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February 29, 2004

Patagonia Politics

Enjoying a stroll through Manhattan today, I wandered into Patagonia's SoHo location. I admired the new Lotus Designs line, drifted down an aisle of multi-multifunction fleeces, sauntered past some sharp spring polos... and found myself smack in front of a stack of political best-sellers. After doing a double take, I noticed shelves of assorted political paraphernalia around the store.

I've worn Patagonia clothes my entire life; I'm pretty sure my mother stuffed me into a one-piece zip up before I left the hospital. I even used to go kayaking with a fella who took photos for the catalog... But I've never noticed the company aligning itself with a political party!

Sure, Patagonia has always been out to improve the environment. Clean air, pure water, polar ice caps - we're all for those. But hawking Al Franken books atop women's Capilene sports bras? The country (for all the polls tell us) is split dead even when it comes to the left and the right - so what's to gain from taking sides? Is it better to pick a team in the hopes that the customers you alienate will be outnumbered by those who now identify further with the brand?

For me, the experience was souring. I just wanted to buy some socks - not take a stand or make a political contribution.

Posted by Lucas Conley at 8:56 PM | 4 Comments

February 27, 2004

Presenting Eccentrics

MIT's Patrick Winston offers some useful tactics and tips for academic lecturers that might also be useful for people who give a lot of sales presentations, speak at conferences, or lead training seminars. Among the highlights:

• Cycle over the difficult ideas.
• Use examples, analogies, and exceptions to delineate the concept.
• Use verbal punctuation to help people follow your argument.
• Ask real and rhetorical questions to keep people's brains actively engaged.
• Have an eccentricity.
• Cultivate gestures.
• Look people in the eye.
• Be with the people.
• Deflect obstructionists.

Continue reading "Presenting Eccentrics"

Posted by Heath Row at 11:26 AM | 4 Comments

That's Rich

Forbes' 18th annual roundup of billionaires is booming -- even as the economy has been slow. With only 476 billionaires last year, the count is now up to 587, and analysts speculate that the growth is tied to Russia's growing oil industry and Bush's tax cuts on dividends.

In the top slot? Bill Gates. Ranking No. 1 for 10 years running, Gates is now worth $46.6 billion. In relatively close second is Warren Buffet, who's pushing $43 billion.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:32 AM | 1 Comment

February 26, 2004

Tireless Wireless II

A recent survey done by InsightExpress found that 10% of online Americans currently use wireless technology. More than three in five (61%) home Wi-Fi users indicated that they are more productive, and almost two in five (38%) say they work more because of Wi-Fi. Similarly, Wi-Fi use outside the home is also on the wax.

WiFi users who have accessed a Hot Spot outside their home (40%) signal real opportunities for restaurants, hotels, and other public businesses to attract customers. Almost half (45%) having accessed a public Hot Spot say they're more likely to patronize a business that offers WiFi. Business opportunities don't stop with public establishments, as more than half (51%) of Hot Spotters would choose an ISP with Hot Spot access over one without.

Posted by Heath Row at 3:37 PM | 2 Comments

Free to Be, Kill a Tree

Remember the much-heralded paperless office? While it's still a worthy goal to do more with less of the ol' paper tiger, even though the "paperless office" has been a vision since the '80s, technological developments continue to take us further and further away.

Has your organization taken steps to reduce paper consumption? What you do? What were the results?

Posted by Heath Row at 3:26 PM | 1 Comment

Where Are the Women? III

Where are the women? According to the 2002 documentary film Risk/Reward, they're on Wall Street.

In a recent writeup of the documentary, codirectors Xan Parker and Elizabeth Holder expand on what they learned.

We thought these women would tell us horror stories about glass ceilings. But that wasn't the majority. How do they balance work and family and friends and the pressure? We knew these women would be dynamic. But we had no idea.

Here's the perspective of Jessica Bibliowicz, president and COO of John A. Levin and Co.:

It's an age-old formula and a Wall Street credo: If you've got money, you've got power. Now that more women have money, the Street needs women. Firms are scrambling to create marketing programs targeted at women and investment funds run by women.

Wall Street is a tough place to work - for men and women. But women have always faced special disadvantages. My approach has been to turn those disadvantages into advantages. When I was younger, for example, I'd give presentations to institutional investors, and I'd be the only woman in the room. But that negative often became a positive. The men tended to listen to me more closely because I was a woman - a curiosity. And they tended to remember me the next time I made a presentation.

Wall Street needs more women in top jobs. And there's still a certain mystery surrounding women on Wall Street. Do we work less hard than men? Are we more temperamental? The more women a company has, the less mysterious we become.

No glass ceiling? It is, after all, Wall Street.

Posted by Heath Row at 2:06 PM | 1 Comment

I, Motivator II

In response to an entry yesterday, FC Now reader Gautam cites some research done by Timothy Butler and James Waldroop. While Fast Company explored barriers to success with Butler and Waldroop several years ago, their earlier work on "job sculpting" might be a useful parallel read to George Erman's thoughts on motivation.

Of the following eight life interests, 1-3 usually emerge as motivations at work -- and sources for job satisfaction:

• Application of Technology These people love the inner workings of things.
• Quantitative Analysis These people gravitate toward the numbers and use them creatively to analyze data. They excel at analyzing ratios, customer research data, etc.
• Theory Development and Conceptual Thinking These people love nothing better than relating concepts to pursue higher levels of understanding.
• Creative Production These imaginative, out-of-the-box thinkers love to start things when there are lots of unknowns and they can make something out of nothing. They thrive on newness, whether it’s a product or a process.
• Counseling and Mentoring For some, nothing is more enjoyable than teaching. Whether they do it because they enjoy watching others succeed, or because they want to be appreciated, they see social value in their cause.
• Managing People and Relationships Wanting to manage people is different than wanting to counsel and mentor. The focus here is on outcomes, and these people enjoy working day-to-day with others. They like to motivate, organize and direct.
• Enterprise Control These are the go-to people who love being responsible for the direction of a team or project. They specifically like being in charge, although they may not like managing people. Their main thrill is in "owning" the transaction (i.e. being accountable).
• Influence Through Language and Ideas These people enjoy storytelling, negotiating and persuading just for the sake of it. They are most fulfilled when they are communicating (speaking or writing). Even if no one is listening, they are practicing their skills through self-talk.

Posted by Heath Row at 1:18 PM | Add Comment

Rat Race

Late last year, Chuck Salter examined the meaning behind the inflatable union rat that's become a common sight at picket lines and labor protests. The rat will make another appearance today in Boston as newspaper workers challenge the Boston Globe's dragging negotiations. Protesters settled on an inflatable union rat of relatively modest size -- a 10-footer instead of the 30-foot towering vermin.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:55 AM | Add Comment

Calculating Commuters

A new government survey by the Census Bureau ranks commute times in the United States. The urban area with the longest commute? New York City. Here's the list:

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Chicago
• Houston
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• San Diego
• Dallas
• San Antonio
• Detroit

How long does it take you to get to work? Take the Fast Company poll.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:35 AM | Add Comment

February 25, 2004

I, Motivator

In yesterday's edition of Brainy Tidbits, an email newsletter by Lois Carter Fay of the MarketingIdeaShop, Fay discusses how George Erdman, president of Eren Corp., determines what motivates employees, colleagues, and partners. He uses a tool called the Motivator Pie that helps identify how important various factors are to you -- and how they influence reaching your goals.

Continue reading "I, Motivator"

Posted by Heath Row at 5:19 PM | 2 Comments

"Innovation": Inspired?

When I settled in last night to watch the third installment of PBS's show "Innovation: Life, Inspired," which focused on the FBI and CIA, I expected to be wowed by the latest in innovative spy gadgets and gear. The show did feature a few technological advances, such as an unmanned plane that delivers real-time streaming video and an innovative software program that trains agents to be more culturally sensitive.

But much of the episode focused on age-old tactics such as disguise, surveillance and leaving behind chalk marks as signals for other agents. Not exactly the kind of stuff to strike fear in the hearts of terrorists. The last chunk of the show, for example, was devoted to a new training exercise called "Hounds and Hares," in which FBI agents drove around following a couple of retired CIA officers who were disguised as foreign agents. The FBI "hounds" were supposed to prevent the covert "hares" from meeting up with a sleeper cell agent. They didn't stop them.

While I initially found the show a little light on innovation, especially inspired innovation, it did get me thinking: What role does innovation play when time-honored practices (in this case, disguise, not surveillance) still work? How closely are technology and innovation tied? Is it more difficult to identify human innovation?

If you want to watch the show yourself, check your local listings. Just don't try to order it on DVD. Despite its title, a copy is only available on VHS.

Posted by Jena McGregor at 4:59 PM | 1 Comment

The Lowering of Loyalty

Frederick F. Reichheld is a director emeritus and fellow at Boston-based strategy consultancy Bain & Co. He's also one of the preeminent thinkers about customer loyalty. Now, just like Thomas Davenport reconsidered the wisdom of reengineering, Reichheld is having a crisis of confidence about loyalty.

The early work I did on loyalty was powerful but useless. We've taken loyalty from its grave and put it back on the radar of most CEOs. But I am frustrated in that retention rates have not progressed over the last decade. Customers are not demonstrating loyalty.

Chicken meets egg. The interview in Direct magazine suggests that, "While his theories were valid, industries were not applying them." Is it that customers are disloyal? Or that companies don't engender loyalty? Reichheld isn't sure that matters -- and has turned his attention to something else entirely: turning people into promoters rather than steady customers. Companies can calculate profitable customers but not happy customers -- and Reichheld hopes promoters can cross that chasm.

Is this another take on idea viruses and word-of-mouth marketing? Or is it a step toward measuring brand affiliation even if the "affiliate" isn't a customer?

Posted by Heath Row at 4:06 PM | 3 Comments

Offshore Storm III

FC Now reader Tom Asacker makes an interesting remark in response to an entry yesterday.

Who says it's primarily large multinationals outsourcing work overseas?

In 1993 I outsourced the production of a $100k tool for an injection molded plastic medical device to a company in Singapore. And my company only employeed 15 people at the time.

Large and small companies have been outsourcing manufacturing work for years. But now it's hitting the new economy jobs, and thus being blogged about.

Fair enough. Outsourcing -- and offshoring -- is nothing new. But I'd offer that it's not that "new economy" jobs are being offshored, but that service economy jobs are being offshored. Similarly, I'd wager that most service jobs are being offshored by larger organizations.

Given Bush's recent efforts to reclassify fast-food restaurant jobs as manufacturing roles in order to increase the number of existing domestic jobs -- which some analysts have criticized because such classification can be misleading, it seems that the service economy in general may be at some point "reclassified" writ large. Is that good for American business?

The Atlantic's Jack Beatty recently contextualized such offshoring, and some critics contend that many new jobs created in fact pay less than the jobs that have been lost.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:41 AM | 8 Comments

February 24, 2004

Trump School of Business III

Not about to be Trump'd, Mark Cuban, cofounder of New Economy wunderkind Broadcast.com and now owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is slated to host a new reality TV show.

Dubbed "The Benefactor," the show will basicallly entail Cuban giving away $1 million. Details are unclear, but Cuban will be sharing more information in days to come.

Posted by Heath Row at 5:52 PM | 3 Comments

Offshore Storm II

Practically everyone in business is talking about offshoring. Fast Company is. CFO is. CNN is. Fortune is.

And now, Tom Peters is. While his roundup of 17 observations about offshoring aren't that new or different, one nugget did make me perk up.

Big companies do not create jobs, and historically have not created jobs. Big companies are not "built to last;" they almost inexorably are "built to decline."

Shades of Keith Hammonds' "Size Is Not a Strategy" and Jim Collins' "Built to Flip", perhaps, but it made me think.

If it is primarily large multinational organizations outsourcing work overseas, and if it is traditionally true that small businesses and entrepreneurs create new jobs and value, particularly in downturns, what do those two vectors mean? Where do they intersect? And: Can you think of any examples of small businesses that offshore?

Posted by Heath Row at 2:40 PM | 4 Comments

Project Rejects

Perhaps all of us have worked on a project that seems to never end. Plans are made. Deadlines assigned. Yet there's almost always something that someone else still needs to do -- or something that gets hung up. Johanna Rothman addresses this very experience in a recent article in Computerworld.

When a project is reportedly 99% complete for three weeks running, what do you do? Replace larger deadlines with "inch pebbles," or mini-milestones, says Rothman.

Inch-pebbles are one- to two-day tasks that are either done or not done -- there's no "percentage done" with inch-pebbles. When you or members of your project team create inch-pebbles, first break down the larger tasks into smaller pieces, estimate the time each smaller task will take and then verify that you've accounted for interdependencies with other people. When I see a six-week task on someone's list, I ask that person to define all the pieces of that task -- to break the task into inch-pebbles.

While I love the binary done-not done approach, the interdependencies intrique me even more. When working with colleagues, have you ever reached a point at which you've forgotten who's supposed to do what next -- "Where did we leave this?" How do you manage that?

Posted by Heath Row at 2:13 PM | 1 Comment

PowerPoint of Fact

Leaders at the University of Tasmania tried and tested several online learning platforms before deciding that their best bet was PowerPoint. Educators there say that it's a wonderful tool for self-paced, case-based learning -- and that it improves the quality and effectiveness of lecturers' work.

Now, I've poked fun at PowerPoint in the past, but this actually seems like a promising use of the application. With the program's presentation tool set and HyperCard-like multiple-choice navigation, I can actually imagine developing lectures -- and learning -- with PowerPoint.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:48 AM | Add Comment

(Break)Fast Company

What did you eat for breakfast this morning? Do you eat it at work -- or at home? In this delightfully disturbing advertisement for Nutrigrain cereal bars, Turnpike Films' Justin Reardon combines Christopher Walken-style discomfort with Office Space's workplace hilarity. The advert is work safe, but you might turn down the volume just a smidge. (Reardon's Raisin Bran Crunch spots are also worth viewing.) What did I eat for breakfast? To paraphrase When Harry Met Sally, "I'll have what he's having."

Posted by Heath Row at 11:20 AM | 1 Comment

February 23, 2004

The Brand Called UK II

No sooner had I posted that previous entry, did FC Now reader Kirsten Osolind email me a recent piece on Chicago's brand. City leaders just finished a year-long research project designed to discover Chicago's brand identity: slightly bland.

It's not just Chicago that's jumping on the brandwagon. "Other cities undergoing similar brand studies include Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Pittsburgh," the article indicates. "Smaller towns also asking about themselves include Columbia, S.C., Spokane, Wash. and Sparks, Nev."

What's the brand identity of the town in which you do business? Is it in line with your own personal and organizational branding?

Posted by Heath Row at 4:57 PM | 1 Comment

The Brand Called UK

A member of the London Company of Friends group recently emailed me an article about Barbara Cassani, who's working to bring the Olympics to England -- and who "wants to overcome our natural British reserve and apathy." Previously, Cassani helped launch -- and sell -- the low-cost airline Go, which was bought by EasyJet for a cool 374 million British pounds. Attracting the Olympics won't happen without its challenges:

Now Cassani is directing her inspirational style of management at a less receptive audience, the residents of inner London. Enthusiasm for the Olympics has stalled in the capital over issues of how it will be funded, by whom, and to what long-term benefit. There is something delicious about the image of Cassani's megawatt optimism colliding with the default scepticism of, say, the residents of Hackney, rather like picturing Annie in a film by Ingmar Bergman.

Cassani talks about how the Olympics will regenerate the East End and give kids something to strive for, which may well be true. But even if the substance of her argument is correct, she will never overcome a certain native impulse, when presented with this style of twee corporate evangelism, to rain all over it. Cassani sighs. "There'll always be some people who are just sad. I mean, what are you gonna do? It's OK, they can be sad. And I really don't care. I just don't want them telling me what to do. I'll let them be sad, if they let me be the way I am."

It's an interesting question: How do you rebrand an entire country? Cassani should consider the late-'90s work of Geoff Mulgan. Even then, Mulgan was saying that you can't reshape national realities without reinventing national identity -- and that might be the biggest change challenge.

Posted by Heath Row at 4:26 PM | 12 Comments

Behind the Seen

Starting tomorrow on the Discovery Times Channel, a new reality TV program by way of documentary, Staffers, will offer an inside look at the political campaign process.

CameraPlanet embedded video journalists in the Dean, Clark, Kerry, and Lieberman campaigns for the past month and a half. Directed by Steve Rosenbaum, the project should offer some interesting insight on the end of days for Dean's campaign.

Posted by Heath Row at 4:09 PM | Add Comment

Gift Basket Case

Color me envious! Presenters at this year's Oscars will receive not just the customary gift basket -- which usually contains thousands of dollars worth of high-end items -- but a 43-inch Samsung DLP widescreen HDTV.

It would be interesting to be involved in the selection of what's in such gift baskets, and it turns out that there's an entire industry dedicated to gift baskets. But I wonder: What's in it for the people involved? Presenters, who are unpaid, per se, get theirs. Samsung gets its HDTV in the hands of 125 high-profile people. And the gift basket designer? Do they just include whatever they can get gratis? Or do they aim to include the latest and greatest?

Posted by Heath Row at 1:56 PM | Add Comment

February 21, 2004

Stacking Dollar Bills to the Moon

In the past month-and-a-half, since NASA's Spirit rover touched down on the red plant, the space program's rover Web site has logged 6.5 billion hits. As CNET News.com recently noted, that's more visits than there are people on earth.

...Can anyone say "marketing opportunity"?

In late 90s bubble-think, those 6.5 billion eyeballs (or, er, 13 billion eyeballs, I guess) would have had marketers fomenting at the mouth. Hell, even today, 6.5 billion visits over 45 days would be enough to get even the most jaded of former web advertisers back off (on?) the bandwagon. So imagine my surprise when I swung by the Mars Exploration Rover Mission Web site and found... no advertising. That's right, no migraine-inducing flashing ads, no floating rover photos pitching tie-ins, no "Win a Summer trip to the Bonneville Crater!" Nothing. 6.5 billion visits and not a penny to show for it! The rover site was starting to sound a lot like Theglobe.com.

As I soon found out though, NASA is no stranger to the power of marketing. Over the past four decades, NASA and the commercial market have danced a fascinating little tang-o, stirring up innovative products and making marketing history. Teflon? Velcro? Tang?

Continue reading "Stacking Dollar Bills to the Moon"

Posted by Lucas Conley at 7:00 PM | 2 Comments

February 20, 2004

Coffee with Peter Fader

Early this afternoon, Peter Fader, a marketing professor at Wharton, stopped by Fast Company's offices to visit. We sat down for coffee and conversation, exploring Fader's work in predictive and explanatory models for electronic commerce.

After researching predictive sales data for grocery stores, Fader had a "dotcom epiphany" when e-commerce hit the mainstream. "What if online CD sales parallel kids' juice drinks?" he asks. "The patterns are the same, the behaviors are the same, online and offline."

Having testified as an expert witness in the Napster case, Fader's research these days is focusing largely on online music sales. Specifically, Fader is interested in the differences between downloading and streaming business models. His verdict so far? "iTunes is a cancer for the music industry," he says. "Downloading is bad."

Continue reading "Coffee with Peter Fader"

Posted by Heath Row at 7:37 PM | 1 Comment

Highest Education

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education has released its Academic Ranking of World Universities. The ranking is based on various indicators of academic and research performance, including Nobel laureates, highly cited researchers, articles published in various journals and indexes, and academic performance per faculty.

Who's No. 1 worldwide? Harvard. No. 1 in the US? Harvard. In the global listing, the first university outside the US is the University of Cambridge at No. 5. The first in a country whose dominant language isn't English? Tokyo University at No. 19. An interesting study I'm not quite sure how to use.

Posted by Heath Row at 12:38 PM | 2 Comments

February 19, 2004

Baseball & Truth II

The biggest sports news of recent days, at least on the east coast of the U.S., is Alex Rodriguez's signing with the New York Yankees. A lot of baseball pundits have been comparing Rodriguez to Babe Ruth, but when we caught up with the A-Rod last September, he told Fast Company that his idol was not Babe Ruth or Cal Ripken... but Leonardo da Vinci.

He could do everything. He was a scientist, an architect, a painter, everything. To me, that's an inspiration I can bring to my game. Everyone focuses on the home runs and RBIs, but winning a Gold Glove for my defense last year was one of my proudest moments.

Rodriguez also took some time to comment on the meaning of money. "I don't think money really changes you. You have to remember that it doesn't make you who you are," he says. "You have to go about your business just as you did before: working hard, preparing, and performing. The money is just what you have after you're done doing your job."

Red Sox owner John Henry has said that the sport might need a salary cap "to deal with a team that has gone so insanely far beyond the resources of all the other teams." Is Rodriguez's move about money? Or do you the think the Yankees were able to offer him career advancement opportunities that the Sox couldn't?

Posted by Heath Row at 6:02 PM | 2 Comments

Invest in the Bull Market II

Fast Company contributing writer Seth Godin has announced that applications for inclusion in Bull Market 2004 have reached the 500 count. Fast Company is working with Seth to create the compendium of companies that can help you make things happen, so this is good news indeed. If you haven't checked out the project yet -- much less explored how you, your colleagues, partners, and suppliers can be included in the directory -- now might be a good time. I'm looking forward to see how it all comes together!

Posted by Heath Row at 1:25 PM | Add Comment

Extreme Personalization

Each year, Louisville, Kentucky-based DNR Group sends out more than 10 million pieces of mail for clients such as AOL, the Salvation Army, and the Red Cross. But this isn't your father's junk mail. Nope, each item is hand addressed and written by a local resident.

Talk about high touch! About 4,500 locals work for DNR as independent contractors, writing personal notes to potential clients and customers. It can take 13-15 hours to complete 500 pieces of mail, and writers can make $300-$600 a month. DNR even charges its clients extra for handwritten mailings. Is it worth it? Instead of the usual 2-4% direct marketing response rate, DNR can net between 8% and 30%. The company's revenue has increased 75% a year for the last three years and is approaching $10 million. Worth a couple of callouses, I'd say.

Such personalization is rare, but not unheard of. The staff of Play don't have business cards with the company name printed on them. Cards feature a blank line on which employees write "Play" before exchanging cards with someone. How personalized is your business and its sales and marketing outreach?

Posted by Heath Row at 1:13 PM | Add Comment

Name Game

Even though the Comcast-Disney to-and-fro continues, a director for a corporate branding firm raises the question of whether Comcast should keep the Disney name as part of the potential merged organization. Rather than go with a variation on Comcast-Disney -- a la AOL Time Warner -- the executive says, "The gutsy move would be to call it Comcast."

That feels a bit odd, given that Disney is a name renowned worldwide. But perhaps the branding agent has a point:

The Disney name doesn't have to be on the door, so long as it is featured prominently where it counts, on Disney theme parks, movies and toys, he said.

What do you think? Take the Fast Company poll.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:04 AM | Add Comment

February 18, 2004

What We Learned in the New Economy

The online table of contents for the March issue of Fast Company is now available. Shortly, the entire issue will be available online.

We're launching the new issue with a sneak peek of our cover package: "What We Learned in the New Economy." Not only is the package available in its entirety for online readers, we've added several new elements to better draw on your advice, experience, and ideas.

The boom and bust of the New Economy left us all a little battered and bruised. Will we make the same mistakes all over again? Or are we wiser, along with a bit sadder? Tell us what enduring lessons you learned in the New Economy, and we'll share the most interesting ideas and experiences online.

And as a corollary to the Where Are They Now?" section, we're asking Fast Company readers what once-prominent business leaders and innovators you want to catch up on. Let us know, and we'll do our best to get the goods on the long gone.

What did we learn in the New Economy? You tell us.

Posted by Heath Row at 6:04 PM | Add Comment

Customers: "Deserve Us!"

According to a recent survey done by Strativity Group Inc., 45% of executives surveyed in four continents say that their companies do not deserve customers' loyalty. Tellingly, 55% claimed they don't engage in dialogue with customers -- and almost as many stated that they do not meet frequently with customers.

What's going on here? Why might this be the case? The findings continue.

Just 37 percent of executives said they have the tools and authority to solve customer problems. More than half of the executives, 59.6 percent, agree that the role of the customer is not well-defined for the company. Only 32 percent of executives say their compensation is tied to quality of service provided to customers.

File under: What We Learned. We took a good look at the New Economy's customer service promises -- and business's failings -- a couple of years ago. What needs to be done to meet that potential? The survey responses offer some clues:

• Engage customers in dialogue
• Meet frequently with customers
• Give employees the tools and authority to solve customer problems
• Be clear about the role of the customer in your company
• Tie compensation to customer service and satisfaction

Any other recommendations?

Posted by Heath Row at 12:54 PM | 1 Comment

Unlevel Playing Field

One of my hopes during the great New Economy bust and shakeout was that all of the copy-cat and also-ran companies would get the boot, leaving more room and less noise for those companies with solid ideas and management teams. While the New Economy brought -- and can still bring -- a lot of promise and potential, too many organizations were formed on an infirm foundation of a ballpoint-pen-and-napkin business plan, rose-colored VC glasses, and little passion or personal commitment. Companies were built to flip, not last, and when the flip flopped, so many floundered.

According to the McKinsley Quarterly, maybe not enough companies floundered. "A surprising number of small and midsize software companies survived the downturn," the report says. "Not all of them should have."

Slicing the sector by size reveals a discouraging pattern among those with pretax revenues below $50 million: a survey of 2,121 software, hardware, IT services, and semiconductor companies shows that many small and midsize ones are drowning in red ink. The bar graph above suggests that for smaller concerns, a perennial lack of profitability, combined with the growing scale and influence of their largest competitors, is bringing judgment day near. Some companies will have to be acquired; others will try to get bigger by merging with complementary businesses.

"A perennial lack of profitability": Sound familiar? The nod to acquisitions is good news to those with the mania, but what, if anything, did we learn from the New Economy? In our March issue -- and coming soon to a Web site near you -- the Fast Company team explores whether business people will make the samme mistakes again as business turns up.

Posted by Heath Row at 12:31 PM | Add Comment

Quick Quiz

In response to an article about job interview riddles, Judy emailed to suggest the following quick quiz:

At the 35,000 foot level...what are the priciples of PR? (Limit response to 50 words)

Any takers? Add a comment below, and let's see what we can work out!

Posted by Heath Row at 11:21 AM | 13 Comments

Merger Mania II

While Comcast continues to woo Disney, the Mouse House acquires the Muppets from the Jim Henson Co. The deal does not include the Sesame Street characters, which were purchased by Sesame Workshop two years ago. Comcast officials indicate that they won't increase their offer given the recent purchase of one of America's more notable media franchises.

The timing is ideal, although Disney leaders insist that it's coincidental. In fact, negotiations have been going on for six months -- and date back to a previous purchase attempt more than a decade ago. Personally, I think this could be good for the Muppets -- as long as Disney stays true to Henson's vision. Case in point: While all of the Muppet movies are available on DVD, the 1970s TV program is limited to a celebrity-driven "Best of the Muppet Show" DVD series. It'd be good to see chronological collections of the Muppets' five seasons.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:11 AM | Add Comment

February 17, 2004

Where Are The Women? Still More Debate

Every so often, an editor runs a story that generates an unusual volume of response. To my way of thinking, that's exactly what an editor wants to do: to make people think more deeply about the things that are important. And that's exactly what has occurred with our last cover story, "Where Are the Women?"

The most recent letter to cross my desk is as compelling as the story itself, even though it takes us to task for some of the views expressed in the cover. It's from a woman in a major corporation who was recently tossed aside in a restructuring, in favor of a patrol of dominant men who now run the show. Most of her female colleagues, meanwhile, are merely waiting for their termination dates. In her letter to me, she candidly concedes that she feels like a rape victim. Read her letter and add a comment below to tell us what you think.