Prague Journal

Friday, July 15, 2005

Olga G set up an appointment for me to meet Milan Zeleny, from Fordham University in New York, who wrote the book about Tomas Bata’s management system. He is visiting the Czech Republic this week. He’s a very interesting man – born in the Czech Republic, but moved to the US in 1967, before the Prague Spring. He’s a professor at Fordham University, but now has “dual” appointments in several places, including Zlin. I think I’m more interested in his stories about the Czech Republic and Czech/American “values” and culture than I am about his view of management and Tomas Bata’s innovations.
I met Brad for coffee at Radost at 2pm. Bruce (Brad’s father) joined us, so we had a very interesting conversation about Bruce’s business deals and golf-course plans. Next stop was meeting Eunice for tea at Ami’s. Our time in Prague is nearing an end, so these short get-togethers are becoming more precious.

Dinner this evening was with Marty and Harriet at Zlaty Dvur on Husova, near their flat. We ate on the terrace, accompanied by live music: a jazz trio of trumpet, electric bass and electric piano. It didn’t start to rain until we had just finished dinner, so we stayed under the table-umbrellas for nearly an hour longer. We finally ventured out just as the rain cleared. On our way home, we ran into two drunken Scots. Prague is full of Brits coming to Prague for party weekends. It’s not uncommon to see them in matching t-shirts or kilts. These two had a list of bars and had only begun to work their way down their list. We had a hard time understanding them, since their brogue was so thick. Marty and Harriet graciously escorted them to Old Town Square and pointed them in the direction of Dlouha Street to the Roxy Club, their next bar stop.

posted by JWinn @ 10:42 PM