Hakan Aldrin

Once upon a time I used to travel quite a lot to Turkey, and especially than to Istanbul. I have not been there for many years now, so I am not sure if it is as fascinating as it used to be. At the time you could really feel and see how east meet west at the Bosphorus strait.

I am very much interested in history, buy I am not really a museum guy. IMHO most museums make history quite boring. Of course there are very good exceptions around the world but generally speaking I stick to my opinion. In Istanbul though there are many exceptions from this general rule. Topkapi with the harem and the treasury chamber is one of the most fascinating places I have seen and so is Agia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the subterranean water reservoir.

Although the coved bazar, close to Topkapi and Agia Sophia, is not a museum I have to say it's like being moved back in history when entering this maze of shops inside a building that was erected sometime during the 15th century. If you want to buy gold, rugs or antiques from the orient this is THE place to go.

And it was here, in a gold shop, I met the best sales man in the world, maybe of all times.

My wife was about to have an even birthday and I thought I should have a look at and maybe buy her some jewelry when in Istanbul. So I went to the covered bazar and entered in to a shop that had pictures of Bjorn Borg and some Swedish politicians on the wall showing how they, with a big smile, bought jewelry in this particular shop. Quite trust worthy indeed.

Got contact with one of the sales guys and told him I was interested in buying a ring - tiffany style. No problem at all. He draw a picture based upon my description and since the design looked really good I approved it. Three days later I could pick up the ring and it looked just as nice as on the picture. The ring made quite a success at my wife's birthday, so you could say I was quite a happy customer.

Four years later we had our first child and a couple of weeks after the birth of my daughter I found myself in Istanbul once again. I had some spare time so I thought I would go to the covered bazar and see if I could find a birth gift (don't know if you say like that in English but I guess you get the meaning) to my wife. Thought it would be a good idea to buy a pair of earrings in the same style as the ring I had bought four years earlier.

Of course I went to the same shop - nice service and good craftsmanship is always a good basis for recurring business. When arriving to the shop it was full of American tourists busy checking in the merchandise and discussing with the sales persons behind the counters.

At the back of the shop I spotted the same guy I bought the ring from four years earlier. He was quite busy servicing an American lady, but since he did such a good job with the ring I decided to wait till he had finished the business with the American lady. So I kept a low profile at the entrance of the the shop, waiting for my turn.

After abut five minutes my guy suddenly looked up and in to the shop, scanned the customers waiting and then his eyes stopped on me and ....

"Mr. Hakan! You are back!" he shouted out in the shop. I was looking around to see if there were anyone else he could have addressed, but it was quite obvious he meant me.

"It's impossible", I said.

"You can not remember me! It's four years since I was here".

"Of course I remember you Mr. Hakan. One month after you were hear I had my first child, a son, and I baptized him to Hakan. Of course I remember you!"

"Wow, that was very nice of you, but still ....".

"Baptizing his son after me", well, that sounded a bit to much of a sales trick to me.

"Wait, wait", he said, "I make a drawing of all the items we produce and sell. I'll show you."

He ran off to one of the counters and picked up a little black book and then came back to me.

"Look, look" he said. And there it was, a sketch of the ring I bought four years ago and along side the sketch a neat little note that said "Sold to a Swedish gentleman named Hakan".

Did I buy a pair of earrings to my wife from this sales man? Of course I did! Did I pay to much? Of course I did not! I paid exactly what I thought it to be worth, no more or no less. And to me it was worth quite a lot to be recognized as Mr. Hakan in this gold shop in the covered bazar in Istanbul!

05.15 The alarm clock rings. The taxi comes at 06.00 so better hurry. Everything is packed though. Breakfast? No. Where is my digipass? Can't find it! Need it to log in to remote mail. Found it the second time I looked in the"things"drawer.

06.00 In the taxi. 4 bags whereof one is the an on board bag with the precious Stetson, one bag with camera plus microphone (maybe, maybe I will have the time to record a podcast during the week and one for the computer etc. Got to get all 3 bags on board!

06.52 At gate F35 waiting and checking my mail and if someone have signed up for the Benche since 05.30 this morning. Have become obsessed - have to check all the time what is going on on the Benche.

07.56 In the air and the fasten seat belts sign has been switched off. Where is the breakfast? Or does SAS no longer serve breakfast in the economy class. Do not remember. And now they just announced that I will not get any breakfast - only business class. Can buy, but too messy. So, refocus on lunch, early lunch.

08.32 Preparing the Benche breakfast meeting tomorrow on the flight. Going through the presentation made and the story i am going to tell. I always have to have a story to tell, more important than the PowerPoint slides. Core of my story will be the word "your" in our tag line"your financial community". It is after all not the bank or the corporate you are working for that decides if you shall become a member of the Benche or not - it is you who decides this.

14.12 Finally some food. Eating alone at a very long table. Quick, got to get back to the stand. New potential members all over the place. Get stopped by a gentleman on my way back asking about the Stetson and just afterwords by two girls in a stand. They just got to know about the Stetson..... :-D

17.08 Starting to come to the end of the day. A lot of people here - should be 8,195 delegates according to the SIBOS admin office. I got a bunch of business cards in my pocket, all eager to become members of the Benche. As usual the Stetson have been a light house in the crowd. I can hear people whispering when I go by their stand. It is quite clear they know that the Sheriff is in town!

I know, I know - this has nothing to do with cash, trade or custody or for that matter any business what so ever. Well, the latter is not quite true since the topic is sometimes related to business travel. And even though I am a bit embarrassed to blog about this topic here is my confession.

I have problems switching the shower on when in a hotel.



It is ridiculous and a bit embarrassing admitting this, but it is the truth and I hope by blogging about it more people will step forward so we can unite in a global request for a more logic way of getting water out of a shower.

I mean how many times have I been arriving late to a hotel somewhere in the world and in then starting the day standing in the shower trying to figure out how the heck you turn the d...mn shower on. Of course I am also always in a hurry for the first meeting and always and I mean always some smart water pipe engineer have come up with a new intricate way of turing the water on. Most of the times I am clever enough to succeed in finding out how to get water in the tub, you know, getting water out of the lower tap in the bath tub (and then the jumping in the tub starts to avoid burning my feet). But how you then redirect the water up in to the shower that is another story. Maybe it is a hint that I should take a bath? Is it cheaper for the hotel if I take bath, instead of a shower, or .. no...? And honestly I do not have the time or patience to take a bath in the morning before the first meeting.

So then it starts, the fumbling with all the wheels, buttons, displays and what not to try to figure out the logistics. After the first minutes of desperate fumbling I usually take a deep breath, slide one half step back in the tub and take a thorough look on the mechanism on the wall. Than I start to pretend I am the water pipe engineer, try to think like him/her and start to do some reversed engineering in my head. And then I attack the knobs and buttons like a mad man. In principal always to no avail. So it usually ends up with a call to the reception asking (embarrassed) "Excuse me, but how do you turn the shower on?" They are of course always helpful, but I know that as soon they put down the phone they will start to giggle and tell the rest of the crew behind desk that room 435 do not even know how to turn the shower on. Humiliating!

I therefore propose that all hotels in the world must have showers with two knobs. One for hot and one for cold water and there should be a blue dot on the cold water knob and a red dot on the hot water knob! Than I will most definitely have no problems. I hope.

So who is the Benche for? Is it for the corporates, banks or institutions that we members are working for? Nope, at least not primarily. It is actually you who are reading this right now who we created the Benche for. In other words it is you as an individual and not your employer. At least not in the first instance. The idea is to give you and all your peers a platform to learn, share & discuss all matters related to the financial area.

It is at the Benche you shall be able to connect with someone who has dealt with the same issue as you have or is using a service or a product/solution you are thinking of buying. By adding the experience from others in to the file of information you are gathering, your discussions internally and with external partner/suppliers will be more initiated and a final decision will be more well founded. I am a true believer of that information from someone who has implemented or bought what I am about to take a decision upon, adds great value to my decision process.

Of course all of this is beneficial not only for you but also for your employer! So even though the Benche is primarily for you, it is also to a high degree beneficial for the employer. But, it is your financial community!

Hope to see you at the Benche Pub in Stockholm today!

Hakan,
Sheriff
the Benche

August has been quite a slow month on the Benche. mainly I guess due to that many hace had a week or two vacation. These last days though we have seen quite a change. Yesterday we had 667 visitors on the Benche, the second best visit number in the history of the Benche. Anad when writing this at 15.38 on the last day of August 2010 there are 278 visitors on the Benche and earlier today the figure was well over 300 (the number can be found at the bottom of the site). Today we have also had 9 new members, giving a total number of 4,226 members. There is one odd thing though. Not too many of the visitors are using the forums. Could it be that you are afraid of exposing your name and company on the Internet? Or could it be that most of the visitors are too shy to go "public" in a forum? Or is it that you have to write in English? If is the two first reasons I can for sure help you out. How? I can change your user name to an alias. Why not become King Kong or Wonder Woman on the Benche? If it is the language than I just say look at how I write. My old English teacher would most probably find a number of mistakes, but I am pretty sure you understand most of what you have read so far. And if it is King Kong writing, well, than you have all the excuses in the world if the English is not the best. So, you just let me know and I have you up and running as Road Runner or whatever in no time.

Just a reminder also - for those of you who are in Stockholm on September 7, see you at the Benche pub at Berns Salonger!

Hakan
Sheriff,
the Benche