The Power of the Influencers

Engadget just reported that AT&T caved in to pressure, either real or perceived, from iPhone customers and has opened the upgrade window for those who are upgrade-eligible to the new iPhone 3G S (including yours truly) to tomorrow.  Now I can sign up for some more Apple-y goodness and AT&T keeps me more than happy.  There has been some whinging that it's just for these Apple fanboys and their patron saint, St. Steve, but I think this is a shrewd move.  People aren't used to having to wait for anything other than the masses to get their Apple products, and there was an undercurrent of "AT&T is awful" at WWDC.  Because of that, for AT&T to offer a mea culpa and give Apple's loyal (and vocal) customers a bone is a big thing for them.  I'm sure it will help when it's time to renew their contract with Apple and keep the exclusivity that is really a no-brainer for both parties until LTE comes out and Verizon moves over (because there's no way Apple will build a niche product like a 1xRTT iPhone when so few cell customers use it).  Maybe it will help people be a little less critical of AT&T (I know that's their hope), and I know that that's the case with me.  They've been about as good as I can expect, and I certainly wouldn't jump ship to Verizon unless they got iPhone exclusivity and I couldn't unlock that bad boy.

The End of the V-8

 

The government has decided to mandate a fuel economy increase of 40% by 2016.  While this is feasible, it's going to rapidly change what we are able to buy.  The revived Camaro, Mustang, and Challenger are going to have to trim down, while we completely reverse the horsepower trend we saw throughout the 90s.  My 298 hp V-6 G-35 will not survive, nor will any of the high performance vehicles from BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, and Infiniti.  Here's what I see happening:

The first thing that carmakers will do is decrease the engine size in cars.  That's a cheap and easy way to increase fuel economy, even though it negatively impacts consumers.  We won't be able to buy a BMW 335i anymore, instead we'll see a return to the BMW 318i, which would almost halve the size of the engine.  Likewise, all of the performance cars will lose some weight and lose a lot of engine.  Because engine size is a very good match to fuel burn, we'll have to see a lot more 4-cylendar engines replacing the V-6s and V-8s that we've been used to.

We could see an uptick in sales as cars are redesigned.  If I want an M3, I'd better buy it immediately, because it's not going to be nearly the car it is now in 5 years.  We'll see a decrease in vehicle size as fewer land yacht-sedans like the Grand Marquis and Cadillac DTS are produced.  We'll also see cars get more expensive as car companies use exotic materials like aluminum, titanium, and carbon fiber to keep their mandated rigidity and safety but lose weight so that their engines don't have to work as hard to move the car forward.  We'll also see gas prices stay relatively low because gas demand will decrease.  That's not to say that we won't see spikes here and there, but we won't see a super spike that then stays high.  We will also see a lot of modern classics, just like we had at the end of the 70s.  These modern day muscle cars will be loved and revered for generations to come.  We may also see the return of the Citation, which would be just amazing.

15 Minutes Could Buy You Better Advertising

There are some companies that just annoy me.  For whatever reason, be it lousy customer service, allegiance to some sort of ridiculous something-or-other, or bad advertising and branding, they just grate on me.  One of these companies is Geico.  It's not that their gecko has gone from an Queen's English speaking lizard with a beef against people calling him rather than Geico to a cockney accented spokesanimal talking about just how great it is.  It's not that the cavemen are doing whatever it is that they do.  It's not even that they have a spokesman that does nothing other than sit there.  It's that they have all of the above at the same time.  It's so schizophrenic that it drives me up the wall.  It was bad enough when they just had the caveman and gecko, but it seems like someone was sitting around in their marketing department trying to justify their salary.  I can imagine the conversation with his supervisor after he spent all of a minute and a half thinking .
Marketer: Sir, I think that I've got a brilliant idea of how we can up our advertising.
Boss: Okay Jim, what is it?
M: What if we got a new spokesman?  The gecko and the caveman are a bit long in the tooth.
B: Fair point.  So we'd replace them with something new?
M: No, we'd add something and keep the others around.
B: Why would we do that?  Isn't that too many options?
M: Car insurance has lots of options, so our marketing should too!
B: Fair enough.  So what's this new mascot?
{pause as the marketer pulls out 2 small stacks of bills and a pair of googly eyes and places them triumphantly on the boss' desk}
B: BRILLIANT!!!

No, not really...anybody could do that.  I've got a DVD case, maybe I could slap some wax lips underneath it and have it become DVD man, which would help people save on their DVD purchase.  Columbia House, the offer is open if you want the idea.

Reading, 'Riting, 'Rithmatic, and Recess

The New York Times had an article today about how...wait for it...recess is actually good for students.  I have seen schools tighten down ever harder on students to get them to buckle down because we're falling behind the Chinese or the Indians or the Japanese or the (insert current cultural bugaboo here).  Are our test scores comparatively bad?  Absolutely, you can't question the emperical data.  At the same time, our cultures are completely different, and ratcheting down the curriculum isn't going to change anything.  If we want to score better on tests, we teach to the tests.  At any rate, I think that this study proves what 3M, P&G, Google, and a host of other companies have already come to recognize - you get more out of your people when you give them some relaxation time.  By taking away the recess, be it in school or at work, you're going to have less productive workers because they need that break every so often to get out of a problem they're working on, clear their mind, get some blood flowing, and then get back and tackle the problem. 

The Stupidity of Compensation Caps

The Wall Street Journal has done a great job covering the ongoing evolution of TARP, from its genesis at the collapse of Lehman Brothers up to and including today.  What I find amazing is how the government decided that it is now in their best interest and within their power to put in place whatever caps they deem fit for companies.  There is the much publicized $500,000 salary cap for executive pay for companies who take any additional TARP funds, but there are also revelations like the Treasury doing everything they could to force Bank of America to take on Merrill Lynch, regardless of Merrill's financial health. 
Then there's also the hand wringing about Citigroup's jet, BofA's fleet, Citi Field, apartments, junkets for high performers, and so on.  While I agree that some of these things are superfluous, some are necessary for their business.  Take AIG, the (now) government owned insurance and lending giant.  We hear about junket this and business trip that, and how can they afford to do that, they've lost billions.  Yes, they have lost a lot.  At the same time, the units that had these lavish parties - American General insurance, ILFC (a major aircraft lessor) - are units that are very profitable.  If that's the case, is the cost of these junkets really that big of a deal?  If the executives of these units feel that there is a good return on investment as a result of this (and knowing a thing or two about ILFC's chief Steven Udvar-Hazy, there is), shouldn't the government do what any good shareholder would do - shut up and let the managers manage? 
Ultimately, the way these bailout stakes are structured is as investments - ownership of large blocks of stock.  The #1 rule of stock ownership is to not write a letter to the CEO of the company you own every time something happens.  If you don't like the job that the CEO is doing, you get enough votes together to have enough board sway to replace the CEO.  That won't happen under the current structure in part because from the sound of things, nobody wants to have the government up in their business.  These leaders would be happier without the TARP money and are trying to get it paid back as soon as possible so they can take off the handcuffs and get back to doing business the way it should be done, rather than as a bloated, incompetent bureaucracy says it should.
Let's put this another way: who should we trust, people who year after year are trained to maximize profits and thus shareholder return in order to increase their company's share price, market cap, and market share...or people who continue to put money into a half a million dollar outhouse in Pennsylvania or the $650 toilet seat?

Marketing Democracy

I came across a very interesting book today called Greater Good.  The general idea behind it is that good marketing = good democracy.  I think that's incredibly intriguing, especially considering the amount of money that is spent on marketing here (and that doesn't even include the big push that the Pentagon has made into television stations and whatnot to try and win the hearts and minds of various peoples throughout the world).  Beyond that however, the authors take it up a notch and talk about how good marketing democratizes ideas and brings things to the masses that were heretofore unseen by most people.  A classic example that I am making up on the spot is where to travel.  Fifty years ago you'd go to England, Italy, France, or somewhere in the US.  Now there's an ever growing push to go to undiscovered areas - Croatia, Thailand, Turkey, or some really exotic locales like Albania, Kosovo, or Senegal.  This is done using marketing dollars to point people towards something unique.  It's the same with any number of inventions that we didn't know about until they were marketed properly - the PC in large part because of Apple's advertising the Mac and Intel advertising the microprocessor.  In turn, this has made the companies wealthy, which has helped the economy, which helps to shore up democracy with stability and prosperity.  Take a look at the Forbes excerpts for a lot more about it.  I never looked at marketing as something to expand democracy and make it better, but it seems like the more I think about it the more it makes sense.

Dis-AAdvantage

There are some things that I am very happy about. One is my family, one is my job, one is my life, and one is the fact that I didn't book my travels to this conference on American Airlines. Part of that is by virtue of Delta's hub in Salt Lake and part of it is because they chose not to participate in the "here's free status" program with the American Express Centurion card. Nevertheless, it's not been as crystal clear in ages that I made the right choice. They've canceled close to 3000 flights over the past 3 days (and 600 today) and displaced a ton of travelers. I can only imagine what it would be like to be sweating if my flight would make it so I could get home because half the fleet is down for maintenance. Mark my prediction: AMR (the parent company) will file for bankruptcy within 60 days of the start of this. You don't tick off a million travelers and get away with it.

Forro and Sorro Fisk Doug Warren

Utah Valley Magazine recently listed its "Fab 50" people in Utah Valley honoring those with "talent, character, and a sense of community." While the writer did an excellent job with each individual's excerpt, Sorro and I were left questioning at least one of the Utah Valley's "Fab 50".

Douglas Warren, No. 37 in the mag, is an infamous name 'round our office. A few years ago we had the "pleasure" of Doug’s “consulting knowledge". Hours of incomprehensible blather and countless dubious claims left Sorro and I of the opinion that a few minutes with Doug Warren is congruent to 15 years in Hell. (For a refresher course on what he taught us during his time at our company, see this post right here - and I wish I was exaggerating)

In any case the Utah Valley article brought Doug Warren back up on radar prompting a visit to his website http://www.mindovertime.com/. The website brought Sorro and I to tears of laughter and the realization that the "about us" section simply begged to be "fisked". Following is the "about us" section in its entirety and our accompanying comments.

In September 1951, I decided to go to war. My brother and a number of friends had enlisted and were already in the Korean War. They were fifteen or sixteen and had lied about their ages to join the 14 th Division that had been called up at the beginning of the Korean War. Aviation had been of interest to me, so I chose the Air Force and in September 1952, I arrived at Kaitue , Korea where I became the crew chief of a fighter-bomber for the commanding officer of our squadron. I had just turned eighteen.

Sorro: All crew chiefs are crew chiefs for the C.O. of a squadron. Also, I couldn't find any mention of Kaitue in Korea. Perhaps it's spelled wrong?

I came from a long line of business people who provided me the experiences of apprenticing with CEOs from the age of twelve. In this way they were encouraging me to pursue a career in business. However, while in the war I felt that politics was the way to make the greatest contribution. I decided that politics was what got us into wars and that it was also the way to get us out of them.

Forro: That is quite possibly the greatest summation of U.S. Foreign Policy that I have ever read...I believe President Clinton had a similar saying that went something like "politics is what gets me in and out."

This thinking led to taking correspondence courses in political science while still in Korea and upon my return, I secured a degree in political science and history and then pursued graduate work in law. It also led to involvement in political research and campaigning. In 1955 upon being released form the service I immediately joined Richard Nixon in his efforts to become Vice President under Eisenhower.

Forro: I'm sure Nixon appreciated the help considering he was elected into office with Eisenhower in 1952.

Sorro: I love this. I'm not sure what he did for Nixon, but I think he's talking about working on some level or another on the Eisenhower re-election campaign. Nixon was Veep at the time, so I think Nixon would be working on it too, as opposed to working on his VP campaign, as he wasn't being challenged by anyone.

My goal was to secure political appointments that would eventually lead to President of the Word Bank.

Forro: Ah yes, the all powerful "Word Bank". I think I read about that institution in The Phantom Tollbooth.

At that time I thought this position provided the greatest opportunity to help developing nations like Korea .

Forro: Supplying those nations with much needed words.

Sorro: I love that comment.

After finishing my college education and having held many positions in the Republican,

Forro: See, I told you it begged to be blogged.

I became very involved in Nixon's campaign for president. As part of this involvement I ran for the U.S. House of Representatives. During this period a very remarkable man became my research assistant. He spoke eleven languages and could read over twenty-one and was very accomplished researcher and historian. At that time he was a translator for the Pentagon. Upon telling him my concerns with world problems and my plan of action, he decided to help me. Nixon won the Republican primary nomination, as did I, and we were well involved in the general elections.

Forro: I've looked everywhere on the internet for any mention of Douglas Warren in politics, and I can't find anything...he does claim to be in the "who's who in politics" however.

Sorro: The question I have is what level he was involved on. Was it local, state, or national? I guess I could say that I worked on George W Bush's campaign, after all I slapped a bumper sticker on my car. As far as linking his Congressional run to Nixon, I tend to think that's not really the case. He ran because he was running, not because Tricky Dick said, "Doug, we need you here on the front lines in Congress."

As the campaign continued so did the research. It wasn't long before we found out what most people realize today. The special interest groups dominate the functions of government, causing our political system to function without conscience. The way we decided to prevent this from continuing was for congressman (who controlled the budget) to submit all major approbation bills to their constituents for a vote. This led to producing a campaign button, based on this idea, which simply stated, "I count". Powerful special interest groups forged an effort to defeat me. That along with the fact that there were 2 to1 registered Democrats in my District brought about my defeat. Nevertheless, Nixon won and I was well on my way to accepting the political appointments I had sought. Our research on solving world problems continued. My research assistant and I formed a pact. He would continue to do research on how to help cure world problems and I would try to implement whatever we discovered. By the time I was to receive the political appointment I was seeking, and the press conference was called where I was to announce my future plans much was discovered. As I prepared for the conference I looked at the world more objectively than I had ever done before. I could not help but see that the thing that doing good was simply teaching how to improve quality. What Japan was accomplishing in solving their economic problems by installing Total Quality Management (TQM) was dwarfing everything else and bringing about positive changes. Nobody was doing more good than those Americans who were installing TQM in Japanese companies.

Forro: "Installing TQM" sounds like some type of software or subtitle of a bad 80's porn flick.

Sorro: I like how he blames his defeat on Special Interests instead of on the fact that he ran as a Republican in a very Democratic district. It's like blaming Poland for starting World War II. If they didn't resist, Germany wouldn't have kept going, despite the millions of Germans ready to roll over Europe. Mentioning Nixon's win here leads me to believe that we've skipped the 1960s here and are now in 1968...what happened during that time since we're getting an unabridged biography?

They were turning a nation that had very little natural resources, most of their male population killed off, atomic bombs dropped on two of their major industrial cities, despised by the western world, and being known for their poor quality into one of the leading economic powers and political forces in the world. Even more startling was the sociological benefits that were occurring. They were producing the foremost educational system, the lowest divorce rate along with the lowest drug abuse and crime rate. All due in large part some determined and highly committed quality consultants.

Sorro: I would actually credit the Japanese with these successes, not the consultants. The revitalization of Japan after World War II is one of the great successes of the modern world, but it certainly wasn't brought about by consultants. Give some credit to Douglas MacArthur and SCAMP for what they did, some credit to the Japanese, and then after those two groups did the heavy lifting, Demming came in and helped Toyota and the rest. Also, I might mention that the reason the Japanese education system, divorce rate, and drug abuse/crime rates are as they are is because of the culture of Japan. The saying I heard more often than anything else there was "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down." That is a conformist society and it shows in all those statistics.

It was 1969 When I entered the lobby of the hotel where my press conference was being held I was directed to a seating area where I met J.C. Penny. He was also awaiting a press conference. There I asked for his advice as to how to best improve the world and he told me that the best way to improve the world was to improve business. So I took his advice and instead of accepting a position, I told those attending that my course of action was to pursue a career as a Quality Consultant. I have been pursuing that career ever since. I first joined a quality development firm that installed improvement programs. Then I formed my own firm that provided business development consulting and developmental research and expanded my operations to other major cities. That was followed by a decision to move near a major university where I could concentrate my time on discovering how the human mind works to produce improvements. I rightly thought if this could be discovered we could greatly accelerate our improvements. Much time has past since I began this pursuit, and it cost me much of my resources. Yet, I began this endeavor with the understanding that this could be the case and tried to prepare for it by putting together a real estate development, which I then sold to support my family of five children. However, right in the middle of my research, documentation, and writing, the party I sold my real estate interest to had a misfortune and went bankrupt forcing them to return my interest. Because they had placed a substantial mortgage on the property a great deal of reorganization followed where I was not able to free my interest to sell it. So, my wife and I were forced to suffer through it while I finished my research. Fortunately, I was able to compile enough information to finally discover how the mind basically works to produce improvements.

Sorro: Where's Steven Pinker when you need him? We have to get these two together.

At that point I was in deep financial sleights. I had to mortgage my home twice to keep going through the process of conducting case studies, getting my findings published in the form of a textbook, creating a streamlined TQM system for conveying my discoveries to people through organizations, and establishing a quality
institute to instruct, certify, and support leadership coaches in the implementation of this brand new quality initiative. The institute was incorporated as MOT-TQM, which stands for Mind Over Time-Total Quality Management. But, shortly after recruiting our first coaching candidates one of them pointed out that it was too long of an acronym and so we change it to simply MTI. MTI has the vision of establishing 1,500 Certified MTI Coaches throughout the United States and several thousand throughout the world. This position we feel is one that provides the most opportunity for bring about highly significant improvements and gaining great appreciation and recognition while providing a substantial income, personal and professional freedom, as well as growth. I am now turning sixty-nine years old. This has been a long and sometimes very difficult journey. Yet, it has been a good one, a successful one. Because I have discovered I have accomplished more in the past five years in every aspect of my life than I did in the previous sixty-three years.

Forro: 5+63, Leaving only one year not accounted for...

Sorro: This organization also provides the most opportunity for bring about changes in the English language with regard to that annoying suffix "-ing."

I expect to accomplish more in the next year than I did in the last five years. Those of you who become involved in MOT-TQM can look forward to that same achievement if not greater. Coaching MOT-TQM involves teaching highly important principles that not only produce greater productivity and quality but a higher sense of morality. They also teach principles that provide happiness.

Forro: Apparently he opted to switch back from MTI to the MOT-TQM acronym.

Sorro: Forro pointed out to me that he's pretty sure that our own A-Rod is the man who came up with the MTI acronym, as he was using MOT-TQM when we had to listen to his alternate history.

After thirty-six years of pursuing this career I have now written a number of related books and programs. It was only upon gaining the understanding that resulted from this research actually existed that I was able to write coherently about many important subjects.

Forro: I started to read his Mind Over Time book, and found it to be as about as coherent and grammatically correct as his web site. I made it a record 2 chapters in, beating Sorro who gave up around page 5. In later years I will probably regret the brain cells I killed trying to muscle through the book.

This led to writing a number of books. I feel three have significant importance. One on how the human mind works to produce quality, provide happiness, and fulfill our five hopes of being respected, joyful, loved, wise, and free. I titled it Mind Over Time and consider it of the highest importance, even imperative reading for everyone.

Forro: He writes about Mind Over Time as though it should be considered for canonization. Personally I found it about as important and imperative as reading the Mary Worth cartoon, although in fairness I only read a couple chapters.

Sorro: Is this the way that The Bible was presented to people after the Nicene Council? Constantine himself wouldn't praise it any more effusely than Warren is praising MOT.

It contains information that will greatly improve all aspects of our lives and will further peace throughout the world with every reader. I also wrote a history of why we need to be free and how we gained the freedom we enjoy. It is titled The Roots of the Constitution . The reading of this book can give the reader a wonderful perspective of what freedom is all about and the price we have paid for it and what we each can do to increase it. The third book is a historical romance novel. It presents many wonderful ideas and principles; in the context of what I believe is a truly beautiful story. It also provides a comparative history of the culture of northern Europe and native America .

Forro: Wait, I think I saw this Disney movie, Pocahontos, which sucked by the way.

Sorro: This is the first time I have ever seen a historical romance novel be considered on the same level as a Peter Drucker book or one of the great histories of the nation.

It uplifts our visions of what is possible. This novel takes place in the years around 1790's right after the signing of the Constitution of the United States of American.

Forro: Ok, I guess I was thinking something different. Pocahontos lived long prior to the forming of our great nation of "American".

Sorro: I love living in North American. God Bless the United States of American!

It presents an overall image of our great capabilities and moves us toward becoming our best selves. I have also written the lyrics and music of songs that go with the novel, which is titled Winds of Freedom . The sheet music for these songs, along with a CD, will be available through this website in the future. I believe these songs bring to it a great dimension. They give to the reader and listener a perspective and feeling that cannot be conveyed without relevant lyrics and music. A musical stage production of the novel is also underway as is a screenplay.

Forro: I would have thought that the "about us", which is a misnomer in itself, would have focused on persuading prospective clients rather than lengthy self-aggrandizing prose.

My professional life today is mostly focused on presenting. I am also continuing my research that is now greatly aided by MTI and its Coaches and their clients who provide a great deal of knowledge, experience, and in-depth information. My major topic is, of course, how the mind works to produce improvements, gain happiness, fulfill our primary hopes, build faith and remove fear so our ability to increase our awareness continues to grow. Beyond my speaking engagements and research, I am also involved in establishing national and local quality initiatives that apply MOT-TQM to entire communities and nations. And, I am writing a book on that subject and working on the two other history books one going back to 449 AD which was the beginning of England and the other going back to about 50 AD which was the time the people of northern Europe became known as Enges. If you have read this background, you may be about to read one of my books. My wish is that whichever one it is that it will open your mind to greater conceptions.

Sorro: I'm assuming these immaculate conceptions my mind will be opened to are the same tripe that he gave us when he "consulted" with us. Suffice it to say that Enges is a province in Switzerland, England as is currently known started in 1066 with William the Conqueror, and you will find neither of these books in any book store.

As it does I encourage you to commit to their realization regardless of whether you believe they are possible. Be assured that the tremendous capacities you have for improvement will be immediately go to work for you to make those visions real. As this takes place let each such improvement receive your gratitude. Thereby you will ever increase your happiness. Then let the hopes that this happiness nourishes give you the faith that will overcome all obstacles on your path to realizing all of your finest thoughts. By doing this you will be consistently motivate to better yourself and make the contributions you are capable of making in your quest to improve all that you will. One thing I know. We are all far more capable than we think. Even our finest visions of our capability fall short of just how much we can do to make our own lives and the lives of others more productive and happier . I believe as well that we can fully employ our present capability, even that we can add to it. Such greater dimensions are seen by many as impossible. Nevertheless, greater things than we have yet imagined are in the realm of reality for all of us. In Winds of Freedom , a novel I wrote I examine just a few of these. There is one thing that you can always count on, and that is that there always remains knew levels of awareness with respect to all things. If that were not so we would run out of improvements eliminating the possibility of happiness Upon forming the Mind Over time Institute I wrote the following mission statement, vision, and creed to clarify my commitments to its success. My commitment to you is that I will remain committed to these and support those that help in this effort in any way I can.

Forro: Doug, come on mate, you've got to pull your stuff together...

Sorro: Where is this mission statement? It just kind of trailed off here...

Am I Just Wrong?

I'm helping some people out with selling some products and they are trying to sell them to retail chains. It's a first attempt at that, prior to doing so they operated with just a web store. The head honcho is wanting to discount the CDs by 50% off retail price (giving the retailer a 100% markup margin) for them. I think he's an idiot. Instead we should be giving the retailer a 25-35% discount so they can then have a 50-60% markup margin in order to maintain pricing power. Who is right?

Best Ad Campaign Ever

This isn't best in the "man this is funny" sense, it's the best in that it is the most effective that I've ever seen. I first saw it in The Wall Street Journal several months ago and it immediately caught my attention. I didn't think much about blogging it until I went to Tim Sanders' blog and saw his mention of it. The company is called LifeLock and the ad is always a variation of this:
"I'm Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock, and my Social Security Number is 457-55-5462"
That right there is the single most amazing thing I've ever seen in an ad. He's placed his identity right out there in front of everybody in the world and dared them to steal it. That's how confident he is in LifeLock. While I haven't signed up for it, I'm downright tempted to and I certainly think that it's the best anti-identity theft program out there. Take a look at their TV commercial for a little taste of the actual ad:

Shelf Unreliable

One of the more ridiculous customer service snafus (a small tangent here - why is it that when somebody messes up it's a snafu, meaning the situation is normal from the US Army acronym SNAFU instead of a tarfu from the Army acronym TARFU - Things are really [fouled] up? Of course FUBAR has found its way here too for those situations like CompUSA.) that I have come across lately is thanks to local company Shelf Reliance. They make these can rotation products for food storage so you can rotate your cans and store them more effectively. It's a cool concept, and they charge a premium for it (north of 400 bucks for a modified Costco Gorilla rack). You'd think with that premium price, you'd get premium service, but that's not the case. One thing I will say about them is that they are very amenable and nice when I have talked with them, however apparently when I originally ordered one back on December 19th the delivery driver went and dropped one off at the wrong house (yup, no delivery confirmation for something of that price and size. I hope whoever got that enjoys their new Shelf Reliance!). My wife and I didn't know why it was taking so long to get to us when they are a scant 5 miles from our house, but figured they took the holidays off. I called them yesterday and they had their delivery guy come by our house that very day, which was great. The problem is that they gave us the wrong product! The actual frame was the wrong size, but the can guide inserts were the proper size. I'm seriously tempted to ask for free shelves or a discount on them or something like that for all the pain in the butt this has been. I fired off an email to the person I had been talking to last night when we got the delivery but haven't heard back yet. I will keep you informed on what happens.

A Whopper of a Lie

I can understand companies wanting to do the whole guerrilla marketing thing, after all it creates buzz. This campaign from Burger King, Whopper Freakout, might not be the best way to do it. You'll have to take a look to decide for yourself and it is getting buzz, but what is it really accomplishing? Annoying their customers? Now that's a place I would like to frequent!

This Song For Rent

The RIAA has long been one of my least favorite groups, but just when I think they can't get worse they do. Now they're trying to sell the idea that we can't time shift music to a judge. This doesn't just mean that we can't download songs off of sites like Kazaa, it means that in their legal opinion we can't burn CDs to our computers. Honestly, what is going on here? They opined back when they were fighting Grokster that we could do that and now because record sales are in the toilet (which I would say is because there's not as many good albums released now as there used to be) and they want to be known as more ham-fisted than the MPAA we can't copy our CDs without being criminals. It's clear that they believe that we have no ownership at all of the products we buy, we're merely renting the intellectual property until such a time that the CD breaks or technology moves on and then we should have to re-rent that.
Last time I checked, these products are made available for sale, not out of the goodness of the record labels' hearts for rent to anyone who wants them. If they want people to not be criminals, why don't they try not criminalizing our behaviors? While I have moral issues with stealing songs and whatnot, I think the more they treat their customers like criminals, the more they will become criminals. I have no problem sticking it to the man, in as moral a way as possible, because the man needs to be knocked down a few pegs. I'd love to see artists split from the RIAA and self-release music like the Eagles and Radiohead have done. Merely not buying music isn't going to stop the problem, it will only lead to them blaming us for their problems. If the artists, especially the big ones (U2, Coldplay, Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent, Kanye West, etc) jump ship, the labels will fail because their meal ticket is gone. I have no problem paying U2 for their music and the digital revolution, with iTunes and other digital middlemen mean that you still need promotion, but it's much easier and cheaper than it used to be. Touring will still be the backbone of support, but you don't need Columbia Records to make some marketing materials for you. Let's turn the system on its head and see what it does for everyone.

iEnvy 5 and Other Miscellania

I finally did it. After quite a while of desperately wanting an iPhone (for instance, see here, here, here, and here), I decided to take the plunge. Honestly, Steve had me at hello. The one thing that Apple does better than anyone else is make opening the product an experience. Everything is put together in a way that makes it quite exciting. It came almost fully charged right out of the box, I connected it to my computer, and a few minutes later I was ready to go with everything squared away. It's been absolutely delightful, even though I know it's been less than a day since I got it. Nevertheless, what a great purchase, even though I know it'll be obsolete come 6 months after this MacWorld.

CompUSA is officially going out of business. I can't say I'm surprised, nor can I say I'm sad. Good riddance to a company that was forever stuck 10 years behind what they were selling.

I hurt my back a week ago tonight and couldn't get off the ground for nearly an hour. I'm telling you what, a back injury is the worst thing in the world. Women can say it's pregnancy, but I'd have to disagree. Unless you're on bed rest or that pregnancy gives you a back injury. Then I'd probably agree. After suffering through 2 days of pain and not being able to put on my own pants (because muscle relaxers didn't do jack squat and neither did any pain meds - not that I wanted vicodin or anything like that, because I didn't want to do more damage because I couldn't feel pain), I went to a guy who practiced something called "Advanced Bio Mechanics." Look it up on the internet, I dare you. You won't find a thing. Perhaps you could Google "voodoo" instead, because that's essentially what it was. It was voodoo that completely healed my back! My pain went away and after the hour session I could actually put on my shoes and socks again. My wife noticed a huge difference too. We've referred like 10 people to this guy because for all the it shouldn't work that there is about it, it works.

Compudaisy?

I sure hope that this story from Engadget is accurate. CompUSA has officially made it to my dead to me list after thinking about doing it with my last trip there, and for it to not only be dead to me, but dead to the rest of the world is an encouraging development. Even Gordon Ramsay couldn't turn this place around, although if it were a restaurant he might have a fighting chance.

Compuganda

I will do almost anything in this world to avoid going to CompUSA, including and perhaps even beyond sacrificing a virgin to Ba'al. For a store that should be cutting edge they certainly don't act like it. I had to go there to get a Tungsten E2 and even though they use a commission system to compensate their floor reps it took 10 minutes of me standing there and trying to look perplexedly at the locked cabinet and at all the people who didn't want an easy sale. Finally someone came over, asked if I needed help. I said that I'd like to buy an E2. He didn't have the keys for the cabinet, so he had to go get them from somewhere. I won't fault the guy for that. He comes back, unlocks the cabinet, and gets the Palm. He then escorts me to the cash registers, none of which look like they're open, and asks if someone can help me. They come to the registers, and that's where the fun starts. Before she even can scan my device she needs some information. I'm not talking about a zip code. She asks me what the phone number is. I give our company phone number. She asks what name I want it under. I give our company name. Apparently that's not enough. She asks for my name. She then asks for my address and my phone number (again). After I give her a blood and stool sample to actually buy something, she has to scan the E2 about 5 times in order for it to come up on the register. I really think this might have been her first day. She manages to get that part of the transaction taken care of when the real fun begins. They have a promotion in their circular where you get a $10 gift card for every $100 spent in a single transaction. This is certainly the most perplexing promotion in the history of the world to these rocket scientists. They don't know how to apply the promo. The circular for CompUSA came out over the past weekend (it's now Thursday), it's on the front page and there isn't anybody in the store who knows how to do it. My cashier goes and asks her manager. The manager doesn't know, so they go up the food chain. She asks her supervisor and there's a whole conference going on up front. Every single person, except for the person in charge of business services...the only person in the whole store whos job it is to make checking out even more difficult than regular checkout (after all, nothing says service like a half hour checkout!), is conferring with each other. They finally decide they can't do much about it, so they go into the general manager's office. Unlike a typical day at CompUSA, there's actually 4 people in line behind me waiting. They've been sitting there for at least 5 minutes at the only open cash register. Finally one of the salespeople decides that they should probably help the other people because chances are they will all be checked out by the time my conundrum is figured out. My saleswoman comes back and it looks like we might have some success. My Palm is $199.99, so I ask if that counts for one $10 gift card or two. This throws her for a loop and she looks at me as though I had just landed from Mars. I ask again...I'm not speaking Chinese here. She says "just one" so I look right around the register for the cheap crap that can add a penny to my price. She again gives me that "now...waaaa?" look. I don't think anybody's tried to add an extra penny to their order to get a cool Hamilton. She backs away from the register and runs back to the GM. Meanwhile I look for something as close to $.01 as possible. She comes back after I scour the front of the store and tells me the first good news of this trip: I can get me another $10 without padding my reciept by a penny. She pulls out over 100 gift cards and asks me "which ones do you want?" I point at 2 random ones that are the same design. "Are you sure you want those? They're the same design." I say yes. Now comes another difficult part: applying those to the reciept. She only has to ask for help twice and get the regular manager to come back over to the register once. She gets them taken care of and I swipe my credit card. CompUSA finally has stopped needing an imprint of your credit card (thank heaven for small miracles), but instead of that she had to go over to a copy machine and (no joke) make a copy of my reciept. They have a copy machine set up in front of the store for occasions just like this where people buy something instead of looking and leaving. She copies my reciept, brings it back over and gives it to me. She then asks if I want a holder for my cards. I said no and finally left the store, a little under an hour after I got there.

They've been in serious financial trouble for a while now and it's not hard to see why. They've managed to turn one of the most simple concepts in retailing into a song and dance that is like nothing I have ever seen. While it's been bad before, it's never quite been like this. We'll see if I decide to make them dead for me because it's not worth an hour of my time to shop at an overpriced retailer when I can go to Newegg.com and get good service and better prices.

Jargonistic

One of the things that I hate more than just about anything is lame business jargon. I'll list a couple of my least favorite later on, but it's like kudzu. It's a weed that was introduced by somebody who thought he was clever or doing a good thing but that has long since destroyed creativity and direct speech. Instead of writing and/or saying what you mean, you run it into a translator that chops it up and adds a bunch of padding that destroys all semblance of a good idea. We're going over our Purpose/Vision/Mission here in our management meeting today and that's what got me thinking about it. A-Rod is the king of business jargon and to try to combat that, I did a google search for business jargon, which led me to here. Take a look, it's awesome. As for my least favorite terms:
Quick and Dirty: What would be a better term? Rough draft, something that's been around for ages. Instead, we end up with a deviant sex act in the boardroom.
Interface/Download/Upload: How about "let's talk?" Instead you make me rue the day computers were invented because you're talking like we're a machine and we're just sending data bits back and forth.
Benchmark: What the crap. How about you just say standard like a normal human being. Instead you have to try to adjectify a noun that has no business being adjectified. I know I just made up that word, but that's just too bad.

Playing To Your Strengths

After that incredibly annoying diatribe from the head of my organization (national lobbying organization, not the head of our company), we got an awesome speech from Marcus Buckingham. In case you don’t know who he is, he’s the co-author of two of the most influential business books of the past decade, First Break All the Rules and Now Discover Your Strengths. He’s got a new book out called Go Put Your Strengths to Work. I love listening to the major consultants – Jack Welch, Marcus Buckingham, Rudy Giuliani, Jim Collins, and even Stephen Covey. Why? For starters, they’re engaging. They do this for a living and it shows. They know how to use humor and everything in their bag of tricks for maximum play. Second, they have extraordinarily useful stuff. Buckingham talked about quite a few different ideas starting with working on your strengths instead of your weaknesses. Manage around your weaknesses and spend no more than 25% of your day doing things unrelated to your strengths. Essentially it’s almost an economic view on an individual level – if you’re the best at putting a widget in a car door and you love to do it, focus on that, don’t try to put a piston in a chamber. Put your widgets in and enjoy your life. There was so much more, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point you to his website and say take a look at all of that.

Red and Blue Light Special

Another day, another article from the Wall Street Journal. This one is about a reporter who accidentally switched prices on some things she bought from K Mart. It wasn't intentional - they didn't have any shoe boxes for their shoes, so she picked one that was the same size and as she walked out the door, they accosted her with a security guard who promptly detained her for an hour and told her in no uncertain terms to never shop there again. She, of course, complied with that request and also decided not to shop at any other K Mart.
Wasn't that the most self-destructive behavior K Mart could have shown? It's not like they're that great of a store to begin with, but to harass someone who just put down $800 for all kinds of clothing and other items (which, if I'm not mistaken, was probably about half of the store at that price) when they were charged $16.50 for shoes that were $24.50 is a bit ridiculous. While I know that there's all kinds of shoplifting in stores nowadays, I think the proper way to treat a customer would have been a conversation along these lines:
Store guy: "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but the shoes that you just paid $16.50 for are actually $24.50"
WSJ Reporter: "Oh? I just put them in whatever box had the size on them, I couldn't find one that would work."
SG: "Really? I'm terribly sorry about the inconvenience then. We could refund you the cost of the shoes since you thought they were the lower price or we could run your credit card for another $8. Which option might work better for you?"
WR: "Please charge me the $8. I am sorry again for the misunderstanding."
SG: "As am I. Thank you for your understanding and for shopping at K Mart. Have a wonderful day!"
By treating a customer like a criminal from the beginning, they committed a sin that caused problems all around for the company. One is that in this day and age of the internet rant, you have to assume that if you don't treat a customer well, it will be published. This was on the nation's most prestigious paper, but it easily could have been here or on someone else's blog. That kind of bad press is never helpful, especially when you're seen as an aging dump like K Mart is. Second problem is that they lost that individual. She's a fashion columnist for the paper, so perhaps she doesn't shop there often, but she did drop $800 in a single trip. Perhaps Wal Mart would prefer that money. There are a lot of shoplifters out there and they do cost a lot of money. However, the security guards, rent-a-cops that they might be, should have some rudimentary training in the difference between a legitimate thief and someone who was just a victim of circumstances. By doing so, perhaps they wouldn't end up with over 1 million people reading why they suck on Thursday morning.

Ebola Marketing

The Journal had an interesting article this morning on Marié Digby, someone who has been a sensation on YouTube, albeit a sensation that I've never heard of. From the Journal:

Ms. Digby's simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit "Umbrella" has been featured on MTV's program "The Hills" and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.'s Hollywood Records label declared: "Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records."
What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of "Umbrella" to iTunes and radio stations.

It's a great strategy, one that can really win a lot of fans. Look at Blendtec's "Will It Blend" videos or even American Idol. People love to see something that seems genuine that gives them an ability to participate in making the product big. It can backfire, however, when you pull it off like Disney has. Instead of saying upfront that this is from them and they're putting it out there, they've had a strategy of denial that has been capped by the Journal finding out about it and putting it on the front page. Whether the backlash will kill Marie or not is another story, but if you look at her pages on YouTube people are calling her a hussy or a sellout or any other number of things.

People don't mind cleverly done, well thought out marketing to them, they just want to know that they're being marketed to. It's one of the tenets behind BzzAgent, a company that I happen to do some marketing for every now and again. You sign up, they send you product samples, you try them, and tell your friends what you think. For example, right now I'm involved in a campaign for Listerine Whitening Strips - they're like those Crest ones that have been out forever, but they dissolve on your teeth, so you don't have to reach back in your mouth and get the gooey slobbery strips back out. They are actually pretty cool, but not necessarily an all-in-one tooth whitening solution. If you want the whitest teeth, you need to do the dental trays and the gel...that, or one of those super cool lasers. However, they're good for a non-invasive quick fix that will last you a couple of months. Anyway, they gave me some strips to try it for myself and also some to hand out to people and talk with them about it. One of the things that BzzAgent insists on is that you know that I am a BzzAgent. That way, if you find out that you've just been Mark'ted (marketed, you know, like Punk'd) then you won't feel like you've been used, just like Marie's fans are feeling now. Lesson to the companies: do it right. Let us know and we'll respond if it's cool. You don't see Apple going around with stealth iPod launches or anything, and they're pretty much the coolest people out there. Speaking of which, if anyone wants to give me a cool $400, I'll let you know exactly what I think of the iPod Touch, just as soon as I use that money to buy one.