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Entrepreneur.com: Latest Articles

Unstoppable Moms

Posted: December 30th, 2008, 6:00am CST

Feeling afraid and overwhelmed? Let these successful women who overcame significant obstacles inspire you.
Unstoppable Moms

Posted: December 29th, 2008, 6:00pm CST

Feeling afraid and overwhelmed? Let these successful women who overcame significant obstacles inspire you.

Leadership Turn

Leading On The Road To Hell

Posted: November 21st, 2008, 5:30am CST by Miki Saxon

I’ve come to the conclusion that the road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions; it’s paved with ”leaders with intentions”—good, bad or indifferent.

I figured this out based on media coverage of leaders. After all, have you ever seen a media treatment of a follower?

Media co-opted ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ decades ago and increasingly diluted the meaning until it disappeared.

Along with dilution, the media gave those they termed leaders the same treatment that was previously reserved for extraordinary athletes, celebrities and rock stars.

In doing so they created the monstrous, indestructible, uncontrollable ego found in every leader who bought into their hype; and reflected in compensation packages more fit for royalty than for business people.

And in case you haven’t noticed, you can find many of those massive egos in (surprise, surprise) investment banking, hedge funds, insurance and other sectors of financial services. But you knew that.

In fact, ego-mania has percolated throughout all industries, with little consideration for the size of the organization or its mission.

Further, in throwing the leader term around so loosely the media helped enlarge politicians’ already super-sized egos still more and extended the ego franchise to religious heads.

Not only are those egos super-sized, they also seem to be bulletproof.

How many of these ‘leaders’ have actually taken responsibility for what they’ve caused?

Have you seen them apologizing for their share of bringing down the global economy? Did I miss it? Boy, I hope you Tivoed it for posterity.

But the media’s gone pretty silent on the subject; lauding corporate heads seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird. But dodos aren’t the only extinct bird, the phoenix is, too. And like the phoenix, media leadership hype will rise again just as soon as we all forget—which, unfortunately, we will and that’s a historically proven fact.

By the way, I’m not the only one; Jim Stroup noticed the silence, too, only from a different perspective.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: sxc.hu
Tags: ego, Jim Stroup, leaders, leadership, media
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Businesspundit

Does a Potty Mouth Pay?

Posted: November 21st, 2008, 4:30am CST by Lela Davidson

As a partially reformed foul mouth, I’m always intrigued by cussing in the work place. For some businesses it’s obviously totally off limits. You can’t have the hostess at the Olive Garden telling you to sit your sorry a** down. However, in light of recent economic news, I can’t think of another time people would be tempted to let ‘er rip.

It seems the more intimate the setting, the more likely people are to use swear words. Or maybe it’s a generational/societal thing and we’ll all be swearing and thinking nothing of it soon. It’s a slippery slope. (I have to remind the neighbor kids that we don’t use frickin’ at my house.) Or maybe it just depends on the workplace.
What’s the Point of Swearing at Work?
I learned that you can always find another word to get your point across. But sometimes that’s just not true. Sometimes you want the wow factor of a cuss word. But as these words become more accepted, does the wow wear off? And then what’s left behind?

A lot of people believe swearing at work can improve morale? One 2007 study even ‘proved’ it. Have you ever felt a little closer to the boss after the dropping of an F-Bomb? A relaxed attitude can make people feel more comfortable, but does this lead to increased productivity or just a degradation of workplace civility?
Do Men Swear More Than Women?
More interesting is the difference between the sexes. Are guys more prone to cuss at work, or only in front of other men? When I was working for a big accounting firm I found out that certain partners communicated quite differently with the men than they did with the women. I never heard them utter anything improper. The guys, however, enjoyed a much less restrained relationship. I always wondered if that worked to my benefit or detriment. It would have been nice to cuss with the guys, but it was also quite pleasant to be spared from their uncensored frustration.

Do you use foul language at work and if so, do you have any self-imposed rules for doing so?

Image Credit: nyki_m, Flickr

The Bing Blog

A case study in executive stupidity

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 2:14pm CST by Bing
Just a question I’ve been thinking about since yesterday… What do you think the boys at the Big Three auto companies were thinking about when each took his own private jet to Washington to ask for help? A number of subsequent queries suggest themselves:
- Are they stupid?
- Assuming that they are NOT completely stupid, didn’t anybody consider this might not be the absolutely best move, at least in terms of the optics?
- If somebody DID think about it, did they voice the opinion and were then overruled?
- Why were they overruled?
- If nobody thought about it, WHY didn’t they? Granted, the thousands of dollars spent in this form of transport have no discernible impact on the billions that are under review, but still…
- If they were going to fly private, why didn’t they all go in ONE jet? Do they hate each other that much? Or couldn’t they agree on which jet they would take?
- Did they think nobody would find out?
- Why do senior officers of corporations get so out of touch? Is it a part of the job description, or do they devolve as they serve their terms?
- Do politicians fly commercial? If so, why don’t I ever see any?
- Are senior officers of Detroit auto companies considered part of Middle America?
- Should we blame an entire industry for the failings of its senior officers?
Tell me what you think.

Michael Geist's Blog

The Meaning of the CRTC Decision

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 12:17pm CST by Michael Geist

Mirko Bibic, Chief Regulatory Officer, Bell:

"With this decision, the Commission has rightly confirmed that network operators are in the best position to determine how to operate their networks effectively and efficiently, to allow fair and proportionate use of the Internet by all users."

Len Katz, Vice-Chair, CRTC:

"Someone told me Bell put out a press release that said the commission upheld its position that network management practices are a fundamental right of theirs. That's not what we said at all."

The Bing Blog

Shut it down. Now.

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 10:39am CST by Bing

It is my belief, based on a day-by-day analysis of the situation as it pertains to my own sector and the economy as a whole, that Wall Street should be shut down immediately and re-opened to people who can prove their sanity on January 2.

We don’t let people drive who are drunk. We don’t allow people to operate heavy machinery when they’re on psychotropic medication (except in California). Wall Street and its associated analysts, brokers, traders and investors are simply too stupid to operate at this point. So let’s not let them.

Everybody should take a month or so, celebrate the holidays with their families, take a look at the genuine value of the companies on the various exchanges, and then come back with a clear head. It’s hard to have a clear head when it’s shoved firmly into the darkest place imaginable. Let’s wait until we get a little light.

This is not an academic proposal. What we have here are a bunch of guys potted on fear, thwarted greed, grief and short-termitis, rampaging through the forest with shotguns. Not since Dick Cheney went duck hunting have we seen such danger to all in the vicinity.

Companies that are actually performing quite well are zooming down to incomprehensible lows, with market caps lower than the value of the real estate on which their operations perch. Anybody with half a brain is sitting things out until the madness is over. This leaves those with less than half a brain on the field.

Let’s send them all home. Now. Let the season of cheer and good-fellowship start immediately. And take the guns out of the hands of these children.

Businesspundit

Y Would I Want To Work With Gen-Y?

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 10:07am CST by Drea

This is a guest post by Dr. Jim Anderson, who blogs at The Business of IT.

Just in case you’ve missed it, there is a major change happening in the workplace and it will end up affecting all of us. It turns out that the next generation of workers, Generation Y, is made up of 75 million folks who are between 16-29. Their arrival in the workplace means that all managers need to (1) be aware of it, and (2) start to change the way that they mange. Are you ready?

Many managers tell me that they don’t have time to worry about getting ready to manage Gen-Y’ers. Oh oh - this is no longer an option. In 2007 the Gen-Y crowd accounted for 25% of the work force and their numbers will only grow as the baby boomers start to retire.

Before managers start to despair about having to learn a new language in order to communicate with their staff, everyone needs to understand that Gen-Y brings a lot of benefits to the workplace. Specifically, the Gen-Y crowd comes to the workplace with tech-savvy skills, multitasking skills (hmm, is this good?), and networking skills. What this means is that Gen-Y has the opportunity to introduce real innovation into every workplace.

So what’s a manager to do? In order to both attract and retain the Gen-Y workforce, a manager is going to have to create new training and reward programs. Because of the way they have been raised, constant feedback is something that the Gen-Y worker is constantly looking for.

Motivating Gen-Y employees can be as simple as giving them more control over their jobs. Whereas previous generations of workers (myself included) were more than willing to sell their soul and put the workplace before friends, family, and personal health. Gen-Y workers will not be putting up with any this. Instead they are going to insist on being able to maintain a work/life balance.

Finally, having the ability to make an impact is critical to Gen-Y staff. The Gen-Y team wants to be able to see that their work is changing their world (in a positive way!) This goes hand-in-hand with the Gen-Y employee’s need to be constantly learning new things. If both of these needs can be satisfied at the same time, then a manger has a better chance of holding on to his/her staff.

It won’t be easy to be a manger who is in charge of Gen-Y’ers. However, every generation has had to deal with similar issues. The most important thing to remember is that Gen-Y has already landed in the workplace and so managers have the responsibility to change. The future is looking so bright that we may all have to wear sunglasses…

# # #

Dr. Jim Anderson has spent over 20 years working with a wide variety of IT firms from the very big to the very small. His insights into how to bring the separate worlds of business and IT together offer hope to firms everywhere who are struggling with this challenge. Dr. Anderson offers his insights on how to get these two different groups to work together for the betterment of the firm and its employees.

Get more information on both Dr. Anderson and this topic at www.blueelephantconsulting.com and www.thebusinessofit.com.

Startup Spark

Starting a Business isn’t Easy

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 8:27am CST by ShannonCherry

With a recession in full swing, I’m getting a TON of spam about how easy it is to start a busy and make tons of money.

Perhaps you are getting more than a few too?

It makes sense, as jobs dwindle and people become fearful, many preditors are jumping on board saying how easy it is to make money as a small business owner.

I’m here to tell you, it’s not.

I lnow people will say that you can get a loan or even an angel investor. But most people get their initial nest egg from F & F, that is, friends and family. Then, and only then, do a few angel investors step up.

But unlike most F & Fs, they will want to see the goods: you need to have a strong profile, show that your company is viable - and have an exit strategy all in place. (Read: you need to start your startup before an angel will take a look!)
Tags: , angel investors, cash flow in business, Starting a Business, startups
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Execupundit.com

Catching Slick

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 8:05am CST

Martha Lagace talks to Todd Rogers about being able to spot artful dodges. An excerpt:

"More troublingly, listeners preferred speakers who answered the wrong question well over those who answered the right question poorly," the authors note.

"In this research we find that, at least in part, people value style over substance because the style blinds us to the lack of substance," says Rogers.
A New B.A.

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 6:02am CST

This is funny stuff. A sample:

"Another first for Poppleton." Those were the triumphant words used by our Director of Curriculum Development, Janet Fluellen, as she announced the introduction from this September of a brand-new BA degree in Unemployment.

Speaking at a specially convened press conference in the atrium of the new Management Centre, Ms Fluellen explained that the move was a direct response to recent ministerial demands that university degrees should be made relevant to the current state of the British economy.
Quote of the Day

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 6:00am CST

When we were young, the countercultural people had long hair, no socks, and didn't trust anyone over 30. Now, we are the countercultural people.

- John Buck

Leadership Turn

Changing The Language Of Leadership

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 5:30am CST by Miki Saxon

For a long time now I’ve believed that the L word in all its forms has been abused and corrupted and I’ve haven’t been shy about saying so. Further, I hate words that are defined using variations of themselves. When that happens there is nothing concrete against which to check the meaning of the word or its usage.

I’m also not a lover of people who rant and whine about what’s wrong, but offer no ideas to fix the problem/situation.

So it’s time to start working on solutions.

Perhaps a new acronym would jump-start changing the career slant of ‘leader’.

That way we can offer leadership skills to all, so that they can indeed lead whenever it’s appropriate to the situation—leaders in the instance—instead of anointing a chosen few.

How about POF (person-out-front) to refer to someone at the front of the organization.

Or perhaps it would be better to use upper and lower case for the person in front who may or may not be a Leader, but is a leader.

For example, Richard Fuld is a leader, whereas Lou Gerstner is a Leader.

Of course, that may be worse, since people in those roles already consider themselves ’special’ and might start thinking of the likeness between god and God.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten, but I’m hoping that y’all, AKA, my brilliant readers, will add your ideas and suggestions.

Together we can make a difference.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: sxc.hu
Tags: leader, leadership, Lou Gerstner, Richard Fuld
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Michael Geist's Blog

CRTC Denies CAIP Application on Throttling, But Sets Net Neutrality Hearing

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 2:27am CST by Michael Geist

This morning, the CRTC issued its much-anticipated ruling in the CAIP v. Bell case, the first major case to test the legality of Internet throttling. The Commission denied CAIP's application, ruling that Bell treated all of its customers (retail and wholesale) in the same throttled manner. This points to the challenge in this case - it was not about discriminatory network practices per se, but rather about wholesale shaping in a specific context.

Bell comes out a winner in this round. The Commission found that there was network congestion due to P2P usage and that some network management is required to address it. Moreover, it rejected the competition concerns noting that there was no evidence that Bell's action had lessened competition and it concluded that reducing speeds does not rise to the level of controlling content.

While the CRTC's decision to permit Bell's throttling practices is disappointing in the short term - and seems to place Canada on a different track from the U.S. - the decision is not a total loss for net neutrality supporters as the Commission made a clear commitment to addressing the issue of net neutrality and network management in a formal proceeding in July 2009. Indeed, it is important not to lose sight of how much has changed in the past year.

Just over one year, I wrote a column noting the need for greater ISP transparency in the wake of Rogers' admission that it engaged in traffic shaping. At the time, net neutrality was viewed as a fringe issue in Canada without much political traction. In the span of 13 months, there has been a major CRTC case, a private member's bill on net neutrality, a rally on Parliament Hill, the emergence of BitTorrent as distribution tool for broadcast content, a more vocal business community supporting net neutrality, and a gradual shift of this issue into the political mainstream. In the United States, the change has been even more dramatic - an FCC ruling on the throttling activities, proposed legislation, the shift of net neutrality to wireless, and a President-elect who has been outspoken on the need to preserve net neutrality.

In other words, today's CRTC decision is not the final word on net neutrality in Canada, but rather the first word on it. The Commission itself has opened the door to broader hearings on the issue next year, which may come alongside the new media hearings that also offer the opportunity to raise net neutrality concerns. Moreover, if the Commission comes to the conclusion that these practices are consistent with current Canadian law, there is the likelihood of growing calls from within Parliament to change the law.

A year ago, the net neutrality debate focused on whether rules were needed. Today, the debate is changing from whether there should rules on network management to what those rules should be. In fact, the Commission notes that as part of the hearing it "will try to establish the criteria to be used in the event that specific traffic management practices need to be authorized." There is an emerging consensus on the easy issues - no content blocking and better transparency of network management practices (the CRTC today required Bell to provide its wholesale customers with advanced notice of its plans). We are in the early stages of the more difficult questions of what constitutes reasonable network management practices and the opening of a formal proceeding puts those tougher questions squarely on the table.
Update: The NDP's Charlie Angus responds. Coverage from the CBC, Globe, Toronto Star, and Ars Technica.

Scatterbox by Steven Silvers

The man behind Denver PR blog

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 4:27pm CST by Steven Silvers

The anonymous Denver PR Blog has been keeping up with the local flacks-and-hacks scene for a while now, rattling cages and dropping names with a compelling blend of relevance, insight and smarminess. Several people around town have guessed that I'm the author. I'm honored, but I'm not.

Denver PR Blog announces that his name will be revealed in the media on Friday. So I'll go ahead and break the ice.

Jeremy Story at Story + Welch Public Relations is a smart, funny PR guy. Welcome to the public, my friend.

. . . . . . . . .

Execupundit.com

Words Fail Me Dept: Making an Impression

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 2:06pm CST

When Derek Johnson was interviewing candidates for a marketing job at his tech company, one applicant arrived in a business suit. "It put us on edge," says Mr. Johnson, founder and CEO of Tatango.com. Mr. Johnson believed the job candidate was presenting a false image of himself. The suit, he felt, was tantamount to a lie.

If wearing a suit is a lie, is combing the hair a fib?

Would an ironed shirt represent repressive middle-class values?

Read the rest of Christina Binkley's article on employers who expect you to dress down.
Miscellaneous and Fast

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 2:01pm CST
- I somehow failed to grasp the deep and complicated meaning of this ad .
- Business Week finds that Japanese and Korean carmakers want a Detroit bail-out.
- George F. Will says let them go bankrupt. [HT: Robinson and Long ]
- Charles Murray on what happened to three good teachers.
- Cool Tools looks at the Death & Taxes poster.
- Fortune has a slide show of ten "new" gurus.
- Lego Lifestyle: Here's one fashion statement that will have your friends talking.

The Bing Blog

The great myth of Main Street

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 12:10pm CST by Bing

One of my very hostile but articulate readers, Mike from Spokane, gives me both barrels between the eyes this morning. I think Mike thinks I won’t publish it, because I’m a panty-waist business type swilling gin at breakfast. Here’s what he says:

Bing…with all due respect (as you recently stated to me), you have no idea what you’re frigging talking about. You, and corporate America, are so far removed from the realities of Main Street America, that you continue to confuse your personal financial comfort concerns with those of middle America.

I fully expect that you will delete all posts contrary to your limited and self-serving view, but at least you (or one of your corporate lackeys) will have to read statements that reflect what most of America regards as self-evident…that expanding and supporting corporate greed through taxpayer handouts for incompetence is no path out of the mess we’re in. Not much satisfaction from this end, but at least you, or one of your timorous syncophants, will know that your world has finally sunk below used car salesmen in terms of universal public esteem.

Finally, fearing being one step from flinging fries at the local ‘In&Out’ joint may play well while swilling $20 cocktails in some high-end Manhattan watering hole, but it is a daily reality for millions of Americans who invested billions in now collapsed 401K plans.

Mike, it’s always a pleasure to hear from you. But sometimes it’s hard to see things clearly with so much blood in your eye. I sent my corporate lackeys and timorous sycophants out of the room. This is between you and me.

First of all, this ”corporate America” that’s on a different plane that “Main Street America” is a myth. I have worked in theaters, as a cab driver, in small companies, large corporations and mega-watt global behemoths, and they are all the same. They are people working for a living. And in one and all, it’s the most dysfunctional that run the place. Whatever the gig, we work, we try to enjoy our jobs, and we go home. Guess where our homes are? Main Street.

Secondly, I come from Illinois. So I don’t want to hear a lot of pompous, self-aggrandizing bushwah about middle America, either. We all live here. We are all Americans. None of us are more American than any others. We are all equally American. Let’s move on.

I understand that you need to see people like me, because I sometimes wear a tie and work in an office, as rich, shallow mofos who deserve to be pilloried, in order to keep on feeling that righteous anger of yours. But in my opinion you’d do better to see all of us (except the very rich and unsuccessful putzes who whipped up this soggy mess) as citizens of the same troubled system. Everybody I know is very nervous about their jobs. Nobody I know has a pension. We worry about our stock price, and our families, and our friends, and what the hell is going to happen to us if the big companies that provide so many people with jobs aren’t helped out right now.

We don’t sympathize with the idiots who have gotten us all into such trouble. And we certainly don’t want THEM to benefit from any assistance that is given to these failing auto makers, banks, insurance companies, whatever. We just don’t want the entire ship to sink, taking the lives of all on board, because the captain and his crew are dolts, numbskulls and screw-ups, or because politicians, responding to the anger of their constituents, continue to follow instead of lead.

Take the miscreants out behind the barn! Line them up against the wall! Pepper them with heat-seeking projectiles! But when you’re done with that satisfying exercise, let’s try to save the American auto industry, the banks where we keep our money, and probably the mortgages of all those people who believed they could buy a home with no money down because a greedy guy in a suit told them they could.

Personally, at this point I’m not a big believer in the “free market” approach. It seems to benefit the guys in charge of the marketplace. And that’s not us. And by “us” I mean we, the people. And by the way: MY 401K blows, too.

Thanks for writing, Mike. Say hi to Spokane.

Execupundit.com

Quality Update: Trillin on BBQ

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 10:52am CST

Writing in The New Yorker, Calvin Trillin looks at the complexities of naming the best Texas BBQ place in the world. An excerpt:

I had never heard of Snow’s. That surprised me. Although I grew up in Kansas City, which has a completely different style of barbecue, I have always kept more or less au courant of Texas barbecue, like a sports fan who is almost monomaniacally obsessed with basketball but glances over at the N.H.L. standings now and then just to see how things are going. Reading that the best barbecue in Texas was at Snow’s, in Lexington, I felt like a People subscriber who had picked up the “Sexiest Man Alive” issue and discovered that the sexiest man alive was Sheldon Ludnick, an insurance adjuster from Terre Haute, Indiana, with Clooney as the runner-up.

Lessig Blog

Jonathan Coulton on CC

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 10:29am CST

From the CC Blog:
The ever innovative Brooklyn-based singer songwriter Jonathan Coulton has teamed up with Creative Commons to release his greatest hits compilation “JoCo Looks Back” on a 1gb custom Creative Commons jump drive to help support our 2008 campaign. If that weren’t enough, JoCo and CC have also included all of the unmixed audio tracks for every song on the drive. That’s over 700mb of JoCo thing-a-week goodness. Since all of JoCo’s music is released under our Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, this is an incredible opportunity for the public to remix and reuse his fantastic music. Song files are in 320kbps MP3 and unmixed audio tracks are in 256 VBR MP3.

We’ll be offering the drives exclusively at our $50 dollar donation level (and above) until December 31st. Also included are a CreativeCommons.net account, an OpenID identity, and a 2008 campaign sticker.

Jonathan also wrote a wonderful commoner letter speaking on how he, as a musician, uses Creative Commons to support himself and his career. Read it here.

The letter is just about the most moving CC writing I've seen.

Businesspundit

Brands are Dead

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 10:06am CST by Drea

This is a guest post from Dim Bulb’s Jonathan Salem Baskin.

Along with the crisis in financial markets, there’s another ugly truth we need to admit: brands are dead, and it’s time for marketers to admit it.

Nobody carries brands around in their heads. Nobody has a relationship with a brand. Or lives a brand lifestyle. Brands aren’t conversations, and they’re not bought, possessed, or coveted. Companies don’t own them. Neither do consumers or shareholders.

Of course, if asked, most people can freely associate words with a name. Conversely, all of us can remember a funny commercial or mascot, even if we can’t connect it to a product or service. And everyone has opinions about marketing, primarily because it intrudes on our every experience.

But brands are simply irrelevant in a world wherein people know that one airplane seat looks like another, different clothes and PCs are made in the same factories overseas, and that most companies expect customers to help themselves. Or when price and availability matter.

In such times — just like in any times, really — human beings make purchase decisions based on their own experiences of real life, not on the imagined associations of brands. The Internet allows us to amplify the facts, opinions, and experiences of our lives, and elevates them to the role of qualifying, advising, and informing our choices.

We attach meaning to brand names, not the other way around. And we do it through the 24/7, real-time experiences of living. Companies can’t rely on hype, logos, funny creative, or any technological invention to influence, let alone overcome or control, what consumers know, think, or feel.

It’s wishful thinking to believe otherwise. It’s also unsustainable.

Those many billions of dollars spent this year in doomed hope that branding will somehow, sometime, somewhere, get consumers to ignore what they already know, and do something different? Don’t expect to see those budgets next year. I think the brand marketing world is destined for a whole lot of hurt.

Are we equipped to deal with it?

Or will we continue to make sure that there’s no shortage of newfangled ideas, mostly intended to distract consumers instead of interrupting them, and always staying far away from actually selling them anything? Will it be enough to repeatedly resurrect in social media, games, and other tools of technology the voodoo tenets of brands that were invented in strange, distantly different times (i.e. the Dark Ages of the mid-20th Century)?

Nope. I think we need to admit that brands are dead, and start asking different questions of ourselves before the answers get handed to us by our companies and clients. It’s not going to be tolerated any longer for us to pretend that they just don’t ‘get’ branding.

Well, neither do consumers. And that means we won’t get our budgets, or keep our jobs, next year.

As it stands now, the upcoming holidays and 2009 will not be a banner year for the branding racket: budgets will be smaller, patience will be shorter, and trust will become even a rarer commodity. Marketers will spend more time talking — participating in more conversations with consumers — yet reputations, purchases, and loyalty won’t necessarily follow, even as the pressures of the latest recession mount.

Why aren’t alarms being sounded? Where’s the soul-searching about the very foundations of how we define brands? Where is the Manhattan Project, sponsored by Brandweek (or some such other industry rag) challenging marketers not to find more proof for what they hope is true, but rather building entirely new models of what brands are, what they do, and then how they’re measured?

Think reality…financial measures that have existing credibility with businesses, and not more made-up numbers or acronyms that only we understand…and start thinking about awareness, intent, and the other intangibles as the tactics of branding, while seeing the behaviors they prompt as the brands themselves.

Again, where’s the siren call to action? Instead of finding new ways to do the same old stuff, you’d think somebody would be advocating doing something truly new. Loudly. Incessantly.

I don’t presume to have the answer. But you don’t have to be a dim bulb to wonder why aren’t more people asking the question.

# # #

Baskin is the author of Branding Only Works on Cattle, published in late September by Business Business Plus. He is a columnist for Advertising Age, blogs at Dim Bulb, and consults worldwide with businesses on getting something tangible for branding.

Michael Geist's Blog

Copyright Reform Back on Legislative Agenda

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 7:29am CST by Michael Geist

The Governor-General is currently reading the Speech from the Throne, which sets the forthcoming legislative agenda, in the Senate. The speech unsurprisingly includes reference to copyright reform:
Cultural creativity and innovation are vital not only to a lively Canadian cultural life, but also to Canada’s economic future. Our Government will proceed with legislation to modernize Canada’s copyright laws and ensure stronger protection for intellectual property.
The speech disappointingly does not reference anti-spam legislation, despite a commitment to introduce anti-spam laws during the election campaign.

Execupundit.com

Modern Pirates

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 6:34am CST

This Wall Street Journal editorial on the importance of confronting piracy almost seems like a voice from the past.

Writing in The Atlantic Monthly in 2003, William Langewieshe described the sophisticated operations of modern buccaneers:

The new pirates have emerged on a postmodern ocean where identities have been mixed and blurred, and the rules of nationality have been subverted. Scornful of boundaries, they are organized into multi-ethnic gangs that communicate by satellite and cell phone, and are capable of cynically appraising competing jurisdictions and laws. They choose their targets patiently, and then assemble, strike, and dissipate. They have been known to carry heavy weapons, including shoulder-launched missiles, but they are not determined aggressors, and will back off from stiff resistance, regroup, and find another way. Usually they succeed with only guns and knives. Box cutters would probably serve them just as well. Their goal in general is to hijack entire ships: they kill or maroon the crews, sell the cargoes, and in the most elaborate schemes turn the hijacked vessels into 'phantoms,' which pose as legitimate ships, pick up new cargoes, and disappear.

Michael Geist's Blog

CRTC Bell - CAIP Throttling Decision Tomorrow

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 6:30am CST by Michael Geist

The CBC reports that the CRTC will release its much anticipated decision on Bell's throttling practices on Thursday morning.

Leadership Turn

Wordless Wednesday: The World Today

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 6:00am CST by Miki Saxon

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Execupundit.com

The Bright Boys

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 6:00am CST

They're very bright boys and they went to the right schools and they can haul out the decision trees and the research and their buddies in think tanks but when you peel away the veneer it is not unusual to find that their opinions on overall strategy are not as wise as the quick take of the cashier at the grocery store or the character in the barber chair and indeed are often far worse.

Many of them know clever and eloquent ways to fail. Their best trick, however, is falling forward so they somehow emerge with their careers intact. They can do this despite the promiscuous fathering of disasters and scandals that would condemn the average person to exile and repentance.

This resilience shouldn't surprise us, of course. After all, they're very bright boys.
Quote of the Day

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 5:57am CST

[Modern man] struggles with the paradox that total immersion in matter unfits him how to deal with the problems of matter.

- Richard Weaver

Consultant Blog from ConsultantJournal.com

Daily fees for a consultant

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 2:00am CST

Small Biz Survival

Our best Accounting Basics articles

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 12:52am CST by Becky McCray
Accounting and finance is one of those topics no one likes to deal with. Except us. We like to talk about it because we (Maesz and I) do it, and we teach it. We've written a series of articles on accounting and bookkeeping, and here are some of our better items.
While you're reading up, don't miss:
- The "What qualifies as deductible?" list in Checklists for starting your first business
- Tips for tracking details in QuickBooks if you are a QB user
- The link to Gina in How to organize your business accounting records
- And Maesz' post direct from the IRS on How to keep good tax records
One parting piece of advice:
Don't ignore the bookkeeping just because you don't like to do it.
That's all too common, and all too deadly.

New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

Execupundit.com

Knight But No Gentleman

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 5:38pm CST

V.S. Naipaul is not a very nice man. Of course, if you've read his novels you may have suspected that, but this recent authorized biography shows that he wants us to know it.

His one-time friend and now-enemy Paul Theroux believes he may have been too kind to the old monster when he wrote about their feud:

Now French’s biography amply demonstrates everything I said and more. It is not a pretty story; it will probably destroy Naipaul’s reputation for ever, this chronicle of his pretensions, his whoremongering, his treatment of a sad, sick wife and disposable mistress, his evasions, his meanness, his cruelty amounting to sadism, his race baiting. Then there is the “gruesome sex”, the blame shifting, the paranoia, the disloyalty, the nasty cracks and the whining, the ingratitude, the mood swings, the unloving and destructive personality.
Reptilian Marketing

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 3:35pm CST

Agree with him or not, Clotaire Rapaille is one of the most interesting thinkers out there.
Darwinist Dating

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 2:00pm CST

Earlier this year, I published an article in City Journal called “Child-Man in the Promised Land.” The piece elicited a roaring flood of mailed and blogged responses, mostly from young men who didn’t much care for its title (a reference to Claude Brown’s 1965 novel Manchild in the Promised Land) or its thesis: that too many single young males (SYMs) were lingering in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood, shunning marriage and children, and whiling away their leisure hours with South Park reruns, marathon sessions of World of Warcraft, and Maxim lists of the ten best movie fart scenes.

Read the rest of Kay S. Hymowitz on love and Darwinism.
Airflow Style

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 1:55pm CST

Donald at 2Blowhards looks at the Airflow automobile styles of the thirties and forties.

Nice stuff. There's not a car featured that I wouldn't want to own.

The Bing Blog

Victory at sea

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 1:33pm CST by Bing

Yesterday Mr. Paulson told Congress that the bailout was working and that he was “very proud of the decisive actions by Treasury, the Fed and the FDIC to stabilize our financial system,” adding, ”We have done what was necessary as facts and conditions in the market and economy have changed.”

I am put in mind of two things.

The first is what happened when this nation finally found it impossible not to exit the War in Vietnam. Given a number of other alternatives that would not have played very well in the media, the Nixon Administration simply decided to declare victory and go home. The guys who didn’t believe we had actually achieved victory weren’t fooled. Those who wanted to believe we had in fact done so were mollified somewhat. And we did what we did. So it’s kind of like that.

The second thing Mr. Paulson’s statement conjured up, like a madeleine dipped into a glass of tea, was something said by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the middle of the worst part of that same war, well before it was coming to its eventual denouement. ”War is over if you want it,” they said. Of course, it wasn’t. It was just a slogan… propaganda… but since John was a smart guy, I always believed that he was sort of saying that intentions and positive thinking sometimes yields results. So… right on, Mr. Paulson. Power to the people and all that.

Except not. Because on Monday, that very same Mr. Henry Paulson told the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council that he intended to keep the more than $400 billion left in the bailout fund in reserve. He said, somewhat in line with his statements to Congress, that things were going well, that the economy was stabilizing, and that, now that the banks and AIG (AIG) are partially taken care of, he’s going to leave it up to the Obama administration to figure out what to do with the rest of the dough. So no handouts from Paulson for GM (GM), which employs all those poor people, and no immediate money for anybody else, either.

This disappointed me. I was so looking forward to my share of the payout just in time to save Christmas. Weren’t you?

Businesspundit

Bush to Pass the Buck on Bailout Decisions

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 12:37pm CST by Lela Davidson
MSNBC reported this week that the Bush Administration will leave at least half of the $700 billion bailout fund for President Elect Obama’s people to deal with. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has stated that he intends to leave $350 billion of the funds to be distributed according to the wishes of the incoming Obama administration.

Remember when passing this act was so urgent they were freaking out about waiting ‘until Friday’ to pass it? Remember when it was so urgent John McCain suspended his campaign to get in on the conversation?
I guess it wasn’t all that urgent after all. Or was the mere idea of economic stability the urgent component?
(Of course, this was all leaked on the condition of anonymity as the sources were not authorized to disclose the information.)
How to Spend $700 Billion
It may not be that Paulson and company aren’t interested in spending the money. They just might not have time to get it all done by Inauguration Day. According to MSNBC the bailout money is available as follows:
- $250 billion available immediately
- $100 billion can be spent without congressional approval
- $350 billion can be spent only with Congressional approval
Give Windows 7 Away for Free

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 10:05am CST by Drea

This is a guest post by Robert Barr of BlabrMouth.

The scene: a nondescript office campus in the Seattle suburbs. It’s long past midnight but headlights from a late night coffee run enter the parking lot while assistants and interns scramble about inside.

In a large conference room that appears to have been the scene of many a recent strategy session, pizza boxes and Starbucks cups overflow a single trashcan in the corner of the room. The whiteboard is littered with numbers so large and formulas so complex that a team from NASA will be needed to calculate the totals. A few remaining people surround the conference table while one man stands at the head and listens to each point and counter-point.

If you guessed the company in question is Starbucks trying to figure out a way to sell us $4 lattes again, you’re wrong. The coffee run should have been a clue.

If however, you said Microsoft, then you are correct. But what’s keeping Steve Ballmer up on this night?

Select from the following list of choices:

1. Steve and team are deciding on a real drop dead date to kill off XP
2. Steve is signing off on an ad campaign to counter Apple’s…that works
3. The team is finalizing the details for Bill Gates return to Microsoft to save all the softies from mass extinction
4. Steve is evaluating another bid for Yahoo
5. None of the above

While all could be true, the correct answer is E, or none of the above.

So what is it, you ask? The answer is going to require you to suspend disbelief from this point forward. We all know (thanks to Apple) that the Windows Vista adoption has been quite unimpressive. In fact, Vista has been so disappointing that Microsoft continues to keep XP on life support.

This leads me to my point

The release of Windows 7 will be make or break for Steve Ballmer. It will be Steve who takes the accolades or the arrows for this launch.

Sure, Gates still hangs around the place like the crazy old uncle that stays too long at Thanksgiving, but Windows 7 is Steve’s baby. This is why he should do something completely unheard of at Microsoft. Something so outlandish, it borders on insanity.

Give Windows 7 away for free!

That’s right, give it away. Microsoft has spent the better part of ten years trying to fashion themselves after Google, while Google in turn has been zeroed in on Microsoft Office.

We are all aware that Google is the king of online advertising. Microsoft has wanted to compete in that space forever, which is why giving away Windows 7 makes so much sense. Let’s look at the numbers; Microsoft’s operating systems are on 90% of the world’s computers, or roughly one billion machines. That’s penetration on a massive scale. Even Google has to be impressed.

So give Windows 7 away for free as an ad-supported operating system using the Microsoft Ad Center network. That would mean Microsoft serves ads on a billion machines versus the twelve people that currently use MSN. Besides, free is an incredibly seductive word to IT departments, who just had their wishlists pushed back two years in the wake of the recent financial meltdown. Just in time for the launch of Windows 7!

Point being, Microsoft generated $17 billion in profits last year selling software the same way they have for 30 years. During that same time Google made $4 billion and has been developing an ad-centric operating system that will not only compete, but dominate if Microsoft doesn’t market software differently than they have in the past.

Is this model possible? Can Microsoft adopt an ad based operating system and make it work? Do you think it’s even up for discussion out in Redmond? The whole idea makes me think of the line from A Christmas Carol when Scrooge asks the ghost of Christmas future; “are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they

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