06.17.08
Posted in General Management at 4:26 by lnxwalt
Anthropogenic global warming is taken as a proven fact and an article of faith, but many climate and weather scientists disagree. Science, if you did not know, is a religion. This means that it may be time for the founding of non-AGW-believing branch.
The founder of The Weather Channel recently wrote a guest article on “Watts Up With That?“, a blog that debunks much pro-AGW doctrine.
The future of our civilization lies in the balance.
That’s the battle cry of the High Priest of Global Warming Al Gore and his fellow, agenda driven disciples as they predict a calamitous outcome from anthropogenic global warming. According to Mr. Gore the polar ice caps will collapse and melt and sea levels will rise 20 feet inundating the coastal cities making 100 million of us refugees. Vice President Gore tells us numerous Pacific islands will be totally submerged and uninhabitable. He tells us global warming will disrupt the circulation of the ocean waters, dramatically changing climates, throwing the world food supply into chaos. He tells us global warming will turn hurricanes into super storms, produce droughts, wipe out the polar bears and result in bleaching of coral reefs. He tells us tropical diseases will spread to mid latitudes and heat waves will kill tens of thousands. He preaches to us that we must change our lives and eliminate fossil fuels or face the dire consequences.
I read Watts Up from time to time. What I’m seeing there interests me. You see, with my main job, I go to places that are devasted by fires, floods, and earthquakes. Let me tell you, this year looks to be a busy year for me. And I’m seeing, thanks to Watts Up, that it may all be caused by the sun. Hundreds of years ago, there was a period of time we call the “little ice age” because it was so bitterly cold. It appears that the pattern of sunspots observed then resembles the pattern observed today.
The article attempts to refute much of what former Vice President Al Gore is telling us (that man’s activities are causing the earth’s temperatures to rise, and that one of the possible consequences of our activities is the extinction of our species). I’m not a weather or climate expert, so I have to rely upon what those who are experts tell me.
I saw on the news that skiing is still happening in Colorado in the middle of June. Heavy thunderstorms and rainstorms have stayed over much of the Midwest, producing tornadoes, flooding, and lots of damage. If sunspot-caused global cooling is now in session, this is what lies ahead for us over the next few years. The cool year we are experiencing in 2008 could be the blueprint for the next few years.
What can you do? There are some things you can do, and should. First of all, check to see whether you are living in a low-lying area that is prone to flooding. Are you in a floodplain? Perhaps in an area that is protected by dams and levees? If the answer is ‘yes’, you need to start working toward relocating. Remember, one wise move can save the lives of yourself and your family.
There are other things you can do. Contact your state’s disaster preparedness / response / recovery agency for information on what you can do to prepare for an event.
The important thing is that you take the time to become acquainted with the possible kinds of disaster, from fire, to earthquake, to flood, to windstorm (e.g., tornado or hurricane), to societal breakdown, to a meteorite hitting and destroying your home. Then, develop a realistic plan for dealing with each situation, including possible actions you can take beforehand to lessen the impact of the situation. Finally, act on the plan, preparing for disaster–it will come eventually, so your best bet is to be ready.
Another important thing to look into is insurance. If your home or business burned down, you’d be in a world of hurt. But with insurance, you at least have a fighting chance at getting back to where you were. Be sure to ask about the national flood insurance program and any corresponding programs for earthquakes or other big events.
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04.08.08
Posted in General Management, Small Business at 2:58 by lnxwalt
The article is here.
I believe that small, locally-owned businesses (SLOBs) need more help than the big guys to form tight connections with their customers. After all, a bad experience can permanently chase a customer away from a SLOB, but a nationwide fast food chain will continue to get repeat visits even when a single visit is unsatisfying.
That said, we often hear about how we need to jump on the latest fad or get left behind. The article discusses many of the requirements that you should meet before you consider starting a company blog.
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03.28.08
Posted in General Management, Industry News at 4:43 by lnxwalt
AT&T CEO says hard to find skilled U.S. workers - Yahoo! News
This is pretty rich. I’m sure you, like I, have dealt with telephone support before. Normally, company policies are so strict that they have to follow a script, even if you’ve already eliminated the causes on their list.
I was in a hotel, calling the support line for their ISP. I knew what the problem was–they were doing some construction and one of the building’s access points was no longer working–but they had me step through the whole process. The thing was, I was doing support myself, so naturally, I had already done all that they listed. Finally, after going through the whole process multiple times, the rep agreed to have someone physically check the access point after he had logged into the local system and found that he could not “see” the access point.
“We’re having trouble finding the numbers that we need with
the skills that are required to do these jobs,” AT&T Chief
Executive Randall Stephenson told a business group in San
Antonio, where the company’s headquarters is located.
So, Mr. CEO, do you really want to tell me that you cannot find people who can follow a script? If so, I suggest you run right down to the Golden Arches and hire the whole counter crew. Those employees, like yours, are given a script that must be followed, sometimes even down to specific wording. They can read and they can operate often-antiquated computer terminals. They speak English or any of a variety of other languages. They already work for low wages and few benefits, with widely varying schedules that depend primarily on the needs of the company.
Stephenson said neither he nor most Americans liked the situation, and the solution was a stronger U.S. focus on education and keeping jobs. Business needed to help, such as
AT&T’s repatriation of service positions and education grants,
he added.
You see, this is part of the problem with large corporations. That man behind the desk did not get his job because he already knew how to do the job. They had to train him, even if he already had education and experience, because every business and every industry is a little different and no skills are fully transferable from one to another. And even though he knows this to be true, he will swear to the day he dies that he got his position because of merit, that he was effective from day one. In other words, neither the corporation nor the people running the corporation practice reciprocity.
Corporations will take all you can do for them, while giving you the absolute minimum they can get away with, until they find someone who will accept less. At that point, they will unceremoniously dump you like yesterday’s garbage.
This is what is wrong with the American economy. Domination by self-centered corporations and by officers and investors in those corporations means that every town and city and their workforces are merely tools to be used up and then discarded to help big companies fill their essentially unlimited appetites for money, power, fame, and reputation. Through pervasive advertising, they continue to drive consumers to buy the big name product from the big name store, when the best interests of individuals and their communities is served from purchases of locally-produced goods and services through locally-owned outlets.
When I buy tools at Big Blue, the world’s largest retail chain, I am depriving my community of the money that flies out of California and over to the chain’s headquarters city in Arkansas. If those tools are made outside of my area, then funds which could have gone to support locally-owned tool producers now goes somewhere else to support their companies and residents.
And when I support politicians that allowed SBC to buy AT&T (keeping the AT&T name) and Southern Bell, I am by extension supporting self-absorbed CEOs that cannot see a skilled worker even if they bumped into one.
Do not misunderstand me. Our schools are in desperate need of improvement, and our colleges as well. But the jobs people actually get do not even use the skills of a normal high school graduate. A superabundance of managers decrees every detail of what to do and how to do it, so that a worker of average intelligence is stymied in his attempts to do a better job.
Who knows more about customer service? Some guy in corporate who never even deals with customers or the people on the front lines dealing with customers every day? I’d say it is the professionals that actually do the work, not someone who talks to a consultant or reads a book and decides that he knows how to serve customers better. Which one do you think wrote this script?
Hi, welcome to <company name>. My name is <employee first name>. May I take your order?
Or how about this one:
Hi, welcome to <company name>. Would you like to try our new <product name>? It's my favorite!
That garbage was certainly not written by anyone who actually works with customers. Yes, those were actual scripts that were used at one company I worked for years ago.
So, Mr. CEO, if you want quality customer service, hire people who actually deal with customers, and then let them hire their co-workers. Get your legions of managers and send them to a desert island without a way back. Or even better, contract the job out to small, locally-owned businesses (SLOBs) with fewer than one hundred people apiece and give them the freedom to experiment with ways to improve your service (this means you absolutely CANNOT try to squeeze them on pricing).
Maybe that outlook was the reason that AT&T consistently had the worst mobile service in every state where I’ve worked except New Jersey. You cannot find quality people? Maybe you aren’t paying enough or offering enough benefits in order to attract quality people. Maybe a lot of quality people are those who’ve seen their jobs slashed over the past decade at one of the AT&T predecessor companies (such as Pacific Telesis in California and Nevada). Or maybe your hiring process drives away anyone that has a choice about what job to accept. All I can say is that anyone who feels that there are no quality employees in the U.S. is seriously incompetent.
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09.20.07
Posted in General Management, Industry News, Legal Issues at 3:32 by lnxwalt
In what has been called a “stinging rebuke”, the European Court of the First Instance (CFI) ruled against an appeal by Microsoft in a long-running case pitting the world’s largest software company against the European Commission.
The second-highest court in Europe on Monday rejected Microsoft’s attempt to overturn a landmark European Commission antitrust ruling and record fine, bolstering smaller software makers and putting market leaders on notice that they cannot leverage dominance in one technology niche to squelch broader innovation, industry and legal experts said
This from an article in the International Herald Tribune. I noticed that the article did not get all the details correct. For example, it said the court “ordered Microsoft to obey a 2004 commission order to share confidential computer code with competitors.” The only problem is that the court made no such order. This is about the languages that software programs speak to one another: protocols and file formats, and also about illegal bundling of Windows Media Player as a way to squeeze RealPlayer out of the market. It has nothing to do with sharing code.
In my experience, RealPlayer is an inferior product, so given the choice, most users will choose WMP over Real, although they might choose to use Quicktime instead of either one. The problem, which even many technical people do not understand, is in using dominance in one area (such as operating systems) to push you into dominance in another area (such as media players or Web browsers). It violates a longstanding prohibition on misusing an existing monopoly in order to build another one.
“What the court did was uphold EU law, which makes it illegal to leverage a dominant market position to obtain similar dominance in another area,” said Michael Reynolds, a Brussels antitrust lawyer with the firm Allen & Overy who filed the initial complaint against Microsoft in 1998 on behalf of Sun Microsystems. “Microsoft argued that the software industry, because of its dynamic growth, was an exception. But the court dismissed this argument.”
The US has similar laws, but the Department of Justice is lax about enforcement, believing that it is better to let the market sort things out. The problem with that is when you have situations where the market fails to remedy the wrongs. An example of that is when one provider obtains monopoly share of the market. Competitors, if they exist, fight over the crumbs that are left over, never being serious challengers to the monopolist. The monopolist, in this case Microsoft, then gets away with all sorts of abusive and questionable (if not illegal) behavior.
The question for non-technical people is this: what does this mean to the users and purchasers of computer software? It means that, assuming that Microsoft behaves according to the law, consumers will have more choice–choice of operating systems, of media players, office suites and more. Businesses will have more choice of operating systems and other software to use on their servers. Many of the choices that are available are less costly than Microsoft products, so for many people and businesses, this is good for the wallet.
I encourage you to open your eyes and look around. The choices that are available already would surprise you. Look at the Ubuntufamily of GNU+Linux operating systems, the StarOffice, OpenOffice, KOffice, and now Lotus Symphony office suites, and an incredible variety of other ready-for-prime-time software applications that are available now. Many of them were not ready just a few years ago (although I have to say that for someone that was willing to do a little work, the software was already even with commercial competitors).
Recognize that even big companies will eventually get punished for wrongdoing, but they often continue to do wrong anyway. The best thing to do is to spread your dollars around so that no single company controls your (or your business’s) destiny.
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09.17.07
Posted in General Management at 19:54 by lnxwalt
Someone from Japan was searching on “China Product Problems” and came to this site. I guess they read my blog article about the problem being the fault of American corporations. I still stand by this. With their race to the bottom, corporations are selling American citizens into slavery.
It is bad enough that their actions destabilize governments in third world countries. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, with the way they distribute medicines, allows needless deaths in Africa and Asia. It isn’t that they are evil or that this is intentional. But their quest to squeeze every possible dollar out of their products outpaces the ability of impoverished countries to purchase adequate supplies. Most of those countries are also full of corruption, so the pure stuff goes only to the favored groups, while others get adulterated or fake medicines, if they get any at all.
This can also be seen in the oil industry, where actions meant to ensure a large and stable supply prop up questionable governments and cause civil wars such as the one that tore through Angola several years ago. In that case, Gulf had a contract to pump oil, which funded the government and attracted the ire of UNITA rebels. In that country, as in a number of others, it would have been better for the local residents if the Western multinational corporations had stayed home.
The continuing problems with lead contaminated toys can not just be blamed on a rogue overseas contractor. The U.S. companes did not go there for the fun of it, or because the contractor’s toys were better. They went there because they did not want to pay American workers a living wage. When a company makes it clear that they are willing to underpay the people who make the products that make them their income, they will surely be willing to cut corners elsewhere as well.
Once you indicate that you are willing to cut corners, there are always some unscrupulous companies and individuals who are willing to help you cut just a little more. Toothpaste too costly to produce? Thin it with a little antifreeze. No one will notice. They were right–we did not notice for many years. It is not even clear that we have really noticed yet.
I challenge you, as I’m challenging myself: for the month of October 2007, refuse to buy products made outside the country unless you can not find that kind of product domestically produced. I am not talking about saying, “The US-made products cost too much.” Neither do I mean a US branded product that may be made in another country. I mean that I want us to attempt to limit your purchases to products produced by laborers here in this country. I think we will be surprised at how hard it will be to find them.
Until Americans once again prefer to do business with smaller, locally-owned businesses [SLOBs] (with local employees and products that are locally produced or at least domestically produced), this will be more and more common all the time. If you care about the future of your nation and your community, then you should devote the lion’s share of your spending to SLOBs and OMBs (owner-managed businesses) in your community.
Scouring the world in search of cheaper labor means that you eventually export the expertise that made your company strong to begin with. It is a strategy without a future, the intentional long-term surrender of our economic independence. By exporting our skilled work, we leave nothing for our next generation, which is troubling if you have a young adult just joining the workforce and finding only low-wage retail and restaurant employment available.
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09.09.07
Posted in General Management at 23:43 by lnxwalt
Is it just me, or are nearly all large companies treating their customers like dirt?
In the last few months, I have had negative experiences with:
- Two computer vendors
- A mobile telephone service provider
- An automobile rental company
- A large discount retailer
- A bank
- A large hotel chain
In each case, they act as though they have too many customers, and they would not care if they lost a few.
This is really about what economists call “market power”. If you can unilaterally raise prices or change the terms under which you will sell your product or service, you have market power. In such a situation, it usually means that you have a large enough share of the market that there are few alternatives available for your customers. We all know how wonderful the telephone company and the cable company treat their customers. They do this because they realize that there are few alternatives for their customers.
If you do not like being mistreated by the cable company, call the satellite television company. What? Your landlord forbids external antennas? Well I guess you have to accept the way the cable company treats you.
You don’t like it when the company financing your purchase decides that your payment was ten days early so it does not count as this month? Don’t tell me you are unhappy about being charged a late fee for a payment that was cashed before it was due. If you don’t like it, switch finance companies.
The reality is that we need to prefer to purchase from smaller, locally-owned businesses (SLOBs) and owner-managed businesses (OMBs) in our communities. In turn, SLOBs and OMBs need to offer locally-made products and locally-generated services, rather than simply reselling the products or services of some large, out-of-the-area corporation. Consumers have more leverage against SLOBs and OMBs, so these businesses are more likely to work at trying to satisfy their customers.
Think about it. When you went to buy an MP3 player for your son, how hard was it to find a salesperson who would talk to you and explain how they worked and what features were most important for different user profiles? I experienced exactly that myself and wound up buying from a completely different location based on price.
When you went to buy a piece of computer-related hardware, such as an external hard drive, a printer, or even a set of speakers, was there a knowledgeable and helpful salesperson available? Did someone attempt to baffle you with cow dung?
I am telling you that my own recent experiences tell me that there is a market for someone (a local businessperson) who will offer competent service; honest, knowledgeable, and helpful salespeople; and reasonably-priced, locally-made products in the above fields. I am looking to offer some services myself shortly. Yet, there is room for several such businesses in your own local area and mine as well. All we need is a way to convince consumers to choose SLOBs instead of big, faceless corporations.
(Now if only Sun Microsystems was serious about taking my money. Jonathan, I am looking to buy a small server, but your marketing representative doesn’t seem to understand that I am about to send the check to Dell instead.)
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08.12.07
Posted in General Management, Small Business at 20:36 by lnxwalt
Overheard at that really big retailer last week:
Cashier: I’ve been working over eight hours and I still haven’t had my break.
In nearly any field, big companies use “economies of scale” to thrive and grow. When augmented by computerization, we get “management by the numbers”. That is, we get decisions being made based upon ratios and measurements, rather than the readily observable needs. Smaller companies do need to implement some of this, but you can see the effect of taking this to an extreme.
This cashier works longer than she should work without a break because there are more customers waiting to pay for their purchases than the available cashiers can handle. Rather than call in additional cashiers (and possibly incur unapproved overtime), the managers on duty just keep the existing staff from leaving their posts when they should.
This doesn’t just happen when I am visiting New Jersey. We have the same chain in the Victor Valley area of California. At one of the two locations of this chain, it is common to come in late in the afternoon and hear cashiers saying, “I’m supposed to be off already, but I still haven’t had my break.” Again, it is to the advantage of management to do this, rather than to incur overtime.
This is an effect of the centralized management in larger organizations. Despite laws and policies that are supposed to prevent such abuses, Lower-level supervisors and managers may lack the authority to actually enforce these rules. Certainly, they are constrained by dictates from their superiors that they meet numeric targets such as labor cost percentage and customers per hour. Because of the top-down nature of management in large organizations, seeing that it is widespread and frequently-repeated is a clue to where the problem comes from. (I often wonder why such places do not have “rovers” whose job is to cover breaks throughout the store. Even during a rush period, it should only take a minute or two to put a rover in the place of a cashier.)
For SLOBs [Small, Locally-Owned Businesses--search the site for the term] and OMBs [Owner-Managed Businesses--search the site for the term] that deal directly with consumers, it is vital to your business that you take good care of your staffers that do the actual interaction with your customers. One large company decided that its employees cost too much, so it laid off its best employees (the ones who had gotten raises) and forced them to reapply for their old jobs at a lower wage. In a field where most sales happen because a knowledgeable salesperson helps a customer decide which item is right for them, this was a major mistake. Their mistake may land them in the trash pile with all the other failed consumer electronics retailers, or they may last long enough that customers and employees forget the betrayal. Your customers, however, are not likely to give you enough time to prove that you meant well when you let management by the numbers replace common sense.
An OMB or a SLOB that pushes MBTN too far is likely to close its doors, with the owner winding up back in the job market.
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08.03.07
Posted in General Management, Small Business at 2:19 by lnxwalt
I recently responded to an article by James Robertson about China’s product problems. USA Today has an opinion item today that reiterates my words. If the link dies, it is also in the dead-tree edition, on page 11A (”Hidden culprit of product scandal made in China”, USA Today, 11A, 2007-AUG-02).
I quote:
Nearly all the recent alarms raised about Chinese products point fingers solely at the Chinese, neglecting entirely how China’s success as an exporter is, in large part, the product of roughly a trillion dollars of foreign investment and limitless expertise that floods into the country in order to escape some standard or other at home.
In other words, when we want to make the product more cheaply, without dealing with all the restrictions that are built into Western social democracies, we have it made for us in China. When we don’t want to pay employees enough to own homes in pricey American cities, we move to work to factories in China, where they don’t have our standards. When we don’t want the cost of conforming to environmental regulations, we move the work to factories in China, where there are effectively no regulations.
Unfortunately, it is easy to blame China, its government, its culture, or its people, for the shortcomings of American corporations. If big-name-corporate retailer insisted that products it sold were produced under “ethical management” and held producers to similar standards as U.S.-based producers have to meet, Chinese companies would either step up their quality (in exchange for higher fees) or lose business to companies that would comply. In some cases, the products could even be produced in North American factories.
It is up to those of us in OMBs and SLOBs to take this message to heart. When a large company wants you to bid for work, refuse to bid if you have to compromise ethical standards in order to get or keep the work. Make it clear that you are willing to work extremely hard to get your costs down and your output up, but you are not willing to mistreat your employees or the community where you operate. There is a good chance that you will lose some big-business customers to foreign suppliers. Even so, take a stand and make it public. Make it a part of what you do and the way you present yourself and your business.
“Joe’s Upholstery uses only the finest materials, assembled by our highly-skilled workforce, right here in Pinon Hills, California.” Be sure to emphasize your local workforce, even if your only “employees” are your children Joey and Anna. Emphasize the quality of your work, but don’t make it just a slogan–make sure you really do produce a good product or service and price it fairly.
It also takes a commitment to bring your pocketbook in line with your principles. If big-name retailer violates your principles, you are going to have to stop doing business with them (and their “business club” subsidiary), even if it means you’ll have to pay a little more for what you buy. If other suppliers violate your principles, you are going to have to stop doing business with them also. It doesn’t have to be immediate, nor does it have to be ironclad. If your plumbing requires a plunger at midnight and big-name retailer is the only place that is open, go buy yourself a plunger.
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Posted in General Management, Small Business at 1:34 by lnxwalt
Today, while I am away working on the East Coast, I got called about something I had put in for at home on the West Coast. While there is no assurance that it will work into something for me, it does point out the reality that no matter what someone tells you, all jobs are temporary. A wise man keeps that in mind.
You and I need to always be working on what is next. When the “next” thing comes along, it may not be the expected thing, but it is probably going to be something that got started because you were willing to try new things and break out of the mold.
OMBs and other SLOBs [Owner-Managed Businesses and other Small, Locally-Owned Businesses] may find their whole mission changes–as Force Protection Inc, formerly Sonic Jet Performance Inc, found out–or the owner may move into and out of external employment. It is important that SBOs [Small Business Owners] recognize this and plan for the possibility.
What you do not want is for your current project (business, employment, or whatever) to end without you having any idea about what is ahead.
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07.29.07
Posted in General Management, Small Business at 15:56 by lnxwalt
In Overloaded With Gimme Gimme, I responded to a discussion currently going on about how valuable social networking sites are. Let me expand upon a few ideas here.
In the real world, people get up in the morning, rush out the door, spend an hour on the road, and are working for the next ten hours, before spending another hour on the road to get back home. In many cases, they also juggle family schedules, having to have someone home with dinner in time to feed the kids and pets. There is precious little time for juggling lists of “friends” and requests for help with some issue that does not touch their lives yet. This is because most Americans work in the physical world and have to spend their work time doing productive things (productive as in “makes more money for the company”), rather than playing with the latest social networking site.
Only the guy in the corner office of the tenth floor has time to practice his putting while he’s on the clock. The rest of us have a huge hole in our days where (no matter how much we’d like it to be different) we have to be productive.
Maybe I don’t get it because I don’t trawl Facebook and LinkedIn trying to gather employees or clients or interviewees. If I was doing Robert Scoble’s type of work, it might be advantageous to spend much of my day collecting “contacts”. There might even be some advantage for a job like the one Jason Calcanis has, although even he questions whether it is worthwhile in the light of the time it takes to manage contacts on such sites. James Robertson says it has to do with your popularity, with highly popular people having the largest number of extraneous “friendship requests”.
One thing is sure: I have enough to deal with just trying to maintain contact with people I already know without the added pressure of people wanting to add you because of what you can do for them.
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