to drop the idea in the right place, that the fact that the Wright brothers invented the plane, that Einstein played the Violin, or that Ireland were involved in the last Rugby World Cup was an Urban Legend, and soon it will be written out of history.
We live in world of shifting, moving information – a sort of cambrian explosion in the meme world. And this makes it harder and harder to find stable information to structure your business around. During the training session this week we had lots of war stories, lots of examples, and lots of different views – all valid and useful, and many of them entertaining. However war stories are a little like Urban Legends – we don’t really know what is true, what is legend, and what is true but sounds like it should be legend.
eSCM provides a set of best practices for outsourcing based on experience. It is a set of war stories – but validated, researched, interpreted and tested – like finding your Urban Legend Published in Nature! This is the toolset to use when IT enabled sourcing is a key part of your business, either as a service provider or as a client.
As for Paris... what can I say? Unlike Traoloch’s experience in Amsterdam, we were in a vibrant but un-touristy location, the sun shone, the brasseries were packed - and as the song goes....
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