Digital Casserole

A Biblical Explanation for the Wall Street Occupation

2011-10-21T11:07:00.002-05:00

As a middle-aged-working-professional (with a wife, two kids, and leaves to rake), I found the ambiguous, leaderless, shape-shifting, “Occupation” movement to have all of the appeal and intrigue of a Madeline Albright comedy tour. However, as a rogue cultural anthropologist and designated “speaker of the truth,” I had no choice but to weigh in on this landmark uprising playing out across America and the world. I resisted joining the conversation until I had solved the problem, but now firmly believe I have uncovered the source of these global grievances – and it’s found in the Bible.

Matthew 18 verses 23 – 34 records the following “Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor.”

23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.[c] 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.
26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.
28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.[d] He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison.”

False Profits

While many people can’t articulate it, the organic groundswell of this protest movement can be traced to a universal sense that a great injustice has been done to “the 99%” since the recent financial collapse. As in the parable above, both Wall Street and Main Street had enjoyed several years of easy credit, and subsequently both found themselves on debt’s door. In the years leading up to the collapse, many homeowners had refinanced their property and suddenly had thousands of dollars to spend, while the biggest banks and financial institutions had splurged on 50-to-1 leverage to make huge bets and receive huge bonuses. According to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, “The market for credit default swaps exploded from $632 Billion in 2001 to $62 TRILLION in 2007.” So, while Joe Consumer was enjoying $10,000 a year appreciation on his home, Wall Street employers were regularly doling out $10,000,000 a year in compensation. When the party ended and the real estate house-of-cards came crashing down (along with the incestuous bubble of high risk asset bets and enabling rating agencies), both Wall Street and Main Street were in big trouble.

Over the past three years, we have watched helplessly as Wall Street has been bailed out, their debts (billions/trillions?) have been forgiven, and their high-spending lifestyles have been restored, with bonuses reportedly EXCEEDING those of 2007. TARP, TALF, QE1, QE2, discount window – the acronyms and specifics are merely obfuscation. What DOES matter is that Washington has used the money from the 99% to bail out the 1%, and return them to “Business As Usual,” while the 99% - many for whom “living paycheck to paycheck” would be a step UP – have NOT been bailed out, as the money given to these banks has largely NOT trickled down to help forgive debt, write down mortgages, or refinance loans, but rather has remained on their corporate balance sheets to shore up their capital ratios.

Hijacking Principal and Principles

If there’s one unifying hallmark within America’s DNA, it’s a sense of FAIRNESS. The American colonists weren’t against taxation; they were against, “Taxation without representation.” The original Boston Tea Party was the result of a new British tax on tea, after which Great Britain passed a litany of new laws, which became known in the colonies as the “Intolerable Acts.” The revolt over the past three years has been a response to a similar list of Intolerable Acts. While the grassroots Tea Party movement has been in response the government’s hijacking of the PRINCIPLES on which this country was founded, the recent Occupy movement has been in response to the nationwide hijacking of our PRINCIPAL - where the largest financial institutions have “Privatized profits and socialized losses” on a scale never before seen in the history of civilization.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

While there is clearly a devoted minority who would relish the demise of free enterprise, on the whole, the Occupy movement isn’t AGAINST capitalism, but rather is passionately FOR capitalism. TRUE capitalism is based on a very basic premise of Risk and Reward. If you take a risk and succeed, you are rewarded. If you take a risk and fail, you fail. The hijacking of American capitalism was complete when the phrase “Too big to fail” was concocted as a loophole to enable the money-addicted Wall Street establishment to continue their financial tyranny and inbred dependence on the “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” gambling odds at the Capital Casino, where the deck is stacked, the dice are weighted, and the House (and Senate) always wins.

At the heart of the Occupy movement is a rage against hypocrisy. Wall Street and Main Street both failed, but the 1% on Wall Street used their power and connections in Washington to get bailed out, while the 99% on Main Street got left out. As capitalists, Americans don’t believe in bailouts, and yet we’ve just watched as the wealthiest 1% got theirs, while we stood by and were powerless to do anything. Sounds a lot like, “Taxation without representation,” and I predict the ongoing Occupy movement will continue until Election 2012, when their voice will finally be heard and demand an end to the hypocrisy. Until then, I hope the Tea Party and the OccuParty movements organically succeed in returning power to the people and “Takin’ it to the Street” through the peaceful pursuit of justice without violence.

Forgive Us Our Debts, As We Forgive Our Debtors

As in the parable above, the fair, the prudent, and appropriate response from Wall Street SHOULD have been, “I have been bailed out and forgiven of BILLIONS/TRILLIONS by the American tax payer. To show my gratitude for avoiding bankruptcy, I will be generous to them with a few THOUSAND dollars to help people stay in their homes, and work with those struggling to pay their bills during these hard times.” Instead, their response has been just like the Unforgiving Debtor above and aggressively pushing forward foreclosures, which topped 1 MILLION for the first time in history last year.

Explanation For the Occupation

The American people have forgiven and bailed out Wall Street, and instead of responding in kind with generosity, a tone-deaf Bank of America has just announced a new $5 monthly debit card fee. You now have an Explanation for the Occupation.

Douglas O’Bryon
Soundbite Laureate

Nine Things My Cat Taught Me About Social Media

2011-07-18T11:56:00.001-05:00

In 2004, my family adopted a 3-week-old grey-striped tabby, and because it was an election year, we decided to name our new kitten in honor of leading Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry. Over the past seven years, “Waffles” has been an interesting part of our daily domestic lives, and in that time, I’ve learned a lot about cats, and in the process, also learned a lot about humans, and by extension, I’ve also learned a lot about social media – because at this moment, humans are the predominant species populating the world’s various online social media communities.

1.1 “What’s In It For Me?”

Cats and humans are identical in that we both seek to answer the same driving question; a compelling, visceral, life-force motivation that informs all of our other actions, namely, “What’s in it for me?” Unlike dogs, which seem to revel in “fetching” and other acts of service, cats and humans default to the same worldview perspective – a posture and preference to be SERVED, rather than to SERVE. A dog thinks, “My master feeds me and cares for me, he must by God,” whereas a cat - given the same scenario - concludes, “My master feeds me and cares for me, I must be God.”

While I originally numbered these blog items “1 through 9,” I’ve since decided that the list should more accurately follow the format of 1.1, 1.2 etc, as this singular motivation is so fundamental - yet so encompassing - that it permeates every other consideration below. If businesses begin every social media consideration with the consumers’ perspective of “What’s in it for me?” they will be at least 70% closer to a successful outcome before they even get started.

1.2 “I’m The Center Of The World”

We had no sooner signed the adoption papers (which are essential for cats…because they are immediately put to use lining the litter box) than Waffles let us know - in no uncertain terms - that he was the center of the world, and that everything would be just fine as soon as we all “got on board” with that reality. It’s been said that, “Dogs have masters, cats have staff,” and after checking my sources, I’ve discovered that it was actually a cat who said that. Like cats, people experience life through this same filter, and sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube all reinforce that same narcissistic lens. Presenting your firm’s content in multiple formats and across various platforms enables users to customize and tailor their experience in the genre most familiar and desirable for them at that moment. Conversely, NOT presenting your content in formats consumers find desirable will result in them, well, seeking out competitors with formats that they DO find desirable.

1.3 “I Want it All”

In researching this article, I was fortunate to get onto Waffles’ calendar for a 10-minute interview (sandwiched between naps and stretching). I was permitted only one question, so I swung for the fences and asked, “So, what do cats really want?” His matter-of-fact reply caught me off-guard (but it shouldn’t have), stating slowly (and in purrfect English), “Everything – we want it all.” He then continued by saying, “I want to sit half way in and half way out the front door, for long periods of time. Yes, I have decided, and my decision is that I want to sit half way in and half way out the front door.” In my experience, when some people witness a cat doing this, their tendency is to get confused and think that the cat is distracted or indecisive. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is that the cat HAS decided, and his decision is, “I want to sit half way in and half way out the front door” and the unspoken postscript is “…and I don’t care how much money you waste on heating and cooling your house due to the fact that your front door remains open while I am sitting half way in and half way out your front door.”

The take-away for anyone participating in social media is simple. What people want isn’t really complicated – they simply want it all. They want anywhere, anytime access to everything, and they always want to be first in line, regardless of whether there were others already waiting in line before them. They don’t want too much information, nor too little. They want links to other interesting stuff, but don’t want to feel like they’re being overwhelmed with ads and offers. They want access, customization, and personalization BUT they don’t want firms to know too much about their private lives or preferences. They want secure access to all of their sites, BUT they don’t want to have to remember all of their usernames and passwords (but they don’t want you to remember them either).

1.4 “If I Don’t Get What I Want, I Will Meow Outside Your Bedroom Until I Get My Way”

Waffles has a way of helping others in our household to come around to his point of view…usually by making life so miserable that we eventually just give in so he’ll stop driving us crazy. The reach and “megaphone” that social media offers is such that user communities now have a similar power to organize and wage online (and offline) battles with firms and organizations, and quickly get them to a point where they conclude it’s often easier (and cheaper) to just give in to their demands rather than fighting a protracted, brand-damaging, financially-taxing battle, played out across an array of media platforms for the world to see…and then Tweet and blog about.

1.5 “While You Think It’s Cute That I’m Rubbing Your Legs - I’m Actually Marking You As Part Of My Territory”

Sure, it’s great when people fill out your surveys, retweet your blogs, comment on your YouTube content, Friend you on Facebook, Link to you on LinkedIn, and Follow you on Twitter, but let’s face it – while you think you’re in the driver’s seat, you’re actually being tagged and backlinked to make THEM more searchable and build up their SEO rankings. It’s amazing that my cat has this figured out, yet so many people and their firms haven’t.

1.6 “If You Give Me A Treat Once, You Now OWE ME Treats For Life”

One day back in 2006, I made a rare “impulse buy” of Tender Vittles at the local Piggly Wiggly supermarket, then proceeded to throw a couple of these moist nuggets at Waffles upon my return…and have been subjected to a daily verbal assault every morning since then demanding more.

The free-line for online content has been receding so far and so fast that there isn’t much left out there to give away. Consumers have been conditioned to expect – and now DEMAND – that their content and online options be free and ubiquitous (or at least ridiculously cheap and convenient). Just witness the backlash when Unlimited Plans for smartphones started adding restrictions and fees, or, more recently, when over 24 million U.S. customers started seeing red as Netflix announced they would be increasing the cost of their popular movie service by over 50%. Just as you can’t “un-ring a bell and can’t get toothpaste back in the tube,” firms are discovering that customer demands for more and more while paying less and less represent a dangerous financial treadmill and potential impediment to sustainable corporate profitability.

1.7 “I’m Picky AND I’m Hard To Read And Understand”

I’m picky AND I’m hard to read and understand, and I will suddenly bolt in front of your feet – preferably at night, in the dark, at the top of the stairs – for no apparent reason. Okay, there really isn’t a social media application here, just a painful observation. Actually, maybe the application is that your social media followers and community are spontaneous and unpredictable, and while you can have a hunch regarding what will resonate with your audience, you never really know what people will do or how they will respond. (Remember what happened to The Gap when they tried to update their brand logo last October, and the resultant public outcry was so overwhelming that they reverted back to the original “blue box” logo in less than a week).

1.8 “I Will Disappear For Long Periods Of Time, And Suddenly Reappear With No Explanation”

While online marketers will pontificate ad nauseum about stickiness and brand loyalty, let’s face it – the consumer can’t be tamed. Never could, never will. Just like trying to guard Michael Jordan, your best hope with consumers is to simply try to “contain” them, by offering a steady diet of value-reinforcing experiences, but even that may be insufficient to keep them around. And furthermore, just because you stand outside and call them by name doesn’t mean they’ll come running. Like cats, customers will seek you out when they feel good and ready – in their own time, on their own terms – regardless of how often you nudge them (in fact, where do you think they got the word “catatonic” from?)

1.9 “I Will Never Sleep On The Part Of The Bed You Want Me To Sleep On”

Like cats, consumers will act in their own best interest, asking “What’s In It For Me?” rather than doing what you hope they’ll do (like sleeping on the corner of the bed, rather than their preferred spot at the precise magnetic center of the bed). In my 2008 economic manifesto eBook “Banks, Tanks & Angst – How Long Will America Idle?” http://www.coolcleveland.com/wiki/Newsletter/Bankstanksangst I warned how America’s inevitable slide into a state of “Lagflation” would introduce the rise of a new caste of surgical shoppers called “Loss-Leavers,” who would buy only the stores’ weekly sales items, the retailer takes the loss, and the customer simply leaves. Regardless of how you want customers to navigate your website or how much time you invest in showing them how much “sense” it makes for them to upgrade to your premium services bundle, the customer can never be counted on to make rational or logical choices – even when it’s in their own best interest to do so.

1.10 “Sometimes the Strangest Things Are The Coolest Things”

Similar to the point just made above, you can’t always anticipate what customers will think is cool or interesting, or what will resonate on some kind of universal level with your audience - which is why it is nearly impossible to create and consistently predict truly “viral” content. Case in point: I recently spent nearly $150 dollars to purchase a six-foot “Cat Tree House” for Waffles, but I swear that cat spends more time playing in the CARDBOARD BOX that it came in than scaling the heights of his retro-shag bungalow. Again, people – like cats – should never be counted on to be cerebral, even-keeled, or predictable when it comes to matters of the head, the heart, or tree houses. (And remember, when it comes to content, it only takes one letter to change cat nip to cat nap).

So, there you have it, 9 Things – wait, scratch that, 10 Things My Cat Taught Me About Social Media” (see, there’s the chaos theory in action right there). Because implementation of corporate social media – like my cat – has 9 lives and a long tail, it is destined to have a significant impact for years to come, and change everything it touches along the way. So, please, don’t make me bring out my cat o’ nine tails! Heed the lessons outlined above, take action while there’s still time, and maybe you can avoid a corporate cataclysm!

My hope is that you found this cat scan of social media valuable, I apologize if it got a little long in the tooth, and…well, I’ve got to run - looks like I just missed feeding time by a whisker!

Is Social Media Making You Fat?

2011-05-05T09:53:00.003-05:00

I guess you could call me a fitness buff. I started bodybuilding as an emaciated 16-year-old (who generously “rounded up” just to reach 130 pounds on his Drivers License) and have stuck with it through college, grad school, one wife, two kids, three houses, and an interesting career path. Over the past 27 years of training and traveling, I have experienced just about every fitness-related vignette conceivable throughout the course of my adventures crisscrossing North America and pollinating hundreds of sweatshops along the way. I’ve lifted in humid health clubs, aging athletic clubs, and classy country clubs; super-setted in wellness centers, weight-loss centers, lifestyle centers, and training centers; maxed-out in 24-Hour strip-malls, college gymnasiums, and eco-friendly spas; and even survived a membership to Ballys. I’ve endured the racquetball craze, Jazzercise phase, stability balls, step aerobics, Tae Bo, Pilates, Zumba, knew P90X when it was just 45, and remember the exact moment that cycling became spinning. I know the difference between a Gold’s Gym and a World’s Gym, learned (the hard way) the distinction between a YMCA and a YWCA, and now realize that when a motel says their property contains a “Fitness Center,” it probably means a converted broom closet (the temperature of a meat locker) containing a Nixon-era medicine ball, burlap jump rope…and two 5-pound dumbbells.

March of the Newbies

We have finally entered the month of May, which for us loyal fitness “regulars” means the thankful (and merciful) end to any remaining New Year’s Resolutions by the latest crop of “newbies” at the gym (currently UXL Sports and Fitness www.uxlsportsandfitness.com). Like the traditional throwing out of the Christmas tree, returning of sweater-vests, and the unfreezing of Dick Clark for New Year’s Eve, every January - like clockwork - brings with it the renewed hope which springs eternal in the heart (and thighs) of every red-blooded, white-socked, and blue-faced adult, promising that THIS will be the year they get ripped enough to put up a Facebook picture from their beach trip to MB, OBX, or some other pretentious acronym. Sporting a brand new headband, matching sweat-wicking tankini, and shiny, top-of-the-line training shoes (which belie the amount of use for which they are destined), and with newfound, steely resolve they descend on the club like Spartans in the movie 300. Sixteen weeks, three snow storms, and a pulled hamstring later, they are no longer Spartans - but sparse – in their attendance and interest, until the month of May, when they – like their names we never learned - are forever forgotten in the ambient glow of good intentions. And so, like sand through the hourglass figure, the gym returns, once again, to its singular stasis, its banal equilibrium, its gentle gestalt, ruled by grunting gods and groaning goddesses, wearing unmatched socks and threadbare shirts, with names like Tim, Nick, James, and Jeff, and the occasional Michelle (but never a last name). A free-weight fraternity forged in the fires of will and the depths of determination, an unassuming testosterone-tested tribe that considers “S’up? Nothin,” a complete and elegantly concise conversation, and a community that shares a deep - though never spoken - respect for everyone who perseveres and endures through this gaudy gauntlet of pain, where there is no finish line, where your work is your worth, and where intensity is the only currency.

The Weight of the World

According to The Atlantic Monthly, “In 2000, for the first time in history, the number of overweight people in the world – more than a billion of them, 300 million of whom were obese – matched the number of underweight people.” And that was over 10 years ago! According to Parade magazine, 67% of American adults (138 million people) are overweight, 32% are considered obese (30 or more pounds overweight) and these same adults weigh an average of 18 pounds more NOW than they did in 1979. In addition, there are now over 10 million Americans classified as morbidly obese (more than 100 pounds OVER their ideal body weight) representing 1 in 30 people. And if that’s not enough, according to CNN.com, the prevalence of overweight children and adolescents between 6 and 19 has tripled since 1970, and now over 20% of children and teens are overweight (including over 1 in 3 kids here in Ohio) with millions of these children facing a higher risk of developing obesity-related disorders, and who are TWICE as likely to be overweight as adults.

America’s Health: Are We “Too Big to … Succeed?”

According to USA Today, “If Americans continue to pack on pounds, obesity will cost the USA about $344 billion in medical-related expenses by 2018, eating up 21% of healthcare spending,” an assumption based on current trends projecting that in 10 years 43% of American adults will be obese.” Why does this matter? Because the average annual medical bill for a healthy weight adult in 2018 will be $5855, compared with $8315 for an obese person – nearly 50% MORE! Here in my own backyard, Cleveland’s Plain Dealer reported, “By 2018, over half of Ohio’s adults will be obese,” and the average Ohioan will see costs for obesity-attributable health care services QUADRUPLE in the next 10 years.

So What Does ANY Of This Have To Do With Social Media?

By way of review, social media is an umbrella term for social marketing, social networking, and all of the various online-based technology platforms and integrated tools designed to expedite communication and exchange of information. The primary purpose of social media is to create and maintain ongoing relationships with friends, family, and communities, and can include everything from email, blogs, and websites, to high-profile interactive vehicles like LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. In his 2010 blog entitled, “52 Cool Facts About Social Media,” http://dannybrown.me/2010/07/03/cool-facts-about-social-media/, Danny Brown noted:

People spend over 500 billion minutes on Facebook each month.
The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day, there are over 110 million users currently, and there are over 50,000 third-party apps for Twitter.
A new member joins LinkedIn every second and receives over 12 million unique visitors a day.
YouTube receives more than 2 billion viewers per day, and every minute 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
Over 77% of Internet users read blogs and there are currently over 133 million blogs listed on leading blog directory Technocrati.

Forrester Research’s most recent annual North American Technographics Benchmark Survey noted that, for the first time, the average American consumer now spends as much time online as watching television (13 hours a week for each activity). That translates into nearly 4 hours a day evenly split between sitting and watching an LCD and sitting and watching an HDTV. As report author and analyst Jacqueline Anderson observed, “This equalization is not fueled by a drastic decrease in the number of hours that consumers are spending with offline TV, which has remained relatively stable over the past five years. Instead, the leveling is driven by the HUGE growth in time spent with the Internet.” The average amount of time spent online has gradually increased (up 121% over the past 5 years), and in 2010 – for the first time - social media surpassed all other activities to become the number one activity on the Internet.

Social Media = Time Bandit

In and of itself, social media is neither good nor bad, it just is. The problem, however, is that because time is a “zero sum” phenomenon, in order for this extra time to be “given” to social media pursuits, it must be “taken” from other activities. And since the above study noted that the amount of time spent viewing traditional television has remained constant over the past 5 years, the obvious conclusion is that the extra time spent on social media has been stolen – not from televised train-wrecks like soap operas and reality TV – but from actual life-giving and self-sustaining activities that used to complement, enable, and support our existence and the quality of our lives.

How Social Media Is Making You Fat

Social media is making America fatter because its addictive tentacles have permeated the lives of millions of adults and children, its increasingly voracious appetite consuming our most valuable natural resource – time.

Excessive Social Media Use = Less Time For Sleep

Staying up late to connect on social media robs people from the amount of sleep they require to function properly. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Big deal. So you’re a little drowsy the next day. Who cares? It doesn’t matter. Wrong! The reason it matters is because less sleep means more overweight people.

In this excerpt from her article, “Is lack of sleep making me fat?” Julia Layton offers an excellent synopsis by presenting clinical information in a logical, linear, and understandable format. She writes:

“With an ever-increasing number of studies finding a direct connection between sleep deprivation and weight gain, it's difficult to deny the cause-and-effect relationship. People who get at least seven hours of sleep per night tend to have less body fat than people who don't. There are, of course, other factors involved in determining who becomes overweight and who doesn't, like food intake, exercise, and genes. But sleep is a more integral of the process than most people realize. In a study involving 9,000 people between 1982 and 1984, researchers found that people who averaged six hours of sleep per night were 27 percent more likely to be overweight than their seven-to-nine hour counterparts; and those averaging five hours of sleep per night were 73 percent more likely to be overweight.

Many people who are sleep deprived don't even know it. Lots of us think there's quite a bit of give in how much sleep a person needs to be healthy and well functioning, but most researchers disagree, putting seven hours as the minimum for all except the very young and the very old. If you are sleep deprived, there are some obvious tie-ins to obesity, like chronic sleepiness making physical activity unlikely. But there are also a number of things going on in your body that could contribute to weight gain. In scientific studies, the most commonly cited effects of sleep deprivation are hormonal disturbances, wherein your body has too little leptin and too much ghrelin.

The hormone leptin is intricately involved in the regulation of appetite, metabolism and calorie burning. Leptin is the chemical that tells your brain when you're full, when it should start burning up calories and, by extension, when it should create energy for your body to use. It triggers a series of messages and responses that starts in the hypothalamus and ends in the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland controls the way your body stores and uses energy. During sleep, leptin levels increase, telling your brain you have plenty of energy for the time being and there's no need to trigger the feeling of hunger or the burning of calories. When you don't get enough sleep, you end up with too little leptin in your body, which, through a series of steps, makes your brain think you don't have enough energy for your needs. So your brain tells you you're hungry, even though you don't actually need food at that time, and it takes steps to store the calories you eat as fat so you'll have enough energy the next time you need it. The decrease in leptin brought on by sleep deprivation can result in a constant feeling of hunger and a general slow-down of your metabolism.

The other hormone found to be related to sleep and weight is ghrelin. The purpose of ghrelin is basically the exact opposite of leptin: It tells your brain when you need to eat, when it should stop burning calories and when it should store energy as fat. During sleep, levels of ghrelin decrease, because sleep requires far less energy than being awake does. People who don't sleep enough end up with too much ghrelin in their system, so the body thinks it's hungry and it needs more calories, and it stops burning those calories because it thinks there's a shortage. Sleep deprivation has also been found to increase levels of stress hormones and resistance to insulin, both of which also contribute to weight gain, and insulin resistance can also lead to type 2 diabetes.”

While long and detailed, I chose to include this text because it offers a contemporary, research-backed, and scientific explanation of how the body functions during sleep and how insufficient shut-eye creates chemical imbalances, which have a direct cause and effect impact on weight gain.

Earlier in March, the National Sleep Foundation celebrated “National Sleep Awareness Week,” an annual public education and awareness campaign designed to promote the importance of sleep, and which includes sleep information for the public (www.sleepfoundation.org), but in case you missed the event, I’ll sum it up for you – Get More Sleep!

Excessive Social Media Usage = Less Time For Exercise

When you substitute sleep for social media, not only will the chemicals in your body predispose it for weight gain, but the associated physical fatigue will result in a reduced interest in - and energy for - exercise. A good night’s sleep provides the “Get up and go” needed to attack your day with vigor. Without it, even if you DO hit the gym, your body will lack the strength and stamina to get the results you want, and when this happens, it’s not a pretty sight, and I would know, as I see it nearly every week at our gym, described in the following caricature…

A person (who evidently places a low priority on caring for their physical health) shuffles in and drapes themself over a cardio machine. So far, so good. But then, instead of taking some time to actually focus on getting their heart rate up to a challenging threshold capable of improving their circulation and fitness level, they proceed to light up a PDA of some sort, and attempt to multi-task. Folks, if you can text on the treadmill you’re not going fast enough, and I can assure you that you’re not doing either very well. There’s a time and place for multi-tasking, but if you’re doing mashups during sit-ups, creating flash mobs while flash dancing (an old ‘80’s reference for you kids), and blogging while logging snail-paced miles on the treadmill, then you’re compromising and conceding the bountiful health benefits available through regular, rigorous exercise. Exercise is important because your body and your health are important – so give it the time and priority it deserves.

Extra Social Media Usage = Less Time For Cooking

Let’s face it; it takes more time to prepare a healthy, home-cooked meal, than to run out for fatty fast food or to microwave a pasty potpie. Too much time spent on social media means making compromises in other areas, and thoughtful food meal preparation is often the first to go. Food is your bodies’ fuel, and if you cut corners and feed it low-quality junk just to get back online you won’t get the performance, mileage, reliability, or looks you desire. By spending a little less time with Facebook and a little more time with a cookbook, you increase the likelihood that your consumption habits will include more whole foods and healthy alternatives to the many quick-fix options proven to lead to detrimental outcomes. Luckily for you, March is National Nutrition Month, a full 31-day extravaganza featuring various nutritional, educational, and informational campaign sponsored annually by the American Dietetic Association. The campaign is designed to focus attention on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. For more info, visit www.eatright.org/nnm

Why Does This Matter? Here’s Why - $$$

Our country has been embroiled in a passionate national debate over healthcare for the past 20+ years and the discussion always eventually comes down to the same wearied couplet: “What will it COST?” and “Who is going to PAY for it?” The U.S. currently spends about $1.8 trillion annually in medical costs associated with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and all three are linked to smoking and obesity, the nation’s two largest risk factors, according to the America’s Health Rankings report.

Smoking is still the #1 preventable cause of death in the country, accounting for about 440,00 deaths a year, and even though 1 in 5 American’s still smoke, more than 3 million people quit smoking this past year. Did you hear that? They QUIT smoking – they stopped voluntarily treating their bodies in a way that they knew was harmful and took the personal responsibility to change their behavior and stopped smoking. Was it easy? No Way! But 3 million people decided to quit. Did the government force them to quit? No, but they did pass laws making cigarettes more expensive and creating smoke-free planes, buildings, and restaurants making it harder to light up. Did insurance force them to quit? No, but they did raise the premiums for smokers to reflect the higher financial burden they place on the health system. Did society force them to quit? No, but collectively the cultural norms have evolved so that – instead of being celebrated – smoking is now frowned on and discouraged via negative reinforcement in our schools, businesses, and major media.

Here’s my question: “What if 3 million people decided to quit weighing too much next year?” What if 3 million decided to stop voluntarily harming their body, took personal responsibility, and changed their behavior to make positive choices regarding their health? Could the government, insurance industry, or society force people to do this? No, no, and no, but – like smoking – if combined, they could work to change the cultural norms and establish a positive reinforcement infrastructure via financial incentives, reduced premiums, quantifiable health benefits, and visible “success stories” to head off and curtail the worst of this nationwide plague.

Can America AFFORD a “Weight and See” Approach?

Dr. Louis Aronne, Director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, says treating obesity may be the most cost-effective way of addressing many chronic illnesses that are driven by excess body weight. “When you go to the doctor now, they treat your high blood pressure, diabetes and your cholesterol,” he says. "What I envision is your weight could be the primary target of treatment because by treating your weight, not only will you get the diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but you'll get the many other underlying problems caused by your excess weight. We could reduce health care costs by managing the root cause."

The reason information and thinking like this is not “top of mind” in our society is because the dominant culture has an appetite for the sensational. They would much rather fixate on the sexy symptoms and radical remedies than the root cause. They would much rather feature striking images of vaccination shortages for Swine Flu shots than cover the exponentially more significant impact of personal health and accountability. If you think about it, that’s why they call it “News” – the only criteria is that it’s “New” – nobody ever said it was proportionately important.

Society tends to “Major in the minors” and put disproportionate emphasis on what’s “Hip” versus encouraging and challenging people to do what’s hard – commit to a lifestyle of self preservation and improvement. Case in Point: Our auto industry is obsessed with prevention, having introduced anti-lock brakes, seatbelts, airbags, reinforced pillars and crumple zones all designed to avoid or minimize the impact of a collision. Unfortunate automobile events are called “accidents” – sudden, spontaneous, unpredictable tragedies – and carmakers and insurance firms have invested BILLIONS in to prevent or minimize the damage caused by these events. The health choices Americans make on a daily basis are considered “on purposes” – rational, informed, habitual decisions – yet the cumulative effect of these choices have a FAR GREATER probability of impacting your life than random auto accidents – yet so few give ANY consideration or priority towards prevention in this arena.

Your Personal Health Sustainability Plan

Going green? Concerned about sustainability? If you really care about the environment, your personal footprint, and your impact on the collective, how about eating your greens and initiating a sustainable lifestyle? If everyone stepped up to the plate – by stepping away from the plate – and made proactive, positive, disciplined choices to do their part – think of the impact! Instead of our current “Sick Care” model, we might finally have the “Health Care” model we aspire towards. Society has made it “Not cool” to smoke anymore. What if we made it “Not cool” to be unhealthy anymore? Which brings us once again back to social media.

Social Media Paradox

In the remote event that you’ve missed the point I’ve been bludgeoning you with for the past few pages, allow me to state what should be painfully obvious by now. Social media is a paradox, capable of both great good and great evil. Just as nuclear power can light a city, it can also level a city, and social media must be similarly regarded and respected as a powerful construct that can both support AND sabotage a person, a company, or a brand. As a platform, social media has the same net effect on society in relation to overall wellness, as it can serve as both a huge help AND a huge hindrance to personal health and wellbeing.

Social media as a communication enabler has a great capacity for educating the masses with information about the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle (examples include this white paper itself, as well as the short list of links included within this document), and the community-building features resident within social media make it an ideal tool for connecting people for the purpose of sharing information, encouraging accountability, offering positive reinforcement, and even introducing some friendly competition to keep things interesting. However, it is this same social media that is guilty of consuming more and more of our time – time which is being taken from the pursuit of other activities (including sleep, exercise, healthier eating) - and therefore sabotaging and working against these same objectives. The challenge therefore becomes determining how to achieve that elegant balance, that perfect harmony, that ideal equilibrium whereby we enjoy the benefits of social media without the inherent downside of excessive usage. What follows are a few guidelines for getting there.

Create Boundaries For Yourself

The digital, virtual world in which social media resides is “Always On” 24/7/365 – but guess what – so are you: On your bed, On your way to work, On a deadline, On vacation, On sabbatical, On spring break, On an errand, On a mission, On a date, On a diet, On the Stairmaster, On your back porch, or On your high horse. And just like you need to set aside time to recharge the batteries of your iPod, your PDA, and your laptop, humans also need to set aside time to renew and recharge themselves. The trick is figuring out how to unplug, but still stay plugged in, and the best way to do this is to create boundaries by setting aside specific times when you let others know that you will not be readily available. Here are two examples from my own life describing what this would look like. When I train at the gym, I don’t have my cell phone on, but my friends and family know that if they need to reach me in an emergency, they can simply call the front desk and have me paged. Similarly, when I go to bed at night, I turn off my cell phone, but my friends and family know that if they need to reach me in an emergency, they can simply call my home number. This discipline allows me to focus on the task at hand without distraction and do it to the best of my ability (sleeping, training) but also keeps me in the loop for those emergency events that just can’t wait. What I’ve found with this model is that it forces others to determine whether something is truly an emergency or not, and in my experience 99.9% of people will respect this approach - as long as YOU do. However, if you decide to repeatedly compromise your own model, then others will follow suit and expect an immediate response from you all the time, regardless of the priority of the exchange, and set YOU up for unrealistic expectations and OTHERS up for disappointment.

The ongoing maintenance of your personal technology devices offers a perfect metaphor for this phenomenon. Think about those times when you’ve plugged in your laptop - after it had run out of battery power. If you’ve noticed, it recharges a lot faster and more completely when you turn it completely OFF and charge it, versus trying to charge it while you’re using it. It’s the same with your body. By completely turning OFF and disconnecting from social media and electronic devices – to sleep or to focus on your health (or family) – you are able to more quickly and more completely focus on recharging and renewing yourself, and thereby perform better when you ARE plugged in.

Respect The Boundaries Of Others

Respecting the boundaries of others is basically the other half of creating boundaries for yourself, and essentially involves following the Golden Rule to “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Respecting the boundaries of others – by people who DO establish boundaries – is usually a given and not an issue because they understand the benefits of operating in this way. The problem, unfortunately, is that too many people fail to create boundaries for themselves, and therefore they project their unbalanced lifestyle expectations and choices on others (e.g. “I’m on the clock 24/7 and therefore so are you.”) and in cases like this “Doing unto others” has the negative consequence of propagating the deleterious habits and downward spiral of negative health choices referenced earlier.

How Do I Find The Time?

You might be thinking, “Okay, I see what you’re saying about boundaries, and I agree that it makes sense, but you don’t know my schedule – I just don’t have the TIME!” Here’s the reality. If you WANT to find time to exercise (or cook, or sleep), there is a 100% chance that you will find the time. Conversely, if you DON’T want to exercise (or cook, or sleep), there is a 100% chance that you will find excuses. Yoda, who appeared to have a long and fruitful life (except for a skin condition and excessive ear hair) summed it up thence, “Do, or do not, there is no try.” You need to first make your decision, and then fill in the details. Example: If you live in the suburb of a big city, right now you might wake up a 6am, leave the house at 7am, sit in traffic for 60 minutes to go 20 miles, arrive at the office at 8am, do the reverse at night, and then complain there is no time for exercise. Actually there is, but you have to find it. If you turned off Conan and woke up 20 minutes earlier at 5:40am, and then drove directly to a downtown gym, you would arrive in 20 minutes instead of 60 by beating the worst of the traffic, and have effectively “found” 60 minutes in your morning routine to establish and maintain a healthy habit.

Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

In a recent 2010 study, 200 University of Maryland students were asked to abstain from social media for 24 hours. When asked to describe how they felt, they used words like “miserable, anxious, jittery, and crazy,” the same words used to describe the withdrawal smokers and marijuana users feel when they go “cold turkey” (except without the “munchies”). Your response to this study should immediately categorize you into one of two distinct personas, either “Wow, a day is a long time to go without social media!” or “What kind of person can’t go a day without using the Twitter to tell the world they’ve just switched from conflict-free, organic, elderberry tea to corn-fed, free-range coffee?” In reality, both extremes have their drawbacks, and again, the challenge is to find that middle ground; to disconnect from social media long enough to focus and accomplish important things in the “real world” (and long enough for others to miss you), but also to be connected with sufficient regularity to benefit from the relationships enabled by this virtual community. (And if you don’t like the feeling that people are always following you…stay off of Twitter).

Leverage The Power of Social Media

Social media is here to stay, and it won’t be long before this default communication model becomes so ubiquitous that it won’t be called social marketing, social networking, or social media anymore, but rather simply marketing, networking, and media – the “social” will be implied. Therefore, it makes sense to make peace this construct, but rather than just endure it, why not take the extra step and learn to embrace and leverage it – capitalize on all of its reach and power – but do so on your terms. In other words, learn how to harness and control it, before it controls you.

Once you’ve established the boundaries we discussed above, the next step is to maximize the power of social media to help you create more time in your day to make good choices – choices that can have a positive immediate and sustained impact on your personal health and wellbeing. If done correctly, the scale and simplicity of social media can actually SAVE you time rather than steal it, and help you check things off your To Do list, rather than add to it.

Here at DemingHill, our tagline is “Bringing Science to Social Media™.” We use the word “science” because our strategies and solutions are predicated on systematic, quantifiable, and repeatable methodologies, rather than simply natural intuition. Historically, the lion’s share of social media implementation and evaluation has been focused on vague metrics such as mindshare, buzz, and gut feel – all buttressed by hype and hyperbole – but with little attention paid to the 3 R’s: Risk, Reward, and ROI. Because of this, many in corporate leadership are justifiably hesitant to pull the trigger, preferring instead to approach social media with the reluctant posture of R.O.Why? In addition, corporations and executives in particular complain that there just isn’t “time” because they’re too busy running the business (communicating the vision, engaging stakeholders, exploring R&D directions, extending the brand, streamlining operations, and listening to the market) to be significantly involved in social media. Of course, the cruel circular irony of this declaration is the reality that this same social media that “gets in the way” of running the business could actually help to manage and grow the business more efficiently and effectively.

Of Health and Hyperlinks

For more contemporary content, industry insights, watershed white papers, and bite-sized blogs identifying and interpreting how social media is impacting your work, your web, and your world, visit www.DemingHill.com and subscribe to our blog. (And to check out this white paper tricked out with full graphics, click here: http://deminghill.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/is-social-media-making-you-fat.pdf

Final Thoughts

Your physical footprint is more important than your digital footprint, and my hope is that this white paper encourages you to take that first step in creating some balance, and begin moving from fatness to fitness, by simply challenging you to give as much priority to your first life as you do your Second Life. If you neglect your health trying to break through the glass ceiling, you might find yourself staring up at a grass ceiling, and wondering how you went from cradle to grave so quickly. If you forget to unplug and play, that excessive computer usage could lead to a terminal illness, taking you from Windows to curtains, and that “Blue Screen of Death” might just be your own. What a tragedy it would be if one moment you’re decomposing your final “Kick the Bucket List” and suddenly you’re the Mayor of “Bought the Farmville” (while being fitted for your final In-Box on a “Pay as you decay” plan, and going to meet up with the spirit in the Skype). Remember, you can’t Google from grave, you can’t text from the tomb, and you can’t Facebook when you’re face-up. As a nation, let’s not be content to let Americans idle and just sit back and watch, as Generation X becomes Generation XL. So please, go ahead and renew that gym membership - we’ll make room for you on the Nordic Track.

Douglas J. O’Bryon, MBA
Chief Content Officer
DemingHill, Inc.

Stolen Laptop Reveals Massive LinkedIn Acquisition Plans In Progress

2011-04-01T12:02:00.001-05:00

April 1, 2011, 7:00 AM BREAKING NEWS - On Friday afternoon March 25th the personal laptop of an unnamed LinkedIn executive was stolen from a Caribou Coffee just outside of corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California. Within 48 hours, the computer had been hacked and confidential information – including plans detailing a massive acquisition strategy - were posted to Insider Leeks www.insiderleeks.com, just five days in advance of their scheduled announcement after the closing bell on Friday April 1st. (The site has since been shut down as of 11pm Monday night).

Details Downloaded, Posted, Revealed

The compromised reports revealed that in an effort to boost the stock price of their upcoming IPO, LinkedIn has been clandestinely buying up an array of companies, historic landmarks, and national treasures, and strategically assimilating them under the LinkedIn brand umbrella. The detailed intelligence included both maps and spreadsheets (delineated by division and operating units) emphatically stating that this growth strategy is in direct response to the “aggressive imperialistic actions” taken by their biggest online rivals (Google, Twitter and Facebook) over the past few months.

Competitor Buying Binge Signals Intentions

In December 2010, in what was the biggest real estate deal of the year, Google bought one of the largest office buildings in Manhattan for $1.8 billion. The 15-story brick edifice covers an entire block on Eight Avenue and totals over 2.9 million square feet - boasting more space than the Empire State Building - and already houses Google’s East Coast headquarters and 1,800 employees. Last August, micro-blogging firm Twitter added to their stable of talent with the acquisition of Atebits (and their popular Tweetie iPhone app), made another strategic move in late December with the purchase of Q&A service firm Fluther, and just announced Monday that their two co-founders are switching roles. And two weeks ago on March 14th archrival Facebook also tipped their hand by announcing they had hired away a key member of the Google’s corporate development team Amin Zoufonoun to lead and grow their fledgling M&A division, and on Sunday revealed advanced talks with former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Historic Growth

Launched in 2003, LinkedIn has grown exponentially as the networking destination for business professionals, hitting revenues exceeding $200M in 2010, and is currently one of the hottest traded private stocks on SecondMarket.com. Since filing with the SEC back in January, the preliminary Intrinsic Value of the IPO suggests a valuation of $2.6 - $2.9B, which could easily increase over the next few months given their 80% growth and 20% EBITDA operating margins. After their initial acquisition of recommendation startup mSpoke in 2010, LinkedIn appears ready to go “all in” as management has decided to complement their existing model of online clicks with actual bricks, aggressively pursuing an acquisition strategy to purchase and rebrand signature properties, landmarks, and companies from coast to coast.

Secret Acquisitions Unveiled

The first and perhaps most startling of the classified deals detailed on the stolen hard drive was a major infrastructure play involving the purchase of the Lincoln Tunnel - a submerged 1.5 mile highway running under the Hudson River and connecting Weehawken, New Jersey with the borough of Manhattan in New York. Rebranded as the “LinkedIn Tunnel,” this strategy (code named “The Pincer Move”) boldly defends this preemptive tactic, stating, “If we are able to control physical access to the business district, we may be able to limit access to Google’s new headquarters as well.” Clearly NYC is a major focus of their campaign, as just blocks from the tunnel their newly acquired “LinkedIn Square” and the world famous “LinkedIn Center for the Performing Arts” will begin featuring distinctively digital fare to further strengthen local marketing efforts to reach their core audience in the Big Apple.

Their government play is perhaps the most audacious, with the 100-year lease and transfer of associated naming rights to the soon-to-be rechristened “LinkedIn Memorial,” majestically situated near the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in DC, and augmented by their purchase of the historically tragic “LinkedIn Theater” downtown.

In the Midwest, the company snatched up Cleveland’s largest arc-welding company and renamed it “LinkedIn Electric,” and they are in final negotiations with retailer K’Nex to purchase and rebrand their most popular toy franchise “LinkedIn Logs.” With America’s domestic car companies still on the ropes, the decision to partner with Ford and their historically affluent demographic was a natural fit, resulting in the roll-out of several upcoming co-branded 2013 models, including the networked and technologically advanced “LinkedIn Continental,” “LinkedIn Navigator,” and the classic “LinkedIn Town Car.” And finally, in a desperate move to avoid bankruptcy and a complete government shutdown, the governor of the impoverished Cornhusker State agreed to accept an undisclosed sum of money in exchange for selling naming rights, and forever changing their capital city to “LinkedIn, Nebraska.”

Whether all of these efforts will produce the desired results – or even stand up in court – remains to be seen, as rumors on the Internet have already been circulating regarding the legal fight that is soon to follow, led by the SEC’s top litigator Robert Douglas. Talk-show pundits are already referring to them as the “LinkedIn – Douglas Debates.”

Asked to comment on these bombshell revelations, Nathan Kievman, CEO of social media think-tank and strategic powerhouse DemingHill, Inc. www.deminghill.com and owner of the top LinkedIn Strategies group, was both puzzled and flabbergasted, stating “Next thing you know, they’ll be in Washington lobbying to establish a national holiday for LinkedIn’s Birthday!” I’ll Link to that!

Douglas O’Bryon, Soundbite Laureate
Chief Content Officer
Cleveland, OH

Disclaimer: No landmarks or laptops were harmed in the writing of this fiction.

Tweet Yourself to “Social Bowl Bingo” During the Super Bowl

2011-02-02T16:26:00.005-05:00

A New Party Game for Watching The Big Game

While Super Bowl XLV will soon be remembered as just another Roman numeral in a long tradition of season-ending football games, within social media circles, the upcoming 2011 classic will forever be remembered as “Social Bowl I.”

Since it first kicked-off in 1967, the spectacle that is the Super Bowl has grown in visibility and influence, and today stands as the single most watched television program in American history, eclipsing over 106 million viewers last year. Within an increasingly fragmented TV viewing audience (decimated by attrition thanks to cable TV, Internet options, downloadable movies, and various social media platforms), the Super Bowl now stands alone as the one remaining real-time American tradition bringing intoxicated people together for 5 hours to eat junk food and stare at a 50-inch liquid crystal display (I mean, seriously, have you ever heard someone say, “I’m going to TiVo the Super Bowl and watch it on Monday.”)

The industry insiders at DemingHill are already calling February 6, 2011 the inaugural “Social Sunday” because, in the 12 months since the last Super Bowl, social media has officially “Crossed the chasm” into our corporate consciousness (see “Why Executives Hate Social Media” http://www.deminghill.com/blog/corporate-social-media/why-executives-hate-social-media/)
and transitioned from “bleeding edge” to “leading edge” in terms of marketing, advertising, brand messaging, and target audience communication. The upcoming smack-down this year will not only feature the NFC vs. the AFC going toe-to-toe for bragging rights and league dominance, but we will also witness an equally epic battle “outside the lines” as MEDIA worlds collide, pitting the entrenched, old-line guard of traditional TV commercials vs. the proliferation and power of new social media channels for reaching the Main Street mainstream audience.

Just like the upstart challenger American Football League (AFL) back in 1967, progressive and emboldened social media advocates are anxious to make their mark and show the world that they can finally compete with the big boys in the big leagues on the biggest stage and on the biggest media day of the year. To help you keep score of this “passing of the baton” during the big game, I have enclosed your own Social Bowl Bingo card below, allowing you to play along with your rowdy friends. Fox Sports (another upstart) will be airing Super Bowl XLV this year, and I’ve recently learned that XLV actually stands for the number “45” (which is exactly the number of minutes allocated for commercials this year) so be sure to have this card handy during the advertisements, and when you get 5 marks in a row, feel free to jump up and yell BINGO (or, you can just text it, and then update your Facebook wall).

Yes, it’s going to be difficult to be sociable at the Social Bowl - watching a giant TV screen while balancing a laptop in one hand and gripping a smart phone in the other - but rather than setting up a steel curtain around you, try to have fun with it. I’ve heard the cheese-spread is 2 ½ points, so I’m going with GreenBurgh by a field goal.

(Note: For a Spreadsheet BINGO version, click link below - which I HIGHLY recommended as the run-together text below could be confusing...)

http://corporatesocialmediasolutions.com/tweet-yourself-to-%E2%80%9Csocial-bowl-bingo%E2%80%9D-during-the-super-bowl

SOCIAL MEDIA BINGO

B I N G O

An Advertiser Asks You To “Friend Us” on Facebook Any Commercial Poking Fun At Social Media (“Social Media Gone Bad”) Check This Box If You Dialed # On Your Landline Phone To Access “The Twitter” The Simpson’s Promo Features Lisa Simpson Asking Willie the Groundskeeper If He Wants To Get LinkedIn An Advertiser Asks You To“Join Our Community”
Your Update Your Facebook Status During The Game To “Inebriated” Social Media B to B Commercial (Beer to Buddy Advertising) Form A “Flash Mob” At The Bathroom At The End Of The First Half You Ask Your Buddy To “Pass The Black Eyed Peas Dip” You Tell Your Party Host To “Put Another Blog On The Fire”
An Advertiser Says “For More Information Visit Our Website” An Advertiser Asks You To “Like Us” on Facebook You Think the Glee “Thriller” Mash-Up Will Reunite Hawkeye, Radar and Klinger You Visit GoDaddy.com To Actually Check On A Domain Name An Advertiser Asks You To Text Them NOW For A Very Special Offer
You Take Off President’s Day To Celebrate LinkedIn’s Birthday You Have A Sudden Urge To Run With The Clydesdales An Advertiser Asks You To Log On And “Cast Your Vote” On Their Website While Watching The Game You Forget To RSS Feed Your Dog Social Media B to C Commercial (Beer to Chimpanzee Advertising)
An Advertiser Asks You To “Visit Our Blog” You Ask Your Kid “What’s a Mash-Up?” You Google “Clay Matthews’ Hair Stylist” And Discover “No Results Found” The E-Trade Baby Asks You To Skype, Friend, And Retweet Him (And You Do) You Wonder When They Legalized Hashtags

What if Bethlehem had Broadband?"

2010-12-22T10:45:00.004-05:00

With Christmas approaching, I started wondering what would have happened if Judea had social media?

Scene One: The Time: 1 day B.C., the Friday evening before Christmas. The Place: Heaven’s Offsite Data Center

The People: God & Angelo, CTA (Chief Technology Angel). The Challenge: Launching the biggest social media campaign in history.

Angelo: Great news! We’re ready, and I can assure you that “Project Beth Star” is now fully operational.

God: You KNOW I’m not fan of this social media stuff. I’m thinking about sending you instead.

Angelo: Whoa, whoa, whoa – we talked about this. I don’t travel well - what with the time difference and all.

God: Time? You’re traveling at light speed - there IS no time.

Angelo: Can’t we just Skype them?

God: Too many interface problems with Windows 7.

Angelo: What about VOIP (Voice Over Inner Palestine)

God: Too many dropped calls in the cloud, and this event is just too important.

Angelo: Okay, okay, let me think. Alright, what if we sent a message directly to everyone. Something like:

From: God
To: All People
Subject: Good tidings
We could call it He-Mail. Oh, that’s catchy, we should seriously trademark™ that.

God: So, we’d send this to “All People?” Wouldn’t that be like the DEFINITION of spam?

Angelo: You’re right. We could go with Twitter…but between the shepherds and wise men this story already has well over 140 characters, so that wouldn’t work.

God: Angelo look, He’s my Son, it’s His birthday. I just don’t want anything to go wrong.

Angelo: Fine. Now could you please just call me Lo? Angelo is so formal.

God: Whatever, now get down there. I want this hand-delivered, and I want it BIG. I want to send a message instantly to the entire world. Hey, maybe we could call it an “instant message.” Wait, wait, check this out. When you get there, I’ll send a text to everyone up here to create a flash mob over Bethlehem just as you’re done delivering the message. And make sure you take lots of pictures so I can put them all over MySpaceBook page - the retweets alone are going to crash the servers! It could be on the cover of Star Magazine! I’m so glad I got this Palm Pilot, I feel like I can run the whole universe!

Angelo: TGIF

God: You’re welcome.

Scene Two: The Time: 1 Hour Later The Date: Caesar Augustus’ New Taxing Holiday The Place: Bethlehem The Text: Luke 2: 7-15

7And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. 8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9And, LO, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. 12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. 15And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. 16And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. 17And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying, which was told them concerning this child.

Shepherd: OMG!!!

Lo: Exactly

Twitter@Shepherd: Working nightshift. Saw angels in outfield. Good news, gr8 joy. Check out my link on YouTube. Heading to Bethlehem. Tried Mapquest, but apparently all roads lead to Rome.

Villager: Couldn’t find the link. Tried Googling “Babe” but don’t think those were the right results.

Shepherds Wife: Sounds like Dancing with the Stars meets Glee…and here I am watching reruns of Desperate Israelites.

Tax Holiday Inn Sold Out: Make your reservations for New Year’s Eve.

God: Foursquare status update - New location: Earth.

Joseph: Ladies and Gentiles, I am now the Mayor of Bethlehem. Baby in stable condition.

Goldman Stocks: Livestock Market hits new highs on lamb futures.

Shepherd: Still can’t find Bethlehem! Feel like I’ve been wandering for years…

Mary: Crazy night! Just gave birth. Still pondering lots of stuff.

Attention Carpenters: Check out our Manger’s Special at Rome Depot, just 1 mile past Stall-Mart on the left.

God: I am now Mayor of EARTH.

Lo: “Rome Depot?” Really?? That’s it - I’m opening my own hardware store. We’ll call it “Lo’s.”

Mary’s Mom: FYI, I just TiVo’d Iron Age Chef for you - great recipe for turning water into wine.

JCPenny: Click here for our new Swaddling Clothes lineup for spring!

Joseph’s Brother: Congrats Dude! Glad to hear you’ve finally settled down and come to your census.

Joseph: Thanks, man. So what do you think of this new Emperor Caesar?

Mary: Didn’t they just name a salad after him?

Joseph: LOL! And a little Pizza Pizza place too.

Stables: That was Easy™.

Mary’s Sister to her friend: I’m excited for them and all, but enough is enough. They way they talk about him, you’d think He could walk on water.

God: Give Him time.

Mary: Just set up new Fan Page – 316 Likes already! Gotta leave stable before I catch swine flu or this mad cow goes viral.

3 Wise Men: Sorry we’re late. Still getting used to this new OnStar system.

Joseph: This was weird. Three wise men stopped by. Nice gifts, but if they were really that smart they would’ve been here during visiting hours. Plus, they forgot to close the door – were they born in a barn???
Stall Street Journal: Commodities run on Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh.

God: Facebook update: Published new book, already on Nazareth Times Best Seller list. Check out the link: www.OldTestament.com. Already bringing in some minor profits. Just started working on sequel. Spoiler Alert: He dies, but then comes back to life.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Douglas O’Bryon, Chief Content Officer
www.DemingHill.com

Halloween Tea Party Masquerade: What’s REALLY In The Bag?

2010-10-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

Due to the extraordinary alignment of our Gregorian calendar, Election Day falls just hours after Halloween this year, a poetically and politically ironic juxtaposition, as this year it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between the platforms and people running for office. The reason for this confusion is simple. Apparently, the hot new costume this year is “Tea Party Candidate,” an affiliation designed to keep politicians out of hot water, and which now comes in Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large, and Momma Grizzly. Just like football’s “Wildcat Offense” and Wall Street’s “Mortgaged Backed Securities” before it, being connected with the Tea Party is now considered as hip as Tweeting that you’ve un-friended you ex-boss on your Facebook page, and have now been crowned Foursquare Mayor of Strongsville’s Panera Bread restaurant.

Not since the signing of the Declaration of InTEApendence and the ConsTEAtution has there been such a groundswell of support for a water-based beverage. According to legend, the spark that ignited the wildfire fanning this grassroots movement can be traced back to Rick Santelli’s impassioned 2009 rant airing on New-York-based CNBC (so perhaps it should have been called the Long Island Tea Party) which was directed at Obama’s misguided stimulus policies, essentially claiming that the new administrations’ idea of “checks and balances” was writing massive bailout “checks” without any “balances” in the governments’ checkbook to pay for them. Santelli’s outburst seemed to crystallize and galvanize our national sentiment, arguing that when America’s unsustainable economic path came to a T in the road and required a dramatic change, we elected President Obama – who grabbed the wheel (and the House and Senate) and immediately took a sharp Left, dragging America in a direction (and at a speed) she didn’t want to go. It also taught us a lesson – the next time we vote for “Change” we need to specify, “Change…for the BETTER!

So what does all of this have to do with the price of Tea in China?

Like the Whig Party in the mid-1800’s, and the Weave Party shortly thereafter, the Tea Party’s rallying cry for lower taxes, limited government, and the couplet of personal freedom and personal responsibility has resonated with the masses in a way not seen since Joe Lieberman captured the imagination of the “individual rights” movement with the launch of his “Liebertarian” Party back in the mid-1990’s, or its more recent reincarnation in the person of Joe the Plumber. Tired of lobbyists, broken promises, and being dictated to by career politicians on both sides of the “I’ll” (as in, “I’ll televise healthcare reform on C-SPAN” or “I’ll have bipartisan cooperation”) the Tea Party’s populist revolt represents America’s British-equivalent of the “House of Commons” wrenching control back from the incumbent “House of Lords” and forcefully returning the Power to the People, who are now demanding heightened levels of transparency, authenticity, and integrity from all governmental officials. Pundits have already declared this election a referendum on the current administration, with polls indicating a majority of Americans want to “Cap and Trade” Obama (or at least put him on waivers for a player to be named later).

According to the National Retail Federation, about 1 in 4 Americans are planning on dressing up this Halloween, and chances are many of them will be coming to your door to ask for candy, votes, handouts…or to see if you want to connect on LinkedIn. Therefore, to provide some clarity and illumination, I have enclosed the following legend describing the various factions and agendas of the groups associated with the Tea Party, enabling you to decide witch to trick and which to treat on Halloween and at the polls:

Green Tea Party: A group of holistic environmentalists - an offshoot of the more obscure Tree Party
Tee Party: An unholy alliance of golfers and football kickers
Fits You to a Tea Party: Collection of high-end clothiers in the garment and tailoring industry
T-Shirt Party: A creative coalition combining a love of slogans and short sleeves
Ice-Tea Party: An odd collection of futurists concerned with global warming, melting glaciers, and 80’s rap
Tea Leaves Party: A shrinking guild of horoscope writers, plus Nouriel Roubini
T Him Up Party: A “technical” group comprised of basketball referees and the infamous Latrell Sprewell (and anyone else who wants to give Obama a Time Out)
Decaffeinated Tea Party: Retired soccer moms and hippies who want change, but aren’t quite so hyper about it (see also Tupperware Party)
Nancy Pelostea: Don’t go there
Mad Tea Party: Disgruntled group with no concept of reality and living in a Wonderland (a favorite with kids and Disney characters)
T-Bill Party: Proponents of Ben Bernanke and the Fed (what they lack in bonds they make up for in maturity)
Democrateac Party: Hard-core liberals wrapping themselves in a Tea Bag to get elected
Teapublican Party: Centrists smart enough to ride this wave into Congress and eventually the White House
Inteapendent Party: Spoilers no more, they are the reincarnation of Ross Perot, the true puppet masters
Mr. T Party: I pity the fool who doesn’t support this group
Do Re Mi Fa So La Tea Party: Official party of Glee and “gleeks” everywhere, featuring a platform promising to air the show 7 days a week (plus weekends), bring back Britney, and perform the State of the Union address as a Rock-opera (“No Lie.”)

Yes, it’s only a mid-term election, but just like in college, it should provide a pretty good sense of whether the final grade will be passing or failing. My guess is that, just like LeBron, America has already made The Decision, and is just waiting for primetime on November 2 to announce their intentions.

So remember, just as you answer the door and ask those Trick-or-Treaters, “Who are YOU supposed to be?” always remember when you listen to the debates and go to the polls to look behind the mask - it might surprise you. And one final thing - you should probably start preparing your children NOW for the impact that our sluggish economy will have on the distribution of Halloween treats. I’ve already warned my kids to expect individual M&M’s.

"Why Executives HATE Social Media"

2010-08-06T10:03:00.001-05:00

I’m an executive and I HATE social media. There, I said it. It’s finally “out there.” But before you Twitter a flaming flash mob link to assemble pitchfork-wielding Second Life villagers outside my door, I urge you to take a deep breath, put down your double frappuccino, remove your earpiece, step away from your iPad, and set your iPhasers to stun, for I come in peace. If you’ve ever wondered why your CEO ALSO hates social media, social networking and, well, socializing in general, I urge you to continue reading. Just as Fox TV’s Masked Magician series demystified the tricks of the world’s most famous illusionists, I offer the following as both a behind-the-scenes peak and a confessional of sorts, into the mind of the executive. For to truly understand the conflicting yet predictable stonewalling in this domain, one must search deep below the surface, plumbing the depths of the executive psyche, motivations, and worldviews, for only then will you be able to “crack the code,” engage us in our native tongue and communicate in a vocabulary and language to which we will respond. Consider this your own personal backstage pass to the inner sanctum of the Executive Suite.

Executive: More Perception Than Position

For starters, the term “executive” isn’t a title as much as it is a mindset or a set of attributes – often leading to career success and the achievement of such rank - but what might surprise most is that this ambition and executive mentality often begins to manifest itself early in life. For example, while most were partying and hanging out in high school, we were already taking college-level classes while holding down several part time jobs. And when most were “finding themselves” in college and still deciding on a major after three years, we were serving in student leadership, doing internships, or doubling up on classes to finish college a semester early. And when most were finally in the workforce, instead of clubbing and playing in multiple softball leagues, we were completing an advanced degree in night school, pursuing professional certifications, and framing out retirement plans.

Executives are high achievers – that’s just how we’re wired. Give me a mountain and I’ll climb it. And if you don’t have a mountain, I’ll find my own mountain and I’ll climb it. And if I can’t find a mountain, I’ll build one - just so I can climb it. But here’s what most people don’t get about executives. Once a CEO climbs a mountain, he doesn’t feel the need to Tweet to the world that he did it. He doesn’t have the natural desire to blog, “Look what a great climber I am” and include multiple pictures with links to his Facebook and LinkedIn account. He did it because it’s in his DNA. He doesn’t require the attention, approval, or applause of others, and therein lies the fundamental source of the problem – executives are non-narcissistic in a YouTube world. We’re outliers. In a society that brags, blogs, and Tweets about the tiniest personal minutia, we could care less because, frankly, we expect success, it’s normal to us. It’s like Vince Lombardi’s admonition to his running back after an overly exuberant display, “Next time you make a touchdown, act like you’ve been there before.”

Eagles Don’t Flock

Executives are “eagles,” and unlike seagulls, eagles don’t flock. We’re not joiners and we’re not groupies, which is why we overwhelmingly prefer challenging single-person sports like running, cycling, weightlifting, and our one concession to “group sports” - golf (which is still technically a single-person sport, but more fun in groups). Lance Armstrong didn’t win his titles without leaving the peloton, and ditto for greats like Sampras, Tiger, and Arnold. They had to go above and beyond the group to achieve greatness, and for this reason it truly IS lonely at the top (not that we mind).

Social Networking: The Problem is “Networking”

The reason we hate social networking is the same reason we hate REGULAR networking. Exchanging small talk for 2 hours in a room full of strangers, with a drink in one hand and a business card in the other, and a “Hi, I’m Doug” nametag peeling off my lapel, and standing – my goodness the standing – and looking unsuccessfully for ANY food with some protein in it, and wondering if this guy with the too-firm handshake is going to see if we can “LinkIn” after sharing an elevator ride, before glancing at my watch and counting the minutes until I can leave and get back to work. It’s a nightmare. Why? Because – surprise, surprise - most executives are actually introverts, who value their time and their privacy and are constantly evaluating the ROI tradeoffs of every hour of every day. (Quiz: How many times have you heard a CEO describe himself as a “People Person”?)

To say that we are ANTI-social would be a huge misrepresentation, but when you combine the word “social” with “networking” – let’s just say it sends shivers up my spine. Do I like the company of others? Sure I do – but I want the time to be well spent. Instead of random, shallow, unfocused SMALL talk, CEO’s would much rather sit around with a small group of peers for 2 hours and discuss BIG specific challenges – and their solutions. In fact, the reason so much business gets done on the golf course is because it’s one of the few places leaders actually congregate and feel relaxed enough to discuss what’s really on their minds.

Social Networking: The Problem is “Social”

The next hurdle for executives with social networking are the implications of the root word “Social”, and, by its very spelling, its association to Socialism. Socialism is defined as, “Any system of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively,” and further, “An economic and political theory based on public ownership or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.” (At least that’s what someone wrote on Wikipedia). The premise and value of the “social media” movement is the power of the collective in the production, distribution, and ownership of goods, and the reason executives resist this model is that it flies in the face of their existing worldview which, quite frankly, has been pretty successful to date. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Most of us have a pretty big chip on our shoulders, attributing our career success to the years of diligence, education, ambition, delayed gratification and sacrifices we’ve made to reach the leadership levels we’ve achieved. Therefore, the anti-capitalistic notion that my work and contributions would be homogenized with the uninspired masses, and that ultimately my value would be determined by the randomness of the collective is a jarring and unpalatable departure. I want to control my company! I want to control my brand! I want to determine my destiny! It’s too important to leave it to chance (or simply be outvoted by the uninformed bourgeois)! Unfortunately and tragically for us executives, the beauty and power of social media is only fully unleashed when we LET IT GO, and that, my friends, is the hardest thing for us to do (…and also explains why we hate checking luggage at the airport).

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

Okay, I promised that this would be a confessional, so here’s a shocker. Over time, there is a tendency for CEO’s to get inflated EGO’s. Now granted, a healthy ego can serve as a necessary defense mechanism to provide protection from the relentless attacks from subordinates, peers, and the media, but too much amounts to just plain pride. We like to think of ourselves as a pretty smart bunch, and our position is such that even if we don’t completely understand something, we often project to our colleagues that we do. A classic example of this phenomenon transpired during the Enron debacle, where ranks of senior executives refused to admit that they couldn’t comprehend the mechanics of this powerful conglomerate, until it was too late. It’s the same with new advances in technology, which has accelerated during our careers from “hit or miss” to “mission critical,” going from bricks to clicks and from mortar to mindshare, while serving as a platform for everything from infrastructure, billing, and product development, to security, scheduling, and sales. The rapid rate of change in digital innovation has caused CEO’s to feel EXTREMELY vulnerable around technology because it is something on which we have become VERY reliant, but which we understand and “control” so little, and this vulnerability leads to fear, and this fear to irrational decisions and suboptimal outcomes. When CEO’s don’t have the confidence in their staff to delegate, or lack the humility to admit their ignorance regarding technology advances, they get defensive and act out in fear – or fail to act altogether.

Social Media: Justified Fear?

Executives justify their fear of social media by pointing back to a historic drumbeat of disappointment and unfulfilled promises. They recall with vivid detail the never-ending parade of new online engagement vehicles and “paradigms” introduced over the past 15 years by turtleneck-wearing gurus with names like Kip or Seth, which were then propagated by self-proclaimed “New Economy” experts sporting titles like “Chief Innovation Officer” and “Director of Chaos,” and then championed by sideburn-wearing hipster foot soldiers who never metafilter they didn’t like. In the 90’s, we were promised that customers would beat a path to our door if we created something called a “web page” and then “posted” it on this thing called the Internet or World Wide Web or something. Then they convinced us to buy electronic lists and send out “Email Blasts” to our target markets, and next it was a website redesign, push technology, pull technology, exchanged links, partner intranets, eBusiness, eCommerce, blogging, webinars, podcasts, search engine optimization, YouTube videos, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, yada, yada, yada. Each time they promised that THIS TIME it would be different, and that this new product/protocol/portal/potion would somehow (magically??) drive revenue, increase efficiency, and optimize utilization (or some other buzz word or invented metric). You told me to blog, so I blogged. You told me to Twitter, so I Tweeted. What’s it going to be tomorrow - scan my body into a mashup simulator to create a hologram so I can telepresence myself into sales calls in Madrid via FourSquare using Flickr? All I know is that I’ve spent a LOT of time and money on a series of disjointed initiatives and campaigns and so far NONE have performed as advertised.

Don’t Feed Me Another Fad

Look, executives aren’t that complicated. While I can handle the many nuanced “grey areas” of business leadership, I prefer to see things in black and white; victories and defeats; profits and losses. I don’t mind making significant, strategic multi-year investments and committing to enterprise-wide initiatives which will improve the future performance of my company – in fact, I ENJOY it - what do you think got me to the Executive Suite in the first place? Just don’t insult me. I don’t want to waste any more time or money on the hype of “the next big thing” or the newest tool or toy, only to be disappointed when the latest flash-in-the-pan fad fades and goes the way of Harvard Graphics. It’s not that I have a fear of commitment – frankly, it’s just the OPPOSITE! I have a healthy fear and distaste for doing things randomly just to be doing something; or because someone saw an article in USA Today, or CNBC did a story on it, or out of fear that I’ll be the last one in my circle to “get on board.” (Believe me, the things that keep me up at night can’t be solved in 140 characters or less). The truth is, I would LOVE to commit to social media in a significant way, but so far nobody in my organization has stepped forward with a cerebral, strategic, multi-generational, integrated, systematic, and sustainable methodology and roadmap for synergistically capitalizing on this medium over the long haul.

Your Network is Your Net Worth

Executives are uniquely conflicted because we know better than anyone the power of relationships, and the truth of the old axiom, “Your network is your net worth,” yet we are inherently introverts, and gravitate towards solitude versus socializing. We understand on an intellectual level that none of us individually are “too big to fail,” and that even the Lone Ranger had Tonto and Batman had Robin, yet we find initiating conversations and exchanges with others to be draining, distracting, and exhausting rather than invigorating and inspiring. Hence we yearn; as a group we pine; for deep within our heart of hearts burns a great bright hope that somehow and in some way this social media movement or platform or culture or whatever could be harnessed and leveraged to cross that chasm and create valuable, authentic exchanges and relevant, real-time dialogue with stakeholders of all persuasions. If we could just develop an all-encompassing framework for how this would integrate into our enterprise-wide strategy, and manage it like a mission-critical project (complete with milestones, deliverables and accountability instead of fuzzy metrics like “buzz”), I am supremely confident that we could achieve escape velocity and – for the first time – truly establish and be able to articulate a synergistic, sustainable, and quantifiable strategy for leveraging “Best-In-Class” social media options to achieve desired corporate outcomes and maximize financial returns.

A Gift From Media To You

You know, it’s interesting. Somewhere in the convoluted catharsis of composing this confessional, I came to a surprising realization. Maybe I don’t HATE social media after all. Maybe I just hate the Quixotic context in which most social media conversations exist, featuring a perpetually moving target, combined with an obsessive, cult-like worship of the default worldview, “If Something is New = It Must Be Good”, and where subjective criteria like “mindshare” and “impressions” are considered quantifiable deliverables and irrefutable barometers of success.

Come to think of it, maybe it’s high time that a C-level individual engaged this topic, and – once and for all –created a high-level overview and synopsis, crystallizing all of the strategic benefits and critical value streams, and distilling them into a language that speaks to executives everywhere in our native tongue – bottom line stakeholder value. So here you go. I’ve done the work for you. What follows is an “Executive Summary” of my findings.

Social Media Value #1: Unfiltered Feedback

As you already know, some of the scarcest (rarest) yet most valuable information a CEO can obtain is honest, unfiltered feedback. Think about it. You interact all day with managers, employees, and handlers working to keep the boss happy and therefore keep their job. Sure, being surrounded by “Yes men” can be more comfortable, but it can also insulate you from the stark realities of your business. If done correctly, social media enables CEO’s to hear raw, candid feedback from real people - people who aren’t afraid of being fired because they CAN’T be fired. The truth is, leaders with their ego in check are already fully aware that they work for the customer - the customer is his boss - so if the customer doesn’t like dropped calls on their iPhone or the sauce on their Domino’s pizza, it’s their job to make it better. Now, every customer is not always right (or wrong), but if 850 out of 1000 user comments say that the new Sketcher’s Sport shoe caused them to sprain their ankle, then something needs to be fixed - and FAST! CoolCleveland’s Founder Thomas Mulready is a perfect example of a CEO with this customer orientation. After emailing out his weekly eMagazine for 7 years, he decided that it needed to be updated, and set about introducing a new format with much fanfare. In doing so, he also did something revolutionary – he asked all 90,000 of his readers for feedback on what they thought of the new style - and boy did they reply, with scores of comments submitted over the span of a few days. But then he did something else revolutionary - he actually listened, modifying and improving the new site to reflect reader tastes and preferences. Yes, it takes humility (“Who are these people to give ME feedback? I invented this product! Don’t they know they can just click the links?) but the end result is an engaged audience who now feel genuinely empowered to provide even MORE feedback, emboldened by the knowledge that their comments actually impact (and can improve) the end product.

Social Media Value #2: Authenticity

Hand-in-hand with the unfiltered feedback above is the ability to leverage social media to authentically communicate with your employees, partners, customers (and non-customers), investors, and media, directly engaging ALL of your brand ambassadors efficiently and economically. Rather than layers of staff, spokespeople, and sterile press releases, social media now offers an elegant and effective medium for disseminating information either “straight from the heart” or “straight from the horses’ mouth” depending on your preferred idiom. Dan Gilbert’s recent LeBron James “rant” would qualify as both, capturing the owners’ anger, frustration, and competitive resolve just moments after James’ announced his departure. As you’ve probably noticed, NOBODY can tell the company story and embody the company brand like the CEO (think Steve Jobs) and by offering the ability to immediately and directly engage stakeholders – whether on a typical day, during a product launch, and/or especially during a time of crisis – social media provides an invaluable medium for maximizing brand value and minimizing potential brand degradation. Social media helps firms “Keep it real” but couches it in a positive brand-reinforcing context.

Social Media Value #3: Six Sigma (Low Cost)

In case you were wondering, executives LOVE things like Six Sigma because, 1. It reminds us of our Greek fraternity days in college, 2. The other soccer Dad’s don’t understand Value Stream Mapping, and 3. Six Sigma and lean processes are all about SPEED and COST SAVINGS, two of our favorite topics. By its very architecture, social media is positioned to leverage firms’ Six Sigma orientation by expediting interactions, exchanges, customer service, feedback loops, product launches, marketing, and advertising, AND enabling it at a fraction of the cost of traditional media, to a much more targeted audience, and in a far more nuanced and contextual value exchange. Social media options allow your message distribution format to evolve from shotgun to sniper, from billboard to message board, and from broadcast to narrowcast. PLUS, it takes your marketing posture from a one-way, blanketing, bullhorn approach to a more intimate, just-in-time interaction; offering the opportunity for a more detailed, valuable and more PROFITABLE conversation and connection with your audience (and you don’t need a Black Belt to do it).

Social Media Value #4: Balancing Transparency AND Privacy

The only thing worse than NOT using social media tools is using them in the WRONG way. Your firm could very easily invest time and money on social media, and then end up spending even MORE time and money doing damage control because you did it wrong the first time – talk about a lose-lose situation. With social media, there’s a “right way” and a “wrong way” to do things – so if you’re GOING to do it, do it RIGHT. Remember, anywhere-anytime-anyone social media channels must be handled as the “nuclear options” that they are, with the capability to destroy your brand value in a single Twitter, email, or YouTube video that goes viral.

With great power comes great responsibility, and a healthy respect for the global reach and impact of social media must emanate directly from the CEO, who knows better than anyone that the same programs allowing firms to connect and influence the marketplace can also be turned against you to alienate them. And just as social media can provide the market with a transparent window into the soul of your company, it can also showcase you at your worst, doing more harm than good. Let’s face it, your firm is ALREADY dabbling in social media as it is – so you might as well manage your risk and liability by codifying corporate expectations, establishing specific ground rules, and educating your stakeholders regarding proper use of these seemingly innocent yet powerful tools.

Social Media Value #5: Supporting Statistics

Executives rely on market research to support and substantiate any designated course of action, and devour facts, stats, and data-points like shrimp at a wedding reception. Summarized below are a few statistics buttressing the explosion of this social media trend, and detailing how Corporate America is leveraging it to realize significant revenue and market share growth going forward.

- In the last 7 years, Internet usage has increased 70% PER YEAR. Spending for digital advertising this year will be more than $25 billion and surpass print advertising spending (forever)
- Lenovo has experienced a 20% reduction in activity to their call center since they launched their community website for customers
- Blendtec quintupled sales with its “Will it Blend” series on YouTube
- Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
- Naked Pizza set a one-day sales record using social media: 68% of their sales came via twitter and 85% of their new customers
- Software company Genius.com reports 24% of social media leads convert to sales opportunities
- Dell has already made over $7 million in sales via Twitter
- 37% of Generation Y heard about the Ford Fiesta via social media BEFORE its launch in the US and currently 25% of Ford’s marketing budget is spent on digital/social media
- 71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40%
- A recent Wetpaint/Altimeter Group study found companies that widely engage in social media surpass their peers in both revenue and profit

Getting Your Board On Board

Lest we forget, even the Boss has a Boss – they’re called the Board of Directors – and these are the people that recruit and hire CEO’s for the purpose of serving as a charismatic and visionary leader of their organization. And so I urge you, don’t disappoint them when it comes to leveraging social media within your organization. The “Bang for the Buck” value proposition is too compelling to ignore, and the fact is - your competitors are already entering this arena and establishing new service baseline norms and minimum threshold expectations - so standing still amounts to losing ground and therefore is not an option. What you need is a plan.

Applied Business Intelligence

Do I STILL hate social media? No, BUT I’m only going to embrace it on the “executive terms” that have served me so well to this point in my career and they are, “If you’re going to do something, go ALL IN and do it right.” From now on, all social media, social marketing, and social networking will be discussed in the context – not of a CAMPAIGN (which starts and ends) – but as part of an ongoing, strategic, and systematic DIALOG with our stakeholders and marketplace. Executives have the focus and vision to roadmap strategies playing out 3, 5, and 10 years into the future. But, we’re also “plodders” and are comfortable with short, measured, consistent steps – day in and day out - as long as we know that they are aligned with reaching a desired goal. With your social media strategy, the focus must be on consistency and sustainability over the long haul. Remember, executives don’t have the ego needs, risk profiles, or the TIME to be on the bleeding edge, or even the cutting edge. We just want it to work.

I can confidently predict that every month for the next 100 years there will be a new “Must Have” application, portal or community that one of your employees will discover, and then try to convince you that your company will implode if you don’t immediately join, link, or Retweet. In five years, all but three of these ideas will probably be forgotten.
In order for your enterprise-wide social media strategy to work, it must be predicated on the foundation of proven tools that have stood the test of time and offer “Best-In-Class” results, so that you will be empowered to handle these conversations proactively in the context of a larger roadmap, rather than reacting to these weekly ambushes in a dismissive defensive way. Remember, your goal for social media is not a lark, but a LIFESTYLE, and work-shopping a strategy which builds on stable, scalable tools, yet also affords the flexibility to address unprecedented “Black Swan” technology developments, provides you with a welcome buffer from being whipsawed by a weekly website. Ideally, you will be able to finally take that reliable “80/20 Rule” and apply it to social media, and then spend time focusing on the 80% of stakeholder value that can be extracted with 20% of the effort (while knowingly and purposefully ignoring the remaining 20% of value which takes up 80% of the effort).

The Bottom Line

In the Forward of Geoffrey Moore’s bestseller “Crossing the Chasm” Regis McKenna writes:

“Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationships. Customers don't like to be 'owned' if that implies lack of choice or freedom. But they do like to be 'owned' if what that means is a vendor taking ongoing responsibility for the success of their joint ventures. Ownership in this sense means an abiding commitment and a strong sense of mutuality in the development of the marketplace. When customers encounter this kind of ownership, they tend to become fanatically loyal to their supplier, which in turns builds a stable economic base for profitability and growth.”

While there will always be a “me” in media - social media, social marketing, and social networking tools were designed to work best as a conduit for enabling information exchange, establishing a dialog, and creating a two-way conversation with your audience. At the end of the day, social media is simply about creating and maintaining relationships – and even an executive can do that.

Traders & Traitors: Time to Model Banks After Prisons

2010-05-05T16:20:00.001-05:00

If you’ve ever toured a maximum security prison and had the opportunity to experience first-hand the secure quarters used to confine inmates, chances are you came away impressed with the same overriding sentiment that I did. Rather than beauty or transcendence or architectural elegance, it was obvious that the builders had predicated every design decision to support one single priority – security. They started with the fundamental underlying assumption that whatever furniture, substance, or material was present in the cell – no matter how benign – the inmate WOULD attempt to use it for evil. Every switch, screw, and spring, every mechanism and mattress, every faucet, pipe, pillow and headboard must be weighed and considered within the context of the criminal mind, the criminal mindset, and the criminal intent default and ask, “How could this be used for evil?” “How will this be used maliciously?” “How will this be used as a tool to escape, intimidate, or injure?” “How could this be used for the prisoner’s personal advantage?”

From Alcatraz to Al-Qaida

The great thing about STARTING with the premise of absolute evil is that you will never be startled when this outcome occurs. When you ASSUME the worst in people as a starting point, you are no longer vulnerable to being surprised or blindsided when this evil is realized. In fact, it is this same “preemptive evil” worldview that informs America’s foreign policy as it relates to our proactive stance in keeping nukes and the ingredients for creating weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of declared aggressors like Al-Qaida and Iran.

Stocks and Bonds

I find it ironic that just as stocks and bonds have been used for centuries to shackle and embarrass prisoners, these same words and instruments are now descriptors for various classes of investment – assets that have been battered and bruised over the past 2 years while dominating the media with increasingly sensational headlines. Our populist and political outrage came to a collective crescendo last week as the SEC “donned” their civil suit against Goldman Sachs - the archetype and embodiment of all things Wall Street – and the firm which Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi famously called, “A great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." In his article, Taibbi notes, “If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy." While Goldman’s stature as the industry’s preeminent “market maker” positions them as a convenient and visible whipping boy for this crisis, targeting Goldman exclusively would tragically oversimplify the tentacles of our recent malaise, for nearly EVERYONE in this industry was in on the jail-break leading America (and the world) to the brink of financial disaster.

Wall Street On Debt Row

To keep this short, I have selected a single vignette emblematic of the current mindset of Wall Street today. According to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, “The market for credit default swaps exploded from $632 Billion outstanding in the first half of 2001 to $62 Trillion in the second half of 2007.” That sentence is so striking you MUST read it twice. In the span of six years, this niche market went from $632 BILLION to $62 TRILLION. These CDS bilateral contract vehicles HAD been around since the early 1990’s, and HAD been used proportionately for nearly a decade, and then the SAME THING happened that ALWAYS happens – something designed for a good legitimate purpose was twisted and contorted for a use beyond what was intended. The fine folks at Wiki noted, “A holder of a bond may “buy protection” to hedge its risk of default. In this way, a CDS is similar to credit insurance, although CDS are not similar to or subject to regulations governing casualty or life insurance. Also, investors can buy and sell protection without owning any debt of the reference entity. Credit default swaps are not traded on an exchange and there is no required reporting of transactions to a government agency.” When Wall Street connected these dots and discovered a way to make money that was NOT subject to regulations governing casualty or life insurance and that was NOT required to be traded on an exchange and NOT required to be reported to a government agency, they STAMPEDED over each other to leverage, use, and ultimately ABUSE this instrument.

According to Lawrence McDonald, managing director of Pangea Capital Management, “I was on the trading floor at Lehman in 2007 when we started to talk about the ethics of these synthetic CDOs, and all they are, are wealth transfer vehicles -- essentially transferring wealth from the many to the few. They really don't serve a human purpose and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein just admitted that there really isn't a point for a synthetic CDO.” Like prisoners systematically tapping a jail cell looking for a crack or hole in the wall, Wall Street had discovered a fissure in the foundation of our financial system YEARS before the sirens started going off. And the reason nobody was going to sound the alarm was because…

Even the “Guards” Were on the Take

In their April 30th article entitled “The Race to Kill the Ratings Agencies,” Fortune magazine reported that a federal court has just decided to allow a fraud case against Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s to move into the discovery phase. Ratings agencies like these were SUPPOSED to act like the guards in the prison, but the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee last week laid out over 580 pages of investigation chronicling a culture of, “Ethical decay whereby it was company policy not to commit anything controversial to paper or email. The easiest way for the ratings agencies to boost market share was to lower credit standards, and in peak years Moody's and S&P rated more than 10,000 RMBS securities each, for which they charged anywhere from $50,000 to more than $1 million and their operating margins averaged 53%, far outpacing the margins enjoyed by Exxon (17%) and Microsoft (36%), during the same time. It was a trough far richer than the agencies ever imagined. So they gorged. By 2007, S&P derived 48% of its total revenues on this new business line.” According to the recent Senate testimony of Moody’s Eric Kolchinsky, "Despite the massive manifest errors in the ratings assigned to structured finance securities and the market implosion we were witnessing, it appeared to me that my manager was more concerned about losing a few points of market share than about violating the law.”

Prison Cells: The New Model for What Wall Street Sells

Here’s my solution. I propose that we use the same model for designing what Wall Street sells that we do for designing prison cells. I propose that we START with the premise - with the expectation - of absolute evil. The current Congressional hearings and financial reform proposals will ALL be a colossal waste of time unless we START with the premise of evil; unless we START by asking, “How will this new rule be abused? How can this regulation be skirted? How can the good intention of this bill or financial instrument be twisted and contorted for the benefit of a few and the detriment of many? Don’t legislate how an investment, risk, or insurance vehicle SHOULD be used, but rather start with the end game of how this WMD (Weapon of Monetary Destruction) COULD be used. If we ASSUME malice, then we won’t be surprised when that outcome is ultimately and inevitably realized.

Sachs and Violence

If this latest downturn has taught us anything, it has been to demonstrate - once and for all – that the quaint concepts of “integrity” and “good faith” and “taking the high road” are no longer fashionable. Not too long ago, things used to be black and white; right and wrong. Now it appears that grey is the new black, where it’s not a question of whether it’s ethical or unethical (it’s unethical) but whether they think they can get away with it in court, which is where it appears many firms are now headed. Sure, “transparency” is a great starting point, but no committee or Blue Ribbon Panel can ever be created to uncover or decipher the layers upon layers of purposeful deceit and corruption built into the culture of these institutions populating our current financial system. We need look no further than our penitentiaries to see how even full transparency can’t stop the problem. In prison, guards perform daily “bar exams” on the inmates and their cells, yet records continue to show a pattern of non-stop violence and abuse of even the most benign materials to unleash evil against others.

People WILL push the boundaries in the name of competition, in the name of greed, and in the name of winning – they always have. Baseball had its steroids, Vegas has its weighted dice and card counters. And how can we forget in 2009 when those weird polyurethane swim trunks were introduced “to aid speed and buoyancy.” Within weeks they were everywhere, and at the very next international swim meet 21 world records were broken. It’s not just the nature of Goldman, it’s the nature of Man. Remember the earlier quote, “Organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.” However, if there’s one group that should hold to a higher standard about profits (and prophets) it would be Goldman, for wasn’t it the Old Testament’s Jeremiah that lamented, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” Society’s only hope in bringing back the retail investor and reestablishing lasting confidence in our “laughing stock” market is to either change the heart of mankind itself or architect a system from the ground up that is more organized, more insightful, and more savvy than the “organized greed” that is forever seeking a loophole to exploit.

Pine Flu Outbreak!! Christmas Tree Sales Threatened: Scientists Stumped

2010-01-09T15:23:00.002-05:00

In a year defined by an endless parade of head-snapping headlines, the latest Tannenbomb to go off was the ominous warning from a respected environmentalist that a rare outbreak of the so-called “Pine Flu” threatens to decimate America’s forests and destroy this beloved seasonal symbol.

According to scientists, the outbreak can be traced back to the strange visitation of an odd, greenish, backward-flying comet named “Lulin” in February. “The green color comes from the poisonous gasses carbon and cyanogen,” observed NASA astronomer Stephen Edberg, “and while most of the other objects in the solar system circle the sun counterclockwise, Lulin circles clockwise, and thanks to an optical illusion, from Earth it appears as if the comet’s tail is out in front.”

Exactly HOW this comet infected our forests remains unclear, but the CDC (Comets Destroying Christmas) committee has just launched its “Go Tell it on the Mountain” awareness campaign, issuing guidelines for triaging this disease, and axing people to be on the lookout for symptoms including malaise, drooping branches, curvature of the spine, truncated growth, and a loss of color - giving it the appearance of being sapped of all strength - and prompting disgruntled buyers to rename them “Never-green” Trees.

If you suspect that your tree has a case of the Pine Flu, DO NOT attempt to decorate or medicate – since tinsel is a natural irritant and it already has enough needles - and Yule regret any attempts to spruce things up, as infected trees have a heightened sensitivity to lights, and may become feverish and lumbering (regardless of whether the symptoms are real or artificial).

This “Pinedemic” is already trimming Christmas tree inventories nationwide, and the shortage is really getting the fir flying as customers fight for the few remaining healthy trees on the lot. When asked if this was just another left-wing, tree-hugging hoax, government officials were unboughed, snapping, “Hey, wasn’t it just last year that experts predicted the probability of an outbreak of swine flu when pigs fly?”

Eat Whatever You Want on the Holidays!

2009-12-14T13:53:00.002-05:00

Every year around the Holiday season, scores of well-meaning, tongue-clucking, “It’s Good-For-You” articles start appearing in newspapers, magazines, and blogs telling people about the latest No-Fat gravy OR how exchanging cornbread for rhubarb will make Grandma’s secret stuffing Low-Carb. Or maybe how to track, shoot, dress and carve the ultimate Tofurkey OR about an ancient Aztec custom of combining orange tree bark and gruel to create the perfect pumpkin-less pie. These recipes and suggestions are then coupled with drill-sergeant-like commands ordering you to immediately speed-walk after dinner to work off ALL of those calories before you’re allowed to return to the dining room for your choice of low-carbon Mocklate, free-range-coffee, or tea and strumpets.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! Once and for all, I would like to deliver a message to all of these, “Healthier-Than-Thou” killjoy punditz on behalf of the rest of the 99.9% sane red-blooded, white-meated, blueberry-pie-eating, wish-bone-breaking, football-watching, nap-taking, majority of true Americans: SHUT UP! Bah Humbug! It's a HOLIDAY! A Special Occasion! A Festival, Fiesta, or more commonly “Celebration” – a Middle English noun derived from a triumvirate of three Latin roots: “Cele” meaning football, “Brat” meaning food, and “Shun” meaning crawling upstairs to the guest bedroom to take a nap without guilt. Stop the insanity! Give the frowning, finger-wagging, wet-blanket lecture a rest! What you EAT, DRINK, and DO on the 15 Holidays sprinkled throughout the year won’t make a hill of baked beans difference. It's what you do the OTHER 350 days of the year that matter. It’s your eating, sleeping, exercising, hygiene habits and daily choices the OTHER 96% of the year that will determine your longevity, quality of life, body image, BMI, and health and fitness level.

The Weight of the World

According to The Atlantic Monthly, “In 2000, for the first time in history, the number of overweight people in the world – more than a billion of them, 300 million of whom were obese – matched the number of underweight people.” And that was nearly 10 years ago!

According to Parade magazine, 67% of American adults (138 million people) are overweight, 32% are considered obese (30 or more pounds over weight) and these same adults weigh an average of 18 pounds more NOW than they did in 1979. In addition, there are now over 10 million Americans classified as morbidly obese (more than 100 pounds OVER their ideal body weight) representing 1 in 30 people.

And if that’s not enough, according to CNN.com, the prevalence of overweight children and adolescents between 6 and 19 has tripled since 1970, and now over 20% of children and teens are overweight (including over 1 in 3 kids in Ohio) with millions of these children facing a higher risk of developing obesity-related disorders and who are TWICE as likely to be overweight as adults.

America’s Health: Are We “Too Big to … Succeed?”

According to USA Today, “If Americans continue to pack on pounds, obesity will cost the USA about $344 billion in medical-related expenses by 2018, eating up 21% of healthcare spending,” an assumption based on current trends projecting that in 10 years 43% of American adults will be obese.” Why does this matter? Because the average annual medical bill for a healthy weight adult in 2018 will be $5855, compared with $8315 for an obese person – nearly 50% MORE!
Closer to home, Cleveland’s Plain Dealer reported on 11/18/09, “By 2018, over half of Ohio’s adults will be obese,” and the average Ohioan will see costs for obesity-attributable health care services QUADRUPLE in the next 10 years.

Why does this matter? Here’s why - $$$

Our country has been embroiled in a passionate national debate over healthcare for the past 5 months and the discussion always eventually comes down to the same wearied couplet: “What will it COST?” and “Who is going to PAY for it?” The U.S. currently spends about $1.8 trillion annually in medical costs associated with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and all three are linked to smoking and obesity, the nation’s two largest risk factors, according to the America’s Health Rankings report.

Smoking is still the #1 preventable cause of death in the country, accounting for about 440,00 deaths a year, and even though 1 in 5 American’s still smoke, more than 3 million people quit smoking this past year. Did you hear that? They QUIT smoking – they stopped voluntarily treating their bodies in a way that they knew was harmful and took the personal responsibility to change their behavior and stopped smoking. Was it easy? No Way! But 3 million people decided to quit. Did the government force them to quit? No, but they did pass laws making cigarettes more expensive and creating smoke-free planes, buildings, and restaurants making it harder to light up. Did insurance force them to quit? No, but they did raise the premiums for smokers to reflect the higher financial burden they place on the health system. Did society force them to quit? No, but collectively the cultural norms have evolved so that – instead of being celebrated – smoking is now frowned on and discouraged via negative reinforcement in our schools, businesses, and major media.

Here’s my question: “What if 3 million people decided to quit weighing too much next year?” What if 3 million decided to stop voluntarily harming their body, took personal responsibility, and changed their behavior to make positive choices regarding their health? Could the government, insurance industry, or society force people to do this? No, no, and no, but – like smoking – if combined, they could work to change the cultural norms and establish a positive reinforcement infrastructure via financial incentives, reduced premiums, quantifiable health benefits, and visible “success stories” to head off and curtail the worst of this nationwide plague.

Which Epidemic is Worse? Swine Flu or Porky People?

Forgive me for getting on my soapbox here, but the collective hypocrisy is just too indicting to remain silent. Reports about the H1N1 virus have been television’s “Lead Story” and “Front Page News” in circulars across the country ALL YEAR! What is H1N1? How do you contract it? What steps can you take to avoid it? Swine Flu in the workplace/at home/at school, vaccinations, shortages, and on and on it goes – countless stories of medical and media hyperbole. Is it important? Sure it is. But folks, I GOT Swine Flu last month – I felt sick for a week, and then it took another week to feel normal again – that’s it!

Meanwhile, as this hysteria has been playing out across TV’s, E.D.’s, and LCD’s, another 1.2 million have been added to the ranks of our country’s overweight/obese population. As Americans, we’ve perfected this propensity to miss the Black Forest Cake for the trees, and the H1N1 vs. Obesity discussion is the perfect example. With the breakout of Swine Flu, we’ve obsessed with washing, cleaning, prevention, education, and even radical behavior modification like wearing gloves and masks to avoid getting the Flu – which we only have a known statistical possibility of contracting – and even if we DO get sick - it will only be for a week or two and we’ll be back to normal. (The CDC has traced less than 4,300 deaths NATIONWIDE to Swine Flu so far. I am not trying to downplay this loss of life or the continuing risk it poses). However, contrast that with the daily, non-stop epidemic of unhealthy Americans – over 138,000,000 are overweight with 10,000,000 considered morbidly obese. Hello? We now know that weighing too much contributes to heart and gallbladder disease, diabetes, arthritis, stroke, hypertension, sleep apnea, and even some cancers (not to mentioned missed work, extra physician visits, limited mobility and quality of life, and countless hours lost trying to fit into those “skinny jeans.”)

The good news is that they’ve discovered a CURE to obesity-related diseases guaranteed to work for 98% of the population – eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly – but are people lining up for this? No! Why isn’t, “Doctor Discovers Cure for Obesity” front-page headline news every day? Recent studies have revealed that, “Physical exercise is central to reducing your risk of cancer,” according to Dr. Michael Thun at the American Cancer Society, so why didn’t his finding make it out of medical journals and into the mainstream? And if it wasn’t for our local Plain Dealer, we never would have read Cleveland Clinic leader Toby Cosgrove’s insightful observation, “Without controlling obesity and smoking, and without dealing with wellness, it’s going to be very difficult for us to ever control the cost of health care in the U.S.”

Can America AFFORD a “Weight and See” approach to health care?

Dr. Louis Aronne, Director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, says treating obesity may be the most cost-effective way of addressing many chronic illnesses that are driven by excess body weight. “When you go to the doctor now, they treat your high blood pressure, diabetes and your cholesterol,” he says. "What I envision is your weight could be the primary target of treatment because by treating your weight, not only will you get the diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but you'll get the many other underlying problems caused by your excess weight. We could reduce health care costs by managing the root cause."

The reason information and thinking like this is not “Top of mind” in our society is because the dominant culture has an appetite for the sensational. They would much rather fixate on the sexy symptoms and radical remedies than the root cause. They would much rather feature striking images of vaccination shortages for Swine Flu shots than cover the exponentially more significant impact of personal health and accountability. If you think about it, that’s why they call it “News” – the only criteria is that it’s “New” – nobody ever said it was proportionately important.

This same distorted perspective is evidenced by the landslide of “Healthy Holiday Eating” articles I referenced earlier. The media would rather fixate on making healthy choices on the 15 Holidays during the year, rather than looking at the “big picture” and focusing on the importance of choices made the other 350 days of the year. They’d rather report on what people eat on Thanksgiving or if they keep their New Year’s Resolution and exercise on January 1, rather than focus on what people eat during those other countless weekday lunches or whether people get up at 5am and hit the gym - on a cold, snowy Tuesday in March – and those other hundreds of mornings sandwiched in between January 2 and December 31.

Society tends to “Major in the minors” and put disproportionate emphasis on what’s “Hip” versus encouraging and challenging people to do what’s hard – commit to a lifestyle of self preservation and improvement. Case in Point: Our auto industry is obsessed with prevention, having introduced anti-lock brakes, seatbelts, airbags, reinforced pillars and crumple zones all designed to avoid or minimize the impact of a collision. Unfortunate automobile events are called “accidents” – sudden, spontaneous, unpredictable tragedies – and carmakers and insurance firms have invested BILLIONS in to prevent or minimize the damage caused by these events. The health choices Americans make on a daily basis are considered “on purposes” – rational, informed, habitual decisions – yet the cumulative effect of these choices have a FAR GREATER probability of impacting your life than random auto accidents – yet so few give ANY consideration or priority towards prevention in this arena.

Your Personal Health Sustainability Plan

Going green? Concerned about sustainability? If you really care about the environment, your personal footprint, and your impact on the collective, how about eating your greens and initiating a sustainable lifestyle? If everyone stepped up to the plate – by stepping away from the plate – and made proactive, positive, disciplined choices to do their part – think of the impact! Instead of our current “Sick Care,” we might finally have the “Health Care” model we aspire towards. Society has made it “Not cool” to smoke anymore. What if we made it “Not cool” to be unhealthy anymore? Heck, I’d be willing to meet half way on this – I’ll settle for overweight – only 25 pounds more than ideal weight (to avoid all of those arguments about being “big boned” or the perceived flaws of Body Mass Index measurement). What if every obese person changed their habits to become simply overweight – imagine the savings! In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I am willing to personally come to your office in the Cleveland area to talk to your firm about practical, real-life strategies for obtaining and maintaining a sustainable, healthy lifestyle for your employees. (Email me directly at dougobryon@juno.com for details).

Food For Thought

So, go ahead and stuff yourself on Thanksgiving, eat your heart out on Valentine's Day, plant yourself in front of a cheesecake on Arbor Day, drink a fifth on the Fourth of July, eat like Adam on New Year's Eve, make it a Good Friday, Easter, Halloween, Christmas, Super Bowl, President’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and enjoy Labor Day and Birth Day SO MUCH that you get contractions. LIVE IT UP on the Holidays – it’s what you do the OTHER 350 days of the year that matter.

Flu Scorecard: H: 1 Author: 0

2009-11-04T16:33:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s official - I got it. The disease. The plague. H1N1. In spite of six months of daily media warnings from CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta and countless late night Public Service Announcements from Gary Busey (scary), it still got me. Regular exercise – check. Healthy eating – check. Lots of sleep – check. Resisting the impulse to buy a Brady Quinn jersey – check. Stopping at 8 pieces of bacon – check. But in the end it didn’t matter, as the Swine Flu – like the Grim Reaper - was coming after me, and there was nothing I could do but welcome him in, pull the shades, and prepare for five mind-numbing days of comatose staring at the white stucco ceiling in our second floor guest room and wondering how the painters managed to make every random pattern similar to the other random patterns, except for the little ones in the corners, which seem like they were pressed up against the crown molding because of space constraints, or maybe it was a Friday before a long weekend and they wanted to get out of Strongsville before the traffic, so they just kind of slathered on the paint and hoped nobody would notice, being as it was all white paint anyway, and the pattern was supposed to be random after all, wasn’t it?

If you’re reading this now, it means that you are lucid AND that you are currently in one of three categories: you’ve already HAD H1N1, you now HAVE it, or you’re GOING to have it. Therefore, in the interest of all parties involved (including rednecks), I’ve decided to save you the time and trouble of going to WebMD.com or to your local clinic, and have compiled the following Self Triage Questionnaire to help determine if you have in fact contracted this dreaded diabolical disease.

You Might Already Have H1N1 if…

You’re watching a World Series with the New York Yankees and “Don’t really care who wins.”

You can’t tell where your grey “Go Army” sweatshirt ends and your face begins.

Your name has been added to Rite-Aid’s “Customer Watch List” for excessive NyQuil purchases

You can’t follow the plot on Dora the Explorer

When you come to the door on Halloween, the kids ask, “So who are YOU supposed to be?

You’re now on a first name basis with the mailman

The Healthcare bill’s “Public Option” starts making sense

You can say exactly when the last leaf of fall fell

Libido? Libidon’t!

You actually considered calling your Mom for medicinal advice

You put on your Grease soundtrack just to hear Travolta sing, “I’ve got chills, they’re multiplyin’”…

You decide it’s easier to just wait an hour than to set your clocks back

For the first time, global warming becomes real and personal

You tell the “Trick or Treaters” you can’t decide

You suddenly realize that Apple Cider Vinegar is really just Vinegar, and the Apple and Cider are just marketing ploys

You log onto Google, but can’t remember how to spell H1N1

You discover that even the eyeballs in your eye sockets hurt

You start thinking, “You know, maybe Obama DID deserve the Nobel Peace Prize”

You’ve opened your mouth more times for a thermometer than for food

Friends stop emailing – just in case the virus can be transmitted electronically

You’re watching Fox News and decide that “Fair & Balanced” would make a great name for a law firm

At this point you’re wondering, “Why is this list so freakin’ LONG!?”

You’ve gone through more hot/cold flashes than Joan Rivers

You spend an entire day wondering if someone with an H1B visa contracted the H1N1 virus, would they then have an H2BN1 visa virus?

You find yourself craving Corn Dogs

Your kids now give you ‘air hugs’ to avoid contamination (even though it was those sneaky bastards that gave you the flu in the first place)

Your daily routine has become strikingly similar to your cats’

You have a recurring nightmare that your doorbell is ringing and a kid in an Obama mask it demanding another handout

Due to your significant investments, Purell has asked you to become a Board member

You realize, “Hey, Tom Brokaw isn’t on Nightly News”

Suddenly, voting Yes on Issue 5 sounds like a GOOD idea

The good news is - like earnings season, deer season, and the baseball season - even the flu season eventually comes to an end. Good luck surviving yours!

Douglas J. O’Bryon
Soundbite Laureate

America Uncoupled: Wall Street and Main Street At a Fork

2009-10-21T11:08:00.001-05:00

America has finally come to a fork in the road – at the intersection of Wall Street and Main Street – and that fork is being clutched in the quivering hand of the American Consumer. After walking in lockstep through thick and thin, it appears that this fiscal and fraternal pairing are preparing to part ways. Or are they?

If you recall at the outset of the 2007 downturn, scores of articles were published and proclamations made regarding the “global uncoupling” of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), asserting that the robust organic growth in these nations would buffer them from the deleterious effects of any economic contagion coming from the U.S. Two years later, the theory of global uncoupling has proven wrong, as the weight of America’s domestic tailspin has depressed global economies, causing them to also drop like - well - a brick.

We’re now faced with a similar question – but this time within our own borders - a question which asks whether Wall Street and Main Street are becoming uncoupled; whether the fortunes of the financial ruling class can prosper while the middle and working classes continue to suffer.

There’s No “Fun” in Fundamentals

While the stock market rallied to 2009 highs in September - with some indices soaring more than 50% above their March lows - the mood from the rest of the country is nowhere near “soaring” as the body count continues to mount from the carnage of our economic train wreck:

According to the Labor Department, the U.S. unemployment rate was at a 26-YEAR-HIGH of 9.8% in September 2009. Since the recession began in December 2007 over 7,600,000 jobs have been lost.

There are currently over 15,100,000 Americans unemployed, and according to the Plain Dealer on 9/23/09, roughly 5,000,000 have been unemployed over 6 months - the HIGHEST NUMBER since data was first collected in 1948 – PLUS there are currently SIX unemployed people for EVERY SINGLE available job.

While normal 26-week unemployment compensation programs have been extended to 79 weeks in many states, over 1,500,000 people are expected to exhaust their benefits by year’s end, with the first big wave of 540,000 falling out of the program at the end of September according to the nonprofit National Employment Law Project.

In May 2008, the number of people using food stamps was 27,000,000. In December 2008, the number surpassed 30,000,000 for the first time. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in August 2009 there were 34,000,000 Americans on food stamps and in September there were over 35,000,000, a JUMP of over 1,000,000 in ONE MONTH.

As of September 2009, a FULL 12% of the total U.S. population was on some form of Food Stamp assistance, the HIGHEST since records began in 1969.

Household debt peaked at $13.9 trillion in 2008, almost DOUBLE the figure from 2000. With all of the cutbacks in consumer spending in 2009, debt has been “slashed” ALL the way down to $13.8 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.

The collapse of both the housing and stock markets has erased more than $12 trillion in wealth since 2007. Between June 2007 and December 2008, inflation-adjusted personal wealth fell by 22.8% - the most since the Federal Reserve began collecting data almost 60 years ago.

According to CNN Money, there were more than 360,000 foreclosure filings in July 2009, an increase of 7% from June 2009 and an increase of 32% from July 2008, marking the third time in the previous five months that a new record for foreclosure activity had been set.

Moody’s Investor Service reported on 9/23/09 that the U.S. credit card charge-off rate - which was 10.52% of balances in July - rose to a RECORD HIGH of 11.49% in August.

According to Automated Access to Court Electronic Records, from January to August 2009, national bankruptcy filing reached 954,911, up from 703,732 in the same period of 2008, and is expected to exceed 1,450,000 by the end of December. In August 2009 alone, the America Bankruptcy Institute reported 119,874 filings, a 24% increase over August 2008.

THEREFORE, and not surprisingly, The Conference Board reported that its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 53.1 in September from 54.5 in August (a steep departure from the 57 reading expected by the Briefing.com consensus survey) and the index component that measures consumers’ assessment of the present situation fell from 25.4 to 22.7.

It’s Not Mental, It’s Funda-mental

So-called “experts” in the media continue to talk about the importance of “Consumer Confidence,” suggesting that if only Americans would think happy, optimistic thoughts that everything would be okay. Hello? Did you READ that first section? Do you SEE the pattern? Have you watched the data points and reports coming in from Wall Street? The PREPONDERANCE of HOMES sold are discounted (foreclosure, short sales, or homes under $250,000), the PREPONDERANCE of RETAIL success is limited to discounters (Wal-Mart, Dollar General, Family Dollar), and PREPONDERANCE of RESTAURANT success is also limited to discounters (McDonalds and the like, and now grocery stores).

The problem is NOT Consumer Confidence, the problem is Consumer OVER-Confidence. Do you know how much confidence you need to muster to take out a 40-year loan on a $600,000 house with no money down, with an interest-only loan – on spec – when you’re earning $45,000? Do you know how much CONFIDENCE it takes to max out all of your credit cards AND home equity loan AND student loans AND car loans? The American Consumer has more CONFIDENCE than anyone on the planet! TOO MUCH CONFIDENCE is what got us INTO the Countrywide and country-wide mess we’re in (remember, you can’t spell Consumer OR Confidence without the “Con”). In short, instead of consuming, the American consumer is now staying home preparing consommé, not because they WANT to, but because they have no other choice.

Therein Lies the (MATH) Problem

Because consumer spending traditionally accounts for 70% of all U.S. economic activity (GDP) AND because the U.S. represents 25% of the world economy, it becomes mathematically evident that a frightening 17.5% of the WORLD ECONOMY is dependent on the American Consumer – a population under virtual house arrest, completely tapped out, down for the count, paralyzed by the fear of job loss, foreclosure, bankruptcy, credit card interest hikes, healthcare premium hikes, college tuition hikes, and the limitations imposed by a weak dollar.

Cracking the Whip

Perhaps the best description of the consumers’ condition – and the continuing confusion from the financial pundits - comes from an obscure Economic Manifesto published 18 months ago entitled, “Banks, Tanks, & Angst – How Long Will America Idle?” which described this phenomenon as follows:

“Today’s analysts continue to simply look at market performance in a one-dimensional, linear way – asserting that since stock prices have been marked down and future earnings discounted, that things should start getting back to normal, and the nation will simply ramp back up from this temporary “speed bump” with a continuation of our long-running bull market. What they FAIL to understand is a concept that we all learned as kids called “Cracking the Whip.” “Cracking the Whip” was a game where a line of 10-15 ice skaters would hold hands and slowly start turning in a circle, eventually building up so much momentum that the person farthest from the center would eventually fly off the end of the “whip” and go sailing over the ice – whether they wanted to or not! It’s the same with the economy. Wall Street and the associated banks and financial institutions are at the center, and the consumer is skating way out on the end of the whip, and just like the whip, even small movements from the epicenter can have significant consequences as they ripple through the markets. What Wall Street doesn’t realize is that - instead of being small - the corrections taking place at their epicenter have been HUGE, and that the even larger aftershocks are just STARTING to have an impact on the broader economy. All of the bankruptcies, foreclosures, store closings, and abysmal retail figures are JUST THE START. While Wall Street firms can belly up to the discount window and TARP and effectively “buy more time” to get their financial house in order, consumers don’t have that option, as more and more fall into the GAP between Average Consumer Income and the Average Cost of Life.

The American economy fell off a cliff and took a 2-year tumble. The good news is that we’re nearly done falling. The bad news is that the 5-year climb back UP will take a lot longer than the 2-year drop. While “technically” the recession may be drawing to a close, that does NOT mean that the “Good times are here again.” Rather than wasting time trying to guess the shape of the recovery (U, V, W), perhaps we should be identifying a “new animal” to describe the “new normal” market performance. How about a "Cat?" It's domestic, sometimes it purrs, sometimes it hisses, sometimes tame, sometimes wild, always unpredictable, with a long tail, retractable claws, limited loyalty, finicky, knows its way around the Street, and unlike a dog, always prefaces its actions by considering, "What's in it for me?" In spite of the media’s demand for directional clarity, it’s not going to be an either/or situation. I believe the next few years will play out as a churning “Un-Bear-Or-Bull” market or, in a word, Catatonic.

You Can’t Spell Economy Without Money

With the Cash for Clunkers program over and the $8,000 housing credit ending in November, the government has nearly exhausted its smoke and mirror options to prop up the economy. Companies are now going to have to show actual revenue growth - not just cost cutting - to sustain stock prices going forward; a prospect which gets dimmer when overlaid with the condition of their primary buyer – the beleaguered American consumer.

The most disturbing data point to reconcile at this point in the downturn is the reality that getting back to an unemployment rate of 5% will require the creation of over 13,000,000 NEW JOBS, a truly jaw-dropping number considering many of the jobs lost over the past two years are in industries which will never return. When people don’t have jobs, they don’t have enough money to survive - let alone thrive – which means that those products and services predicated on a surplus of discretionary income will continue to struggle going forward. In fact, even firms that manufacture vehicles, which fall into that fuzzy “needs/wants” category, will have to reset their expectations to reflect the new normal, meaning that the capacity to produce the 16,900,000 new vehicles sold in 2007 must be reduced to the more sustainable 9,800,000 volume projected for 2009 and beyond (a truly frustrating Catch-22 situation wherein improved quality and longevity of used cars on the road actually cannibalizes the potential for new vehicle sales).

American Uncoupled: Hit or Myth?

Just as the theory of “global uncoupling” has proven false over the past two years, it is inevitable that a similar “domestic uncoupling” phenomenon will also be proven unsustainable, much to the dismay of Wall Street and 401(k)’s. In what is being hailed as the worst kept secret in the history of the stock market, the DOW will crash OVER 1500 points before Christmas, having gone TFTF (Too Far Too Fast) in the seven months since the March lows - riding what’s been called a “sugar high” – propelled by performance enhancing stimulus funds to reach lofty heights no longer uncorrelated to the fundamental conditions on the ground.

The “recoupling” process is imminent - the only question is how. Fortunately, the end of Major League Baseball’s regular season provides us with the perfect metaphor. It’s like the entire investing community is at a Tuesday night baseball game, during the last week of the regular season, in the final stretch for the pennant. Even while they are cheering the home team and high-fiving each other, out of the corner of their eyes they are watching. Everyone has to get up early the next morning and go to work, and nobody wants to be stuck in the parking lot traffic jam until midnight, so as the innings go on, one fan after another begins looking around, starting to plan their escape. They locate the exit tunnels, make one more pit stop in the bathroom, and then quietly whisper the departure sequence to their kids: “When they get the 3rd out in the bottom of the 7th inning, we’re bolting for home.” But the problem is, it’s a good game, the teams are tied, and while nobody wants to get trapped, nobody wants to miss the excitement either. So they wait, all 50,000 of them, on the edge of their seats, preparing for the perfect moment to leave, when suddenly the opposing team starts a rally…man on first…first and third…bases loaded…and then CRACK, a grand slam home run turns a pitching duel into a blowout. The manager makes a call to the bullpen, but it’s too late. It is then that 50,000 people – in one accord – stampede toward the exits, all desperate to make it out of the parking garage before the streams of cars and fans create gridlock.

I truly believe this is how the recoupling process will play out and the 2009 stock gains will unravel. Everyone knows – on a gut level – that the market grew Too Far Too Fast this year, and that the deteriorating fundamentals reflecting the deteriorating financial situation of America’s consumers don’t support the inflated stock valuations. Just like a baseball rally, it won’t be a single news story or earnings report, but rather a rapid succession of bad markers – a single, a double, a walk, and then one big blow and suddenly – like the Fall of 2007 – investors will remember what it was like trying to “catch a falling knife” and will stampede toward the exits with what remains of their 2009 gains. Goldman and others, with their millisecond-beating, high-frequency trading technologies, will be able to escape through their proprietary exit, while the masses will once again get trampled – the unwitting victims, the unprivileged ballast, of yet another massive transfer of wealth.

Nightmare on Wall Street

As surely as our brisk autumn winds foreshadow the coming frost and chill of winter, so the imbalances in the delicate equilibrium of our economy foretell another period of financial reckoning, as the forces of Wall Street and Wal-Mart, and the futures of Manhattan and Main Street, are reconciled and the fortunes of both recoupled. Perhaps the great wordsmith Yogi Berra summed it up best with his advice, “When you come to a fork in the road…Take it.” But you’d better act fast, before the market gets spooked and you’re tricked out of your treats.

Douglas O’Bryon, Soundbite Laureate

What's Next?? Nickels for Pickles??

2009-10-06T16:18:00.002-05:00

With the government's recently completed Cash For Clunkers program safely in the rear-view mirror, the time is ripe for unveiling the NEXT interventionist idea for the reallocation of capital in this country. Like that childhood allowance from your father, America is now conditioned to expect - every few weeks - another feebly disguised handout from our increasingly paternalistic government, unveiled and trumpeted amid fanfare suitable for the next media darling.

Using a well-worn recipe as tired as it is predictable, the conjunction “For” is sandwiched between two nouns (linked by some cryptic form of rhyme or alliteration) promising the exchange of money from one party to another, and which (so far) has followed a linear, alphabetical pattern. After starting with their questionable Assistance For Assets and Bailouts For Banks programs, the government has begun scrolling through the rest of the alphabet – and the economy – with customized programs for people of every color and creed, every region and religion. Rather than endure the withering water-torture of these programs leaking out every few weeks, I’ve decided - as a service to the voting public – to preempt the entire system, do an “end run” if you will, and provide a sneak peak at the puns and programs awaiting you over the next 24 months.

While you’ve most likely read about the $300 million set-aside by the Obama Administration to fund Rebates For Refrigerators, and the launch of the new Toys ‘R Us Cash For Cribs program, I predict you’ll be hearing a lot more about Earmarks For Energy early this fall, along with new “shovel-ready” programs including Riches For Ditches and Savings For Pavings. In addition, the powerful farmers union (EIEIO) has successfully lobbied for several constituent bailouts including Checks For Chicks, Dollars For Collards, Salary For Celery, Nickels For Pickles, Coins For Loins, Money For Honey, and the ever-popular Cashola For Granola. Clothiers have also united and will soon launch their Payment For Raiment exchange while encouraging people to recycle their old dungarees with their ill-faded Green For Jeans program.

The Quarters For Mortars plan was so successful in Iraq that the government is planning on launching it here, and the Stocks For Clocks and Moolah For Fuel-ah, while not the best grammatically, will prove far superior to the confusing Dough For Ho debacle set to play out for Santa’s this Christmas. Dividends For Citizens has already shown a lot of interest, as has Oil For Soil, and finally it appears that Congress is nearing an agreement on their new Wealth For Health exchange program.

So there you have it. Two years of rhymes and rationing, pork and policy, all in one excruciating essay. I apologize if it felt like yanking off a Band-Aid – fast and painful – but at least it’s over, and you won’t be snow-blindsided this winter when these political programs hit the professional pundit podiums.

In closing, while the primary cause of our current economic downturn was the introduction of the government’s wildly unsuccessful Houses For Louses program, I am pleased that the individuals responsible have at least given us Food For Thought in return. I can only hope that our politicians will never become so desperate that they would be willing to trade Toys For Tots. Whoops!

A Vision of Cleveland in 2020

2009-05-19T15:18:00.002-05:00

I Hate Vision Statements! There, I said it. In fact, I hate the very notion that someone -- anyone -- would have the audacity to conclude that they alone hold the answer, that to them exclusively this mystery has been revealed, that a single individual has been uniquely inspired and therefore ordained as the messenger to proclaim this great truth. And furthermore, anyone who would presume to do this would -- in doing so -- disqualify and discredit both the message and the messenger. HOWEVER, the only thing I hate MORE than a Vision Statement... is having no Vision at all. What follows, therefore, is a compromise. While not espousing the naiveté to claim that the answer can be known, or indeed that the Vision for an entire city can be neatly wrapped and packaged into a single summarizing soundbite and billboard-worthy slogan, I would nevertheless like to propose a living, breathing, strategic, regional roadmap -- A Cleveland Constitution, if you will -- A Vision of Cleveland in 2020.

Just as the Constitution of the United States provides the framework for the organization of the U.S. Government, so this Cleveland Constitution offers a framework for the organization of all of the assets, infrastructure, policies and priorities, culture and competition, arts and architecture, recreation and legislation, capital and collective psyche to proactively and holistically position our city in the most synergistic and complementary way possible – effectively taking all of our “Centers of Excellence” and all of our “Points of Light” and strategically connecting and arranging them to form a beautiful, visible, world-class constellation.

And just as America’s Constitution played an integral role in determining the destiny of our nation, so to our Cleveland Constitution in establishing a shared consensus on our destination. For you see, 2020 is not simply a measure of chronological time, it is also a place, a hope, a rallying cry and a bond, but mostly an arrival – an arrival at a destination that we as a city set out to reach based on the clarity of a shared Vision, a collective objective, or as they say around here during the NBA playoffs – “One Goal.”

Wii The People...

The greatest challenge with Visions is that they must necessarily originate and flow from flawed, fallen people, and whether a single person or the unclean masses, all people – in part or in total – suffer from some form of blurred vision. Either they are nearsighted, and so focused on the minute details of a single issue that they miss how their piece jigsaws its way into the bigger puzzle, OR they suffer from farsightedness, wherein their perspective is so big, broad, vast, and vague that it isn’t actionable or practical when faced with “feet on the street” reality. (Or, you have politicians, who seem to have a permanent case of “double vision” – intermittently combining the worst of both traits). Knowing this, and in full recognition of this phenomenon, the goal of this Cleveland Constitution will be to exercise the totality of our peripheral vision – internalizing and digesting all of the available data, documents, dynamics, and trends – and then, with eyes wide open, assert a single, cohesive, integrated, and compelling Vision.

Will this Vision be the “End all, be all?” Of course not, but it should serve as a starting point. By making a grand assertion (which is all a Vision really is), we introduce a logical and informed premise, a validated and substantiated argument, designed to spawn dialogue and debate, but now within the context of a larger narrative. Just as an airplane flying from L.A. to Honolulu is off course as much as 97% of the time, and it takes hundreds of real-time micro-adjustments to reach the destination, so it is with this Vision exercise – in fact, I’m counting on it. And just as the Nintendo Wii got people off the couch and involved in the game, so it will be with this Vision exercise, as we rely on the input from multiple participants to navigate and make the micro-adjustments necessary along the way.

Ultimately, the most important outcome of this Vision exercise is this – that we finally define and agree on our final destination, and ensure that we don’t miss our Forest City for the trees.

We Are All Witnesses

As I write this, the Cleveland Cavaliers are immersed in the NBA playoffs - having just completed the most successful season in the history of the franchise. The timing couldn’t be more ideal, as the success, composition, and recipe for the Cavaliers’ success this year is the perfect metaphor, the perfect illustration of the philosophy and approach we need to embrace to succeed in 2020.

Simply put, LeBron James = Cleveland, and Cleveland = LeBron James. Allow me to explain.

The Cavaliers best player is LeBron James. He is the name and face (and billboard) of the franchise. Because of LeBron, the Cavs clinched their division, conference, and home court advantage throughout the playoffs. Because of LeBron, the Cavs have had more national primetime exposure than ever before. Because of LeBron, "the Q" had more sellouts, sold more products, and poured more drinks than in any season in history. Sure, LeBron gets a lot of attention, but here’s where it gets interesting:

Because of LeBron, Cavaliers’ teammate Mo Williams had a banner year, averaging more points than any other season of his career. And because of LeBron, Andersen Varejao also posted some career bests this year. What’s interesting is that, even though LeBron is the name, face, and personality of the Cavs, his teammates ALSO benefited from this notoriety because he regularly commanded double and triple-teams, freeing up other players to hit open shots and contribute to their victories. And speaking of victories, it’s because of their league-leading number of wins that LeBron was the odds-on favorite to be selected MVP this year. [Congrats are certainly in order there].

In short, the Cavs have succeeded in creating a Win-Win situation by establishing a game plan, creating a hierarchy, and getting buy-in from all of the participants. LeBron’s greatness has created a “halo effect” on his team, the franchise, the city, and even the state - where everyone in the entire food chain benefits. LeBron needs his teammates to succeed, and his teammates need him to succeed, and you can tell this isn’t just superstar “lip-service” because the wins, stats, and team chemistry prove this to be true.

And here’s the best part: even with all of his stardom and individual accolades, LeBron still has the humility to submit himself to his coach and to his teammates, and the perspective to keep his eye on the ultimate goal, as he noted in the Plain Dealer on 4/15/09, “We have to do what’s best for the ring... If Mike wants to rest some of the big guys, myself, I’m going to sit out Wednesday – I’m all for that because in the playoffs, you’ve got to be fresh.”

I admire LeBron because it appears that he truly “gets it” – it’s all about winning the championship, it’s all about getting the ring, and his actions fully support his words.

If we dare to dream and realize a desirable outcome in 2020, we all need to be like LeBron. The reason this white paper is entitled, “A Vision for Cleveland in 2020” is because Cleveland is the key. Cleveland is our LeBron. Cleveland is the region’s best player. Cleveland is the name, face, and billboard of the region.

Cleveland has the most people, the most attractions, and the most assets. We don’t go to watch the "NEO Cavaliers," we watch the Cleveland Cavaliers. And just like LeBron needs his teammates to succeed, Cleveland needs all of NEO’s assets to be contributing and working in harmony and collaboration with one another to succeed. The more we build up the profile and reputation of Cleveland, the more rewarding will be the halo effect on all of the 16 surrounding counties.

The creators of the “Cleveland Plus” initiative clearly get this concept, but this perspective must be universally embraced by ALL of the region’s stakeholders – emphatically, authentically, and without apology. Just as the prolific Cavaliers offense runs through LeBron, Northeast Ohio’s success or failure, our destiny as a region, runs right through Cleveland.

Brass Tacks

Business executives will often transition a meeting by saying it’s time to get down to “Brass Tacks,” an idiom which in the colloquial means, “To get past the formalities and get down to the crux of the matter,” so here goes:

Cleveland has spent the last decade developing what I call “Silos of Excellence” – individual industries, initiatives, and inventions – passionately focused on creating a “Best of Breed” experience within their discrete jurisdiction and area of expertise. These Silos of Excellence have been meticulously planted, nurtured, and curated - often from humble grassroots beginnings - and now stand poised for a full-fledged, all-out, 10-year push onto the world stage.

If we take the right steps NOW, this world-class visibility will have us poised for Prime Time and ready for our “Cleveland Close-Up” in 2020.

HOWEVER, the ONLY way Cleveland will be able to capture, command, and sustain worldwide interest is if we take purposeful, calculated steps NOW to take these Islands of Excellence and organize them, integrate them, combine them, and then package them under a single brand umbrella.

(If the fragmentation of major media has taught us anything, it’s that society is being bombarded with too many messages from too many sources – we’re drowning from information overload – and people now no longer have the patience or bandwidth to entertain multiple idea streams).

Therefore, we must come together – once and for all – and recognize that, just as CLEVELAND is the focal point of our region, MEDICAL is the central core tenant of our brand – for it is the density of our advanced MEDICAL expertise that offers the singular, localized asset that truly distinguishes Cleveland, and sets us apart from the rest of the state, the rest of the country, and the rest of the world.

Name any profile city, and you can quickly see what I mean: Nashville (Country Music), New Orleans (Jazz), Las Vegas (Gambling), and the list goes on. Sure, each of these cities has great restaurants, libraries, schools, and museums, BUT outsiders would seldom experience ANY of these other attractions if they weren’t first drawn to the area by a single “Signature” - a unique and compelling brand message and reputation for being world class in one specific area.

To repeat, it is only when we get people “close enough” to Cleveland that they will finally be able to see the vast portfolio of the many OTHER distinguishing regional assets that we offer.

As an obscure writer once observed, “The best brand is not something you create, it’s something you uncover.” I am delighted that the collective intelligencia has correctly identified and “uncovered” the preponderance of medical assets and related core competencies resident within the greater Cleveland area, and that they are actively positioning these as the centerpiece of our 10-year image makeover.

I am also particularly glad that the word “Medical” was selected, as it requires this “Big Tent” syntax to fully recognize the complete continuum of this brand message including: health care, medical products, bioscience, biomedical, and even biotech initiatives. Not only does “Medical” represent an increasingly large and lucrative industry, but it also possesses inherent “Recession and Outsourcing Resistant” qualities, leverages education, technology, and a high density of knowledge workers, pays above average wages, and is ideally positioned for the “Aging of America” and the national health care overhaul slated for our immediate future.

Introducing our “Cleveland Dream Team”

So, to review, Cleveland is “The Land,” Medical is “The Brand,” but if we’re going to make this truly work, it’s going to take a village - a Bay Village, Coventry Village, Legacy Village, and Slavic Village - and from these villages we are going to create and organize a team, our own “Cleveland Dream Team,” a collection of leaders – one from each of our Silos of Excellence – brought together to form a single, unified team with One Goal – realizing our Vision for Cleveland in 2020.

Like the Cavaliers, Cleveland has spent the last few years assembling all of the “pieces” and finally has in place the talent, timing, technology, and now the Vision to enable us to achieve our desirable future, BUT six important steps still remain.

First, we need to recognize these individual members of our Dream Team and collectively celebrate their unique and ongoing contributions to our city.

Second, we need to introduce them to each other, as peers, as confidantes, and as trusted teammates. I’m sure many have already met or been brought together by happenstance, but this time their meeting carries a greater purpose and responsibility.

Third, we must let them know that we are both relying on them to help realize a better future for Cleveland AND that we are actually LISTENING to what they say and the recommendations they make. Fourth, we need to formally organize this Dream Team and establish this group as a visible, viable forum and directional “voice” of Cleveland.

Let’s face it, by 2020, all of our current local and national political leaders will be history, so relying on “The Government” isn’t the answer. (Plus, the last time I checked, “Government” isn’t a viable business model or compelling value proposition…unless you live in D.C.).

Fifth, once assembled, we need to borrow a strategy from the sports industry and designate each member of this Dream Team as a “Franchise Player,” lock each of them into a 10-Year contract with Cleveland, and then incent them by offering them real or symbolic “ownership stock” in the city – some kind of percentage stake in the growth and success of Cleveland. Scores of financial institutions are now bankrupt because their leaders were incented to take on risky investments for short term rewards. By locking this Dream Team into a 10-Year commitment, they will be encouraged to pursue long-term value and real sustainable growth, and also to invest some of their own “skin” into the mix, for the prospect of benefiting from the upside of the outcome. This way, when THEY win, WE win! (Or, to put it another way, THEY WON’T win unless WE WIN TOO).

Sixth, the agreements for each of these Franchise Players will be written to include a “Love of the Game” clause, stating that they can pollinate and participate in any other regional, national, and international endeavors they desire which could be instrumental in returning value back to Cleveland. And finally, we – as a City – need to promise to get out of the way! This Dream Team was selected for a reason – they are accomplished individuals, seasoned veterans, and leaders within their unique domain and specialty areas who, if permitted and supported, have the demonstrated guts and gravitas to lead us in realizing our Vision for Cleveland in 2020. So without further delay, I present to you, the members of our Cleveland Dream Team:

Franchise Players: The Roster

(Insert Cavs PA announcer Oliver Sedra’s voice here): “And now, direct from McKinsey, a 6 foot forward from Boston, sporting an Economics degree from Harvard, a Master’s from Kennedy School of Government, and with a head as big as his heart, give it up for Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad WHITEhead!”

I have chosen to lead off our Dream Team with Brad Whitehead, President of the Fund for our Economic Future, because let’s face it, without an ECONOMIC future there IS NO FUTURE for Cleveland! Brad serves as President of what may very well be the single most influential “engine of growth” in the region. After spending 20 years with McKinsey, Brad joined The Cleveland Foundation in 2002 before transitioning to become the Fund’s first President in 2006.

In less than three years, Brad has managed to organize and corral the majority of Cleveland’s generous philanthropic community - not to mention a significant portion of business development, job growth, inclusion, and educational players - under a single umbrella organization. Praised as an “innovative model” committed to focusing on “things that matter,” the Fund represents a collaboration of influential philanthropic entities with over $6 BILLION in assets all unified in asking, “What can we do collectively to improve Northeast Ohio?” Launched in 2004, the Fund is now the largest philanthropic organization of its kind in the U.S. and currently has over 60 members, including businesses, foundations, and other organizations focusing on 1. Business Growth and Attraction 2. Talent Development 3. Racial and Economic Inclusion, and 4. Government Collaboration and Efficiency.

Rather than waiting for a stimulus package from Washington, Brad is leveraging the $6B made available from this community, (plus national “Best Practices” gleaned from leading economists, along with input from over 20,000 local citizens via “Voices and Choices”), to package the Fund as a “Cleveland Kiosk” – a one-stop shop which finally connects all the dots for expediting economic growth. Five years ago, when an entrepreneur with an idea wanted to launch a business around Cleveland, they would spin their wheels driving the length of the city to locate and explore all of the components required for start up. Because of the Fund, the efforts of JumpStart, MAGNET, NorTech, Team NEO, BioEnterprise, NEO Inc., Education Works, the Minority Business Accelerator and GLIDE are increasingly moving towards an integrated and collaborative model, enabling this same entrepreneur TODAY with a much more streamlined and efficient system for connecting with strategic assistance, loans, grants, venture capital, office space, and talent to incubate an idea from embryo to IPO.

Through his leadership position at the Fund, Brad has the academic will and the economic clout to organize $6 BILLION dollars and focus it like a laser to, “Increase growth and reduce poverty,” and has already taken bold steps through the Fund’s innovative “Regional Talent Network” to address BOTH of these issues by proactively connecting the educational community directly with employers to ensure students are graduating with the specialized skills required by hiring companies and are aligned with businesses in industries which are expanding versus contracting. Further proof of the growing impact of the Fund’s “Advance Northeast Ohio” initiatives was the recent citizen submission of over 60 ideas for their “Efficient Government” challenge, of which 3 will be selected and $300,000 distributed to launch these projects to further streamline government efforts within the region.

Because of the impact that $6 BILLION can have on our region, I’m going to designate Brad as our economic “LeBron,” so from now on - “We Are All Whiteheads,” - but just like the Cavs, the Fund can’t do it alone. However, if the “Cleveland Kiosk” organizational model architected by the Fund can be used as a template and communicated to our other industries and sectors, this alone would be worth the time and effort required to assemble this Dream Team.

The Man in the Middle of Medical

As discussed earlier, the cornerstone brand of Cleveland is Medical, so with the game on the line, there is nobody else I would trust more with the ball than Squire Sanders & Dempsey’s regional managing partner, Fred Nance.

For the past two decades, Fred has been the go-to guy for nearly every Cleveland civic project, having served as Chairman of the Board for the 16,000-member Greater Cleveland Partnership, and was nearly selected as Commissioner of the NFL. Frankly, I’m glad the NFL didn’t get him, because he’s going to be the Point Guard on our Dream Team and one of our franchise players for four reasons.

First, he already knows everybody, having been identified as both Cleveland’s “Most Influential Person” and also as the “#1 Most Powerful Person” by various magazines. Second, not only does he know everybody, but according to Squire Sanders & Dempsey’s Chairman Tom Stanton, “People trust him.” (Plus, he’s the legal representative and provides counsel to LeBron James, and it looks like he turned out okay). Third, he is already spearheading ongoing talks to develop the new convention center and Medical Mart in downtown Cleveland, and serves as the chair of the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s Site Selection Committee.

And finally, he thinks BIG, as evidenced by his 4/15/09 Plain Dealer proclamation, “We want to be the health care capital of the world!”

Let’s face it, with his success, Fred could have packed it in years ago and headed to any number of tropical island destinations to relax in comfort. But he’s still here, which is why I want to lock him into a 10-year deal NOW before he leaves or the NFL calls again. Cleveland desperately needs someone with Fred’s combination of vision, power, and audacity to marshal the resources and build consensus among the assets, egos, and silos of our established world-class medical community. Fred brings the gravitas to talk to doctors and lawyers, and his experience as a trial lawyer can’t hurt when it comes to negotiating with politicians and unions to unite for the greater good. And finally, if we can get Fred to agree to a 10-year deal, perhaps he can convince LeBron to sign one, too. And speaking of LeBron…

Quicken Lake

I would like to officially announce the addition of Dan Gilbert to our “Cleveland Dream Team” EVEN THOUGH he is from Detroit, in fact, BECAUSE he is from Detroit. Dan brings to our Dream Team the finesse of a consummate businessman, and because he isn’t a local, he doesn’t carry the pessimism and emotional baggage that decades of disappointment can cause.

Instead, he brings the clear-thinking perspective of ROI, revenue, and run rates, evaluating the Cleveland landscape like an M&A firm considers an equity play, and always with an eye on the bottom line.

Four years ago, Dan Gilbert (Chairman and Founder of the nations’ largest online home lender Quicken Loans) led an investment group in purchasing the Cavaliers from Gordon Gund declaring, “41 years is a long long time to wait for a championship. We will be committed to the fans of Cleveland sports to be as passionate and energized as they are about finally bringing a title home. This will be our focus and goal and will remain so as long as we own this team. Our background is building winning teams in the business world. Our philosophy centers around two things: creating an environment and culture where our entire team can achieve their maximum potential and delivering a 'world class' experience to our clients, or in this case, our fans. We plan to bring this same philosophy to the Cavaliers organization. Every detail and every second counts and 'execution' will be the name of the game at every level and in every corner of the organization.”

Well, four years later, the entire Cavs organization appears to have fully embraced this philosophy, and from the front office to the back office, from the front court to the back court, and from Daniel Gilbert to Daniel Gibson, a singleness of purpose and focus on “One Goal” has already made the entire franchise “Winners” regardless of the postseason outcome.

The biggest reason we need Dan on our Dream Team is because we need his passion, excellence, and focus on “One Goal” to permeate our city and culture, and we need it to start with the critical Medical Mart decision.

The bottom line is that we NEED the Medical Mart and Convention Center, but the choice of location is like the difference between Larry Hughes and Mo Williams! The reason we NEED the Medical Mart is because: 1. It gets 5,000 to 25,000 new, employed, expense-accounted people spending downtown every week, 2. These people need restaurants, hotels, outlet shopping (Galleria), entertainment (Playhouse Square, Indians), and flights (Hopkins, Akron), 3. Our Medical assets are already established and world-class, Cleveland has already been voted, “Best city for business meetings in the continental U.S.,” and even site selector Kate McEnroe in the Plain Dealer noted about Cleveland, “Biomedical is already a strength - fifty out of 50 states are making a play for bioscience business - here it’s real.” So clearly even outsiders can see our brand strength and core competency in this area.

Critical Mass or Critical Mess?

Dan Gilbert recently launched an impassioned appeal via the media to help Cleveland avoid a repeat of the “Detroit Disaster” (and no, it’s not Rasheed Wallace) by urging leadership to select the Tower City site as the location for the Medical Mart. In a nutshell, his point was that we need to establish “critical mass” or we have a “critical mess;” either we aggregate our assets and cluster them together like hot coals around a central core, or we scatter those assets, lose that sense and vibe of connectivity, and repeat Detroit’s debacle.

Furthermore, Gilbert and others note that we have a once in a lifetime opportunity, with the will, backing, and over $900M in taxpayer money, to create a signature architectural masterpiece, on the bank of the Cuyahoga River – a beautiful skyline that ESPN would pan over before every Cavs, Indians, and Browns home game – and we are willing to give this up because, “The ceilings aren’t high enough,” or because, “An underground site offers natural insulation?” A Cleveland developer (who shall go nameless) summed up the misguided thinking on this decision recently in the Plain Dealer saying, “You cater to the tenant in these things. MMPI is the tenant, and the tenant wants to build at the mall site, so that’s what you do.”

This is where Dan Gilbert gets it – you don’t cater to the tenant, you cater to the CUSTOMER! The customer is the person who just flew in for a convention, stepped off the shuttle at their hotel, and doesn’t know Public Circle from University Square, but DOES need to know where the convention center is and where to find a good Italian restaurant. Plus, in case you haven’t noticed, from November to March, cool Cleveland is cold and not a fun town to be walking around in, so visitors that have to be outside are praying for one thing: PROXIMITY!

A Tower City location provides the ability to concentrate most of Cleveland’s hospitality assets into a single WALKABLE complex and finally create that elusive “sense of place.” Because Gilbert could potentially benefit from the selection of the Tower City site, his comments are being dismissed as self serving, but folks – on this issue he is 100% right, and I’ll bet Dan would even throw some extra skin into the game – to compensate Cleveland for any value he might receive – to ensure the correct decision is made.

The 6th City Needs a 6th Sense

The final reason we need Dan Gilbert on our Dream Team is because he’s a marketing genius, and what Cleveland needs more than anything is an image makeover and some kind of a marketing 6th sense, but I’m not exactly sure what sense it is. A sense of pride? A sense of humor? A sense of urgency? Or just some plain old common sense. In many ways, Cleveland is truly a bi-polar city. Residents seem to have a built-in inferiority complex (I mean, we don’t even aspire to be #1 – we’re content to be the 6th City) yet we don’t seem to have any fear of heights (Shaker Heights, Parma Heights, Middleburg Heights, University Heights…).

And what about our legacy namesakes? The Mistake by the Lake, Burning River, or even Lake Erie? I mean, Michigan gets Lake “Superior” and we get Lake “Erie?” With Dan on board, I’ll bet he could figure out a way to sell naming rights and generate additional revenue for the region. How about Lake Lubrizol? Progressive Port? Health Care Coast? A Food Court in the Eaton District? Parker Port? Sherwin Shoreway? Quicken Lake? West Lake? Metro Lake? Strick Lake? Or even rebranding our primary waterway, “The Learning River.” Plus, if we should ever need some extra cash along the way, as Chairman of Quicken Loans, I’ll bet he could give us some pretty good terms.

We Are All Wasserman’s

What do IMPORT and EXPORT have in common? They’re nothing without the PORT. Since we drafted our new Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority CEO as a free agent out of England two years ago, Adam Wasserman has put the PORT back in imPORTant – especially when it comes to leveraging this unique asset to stimulate additional economic activity – which is why he has been selected for our Cleveland Dream Team. (That, and the fact that his name Wasserman translates to “Waterman” in Yiddish). Clearly, Adam is the right man for the job, as he has already succeeded in putting the Authority back in Port Authority, with his unveiling of a visionary and strategic 25-year Plan for Cleveland’s port within months of taking over the reigns, leveraging all of his Maritime, Finance, Strategic Development, Regional Economic Advancement, and Administration resources.

Like Gilbert, Adam Wasserman is a “newcomer” and is therefore untethered in envisioning what the Port of Cleveland COULD be, rather than what it was, or is today. To him, our checkered past is just water under the bridge. The Port of Cleveland averages over 13 million tons of cargo per year, while generating more than $570 million in personal incomes through thousands of jobs supported by Port Authority activities. Adam’s 25-year Plan calls for $2 Billion of new development and 50,000 new jobs, facilitating the completion of the Trans-Erie ferry service, and ultimately becoming a bigger player in both the Great Lakes and global trade. Adam is on our Dream Team because he thinks BIG and because he truly gets it.

“Many ports consider themselves transportation terminals,” he said during a recent interview, “We consider ourselves part of the economic development structure,” as evidenced by his desire to create a 1,000 acre “International Trade District” stretching across the St.Clair-Superior neighborhood. To show he’s serious, the Port Authority has just selected the firm that designed the award-winning master plan for Battery Park in NYC to develop a master plan for the redevelopment of the Port’s current downtown Cleveland facilities. Adam’s vision is a true game changer, as relocating the current port would both expand shipping and tonnage capabilities while freeing the Port’s lakefront land for attractive, close-in, and scenic mixed-use development.

If Adam is already discussing a 25-year plan, it appears he’s expecting to be around until at least 2020, so why not lock him in as a Franchise Player for at least the next 10 years. Like Gilbert and the Cavs, Wasserman has spent the last few years assembling his team (having recently selected top notch managers of real estate, logistics, and environmental compliance) and now, as he recently noted in an interview, “I think we can start doing the action part.”

Cleveland: We Put the City in Authenticity

Cleveland is Old School. Hardscrabble. No excuses. We’ve had tough times before and we’ve made it through. We’re a survivor. We’re like John Travolta who was cool, then uncool, then rediscovered as cool again. Heck, we’re the Come-Back City. In a world of wannabees and airbrushed perfection, we’re real, gritty. Sometimes it snows. Sometimes life ain’t pretty. But we’re resilient, and most of all, we’re authentic.

Do you know how many cities would drool over our historic downtown buildings? The Hanna and the Higbee. Terminal Tower. Some architects build and then artificially age buildings and frescos to give them that weathered, old school, throwback feel. We’ve got it naturally. Cleveland is the embodiment of authenticity, and Cleveland IS Rock and Roll, which is why it was the natural choice for the Hall of Fame, and not just the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as destination, but as a cultural symbol, an icon, a touchstone.

With the simple addition of the letter “T,” the Rust Belt becomes the “Trust Belt” – where Midwestern sensibilities and authenticity are celebrated and showcased. Rather than try to hide our past, we should embrace it, revel in it, own it. And then, when we get to 2020, we’ll still know who we are – we are the genuine article, we are Made in America, we ARE authenticity. And speaking of authenticity...

Making Cleveland Cool Again

No Cleveland Dream Team would be complete without some personality, and since nobody embodies the hip, scrappy, authentic vibe of Cleveland better than the effortlessly cool Thomas Mulready, I have decided to recruit him as our final Franchise Player. Schooled in the history of Cleveland by a mother who squired royalty around on private guided tours back in the 60’s, Thomas can list every interesting nook and cranny in his beloved city (not to mention every interesting poet, painter, politician, and personality as well).

Mulready put the ROOTS in grassroots when he took his love and knowledge of all things Cleveland and began a personal crusade back in 2002 to showcase the many cool and unique things to do in our city. What started out as an email sent to visiting Cirque de Soliel performers listing indigenous activities and local hot spots has since exploded into an electronic newsletter publication blasted FREE to over 80,000 loyal, local subscribers each week.

As Founder of Cool Networks and creator of their flagship CoolCleveland.com newsletter, Thomas effectively serves as Cleveland’s personal “concierge service,” researching and recommending the coolest of the cool activities, shows, and events going on every week of the year and providing this information free as a public service to the community. A consummate citizen journalist and drummer for his own band “Cats on Holiday,” Mulready has his finger on both the pulse of the people and the backbeat of business, having performed hundreds of one-on-one interviews with everyone from Dan Gilbert to Daryl D.M.C. McDaniels, and now runs a multimedia empire utilizing blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, e-blasts, and now Twitter to promote economic development, arts, culture, and technology around Cleveland.

Frankly, Thomas NEEDS to be on the team, because what’s the point in having a city if it’s not gonna be cool? With his ear to the ground and nose to the grindstone, Thomas’ cultural and artistic sensitivities will ensure that whatever the Dream Team does will resonate with the people, places, and personality of Cleveland, and after launching both the Performance Arts Festival and Ingenuity Festival of Art and Technology, he has already established himself as a cultural visionary and civic ambassador, and uniquely qualified to serve as our “Cleveland Curator.”

Plus, if we lock Thomas into a 10-year contract, we may also get him to throw in his son Max, who is already writing, interviewing, and podcasting Cool Cleveland events especially for kids, and perhaps both of them could work with developers to create our own “Cool Corridor” populated with the hippest clubs, companies, and canteens in the city.

Introducing: Our Reserves

I’ve just profiled our Cleveland Dream Team’s starting rotation, but just like the Cavs, the team can’t be successful unless they are surrounded, augmented, and buttressed by supporting personalities and role players. Here, then, are our Cleveland Dream Team Reserves:

Design District

Daniel Cuffaro and Ned Hill (they’re a package deal) set out over five years ago to leverage Cleveland’s unique density of consumer product and industrial design firms to unveil a bold vision of creating and marketing the Design District, a complex of design showrooms and studios in downtown Cleveland. After Ned’s Cleveland State University urban-planning students found more than 100 existing design-related firms within a 20-block area, the site selection along Euclid Avenue was finalized, and now an incredible supply chain of design and photography studios, printing, fabrication, and architecture firms are being organized and branded to create our own “Milan of the Midwest.”

Offering a perfect One-Two punch, Dan (Design) and Ned (District) intrinsically understand that our region is, “Really good at building stuff,” and have succeeded in combining artistic and academic pursuits and directly connecting educational institutions with employment opportunities right here in Cleveland. There’s a good chance these guys are going to be in a Harvard Business School “Innovative Thinking” Case Study before 2020, which is why I want to draft them NOW while they’re still affordable.

Everybody Loves Raymond

Cleveland Public Theatre Executive Artist Raymond Bobgan was just selected by American Theatre Magazine as one of the 25 theatre artists who are working to shape the next 25 years of theatre in America. Again, if he’s going to be shaping the next 25 years of theatre, why not at least sign him to a 10-year deal to keep him here in Cleveland. While responsibility for the artistic direction of the largest theatre district West of the Hudson carries a mountain of expectations, it sounds like Raymond’s passion for performance is up to the challenge, as evidenced by the recent distillation of his vision stating, “If we make well-crafted plays that express the essence of what it is to be human, then theatre will have a future, because this kind of theatre can result in a singular, extraordinary transmission that cannot be sent through the Internet, conveyed by text message, experienced remotely or projected on a screen. It is a deeply personal moment where true magic exists.” Leave it to Raymond to bring some much needed magic back to Cleveland.

The Cleveland Dream Team also has some openings to help fill out our squad:

WANTED: A Green Guru

Our Cleveland Dream Team will be incomplete unless we have a Green Guru. Alternative energy, sustainable energy, renewable energy, Earth friendly, solar panels, wind farms, and recycling ALL fall under this green umbrella and we need a visionary guru to do what Brad did with the Fund and organize and strategize how these exploding new sources of energy and economic growth can be organized and optimized over the next 10 years. Believe it or not, Ohio already has the greatest concentration of applied fuel cell technology in the world, and the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition via the Fuel Cell Corridor is organizing and marshalling resources to further cluster this intellectual property and solidify our leading role in this area, and the same efforts must be applied to other renewable energy “silos” and combined with a master vision for all things green in Cleveland. Pursuing these new energy paradigms leverages our established manufacturing base, puts people back to work, and lets us keep our head start on exploring and quickly commercializing these product streams.

WANTED: A Doctor

Every professional sports program has a “Team Doctor,” so one position on our Cleveland Dream Team has been reserved for a physician, preferably a brain surgeon, as they must be well-versed in applying a preventative tourniquet for turning our turn-of-the-century “Brain Drain” into a 2020 “Brain Trust.” Specifically, we are seeking the most visionary, outspoken, strategic thinker in the health care domain - someone who knows an EMR from an EKG and with a passion for improving outcomes - to help craft and realize our audacious 10-year goal of branding Cleveland as the “Health Care Capital of the World.”

Ultimately, the team should include additional specialists in manufacturing, music, inclusion and diversity, education, transportation, etc…, but this should get us started. And now for a few closing thoughts:

Why 2020?

Contrary to popular belief, 20/20 does not indicate “perfect vision,” but rather “the sharpness or clarity of vision at a distance,” which is what this exercise is designed to achieve. In addition, 2020 is over 10 years away. This plan is not predicated on polls, pundits, instant gratification or knee-jerk reactions. It’s strategic, it’s cerebral, it’s purposeful, and most importantly, it’s ATTAINABLE!

Eagles Don’t Flock

Why organize a Cleveland Dream Team? Because Eagles Don’t Flock. The enclosed leaders have the proven vision and passion to make it happen, PLUS the ability to attract others to their cause. Creating this Cleveland Dream Team provides these veterans not only with the opportunity to collaborate and work as a team for the betterment of Cleveland, but most importantly to build TRUST.

On 4/21/09, Cavaliers Head Coach and NBA Coach of the Year Mike Brown noted in USA Today, “This is our fourth year together... The biggest thing this year was finding that elusive word chemistry among a group of individuals to try and reach one goal. Our goal has not changed, but the thing that we felt would help define chemistry is trust. They have shown tremendous trust in one another.”

And again in a 4/18/09 Plain Dealer article we read, “Trust. One word to define the season. After a team dinner the night before training camp began, Cavaliers coach Mike Brown delivered a vital message to his players. Brown told his players he believed trust -- trusting every teammate, trusting every coach, trusting all of the team's systems -- would carry the Cavaliers through the long season. Trust became a season-long theme, from players choosing to spend more time together during free time, to Brown delegating more roles to his assistants, to creating 'The Committee', a group of four veteran players who served as consultants to Brown on an array of his decisions. Brown's mantra led the Cavs to a record-setting regular season and the top seed in the NBA playoffs.”

This Dream Team is designed to effectively serve as our own Cleveland Committee – a group of veterans collaborating to make sure all of our assets are working together to realize our shared Vision of Cleveland in 2020. This team has the experience to ask and answer the tough questions like, “What is the role of the urban core in a post-Industrial Revolution economy defined by an anywhere, anytime, knowledge-based workforce?” and have the requisite trust and teamwork required to explore the answers honestly, completely, and with integrity.

Why So Many Cleveland Cavalier References?

With their playoff run featured on nearly every local newspaper and TV broadcast, it’s hard to miss the Cavs, as their successful seasonal campaign and contagious fan support reaches a fever pitch here in the post-season. Ironically, however, this fleeting, top-of-mind frenzy is merely secondary in importance, as the Cavs demonstration of mutual trust and singleness of mind is much more compelling for instructive purposes.

Let’s face it, many sports figures don’t enjoy great reputations, historically serving more as a cautionary tale than a hero to emulate. Steroids, gambling, cheating, addiction, dog fighting, and violence seems to be the “I am not a role model” [thanks Charles Barkley] norm. We’ve become accustomed to stars flaunting their fame and fortune, and the ubiquitous “Me First” attitude that comes with it.

During their unprecedented season this year, however, the Cavs have instead shown us as a city what it takes to create a winning culture by putting egos, attitudes, and agendas aside and uniting under One Goal - how’s that for a reversal? By first creating a culture of trust, the team was then able to explore and maximize the value and contributions of each person, and once each individual understood that they were respected and valued, they were then empowered to perform to their potential in the specific role best suited for their unique talents and abilities.

This, in a nutshell, is my Vision for Cleveland in 2020: An authentic city, predicated on trust, which understands, respects, and maximizes the skills, abilities, and core competencies unique to this 16-county region and then uniting all of these assets under a single Vision. Yes, Cleveland is the star attraction, and Medical is the lead brand message, but “Cleveland” and “Medical” can’t be successful alone.

We need polymer from Akron, friction management from Canton, aerospace from NASA, the Warehouse District, Quadrangle, Flats, and Gateway all working as a team to move this region forward. Imagine the Design District and Euclid Corridor completed – the orange barrels gone for good – with outlet stores in the historic arcades between Superior and Prospect, the stunning Medical Mart and Convention Center complete, the hotel and restaurant business thriving, the Playhouse District and Art community pulsating with performances, the port relocated and thriving, the health care and medical community driving our worldwide brand, downtown real estate snapped up by international medical firms looking for space, Green initiatives abounding, an organized and integrated investment, business, and academic community, a revitalized waterfront, and a truly collaborative and newly efficient government realizing economies of scale and enabling growth.

If we are able to create a culture of trust, we can successfully advance our lead stories of “Cleveland” and “Medical” with the full knowledge that the Halo Effect of these initiatives will benenfit ALL of the other signature events and unique qualities of our region. For example, the 33rd Annual Cleveland International Film Festival, which just reported a record-breaking year with attendance surpassing 66,000 fans who flocked downtown to watch movies – and all of this during the worst economic downturn in 70 years! Or, Ray’s Indoor Biking Park – the first of its kind in the world – or literally HUNDREDS of other cool, unique, and hip groups, events, and communities who call Cleveland home. I truly believe that the Plain Dealer and other media outlets are begging to print good news, affirming stories, and strategies which positively portray the potential of Cleveland – if we just give them a chance.

Look, if a handful of guys named Wally, Sasha, Mo, Zydrunas, LeBron, and Joe the Power Forward can get along, why can’t the rest of us?

If privileged millionaire superstars can put aside their ego and agenda and unite in the pursuit of that “One Goal,” then why can’t we? Really. So what are we waiting for? Let’s get the chalk flying and if we lose, we lose, but at least we didn’t beat ourselves this time!

Final Thoughts

Newton’s Third Law of Motion states, “In a system where no external forces are present, every action force is always opposed by an equal and opposite reaction. You will note that this Vision has been authored anonymously – that is by design, for if it were attributed to a specific person or organization, I fear it would inevitably be “Opposed by an equal and opposite reaction,” lose its momentum, and result in yet another systemic stalemate. To be truthful, this Vision has been created by yet another newcomer to Cleveland, someone outside of political and corporate influence - someone “off the grid” if you will - and void of any clandestine or secretly held agenda.

I’m not elected, so you can’t impeach me. I’m not hired, so you can’t fire me. And no, I don’t own any stock or interest in any idea or strategy advanced in this document. The objective of this entire exercise has been to lay out a bold and galvanizing ideal of how – given our legacy assets and those currently in process – Cleveland could once again return to its rightful place as a city of prominence, and once again realize our city’s motto of “Progress and Prosperity.”

I would like to close with a simple linguistic metaphor. The verb “Cleave,” according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, is truly a unique word, in that it simultaneously possesses two completely different and antagonistic definitions. To “cleave” means both “To part, split, separate, sever, or divide by force” AND “To cling, adhere, or stick fast.” Over the past few decades, we have seen predominantly one side of this word – the splitting, the dividing, the divisions.

My Vision for 2020 is that – over the next 10 years - our great city of Cleveland will come together, adhere, and stick fast, and embrace the OTHER definition, and put the Cleave back in Cleveland.

A Great Lake deserves a Great City, where Superior and Commerce meet.

The challenge is yours; the Vision is ours. One Goal.

China Sponsors White House Egg Roll

2009-04-01T19:37:00.002-05:00

In yet another indication of the nation’s deteriorating economic condition, this morning administration officials announced that naming rights for the White House’s Annual Easter Egg Roll have been purchased by the People’s Republic of China for $235 Billion AND Paula Abdul’s seat on Fox’s #1 reality TV show “American Idol.” Holding over $750 Billion in U.S. debt, China has become increasingly concerned that the American economy has become, “A basket case,” prompting Beijing officials to make the proactive decision to exchange their financial exposure for some media exposure.

Based on early information from the China Cabinet (which is seldom used and mostly for show), the new event will be rebranded the “Far Easter Egg Hunt” and will feature traditional Chinese events including the Egg Roll, Spring Roll, and the recently unveiled Egg Drop from atop the Washington Monument. To ensure equality and consistency, all eggs for this event will be secretly imported from General Tso’s chicken located in China’s remote Szechuan Province. In addition, regulators from the U.S. Treasury Department have been briefed to ensure that all eggs are first “Stress Tested,” and any egg determined to be “Too Big to Fail” will be disqualified.

As is customary, the event will be limited to children under the age of 10. However, with Chinese Olympic officials responsible for documenting the age of participants, word has already gotten out that executives from several prominent companies are planning on attending. According to inside sources, the Egg Toss competition will be limited to a four-person scramble pitting AIG vs. GM, and Freddie Mac versus his brother Bernie, to see who ends up with the most egg on their face.

With the rash of bad economic news increasing weekly, including the recent bankruptcy of Daylight Savings and Loan (see “Daylight Savings – Out of Time: Announces Bankruptcy Amid Scandal” http://digitalcasserole.blogspot.com/2009/03/daylight-savings-out-of-time-announces.html) a shell-shocked China has been hesitant to put all of its eggs in one basket, and has recently expressed interest in purchasing naming rights to future American sporting events including horse racing’s famous “Belmont Steaks” and football’s new “Wonton Super Bowl.”

Wall Stree Bonus Debacle? Blame Soccer Moms!

2009-03-25T11:04:00.003-05:00

>The day was March 21^st – the first glorious Saturday of Spring (which in Ohio means only six more weeks until we can exchange the snow blower for the lawn mower in our garage.) For a variety of reasons, I had traded bedrooms with my 12-year-old son the night before, and was thus unprepared for what awaited me at dawn’s early light. Through a fog of slumber, through a sliver of lattice, a single ray of light pierced this preadolescent bunker, and fixated on a mantle; and there dancing, shimmering, and glimmering in the Vernal Equinox’s finest glow, was an expansive, near endless, array of shiny golden treasures – plundered from 7 years of youth sports programs. And then – like a bag of Scotts “Weed and Feed” Lawn Fertilizer – it hit me.

Although born in the 60’s, I was a child of the 70’s, which was the decade I grew up in and did most of my damage. Skinny, slow, and short, I was immediately identified as “soccer material” and thus began my career as a mediocre midfielder in what is STILL the “Fastest growing sport in America.” In spite of the influence of Atari, Jazzercise, and Disco, recreational sports in the 70’s still retained some dignity, serving as a valuable learning environment and an instructive microcosmic metaphor for life. Back in those days, teams competed in every game, and then at the end of the season, the members of the WINNING team would receive a trophy and be crowned champions. All of the OTHER teams would clap politely at the Awards Ceremony and start thinking about next year. Were there tears? Sure there were – but it just made that one season when you “Won it All” that much more satisfying.

Soccer Mom or Trophy Wife?

Once I started high school (and discovered girls and MTV) I lost track of rec sports, but upon rediscovering them 20 years later with my OWN kids, I was horrified by what I found. Apparently, back in the early 80’s (while I was busy mastering Pac-Man) a group of Soccer Moms got together and decided it wasn’t fair that only the WINNING team should receive trophies. They complained that children were being traumatized and their self esteem crippled by failing to receive an award regardless of the success of their season. Legions of Moms asked, “How can I tell my child ‘You’re special’ and then not give him a trophy?” Suddenly, in the span of one Michael Jackson Thriller video, the rules changed, and kids everywhere were given a brand new set of life messages which basically said, “Hey kids, everyone gets a trophy. You get a trophy just for showing up – you’re entitled to one. If you’re present, you get a present.” The cost of rec sports went up dramatically during this period to reflect these “Troph-Fees,” and the awards were always GOLD – never silver, never bronze, never quartz – oh no, nothing but GOLD for my precious little Austin.

It’s the Stuff That Dreams are Madoff

Now hit your Betamax Fast Forward to today. Between the take-down of Madoff and the smack-down over at Mad Money, it’s already been a Mad March. Wall Street is embroiled in the worst free fall since the Great Depression, world markets are panicking, and financial firms are on debts’ door, with bad REO’s – and bad CEO’s – flowing through them like a SIV. According to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, “The market for credit default swaps exploded from $632 Billion outstanding in the first half of 2001 to $62 Trillion in the second half of 2007.” On Friday, Senator Chris Dodd (the extra “D” was his grade in Ethics class, and yes, he’s even from the State of Conn.), claimed that even though he is Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he didn’t know the new $787B Stimulus Bill revision would allow for $164M in AIG bonuses. (I’m sorry, but every time I hear this tune, I can’t help but replay Renault’s famous Casablanca mea culpa, “I am shocked, shocked, to find out that gambling is going on here!” ) And the clincher was last week’s Presidential outrage over AIG bonuses, and particularly the multi-million dollar RETENTION BONUSES given to AIG executives…who no longer work there.

Don’t Expect the X Generation to Know Why

How did we get here? I blame the soccer moms. In an effort to protect the fragile emotions of youngsters, a nation of well-meaning minivan drivers has inadvertently succeeded in creating an entire generation of workers disconnected from the notion of “Cause and Effect.” Throughout their entire lives, they have been trained that they will be rewarded if they win, and rewarded if they lose. In short – win or lose – you still get a trophy. They call this the X Generation because they have been brainwashed to Xpect - a car, a house, a promotion, a trophy, or a bonus, regardless of their actual performance. Thirty years of this indoctrination has produced a pervasive and perverse culture of entitlement – from Democrats to Republicans, and from Park Row to Skid Row.

To Main Streeters, BONUS is Spelled U-SNOB

According to the President, America’s economy is at Barock O’Bottom, but don’t misinterpret last weeks’ outrage. People aren’t against bonuses – incentives are what made this country great. The public just wants the rewards to be earned - to be based on performance. AIG lost $61 Billion in 90 DAYS! That’s the biggest quarterly loss in human history! We demoted Pluto for not being up to snuff – why should we reward ANYONE in a firm that lost half the GNP of Argentina in one quarter?

In the classic movie Glengarry Glenn Ross, a senior executive played by Alec Baldwin offers a memorable motivational speech to his sales force proclaiming, “We’re adding a little something to this months’ sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.” Hey Wall Street, if you’re listening, this is what “pay for performance” sounds like in the real world. But don’t worry. If you’re fired, you can always melt down all of those trophies in your basement – I hear gold is heading towards $1,000 again!

Daylight Savings – Out of Time: Announces Bankruptcy Amid Scandal

2009-03-05T15:06:00.001-05:00

March 5, 2009 9:54 a.m. EST (Cleveland, OH)

In yet another casualty of the worldwide economic crisis, Thursday morning it was announced that Daylight Savings – set for March 8th - will be cancelled this year and restructured under Chapter 11, following allegations of impropriety from the Fed. According to a classified investigation by Wall Street officials, it appears that Daylight has in fact NOT been saved since 1987, which was ironically, the same year the film “The Living Daylights” – the 15th spy mystery in the James Bond series - was released. Instead of saving, the firm has in fact been spending Daylight at an unprecedented rate, and masking what is being called a “Daylight Deficit” by leveraging a series of Byzantine off-shore accounts for the past 22 years.

In what has been described as the “Biggest pyramid scheme since the Egyptians,” Daylight Savings (through its banking affiliate Daylight Savings and Loan) has been running a clandestine investment scheme collecting a mythical currency called “solar credits” and converting them into investment-grade greenbacks, before selling them back into the market.

“The effects of the Daylight Deficit have been around us for years – I guess I should have known something was up,” commented Cleveland resident Grant Readymul, who is personally out 47,000 solar credits and a pack of gum. “The most obvious is the fact that we don’t fit into our sports seasons anymore. Our World Series heroes are now called “Mr. November,” the Super Bowl isn’t played until February, and even March Madness doesn’t finish up until April! With the unwinding of Daylight Savings, it’s easy to see where all of the time has gone!” Documents uncovered by agents seizing Daylight assets have determined that most of the Daylight Savings Time has already been spent putting up phony Facebook pictures, stalking Tina Fey, and trying to pass expired coupons at the Piggly Wiggly.

According to noted business commentator Chuck Archer, “This Daylight Savings scandal makes the Bernie Madoff scheme look like a Tea Party,” and even Annie was disappointed with the news that the sun, in fact, would NOT be coming out tomorrow. The effects on other industries have been significant, with Light Beer sales tumbling 83% and Light Music losing over 79% in market share.

Daylight Savings has already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and applied to receive bailout help from the Fed’s new T.A.L.K. (Troubled Atmospheric Light Kooperative) Plan. But all of that is little comfort to disgruntled investors like Horatio Sparks, who summed up the scandal best by saying, “Daylight Savings - it’s about Time.”

Santa to Stock Market: "I'm Not Coming This Year"

2008-09-04T12:51:00.002-05:00

Dear Wall Street:

While I realize it is only September, my PR people thought it best for me to “Get out in front of this one,” as certain expectations have been established over the years regarding my annual visit. Therefore, it is with great regret and a heavy heart that I issue the following statement: “I’m not coming this year.”

Why? You’ve Been Naughty!

That’s right, you heard me correctly - I’m taking the year off - so I’ve decided to write YOU a letter for a change, to tell you simply, “You’ve been bad for goodness sake (especially the banks and credit-rating agencies) and you’re only getting worse!” With the help of Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, there were $85 billion in mortgage securities downgraded in the third quarter of 2007, $237 billion in the fourth quarter, $739 billion in the first quarter of this year, and $841 billion in the second quarter of 2008! Not exactly “Jolly” is it?

Furthermore, since my last visit, I’ve hired a prestigious law firm with domain expertise in security, investments, and commodities to represent me, and for the past few months my new legal team (Locke, Stock, & Barrel) has reviewed my contract and found that there is in fact NO so-called “Santa Clause” requiring me to visit each year, and with the slowing economy and rising costs I’m going to have to take a Rein-check for 2008. To reduce overhead here at corporate headquarters, I tried laying off all of my seasonal workers, but then the elves unionized, demanding overtime AND hardship pay for having to work through the holidays EVERY YEAR, and they’ve just filed multiple lawsuits citing height discrimination, exposure to lead-based paint used in toys, and claiming that some of the elves I hired are younger than 16. I recently had Rudolph’s nose switched over to a high-efficiency alternative (saves money, but I can’t see worth a halogen), and with the plummeting stock price of Kringle Enterprises, I was forced to add a Board seat for some activist investor yahoo who’s out to prove that, “Anything you can do, Icahn do better.”

I Traded my Sleigh for a Scooter

With the cost of transportation hitting historic highs in July, I was forced to pawn my Sleigh for a Scooter. Featuring a tricked out manifold, reinforced shocks, and aftermarket afterburners, this “Santa Scooter” can really shoot the moon – but it doesn’t have any trunk space. Hence, with my Sleigh in hock, the only other option would be commercial air travel, but ticket prices have increased OVER 60% since last year – and do you have ANY IDEA how much it would cost me to check all of these bags of presents on Delta? Plus, by December, the airlines will have introduced a Fat Tax on all overweight passengers (to cover the extra fuel charges) and the “Obese Police” will force me to buy an extra seat AND a seatbelt extender. Finally, with all of the cutbacks, there’s a good chance I would get BUMPED from my flight on Christmas Eve, and even if I screamed until I was Jet-Blue in the face, I wouldn’t get out of JFK until MLK Day. (I thought about using some of my Frequent Flyer miles to cover the cost, but for some reason Christmas Eve always falls on a blackout date). And speaking of black…

“Black Friday” Becomes “Red Friday”

There won’t be a “Black Friday” this year. Sure, there will still be huge discounts the day after Thanksgiving, but this year (in an effort to “Beat Wal-Mart”), the “Back to Christmas” sales will start shortly after Labor Day and “Black Friday” will be renamed “Red Friday” because the retailers will still be in the Red for the year, and most will STAY there for the rest of the holiday season. But hey, Red is a Christmas color, so each time you see a Red stocking, think about a Red stock, and all the Red ink flowing from the balance sheets of the bad little girls and boys running the big financial firms that didn’t sock away money during the boom times for the inevitable bust to follow.

Red – It’s the New Black

And it’s not just my red nose - even the New York Times said the numbers were staggering: “Between early 2004 and mid-2007, a period of unprecedented wealth on Wall Street, seven of the nation’s largest financial companies earned a combined $254 billion in profits. Since then, they have written down the value of the assets they hold by $107.2 billion, gutting their earnings and share prices. Worldwide, the reckoning totals $380 billion, much of which reflects a plunge in the value of tricky mortgage investments.” Even Starbucks is finding it harder to keep coffee in the Black, and it appears that virtually the only firms seeing Black this year are the ones drilling for it.

S.C. = Santa Claus or Stimulus Check?

Let’s face it! Financial firms are now on debts’ door, with bad REO’s - and bad CEO’s - flowing through them like a SIV. But old habits die hard, and in spite of all of the Frannies and Freddies on the “Naughty List” this year, I was still planning on coming to town in the Nick of time - if it weren’t for your elected officials. Apparently your government (with cooperation from “Has-Ben” Bernanke) could only wait until Easter this year to distribute their gifts – sending out millions of “Stimulus Checks” 7 months before the official season of giving – and I’m still a little miffed that last year’s Hanukkah Rally preempted my signature Santa Rally on Wall Street, so I’m canceling that event this year as well. (Plus, it sounds like both of your presidential candidates have begun “Playing Santa Claus” – promising not just a “check-in” every pot but also an electric car in every driveway - so I probably won’t even be missed). Instead, I’ve started hanging out with the Grinch, who’s already complaining that he can’t steal Christmas because the forces of LAGFLATION already did (see article “Banks, Tanks & Angst: How Long Will America Idle?” http://www.coolcleveland.com/index.php?n=Main.Bankstanksangst ) and all the while maintaining that he was “Green before Gore.”

I’ll Be Home for Christmas (For Once)

Frankly, I think this will be a good year to “skip the trip,” as the economy and real estate market are so bad that even birdhouses are going into foreclosure. Local authorities recently installed security cameras to ensure that their Nativity scenes remain in stable condition (as the price of gold, frankincense AND “mirth” make them popular targets) and there’s already a waiting list for Wii’s Three Kings. From my vantage point here at (what’s left of) the melting North Pole, it’s going to be a stern Bear market for at least another year, so I’m going to follow their lead and just hibernate (the original “Staycation”). Note: If I DO decide to return in 2009, there will be new rules. With coal trading at over $100 per metric ton, only the children on my NICE list will get a lump in their stocking.

In summary, in conclusion, and to review – Santa is NOT coming to town. There won’t be any Miracle on 33^rd Street, Wall Street, or Main Street in 2008, but I’m not alone - heck, even the geese can’t afford to fly south this winter. So go ahead Grandma, don’t be afraid to walk home on Christmas Eve – you won’t have to worry about being run over by a reindeer THIS year!

Douglas J. O’Bryon

Soundbite Laureate

When Red China, the Green Olympics, and the Yellow River Collide

2008-07-31T09:02:00.002-05:00

Beijing Olympics: When Red China, the Green Olympics, and the Yellow River Collide

Broken Records, Broken Recordings, Broken Dreams

Beneath all of the anticipation and hype about who will win the gold at the upcoming Summer Olympics in China, another more important contest is being waged. Like two lunging sumo wrestlers grappling for control, two powerful forces are hurtling towards each other on a collision course with destiny, scheduled to explode onto our TV and PC screens this August, and rated “R” for violence and strong language. Pushing one way will be the Chinese government, straining to keep its population of 1.3 billion people, yearning for free speech and expression, from doing so. Pushing the other way will be 500,000 visitors from around the world, personally armed with the most dangerous weapon ever used against China’s Communist Regime – the free and unfiltered truth about China captured on video. Armed with tens of thousands of the latest media gadgets, these temporary guests stand poised to share with the world not only the truth of these Olympic Games, but more importantly, the truth about the Chinese people’s lifelong “Olympic” battle with their government over free-expression.

During the last Summer Olympics in 2004, it was considered cutting edge if a cell phone could capture a quality digital image. Four years later, cell phones and PDA’s now double as video cameras, catching action whenever and wherever it happens. Because of this, there’s a strong possibility that it won’t be the giant truck-mounted NBC cameras that catch the most interesting action this Olympiad, or even the 22,000 credentialed foreign journalists – it will be the YouTube downloads and the CNN iReports, from handheld devices in the capable hands of thousands of curious onlookers and uncredentialed citizen journalists. Whereas the host government can easily control the venues and primary locations to ensure there’s no “Peking,” the nooks and crannies and the alleys and streets will be impossible to completely control. What remains to be seen is which message will be more compelling – the sweet, or the sour?

Hello Dalai

This summer’s Games will be another round in this wrestling match for control of information, and the resulting violence could run Olympic circles around Tiananmen Square, that bloody massacre viewed in full color in 1989, as Chinese tanks literally crushed civilians trying to exercise their freedom of expression. Who could forget that gripping scene as one demonstrator, perhaps only 5 feet tall, but standing much taller in the world’s eyes, boldly faced the approaching column of Chinese tanks, placing his very life on the line.

If I were Tibet on this one, I’d say that the chaos in the months leading up to the Olympics is only a foreshadowing of what the actual event has in store for us. Is it just me, or can you sense catastrophe is imminent when – even though France selected their speedy 400-meter sprinter champion Stephane Diagana to carry the torch - it was STILL put out THREE TIMES by protestors before it left Paris! Tensions in China are already on high alert due to recent religious conflicts, as the Chinese government now wants Tibetan Buddhist monks to denounce the Dalai Lama and accept the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama. In fact, the Tibet Daily Newspaper recently quoted Tibet’s very patriotic deputy Communist Party chief Han Peng as saying, “We should strengthen patriotic education so as to guide the masses of monks to continuously display the patriotic tradition and uphold the banner of patriotism.” I mean, I’ve heard of double-speak, but triple-speak?

Bad Air Days

Adding insult to injury will be a first hand view of the environmental atrocities being committed throughout China’s large cities and Olympic venues, and showcasing for the world the worst air pollution on the planet, responsible for over 656,000 deaths each year. Even after promising the world’s first “Green Olympics,” spending $12.2 Billion on 20 key projects, banning 300,000 heavy-polluting vehicles, and enforcing alternating driving days, the International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge has already gone on record as saying that, “Events lasting longer than an hour might have to be postponed on “bad air days.” In fact, with less than 100 environmentally friendly “Blue Sky Days” last year, several athletes have already dropped out of competition, including the world’s fastest marathoner Halle Gebrselassie, citing the suffocating smog, Singa-poor air quality, and Shang-high levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and smothering particulate matter (PM10).

It Takes An Olympic Village

If you thought the violent demonstrations in Paris or Tibet earlier this spring were disturbing, just wait until 08-08-08. I’m confident that at this very moment, numerous carefully orchestrated protests are being organized for maximum impact and visibility to the over 2 billion people expected to view these events. This might be the single best and last chance of their lifetimes to show the world the “true” China, and they won’t let this opportunity pass them by. Think about it. If you were a nation living under repression for 60 years, and your government invited the entire world over for a party, what would you do?

Unflattering stories are already leaking out, including one published recently where Beijing magazine vendor Liu Qifel noted that he had assumed the Olympics would bring real improvements to life in the city, but it hasn’t turned out that way. “Look at this street. The old buildings have been newly painted. The buildings facing the street have been decorated, but the buildings behind them are unchanged. I don’t like those façade projects because they are useless to our ordinary citizens.”

I believe that “façade” could very well become the central theme and buzzword for these entire Games, with the Chinese authorities suddenly in the crosshairs, given two probable - yet undesirable - choices, both of which will have them seeing Red. Either the Chinese government will attempt to lock down ALL communication, confiscating and/or neutralizing recording devices which may have captured unflattering footage OR the world will be flooded with the sights and sounds of human rights atrocities captured by the numerous digital eyewitnesses both at the Games, but even more importantly, across the Chinese nation as the world’s tourists and sports enthusiasts crisscross this most populous country on earth.

With the Great Wall of Silence broken, information and images will begin pouring out of China like a breached Missouri levy, and the “China Cabinet” (which is seldom used and mostly for show) will be forced to make apology after apology to explain away this embarrassing footage, and give new meaning to “Dancing Beijing” – which just so happens to be the official logo of these 2008 Olympics.

Somewhere buried in the founding Communist doctrine of China is the belief that if you give people a inch, they’ll take a mile. In fact, if you anagram the word “China”, it spells: “a inch.” Bad English, but you get the idea. Interestingly, you can also rearrange the letters of the word “China” to spell “Chain,” a haunting reminder of what that country has fastened around its citizens as they continue their 60 year struggle against their government’s Sumo grip on the freedoms that we in the U.S. take for granted.

So what will it be? Broken records? Broken recordings? Or broken dreams? On the Chinese calendar, 2008 is the Year of the Rat, and by the end of the Summer Games, the entire world may smell it. China wanted to host the Olympics to show how far they’ve come. Beware what you wish for.

Douglas J. O’Bryon
Soundbite Laureate

Banks, Tanks & Angst - How Long Will America Idle?

2008-05-15T09:11:00.006-05:00

Banks, Tanks & Angst – How Long Will America Idle?

Subtitled: A Collection of Reflections on an Economic Direction Correction during an Election

(A Confection of Rejection NOT to be Confused with a Recession)

With all of the craziness in the economy today, I felt it might be time to have a nice fireside chat to help explain what’s going on in America, and WHY all of these things are happening. Are you ready? Then let’s begin.

First, I have a confession to make – I voted for Ross Perot. I was young. It was my first election. He was a short guy with bad hair, I thought we had a lot in common. The real reason was for the graphs. Here was a guy with the audacity to think he could run America by PowerPoint. Actually, that was pre-PowerPoint, so if you remember, he used giant charts and graphs. So for tonight’s fireside chat, I’ve decided to imitate his presentation style and have prepared an homage to Ross Perot and entitled it Banks, Tanks, and Angst - The NEW American GRAPH-iti – How Long will America Idle?

But before we talk about the NEW American GRAPHiti, let’s remember the original. The original American Graffiti was a “coming of age” movie directed by George Lucas 35 years ago back in 1973 and featuring aspiring young actors including Richard Dreyfus, Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, and of course, Wolfman Jack - all of whom went on Hollywood fame, fortune, and male-pattern baldness, except, of course, for Wolfman Jack. Just as this “coming of age” movie provided a nostalgic look back at life in the 60’s, tonight’s fireside chat will attempt to provide a nostalgic look at life in our country over the past 10 years…the 10 YEARS when EVERYTHING CHANGED for the American Consumer. Tonight we’re going to trace how we went from Goldilocks to Gridlock in 12 short months, and how it wasn’t 3 bears but 6 that eventually conspired to kill the longest bull market in US history – and those bears are named Healthcare, Housing, Heating, Hotels, Higher Education, and Travel. (Sorry, I couldn’t find another H word). I wish I could say this is going to be a just another fairytale – that I could just Mother Goose these numbers and make everything better – but I can’t, and I’m afraid now that America’s nest egg has been poached, even if all of the kings horses and all the kings men went to the government’s discount window, we still won’t be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

What I’d like do tonight is to paint a portrait for you of the American Consumer – some parts are going to be general, and some are going to be very specific – to provide a true and accurate representation of the psyche of our populace, how we got here, and where we’re headed.

CHAPTER 1: Higher Education

Since the year 2000, tuition costs for college have skyrocketed 60%!  In fact, just from 2001 to 2006, average tuition at public universities jumped 35% after adjustment for inflation, the largest five-year increase on record, according to the College Board.

According to a March 25^th article in MSN Money, “When you include tuition, room and fees, the total cost of attending an elite private university, like Harvard or Columbia, hovers around the $50,000 a year mark.” According to FinAid.org, between 1989 and 2005, the college inflation rate was DOUBLE the general inflation rate.

HOW did we PAY for this? In the April 8^th 2008 Wall Street Journal, according to the College Board, in 1997 parents and students took out $1.5 Billion in private loans to pay for college. Ten years later in 2007, they took out $17 Billion in private loans to pay for college:10 TIMES MORE!

Here’s the bottom line: Over the past 10 years, the COST of Higher Education has more than DOUBLED, and the Consumer’s INCOME hasn’t. To capture this data point visually, I have prepared this graph - but in the event you can’t see it - you’ll just have to imagine, two lines on an XY axis, starting from the origin, and extending out 10 years. Or better yet, picture the face of the clock, and the positioning of the hands when the time is 1:13, with the short hand pointing at the 1 - representing the skyrocketing cost of Higher Education, and the long hand pointing to 13 – representing the sluggish growth in Consumer Income.

CHAPTER 2: Travel

Over the past 10 years, America has quietly become a nation ENABLED by cheap travel – and now it’s GONE. For as far back as we can remember, gas and oil and travel have been relatively inexpensive. So what did we do – we built cheap travel into our lifestyle. We’ve created far flung families, enabled by cheap flights on Southwest Airlines to keep our Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter family reunions intact. We’ve become accustomed to $49 hotel rooms and $99 a week rental cars. Many people now live 50 to 100 miles from work – “extreme commuters” they call them - who say they HAVE to live that far from downtown in order to afford the right housing and go to the right schools.

The Bad News – you already know. Over the past few years, the spigot for cheap travel has quietly been turned off. $126 for one barrel of oil! In the second week of May, gas hit an all-time high of $3.71 a gallon according to AAA, up 21% over last year, and now it’s up significantly more! During the first 2 weeks of April, 4 airlines filed for bankruptcy, including ATA, Skybus, Frontier, and even Aloha airlines waved goodbye for the last time, citing the high price of fuel. For the airlines that remain, it’s getting so ugly that, according to USA Today, ticket prices jumped 60% over the past 12 months, and they’re STILL losing money! In fact, in 2007, there were 23 airline price increases. In 2008, we’ve already had 14 increases, and that’s just the first 4 months - with the average fourth quarter airfare now rising to $331 according to the Department of Transportation. So, those $49 flights of yesteryear now cost almost $350 IF you can get a seat, IF the flight departs on time, heck, IF the flight departs at ALL! Not since the Wright Brothers has air travel been so wrong, with over 25% of all departures delayed last year, prompting airline executives to launch their new “Better Late Than Never” marketing campaign. Flight delays and cancellations, plus charging $6 for seat assignments and $25 for extra bags have all contributed to an increase in customer complaints of 60% in 2007 according to the Airline Quality Rating report, prompting frequent fliers to launch their OWN slogans including “United We Sit” and “Delta – It’s DELAY without the Tea or explaining the Why.” Add to this the skyrocketing price of hotels and you know why thousands of truckers went on strike and walked off the job in April, as diesel fuel increased over 15% in MARCH ALONE, causing them to actually LOSE MONEY on every delivery they make. It’s amazing – I mean – what I pay to FILL my Malibu is what it USED to cost to FLY to Malibu! What I pay to FILL my Monte Carlo, is what it USED to cost to FLY to Monte Carlo. What I pay to FILL my Saturn is what it USED to….well, you get the point. In short, Americans are spending more to put gas in their furnace AND gas in their Focus – meaning they’re putting more in the tank, and less in the bank.

Here’s the bottom line: Over the past 10 years, the COST of TRAVEL has more than DOUBLED, and the Consumer’s INCOME hasn’t.

Let’s see if I have a graph – oh, here we go – it’s the same graph from before.

CHAPTER 3: Healthcare

Healthcare – UGGH – where do I start? I only put one log on the fire tonight, so let’s see if we can keep it simple. If only I had a graph – oh wait, here’s one – it’s the same graph from before. The cost of HEALTHCARE has more than DOUBLED over the past 10 years, and the Consumer’s INCOME hasn’t.

The entire issue of healthcare can be summed up pretty simply, and it all comes down to this – Who’s going to make the decisions on what’s best for your body: YOU or the GOVERNMENT. The problem in America is this – we want it BOTH WAYS. Let me illustrate it this way.

What if a man was speeding through your neighborhood every day, and every day a cop pulled him over and gave him a warning, saying you’re driving dangerously and if you keep doing it you’ll kill somebody. What if he did this for 10 years, and then one day a kid suddenly ran out into the road and the man killed him because he was driving too fast. Who’s responsible? Who should have to pay for this? This man’s repeated behavior over a long period of time created a situation where tragedy was virtually inevitable. It’s the same with health. If you’re 20, 30, or 50 pounds overweight, and the doctor tells you every year for 10 years during your annual physical to lose weight, eat healthy, and exercise, then one day in your 40’s you have a heart attack, or are diagnosed with diabetes, who should have to pay for that?

People want the authority to make their own healthcare decisions, but don’t want the responsibility or accept the consequences of their high-risk lifestyles. As of 2007, 2 out of 3 Americans were overweight or obese, as are 1 out of 6 children, with projections for this to reach 75% of adults by 2012 – is it any wonder “The Biggest Loser” is such a hit? Perhaps the best solution is a healthcare system which determines cost responsibility based on whether the patient situation is an “ACCIDENT” or an “ON-PURPOSE” - those things representing the accumulation of lifestyle choices, which contribute to the existence of a condition. Heck, airlines have already started charging to carry extra weight; car insurance premiums increase for high-risk drivers; it seems only fair that the healthcare system should advocate personal responsibility by having premiums that reflect the health choices of individuals. Universal healthcare would effectively penalize personal responsibility and reward personal irresponsibility. It’s about time Americans understood that the key to HEALTH is to CARE for yourself first, and if our nation doesn’t get this problem fixed soon, we’ll soon become a two-tiered system – offering either “Wealth-Care” or Welfare. (In fact, if you think healthcare is expensive now, wait till it’s FREE!)

Here’s the bottom line: The net result of the past 10 years of health choices is that healthcare costs are now DOUBLE what they were 10 years ago, with more and more employers either passing along the cost or refusing to offer healthcare coverage at all, resulting in 47 million Americans with no healthcare insurance at all.

CHAPTER 4: Food

With global food prices rising 75% since 2000, and wheat prices increasing 200%, commodity investors everywhere are finding it hard to go against the grains. According to CNBC, rice and soy have also hit record highs, and with its bushel price up over 50% from last year, suddenly EVERYONE knows why Jimmy cracked corn. In addition, the National Restaurant Association reported that the price of cheese has jumped 25%, flour prices have doubled, and eggs are up 70% over the last year ALONE. As a result, wholesale food prices rose over 7% in 2007, the fastest rise in 20 years. 7% in JUST ONE YEAR! With costs over $3.50 a gallon, it seems like both milk AND gas are in a neck and neck race to break the consumer. Speaking of which, I wonder what it would cost for a barrel of milk?

Here’s the bottom line: Over the past 10 years, the COST of FOOD has more than DOUBLED, and the Consumer’s INCOME hasn’t.

Let’s see if I have a graph – oh, here we go – I believe you’ve seen this one before.

CHAPTER 5: Housing

I’ve saved Housing for last, because it gets the most attention, and it should. Why? Because it represents the LAST STRAW. Housing was the ONE THING that bought the American Consumer a little more time. If housing values hadn’t skyrocketed since 2001, the consumer would have hit this tipping point shortly after the dot com bust, and many have suggested Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s policies show that he was fully aware of this. The housing frenzy simply bought us a little more time, a “stay of execution” if you will, but now even that’s gone. The Amazing Appreciating Home served as Americans’ personal ATM for a good 4 years, as people refinanced and re-re-financed and took out home equity loans, treating their dwelling like a bottomless piggybank to pay for things beyond their paycheck, including the increased cost of Higher Education, Travel, Healthcare, and Food just discussed.

Over the past 10 years, there has been an uncoupling of the relationship between the median income and the median price of a home, and that uncoupling started accelerating around the year 2001. According to MSN Money, “Across the country, housing prices have RISEN an average of 45% over the past 6 years according to the National Association of Realtors, while the median income for working-age households is DOWN 4% since 2000 according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of Census Bureau data.” So much has been written about this over the past year, I don’t know which is greater – the red ink taken on financial balance sheets or the black ink by pundits writing about it! In fact, I have to include myself in that number, as my recent articles, “Is Wall Street Smarter Than a 5^th Grader?” and “Homes and Homers: Life After Steroids” both investigate the nuances of the real estate boom and bust, or as I put it, “The biggest pyramid scheme since the Egyptians.”

As any psychologist will tell you, there are 5 stages of grief: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. The fact that neither the President nor the Fed Chairman can scarcely utter the “R” word without a giant helping of caveats, demonstrates where they fall in this continuum. I mean, you FIRST have to be able to SAY the word “Recession” before you can begin the 5-step program towards recovery, and this is true for home sellers as well. You can quickly determine where in the “5 Stages of Housing Grief” a seller falls, just by listening. If they keep referring to “comparable sale prices” from homes sold in 2006, they are still in denial as to the radical re-pricing of the real estate market, as U.S. housing markets dropped in February at the fastest rate EVER! According to Standard & Poor’s home price index of 20 metro areas, year over year prices in February were DOWN 12%, with prices in Cleveland falling 9% and prices in Las Vegas falling a startling 22%! For those STILL in denial, I’ve included a few more statistics on the hemorrhaging housing market to help them accelerate through the grieving process towards “Acceptance.”

The median price of a new home in March - compared to a year ago - FELL by the largest amount in nearly four decades.

The median price of an existing single-family home was down 8.7% year-over-year, the largest drop on record.

The Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes plunged by 8.5 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 526,000, the lowest level in 16 ½ years.

According to MSN, home sales declined 23% from January 2007 to January 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors. The slide has continued month-over-month this year, even as prices continue to fall, and the National Association of Home Builders reports a 10-month supply of new homes on the market, compared with a 4.5-month supply in 2005.

Having gone on a nationwide housing price BINGE, we are now enduring the inevitable PURGE process, as home prices undergo a painful but necessary reversion to trend. From 1982 – 2001, median existing home prices grew at a 4% per year trend rate. Once the Fed dropped the funds rate to 1.75% in 2001, home prices surged, growing 8% per year all the way through 2006, double the previous 19-year trend pace, and putting them almost 40% above trend in 2006! Home prices have started to correct, with a 2 ½ percent drop in 2007, and 7% already this year, but they still need to fall another 12% if they are to revert to trend by next year AND if they are to begin to approach affordability thresholds in this new era of mortgage loan accountability. And while home pricing more aligned with income is ultimately a GOOD thing, the unfortunate byproduct of this reversion to trend is that over 8 million American homeowners are now “upside down” - stuck with a mortgage amount greater than the worth of their house.

Here’s the bottom line: Over the past 10 years, the COST of HOUSING has nearly DOUBLED, and the Consumer’s INCOME hasn’t.

Let’s see if I have a graph – here’s a slightly used one right here – showing a startling increase in the COST of HOUSING, and a comparatively paltry increase in consumer INCOME.

CHAPTER 6: Mind the Gap

The phrase, “Mind the Gap” is repeated hundreds of times daily on the London Underground rapid transit system, as a warning to train passengers reminding them of the sometimes significant gap between the train door and the station platform. Unfortunately, the same warning now needs to be applied to our economy, except this time to apprise political and financial leadership of the SIGNIFICANT GAP created over the past 10 years between consumer COSTS and consumer INCOME. The Gap Analysis outlined via graphs and narrative in the first 5 Chapters describes just SOME of the factors contributing to the new economic period we are about to enter – an era I’ve decided to call LAGFLATION. In short, LAGFLATION describes our current, unprecedented, and precarious financial situation where the average American income LAGS the cost of the average American lifestyle. It is this GAP that will define America’s next economic cycle.

Having spent the first 5 Chapters outlining the CAUSES of LAGFLATION, let’s take some time now to discuss the EFFECTS of LAGFLATION, and then wrap up with a strategic discussion of the best way for businesses, consumers, and policymakers to proactively position themselves for the tough years ahead.

The first and most logical effect of the LAG between consumer income and consumer cost is the decision to incur DEBT to fill in the GAP between consumer cash inflows and cash outflows. According to Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association, “The run-up in home prices in the middle of this decade led consumers to take on much higher levels of debt than in the past. As long as home prices continued to rise, homeowners were able to tap into home equity lines of credit, but with home prices falling and credit suddenly tight, many households have lost this extra source of income. He continues by saying, "What happened in the short space of the last five years was pretty scary - household debt rose to about 125% of income. It hadn't ever been 100% before that. It took consumers a long time to get into these conditions and it's going to take a long time to get that fixed.”

According to the watchdog group Demos, homeowners tapped $1.6 trillion in home equity from 2001 to 2006 to access cash, and the Washington Post reported on March 27^th that consumer debt has doubled in the past 10 years, from $1.3 trillion to $2.6 trillion, with consumers spending 15% of their after-tax income just to stay current on household debt. MSN Money summed it up succinctly in their April 21^st article saying, “For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans have a negative savings rate of 4%. Between 2000 and mid-2007, the median home price soared 64.9% to from $139,000 to $229,200, while the median income rose just 16.6%.” To make sure their clients don’t add additional debt onto THEIR balance sheets, America’s largest home-equity lender Countrywide notified 122,000 homeowners in January that their home-equity lines had been frozen because their homes had lost "significant" value.

The American Consumer is already pulling out all the stops to stay afloat financially. At Craigslist, which has evolved into an online flea market, the number of For Sale listings more than DOUBLED to 15 million since last March, and at Auctionpal.com, online For Sale listings rose 66% just from February to March this year, as desperate people liquidate any possessions they can find to buy a little more time. With all other sources of cash gone, consumers are turning in shocking numbers to credit cards. In fact, the Federal Reserve reported on May 7^th that Americans’ credit card debt jumped 6.7% in the first quarter to $957 billion, but without the INCOME means to repay this borrowing, debt rating agency Moody’s reports that credit card delinquency rates have already hit a 4-year high of 4.53% in February, with no reason to believe that this trend will improve any time soon.

CHAPTER 7: Foreclosures

With the easy-money refinancing and home-equity cash spigot securely turned off, consumers have become increasingly unable to cover the Cost-Income GAP, with the inevitable result being a historic increase in FORECLOSURES. According to Moodys.com, over 870,000 homes were lost to foreclosure in 2007, and another 1.3 million will be lost in 2008. March marked the 27th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in national foreclosure filings, with the number of homes receiving at least one foreclosure filing jumping 57 percent in March to 234,685, compared with 149,150 a year earlier. CNN reported on April 29^th that foreclosure filings in the first quarter of 2008 rose more than 112% over last year, with foreclosures up 178% in nearby Youngstown, OH in February over a year ago.

Real estate information firm RealtyTrac reported that nearly 650,000 foreclosure filings were issued in the first quarter, representing an increase of 23% from the last quarter of 2007, and it could get significantly worse, as a record number of adjustable rate mortgages – worth $362 billion – will reset with HIGHER interest rates in 2008.

CHAPTER 8: Bankruptcies

Drowning in debt, and with their home foreclosed on by the bank, many consumers have had no choice but to declare bankruptcy, causing bankruptcies to soar 27% in the first quarter of 2008. According to Reuters’ May 2^nd article, bankruptcy filings by U.S. consumers jumped 47% in April from one year ago, representing over 92,000 bankruptcies in a single month (and a 7% increase over March alone) with current full-year estimates projecting 2008 filings to exceed 1 million bankruptcies.

With all of these compounding issues weighing down on the economy, is it any wonder Reuters discovered that the consumer’s mood tumbled to a 26-year low of 63.2 in April. And a new report by the Pew Research Center on April 8^th says that, “About 60% of Americans believe they have not financially advanced over the last five years” - and as we’ve discussed, those were the GOOD years! As of 2006 (the last year for which trend data are available), real median annual household income had not yet returned to its 1999 peak, making this decade one of the longest downturns ever for this widely accepted measure of the middle-class standard of living.

CHAPTER 9: Jobs

Further contributing to the morose mood of the consumer has been the job market, with an April 23^rd release reporting jobless claims at their highest level since 2005. According to a May 1^st Reuters report, initial jobless claims rose by 35,000 and the number of workers remaining on jobless benefits climbed to a four-year high. Devastated by the housing correction, over 457,000 construction jobs have been lost in the past 20 months – that’s an average of over 22,000 jobs a month lost, just in one sector. Overall, the U.S. economy has already lost over 280,000 jobs in 2008 - an average of 70,000 jobs a month - and it’s only the first week of May.

CHAPTER 10: Businesses

As you can probably tell by now, this fireside chat doesn’t have a happy ending. When 2/3 of the American Economy is based on consumer spending, and when the American consumer is mired in the quagmire of LAGFLATION just described - without enough Income to cover their Costs - there won’t be much of anything left over to spend, and retailers are learning this the hard way, as chain after chain report huge losses OR are forced into bankruptcy. According to an April 15^th New York Times article by Michael Barbaro, “The consumer spending slump and tightening credit markets are unleashing a widening wave of bankruptcies in American retailing, prompting thousands of store closings that are expected to remake suburban malls and downtown shopping districts across the country. Since last fall, eight mostly midsize chains — as diverse as the furniture store Levitz, Sharper Image, and Bombay – all have filed for bankruptcy protection as they staggered under mounting debt and declining sales. And just last week on May 2, Linens ‘n Things - with 589 stores in 47 states - filed for bankruptcy.” Even those retailers lucky enough to avoid bankruptcy are shutting down stores to preserve cash. Over the next year, Foot Locker said it would close 140 stores, Ann Taylor will shutter 117, and the jeweler Zales will close 100. In addition, Charming Shoppes, which owns Lane Bryant and Fashion Bug, is closing at least 150 stores, Wilsons will close 158, and Pacific Sunwear is closing an entire 153-store chain called Demo. The International Council of Shopping Centers estimates there will be a total 5,770 store closings in 2008, up 25 percent from 2007, and the vacancy rate at U.S. strip malls rose to its highest level since 1996 in the first quarter of 2008, with big mall vacancy rates not far behind.

In case you’re still not convinced, here are a few more year-over-year comparable sales statistics just released in April:

The Limited – down 8%, Nordstrom – down 9%, Abercrombie & Fitch – down 10%, American Eagle – down 12%, Gap – down 12%, Kohl’s – down 16%, Stein Mart – down 17%, and the stock price for Starbucks, the “poster child” for disposal income consumption, is down 46% over the past year – with it’s 5-year stock chart following a nearly identical path of the housing Boom (hitting a high in early 2006) AND Bust (hitting a 4 year low today). Actually, the retailing sector tells an entire “story within a story” regarding the state of the American Consumer. Over the past 12 months, the stock price of Macy’s, Sears, and JC Penney are DOWN 39%, 42%, and 43% respectively WHILE, during this same period, The Dollar Store was UP 6%, Wal-Mart was UP 19%, and Costco was UP a staggering 34%! Consumers are not walking but RUNNING AWAY from even moderately priced retailers and flocking to the absolute CHEAPEST retailers in town. In fact, the story of Target is the most prescient insight into the current state of the consumer. Long considered a “peer” of Wal-Mart in value-priced merchandising, Target made the exact WRONG decision at the WORST possible time last Spring, as they decided to position their products and brand a little further “upstream” in terms of perceived quality and appeal. Frankly, they should rename this company “Off-Target” as they introduced more costly items at a time when consumers were being increasingly squeezed financially, resulting in their stock dropping 8% over the past year, while their “peer” Wal-Mart did just the opposite – lowered their prices – and increased their stock 19%.

This same dynamic is being played out in EVERY sector and vertical in the market, with brand loyalty becoming a thing of the past and PRICE becoming the singular obsession with the consumer, as further evidenced by bare-bones McDonald’s, UP 22% over the past year, and Brinker International – which owns casual dining’s Chili’s and Macaroni Grill - DOWN 28%. Hence, we should not be surprised that the National Federation of Independent Businesses “Survey of Small Business Optimism” in the U.S. sunk to a 22-year low in March - the lowest reading EVER – as small business owners clamped down on plans to create new jobs and expand business operations.

When the stock prices of Kohl’s, Starbucks, and Target are down, and Costco, The Dollar Store and McDonald’s are up, consumers are sending a clear message of LAGFLATION – and looking for ANY WAY to “Mind the Gap” between their increasing COSTS and lagging INCOMES. In fact, I’m sure that if there were stores offering CHEAPER prices, consumers would immediately flock to THOSE stores.

CHAPTER 11: Four Prophetic Predictions – What Happens Next?

While the first 10 Chapters of this story have been spent painting a contemporary portrait of the American Consumer based on a wealth of supporting and backward-looking facts and data points, the balance of this fireside chat will focus on extrapolating these findings by employing pattern recognition to project behavior and trend analysis of the economy over the next 3-5 years.

Prediction #1: Home Near the Range

As we’ve already established ad nauseam, the average American Consumer is now effectively under “house arrest” – paralyzed by declining home values, a challenging buying and selling environment because of new mortgage standards, and the widening GAP between monthly COST and INCOME. Within this economic context - when combined with high gas, travel, medical, education, and restaurant prices - AND having spent the last 5 years creating their own home “bunker” – complete with gourmet kitchen, exotic patio, home office, home entertainment system, home theatre, home spa, and home security system, it’s not too difficult to guess what Americans are going to do for the next 3 years – STAY HOME! This is bad news for anyone in travel, leisure, and hospitality industries - as cash-strapped families instead create their own “Staycations” close to home - and because the American Economy is now beyond the Tipping Point, this is BAD NEWS for anyone in the service sector dependent on tips. We’ve already turned over all of the sofa cushions and sorted through the french-fries in the backseat of the minivan to collect the last few nickels and dimes to pay our bills, so this will also be a tough time for purchases suddenly reclassified as “luxury items” like XM Radio and other industries where people can get similar experiences for free (fostering a growing surge in library patronage versus Blockbuster and Borders).

Prediction #2: The New Era of “Surgical Shopping”

The next 3-5 years will witness the introduction of a new precision buying strategy called “Surgical Shopping.” In fact, if you were paying attention, you caught the first glimpse of this phenomenon last Christmas. As you recall, our hero, the American Consumer, STILL had the same 10 gifts to buy, but this year they only had $200 instead of $500 to spend. So what happened? People did what they ALWAYS do – they acted in their own best interest. They asked themselves, “How can I buy $500 worth of gifts for $200? I know, I’ll wait for the RIDICULOUS Black Friday 6-hour deals and pounce on them.” Last year, the number of people camping out at retailers for their “Midnight Sales” or 4am openings was overwhelming, but they didn’t stick around. These Surgical Shoppers went JUST for the printers marked down to $25 or other 75% off deals, and then they went home, completely ignoring the other higher-margin products in the store. As a result, the brain trust on Wall Street took this first day turnout to proclaim “Good news of great joy” for the holiday season, but look what happened – the Christmas season was a disaster, the worst in 5 years. So then well-paid analysts said, “Just wait until all of those gift cards are redeemed in January,” and THAT never happened, and then they blamed the MARCH numbers on an early Easter, and then the APRIL numbers on an early Easter, and on and on it will go, until they finally connect all of the dots listed above.

For the next 3-5 years, Surgical Shoppers will continue to “cherry-pick” retailers, going in for their weekly or seasonal “loss leaders” and then, simply, leaving. After a few months of this, retailers will begin to notice the trend and start to label these shoppers “Loss Leavers” – where the customer buys just the sales items, the retailer takes the loss, and then the customer leaves. In this new economy, the Surgical Shopper will still go to Bed, and take a Bath, but they won’t be able to afford much BEYOND that (in fact, Bed, Bath, and Beyond just reported quarterly net profit in April that fell 16% and gave a first-quarter earnings outlook WELL below Wall Street expectations).

Surgical Shoppers DON’T CARE about wide aisles, decorative lighting, and the fake wood flooring in your Wine Shelter (I’m talking to YOU Heinen’s). I’ve been to those stores this year and guess what – they don’t NEED wide aisles because the store is EMPTY! Do you know what stores have people waiting for them to open at 8am? The ones with the tiny aisles and the bad lighting and no deli – but they’ve got LOW PRICES (I’m talking about you Marc’s). Remember, today’s consumer is deciding where to buy milk based on who has the lowest price this week, and they watch the daily movement in the price of crude oil to determine which day to buy gasoline – so they won’t be cajoled into shopping at your high-priced grocery store just because you’re offering samples of pomegranate on melba toast…but 75,000 people WILL wait in line for 3 HOURS for a 23 cent pizza from Papa John’s!

Prediction #3: A Cultural Shift to “Good Enough”

At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on May 3^rd, CEO Warren Buffett repeatedly warned investors to lower their expectations saying, “Anyone that expects us to come close to replicating the past should sell their stock; it isn’t going to happen. We’ll get decent results over time, but not indecent results. We are very happy at making money at a rate in the future that’s much less than the past…and I suggest that you adopt the same attitude.” Arguably the most famous investor of our time, Warren Buffett effectively summarized a seachange in not only the financial, but also the cultural tenor of our time. The next 3-5 years will be marked by a radical shift to “Good Enough” in nearly every facet of society, as companies strive to retrench financially and a nation of desperate housewives strive to live within their fiscal means. For businesses, this will mean switching from Hilton to Hampton, Overnight FedEx to 2^nd Day or snail mail, and Coach instead of Business or First Class – IF they still decide to take the trip in the first place (which will be good news for web meetings and teleconference providers).

For consumers, the “Good Enough” shift has already begun. Private hair salons are laying off stylists, while Great Clips – offering $5.99 haircuts – ranked 19^th in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 500 Franchises of 2008, as consumers decide that a $5.99 haircut is Good Enough and a $50 salon visit is no longer required – and ditto for Starbucks. According to the Plain Dealer, if the first quarter numbers in the automotive industry hold true for the year, it will be the worst sales year in a decade, and Ford has already called it the worst March in 15 years. In fact, when I saw a TV commercial on April 6^th advertising, “Buy one Kia, get one free!” I knew the Good Enough shift was already in full gear, as auto companies were willing to GIVE AWAY A CAR just to make a sale. As the sales statistics continue to demonstrate, Americans as a nation have decided that they no longer need a brand new car and/or that they no longer require a premium brand badge, as evidenced by Hyundai’s sudden surge in popularity – offering Lexus-level quality at a fraction of the price. In the Good Enough era, firms like Hyundai -which allow consumers to continue to enjoy the premium features they have come to love but at a much lower cost – will be best positioned to weather the growing economic headwinds (and this would go for much of the used car market, used video game stores like GameStop, and consignment shops as well).

The Good Enough mantra will be also be applied around the home, as people increasingly eliminate or reduce grass cutting and house cleaning services (deciding instead to save money and do it themselves) and kids will hear a word that many have never heard before: NO! No you can’t have a new laptop, $90 sneakers, $40 sunglasses, iPods, fancy cell phones, a new video game every week, private oboe lessons, private college, and the American birthright of a car on your 16^th birthday. There will be little help for the remodeling and construction industry, as people cancel or delay putting in new pools, decks, and kitchens; golf country club memberships will go un-renewed, and executives won’t relocate for a new job because either they can’t sell their homes OR they risk losing significant equity in the transaction. Movie Box Offices shouldn’t expect the consumer to obsess about trying to keep up with the Indiana Joneses’ this year (with North American movie attendance already down 6.5% from 2007), instead opting to save the $48, wait 4 months, and see it for $4 on their home theatre, and far-flung vacation destinations should expect the same, as consumers avoid the high cost of air travel and decide instead that a 3-hour drive for an old-fashioned vacation on the lake is now Good Enough. Finally, I expect the nationwide malaise of LAGFLATION to slowly spawn a corollary condition called NAGFLATION, as frustrated housewives start demanding, “Why don’t you take me out anymore? Why don’t we go on nice vacations anymore? We haven’t had a new car in 6 years,” (which could have the unfortunate consequence of causing men to pursue their OWN version of “Stagflation.”)

Prediction #4: Wall Street Will Simultaneously Have Both an Identity Crisis and a Mid-Life Crisis

Let’s face it – “Wall Street” is an oxymoron, a figure of speech that combines two normally contradictory terms. In fact, the word oxymoron is derived from the Greek word ‘oxy’ meaning sharp, and ‘moros’ meaning dull, making the very word oxymoron – an oxymoron. It’s the same for Wall Street. Well – which is it? A Wall? Or a Street? Just as the phrase “Wall Street” presents a literary impasse, so the sudden onset of LAGFLATION presents an economic impasse for this - the world’s financial hub.

As a leading indicator reflecting the condition of our financial infrastructure, Wall Street has already undergone a fundamental market correction, as the repricing of credit and risk has punished banks and lenders that were over-leveraged, under-capitalized, or took on audacious amounts of risk in pursuit of profit in the lucrative but dangerous subprime market. However, ever since that “Weekend at Bernanke’s” where JP Morgan agreed to acquire Bear Stearns, the market appears to have settled down and has even shown a few weeks of modest growth. Unfortunately, however, just like Wall Street quants didn’t have the foresight to figure out how to avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in write-offs, leading Wall Street voices will continue to be baffled by the markets’ muted performance over the next 3-5 years.

Today’s analysts continue to simply look at market performance in a one-dimensional, linear way – asserting that since stock prices have been marked down and future earnings discounted, that things should start getting back to normal, that any recession or slowdown can be averted, and the nation will simply ramp back up from this temporary “speed bump” with a continuation of our long-running bull market. What they FAIL to understand is a concept that we all learned as kids called “Cracking the Whip.” “Cracking the Whip” was a game where a line of 10-15 ice skaters would hold hands and slowly start turning in a circle, eventually building up so much momentum that the person farthest from the center would eventually fly off the end of the “whip” and go sailing over the ice – whether they wanted to or not! It’s the same with the economy. Wall Street and the associated banks and financial institutions are at the center, and the consumer is way out on the end of the whip, and just like in ice skating, even small movements from the epicenter can have significant consequences as they ripple through the markets. What Wall Street doesn’t realize is that - instead of being small - the corrections taking place at their epicenter have been HUGE, and that the even larger aftershocks are just STARTING to have an effect on the broader economy. All of the bankruptcies, foreclosures, store closings, and retail figures detailed earlier are JUST THE START. While Wall Street firms can belly up to the discount window and effectively “buy more time” to get their financial house in order, consumers don’t have that option, as more and more fall into the GAP between Income and Cost.

I predict Wall Street will undergo an Identity Crisis as the market undergoes an “Un-Bear-Or-Bull” market over the next 3-5 years, as stocks get locked into a narrow trading range, with lots of churning but very little progress to retest the market highs set in October 2007. Investors will grow increasingly frustrated as returns struggle to keep up even with historical return rates, as firms like Goldman Sachs will return to their lower-risk, lower-return “core” business of M&A. Whether we got the “soft landing” the Fed wanted is a topic for discussion, but one thing for sure is now that we’ve landed, the markets will be stalled on the tarmac until they’re Jet-Blue in the face, as any stock dependent on the U.S. consumer will continue to languish for years to come. Because of this, I fully expect another rash of market scandals, as traders and investors – impatient with the lowered stock market performance predicted by Warren Buffett - seek out highly speculative and ultimately illegal trading schemes.

If there’s one final admonition for Wall Street it’s this; for the last time - the problem is NOT Consumer Confidence – the problem is Consumer OVER-Confidence! Do you know how much CONFIDENCE it takes to take out a 40-year loan on a $600,000 house with no money down, with a 2-year Adjustable Rate Mortgage - on spec - when you’re earning $55,000? Do you know how much CONFIDENCE it takes to max out all of your credit cards AND home equity loan AND student loans AND car loans? The American Consumer has more CONFIDENCE than anyone on the planet. TOO MUCH CONFIDENCE is what got us INTO the Countrywide AND country-WIDE mess that we’re in. So please, never again say that the problem is Consumer Confidence (remember, you can’t spell Consumer OR Confidence without the “Con”); the problem now is LAGFLATION – the ongoing and widening LAG – the GAP - between the average American INCOME and the COST of the average American lifestyle.

CHAPTER 12: Your LAGFLATION Survival Guide

Assuming the preponderance of evidence presented in this manifesto has convinced you that LAGFLATION is indeed upon us, and has accelerated your grieving process from Denial through Acceptance, the next step is determine how to best survive America’s abrupt economic transition from “Goldilocks to Gridlock.” For businesses, the secret is to get in front of the curve as quickly as possible, CUT OVERHEAD NOW so that your reserves will last longer, and then CUT COST NOW so that when customers DO shop they will look for you. Make every strategic decision come down to the impact it will have on the PRICE paid by the consumer.

Once price has been identified as Priority #1, businesses should immediately begin launching a series of “no holds barred – outside the box” guerilla marketing campaigns, to reach desired target markets. If you cut hair, try borrowing a rental truck, driving it to a soccer field, and give low-cost haircuts while you wait. If you’re a restaurant, create deals you can’t pass up! No more “Buy One Get One for Half Price with purchase of 2 beverages.” People already know you’re making enough margin on the drinks to almost give away the entrée, and many people have already switched to drinking water when they eat out to save $10 per family per meal. If you want people to show up, offer “Buy One Get One” as a MINIMUM, add bargain-basement Early Bird discounts Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, consider extending Senior Citizen discounts to EVERYONE, and print coupons without the annoying qualifiers like “Valid Sunday – Thursday.” People need to feel like their WINNING with their wallet. In the past, people were looking for any reason to SPEND, now they’re looking for any reason NOT to spend, so your incentive needs to be so compelling that they CAN’T pass it up. Remember, LAGFLATION makes coupons “Cool” again!

Retailing Retailored

In the new era of LAGFLATION, every mall and every retailer should hang a “Going Out of Business” sign on the front, because if they don’t give people a reason leave their home “bunker” and shop at their store, they WILL be out of business. Once everyone begins advertising discounts and low prices, successful retailers with have to invent increasingly creative value propositions to lure customers, and I predict this will launch a new trend called “Crossover Consuming.” Crossover Consuming will involve a juxtaposition of what would previously be considered “strange bedfellows,” where groups of unrelated retailers will voluntarily come together - out of a need for survival - to offer consumers a matrix of complementary products and services - a self-reinforcing destination of customer value. Karate studios will partner with hair salons and tutoring services to enable consumers to save time by getting multiple services at the same location AND save money on gas by consolidating trips. Malls will fill floor space vacated by Sharper Image and Bombay with free childcare services to give frazzled parents both time and incentive to shop there, and movie theatre stubs will advertise 20% discounts on purchases to reinforce mall patronage. (Note: Some supermarkets are already offering free childcare, and they are fulfilling the human NEED for food. If retailers are to survive, they will have to at least match this level of service to entice people to purchase what many would consider simply WANTS).

Retailers that survive this period of LAGFLATION will no longer be able to just passively wait for consumers to show up at their doorstep and purchase goods. Successful businesses in this new era will also have to complement their “bricks and mortar” establishments with a concurrent and proactive online strategy. Retailers from furniture stores to car dealers need to maximize the productivity of their sales staff by creating online venues for direct sales of their products via the web (eBay, e-commerce, etc.) and equipping staff with tools to directly reach out to target markets, with the ability to immediately get up and service customers when they DO walk through the front door. According to a recent Forrester's study, e-mails sent to repeat customers by stores involve the cheapest marketing cost ($6.85 is the average cost per order), while yielding a high average order value ($120.27). Search engine shopping is also among the cheapest ($8.63 average cost per order) while yielding a high return ($109.73). These cheap marketing tools are already helping retailers maximize profits, by driving the consumers to buy their products – whether online OR in person.

CHAPTER 13: Good Night and Good Luck

Just as the last flame on the last log in my fireplace begins its slow descent, so the embers on the last log in the American economy begin their long smoldering process. When asked what they are going to do with their tax rebate, just 21% of Americans plan on spending it, and based on our previous discussion, that should come as no surprise. While the price of WANTS (like big-screen televisions) continues to fall, the price of NEEDS like wheat, corn, milk, and gasoline continue to rise. In fact, the Labor Department just reported that wholesale prices rose by 1.1 percent last month, the second largest increase in the past 33 years. If people barely have enough money to cover their needs, it doesn't matter WHAT the wants are priced at – people WON’T buy because they CAN’T buy!

The American Economy during this period of LAGFLATION will be like 4 cars that arrive at a 4-way Stop Sign intersection at exactly the same time. Everyone is waiting for everyone else to go. People don’t spend, so retailers lay off, so firms don’t hire, so people go out less, so food prices go up even more, so restaurants close, so firms lay off even more, and laid off people don’t spend, so they don’t buy houses (in fact, they reintroduce the tradition of multi-generational homes), so the prices of homes continue to fall, so they don’t fly on airlines, so airlines go bankrupt, and on and on it goes. In the New Testament, Matthew 11:16, we read, “But with whom shall I compare this generation? “We played the flute, but you did not dance. We cried, but you did not mourn.” For the next 3-5 years, the entire nation will collectively stand around with their hands on their hips waiting for someone else to “go first.” While it’s true that housing pricing will continue to fall to align better with income, without a similar fall in the price of higher education, and healthcare, and gas, and food, and travel – OR a SUDDEN JUMP in median income - American after American will continue to quietly fall into the GAP between INCOME and COST.

In 2007, the nation’s median salary was $36,000, which, after inflation, is nearly 1% BELOW the 2006 median salary. In the past year, the Consumer Price Index rose 4.3%, food increased 5%, hospital services increased 8.6%, and gasoline increased a whopping 35%! In fact, inflation at the wholesale level soared in March at nearly triple the rate that had been expected, as the costs of energy and food both climbed rapidly. Throw in another Katrina or terror attack and you have even GREATER economic pain, and this is without even considering the already critical and compounding crisis in Social Security, Immigration, Medicare, Medicaid, and the fact that our 401’s are NOT OK.

So now you know what will happen. Take it with grain of truth. What you do now is up to you. You can choose to ACT now, or REACT later. Clearly, America has lost its way, which is probably why a record number of GPS systems were sold last Christmas AND why the #1 destination on the web is a SEARCH engine. America’s farmers get it – when you have GOOD crop years, you take the money and save it to cover for the BAD crop years. Our nation has taken the money from the BOOM years and spent it, so now there is nothing left to buffer the BUST years slated for our immediate future. The Fed’s rate cuts have cut the value of the dollar - hitting new lows as oil hit new highs in April – further increasing the cost of commodities, which further impacts the price of food and oil – and further widens the GAP for the American Consumer. The end result of LAGFLATION is that our country will increasingly be divided into a nation of Haves and Have-Nots. A nation of wealthy multinational financiers on Easy Street and multigenerational families living on Main Street. In the end, our nation will ultimately be defined by Wall Street and K-mart. Put them together and what do you have? Wal-Mart.

By Douglas O’Bryon, Soundbite Laureate

May 13, 2008

Homes and Homers: Life After Steroids

2008-03-25T16:20:00.001-05:00

You know that feeling. It’s that queasy, rubber-legged, vertigo sensation you get just after stepping off of Cedar Point’s Blue Streak roller coaster. It all started when you sat down, buckled in, and then began your ascent on that slow, staccato uphill climb - clack, clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. The suspense was palpable, strangers conversed loudly and nervously, you could see the whole park from up there, and even some boats bobbing eerily in the distance. As the mutant spinal cord of a track methodically and obediently approached the zenith of its physical and legal limits, it appeared to pause momentarily just past the apogee – as if re-checking to see if the stove was turned off – before plummeting from this crescendoed perch, hurtling passengers – willing and not – towards its slithering depths, with whiplash promises and head-snapping assuredness.

Well folks, the ride has finally come to an end for both Homes and Homers, and that uneasy, exhausted feeling in the pit of your stomach portends to linger for a while. After years of tape-measure homes and tape-measure home runs, the irrational exuberance tied to these two national pastimes has finally arrived at the Opening Day of Reckoning. Like April showers and May flowers, springs’ warm sunny days traditionally welcome buyers and baseball to homes and homers…but not this year. In 2008, spring’s buying season is instead destined to usher in the boys of the summer of our discontent.

After years of outsized performance and record-breaking statistics, 2008 will be remembered as the year the music died for both homes and homers for one simple reason – no more cheating. Following months of very public congressional hearings involving several high-profile players, Major League Baseball has finally decided to get serious and crack down on the widespread use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. For fans of the long-ball, this means a depressing return to reality and mortality, and an end to the superhuman feats of strength and speed. Never again will we witness a 60 home run season (let alone 73) or baseballs that fly hundreds of feet beyond the outfield wall as if injected with liquid energy – because, it turns out, they were.

For years, baseball teams, managers, and trainers were all motivated to “look the other way” as lats, stats, and bleachers inflated to capacity – because doing so benefited everyone in the ballpark food chain with one important thing – money; lots and lots of money. They rode this gravy train as long as they possibly could - even lying under oath to enjoy one more go-round, and when the ride was finally over, they turned on each other in a massive finger-pointing effort to pass the blame. The game of baseball – America’s Pastime – had once again been tainted by scandal, and once again in the name of greed.

Just like America’s Pastime, the “American Dream” is also entering 2008 on the disabled list. After years of “looking the other way,” the entire housing and banking ecosystem has now imploded with a resounding CRUNCH! Like dot-com day traders, and the California gold rush before it, thousands of starry-eyed speculators kept injecting a steady supply of HGH (Housing Growth Hormones) into the market, creating outsized performance and Herculean gains in just a few months. Just like baseball, everyone in this “un-real estate market” food chain was also motivated to perpetuate the biggest pyramid scheme since the Egyptians, and all for the same reason – money; lots and lots of money. Banking CEO’s speculated on funding risky home loans, hedge funds speculated on buying these 30, 40, and 50-year loans, brokers speculated on writing these Liar Loans, and buyers speculated on buying (and often flipping) these loans and homes. The players had their agents, and the banks had their appraisers – all incentivized to get top dollar for their clients, even if it meant cheating a little…or a lot. After breaking records year after year in housing appreciation and banking balance sheets, the scandal has finally been uncovered, the congressional hearings have started, high-profile personalities have been ousted, and the finger pointing has begun in a massive effort to blame someone else. After desperately wanting to RECEIVE the big bucks in both banking and baseball, suddenly everyone is ready to PASS the buck, which is how we got in this mess in the first place.

In 2008, both the Commissioner and the Chairman will have their hands full as they work to restore order and integrity in Bonds and bonds, and to level their respective playing fields. With no more liquidity in the needle and no more liquidity in the market, it’s a farewell to inflated ARM’s for both batters AND buyers. Unfortunately for us, this will mean both home and homer statistics will come back down to earth, as players struggle to keep up their home runs and RBI’s and consumers struggle to keep up their home mortgages and refi’s.

You’ve got to admit – it’s been quite a ride, as the clack, clack of the roller coaster harkens back to the clack, clack sound that baseball cards used to make affixed to bicycle spokes riding through the neighborhood, except today’s neighborhoods are different, as “For Sale By Owner” signs have been replaced with “Fore Closure By Bank.” It’s clear that things will never go back to the way they were, but here’s a suggestion to help us get back to normal. How about requiring the price of all “comparable homes” sold over the past 5 years – like homers – be listed with an asterisk *

Striking Writers Linked To Stock Market Collapse

2008-01-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Write-downs and write-offs - what do they have in common? That’s right – WRITERS! On Friday, it was announced that a special task force has been mobilized to investigate the effects of a national conspiracy wreaking havoc on both the stock market and the housing market nationwide. According to sources, nearly three thousand writers from the Writers Guild of America were recruited, trained, and subsequently hired by leading mortgage broker firms like Countrywide from 2003 – 2006 with one goal: “No Loan Left Behind.” Sworn to secrecy and armed with stacks of forms and legal documents, they used their carefully honed creative writing skills to qualify every single applicant under their “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” approval policy, effectively supplying the HGH (Housing Growth Hormones) needed to grow an artificially inflated and “unreal estate” market.

From Main Street To Wall Street

As the subprime mess began unfolding in late 2006, these same writers were then transferred to Wall Street’s major financial institutions which were backing the same 50-Year Mortgages and Liar Loans that they had just written months earlier. Once at firms like Bear Sterns, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup, this clandestine cast of thousands immediately began (once again) WRITING, only this time it was Write-Downs - to the tune of nearly $100B.

Investigators got their first tip in breaking this conspiracy wide open when, just as all of the financial Write-Offs were nearing completion, the WRITERS suddenly found themselves out of work, and began striking. “The timing was just too perfect,” noted one official, “Banks stopped WRITING loans, insurers stopped WRITING policies…ironic – yes, an accident – no.”

Whose (De)Fault Is it Anyway?

Task force officials are still investigating to determine just how far-reaching this scandal has become. One off-the-record Wall Street insider even went so far as to say, “You hear about stocks reaching a “strike” price? That’s actually how low that market has to go before the media moguls call off the dogs, finalize an agreement with the Writers Guild of America, and put these people back to work – only this time it will be for the Herculean task of UNDERWRITING our entire national economy.”

Is Wall Street Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

2007-09-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

I should have written this article a year ago, but like my 5^th grader waiting until the last minute to build his shoebox diorama for the Science Fair, I put it off as long as possible. However, after enduring 6 months of exasperation over the “subprime contagion” handwringing by the smartest financial pundits of our time, I realized I could wait no longer.

Folks, the analysts on Wall Street are making this subprime issue WAAAY too complicated. In fact, if it were up to me, I’d get Donald Trump and Jeff Probst to appear on CNBC and tell them all, “You’re Fired” and vote them off Long Island. But I’ll give them immunity – it’s not their fault they missed the story - because the entire scenario is playing out hundreds and thousands of miles away – on Main Street. In spite of how complicated the capital market gurus attempt to make this situation, it all comes down to Spelling one 13-letter-word: A-F-F-O-R-D-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y, and the Math is so easy, even a 5^th grader can do it.

Once Upon a Dime….

To keep things simple, I’ll use my own story as an example. In January 2001, I was recruited by a technology firm in the DC metro area to serve as VP of Marketing with a salary of $110,000. Upon accepting the position, our family of four purchased a 16-year-old single family home in the DC suburb of Germantown, MD at a price of $300,000. It was a 30 year loan with an interest rate of 7%, putting our payments at roughly $2400 a month, which represented the absolute maximum debt-to-income ratio loan criteria available on a $110K income.

Over the next 4 years, housing prices skyrocketed. In 2005, our house, which was now 20 years old, was appraised at $600K, and all I had done was mow the lawn. Something was clearly wrong here, but I wasn’t complaining. In fact, real estate had us all becoming like the “day traders” of the dot-com era. Neighbors would gather and talk giddily about how a small house on the next street had just sold for $400K, then $500K, then $600K. Like many others, we refinanced at 6 ½ percent and then again at 6%, each time grabbing a little more equity to pay for life. Sensing the peak of the market insanity in 2005, we made the decision to “cash out” and moved to an even larger home in Ohio at half sticker the price.

Like the dot-com bubble, the real estate bubble was basically a pyramid scheme. The folks that got in the earliest and then cashed out did fine - as long as there was a bigger sucker behind you, life was great. In the late 1990’s, once word of the “get rich quick” opportunities in day trading made the water cooler rounds, everyone became a player and nearly everybody won – until one day when the combined weight of inflated valuations came crashing down and whoever was left holding the bag got burned – badly. Nobody was complaining while the 200% returns on Lucent were coming in, but after the dot-bomb bust, shareholders were filing lawsuits. As we learned in the aftermath, the bubble and bust was a ‘perfect storm’ of stocks supported by inflated valuations by analysts supported by IPO’s ad nauseam, until the house of cards came tumbling down, and an entire industry of day traders evaporated overnight.

What happened in real estate was actually quite similar to the dot-com pyramid scheme. If you were lucky like me and got in early AND got OUT early, you did fine. Actually, in 2001, real estate wasn’t something you got “in” to. Back then, a house was just a house, a place where you lived and raised a family and surfed the Internet. With real estates’ annualized return from 1978 – 2004 of 8%, any financial upside from appreciation was merely icing on the cake from the utility of the lumber and dry wall that offered protection from the weather. It wasn’t until 2 or 3 years of $60,000 annual appreciation that people started talking and the real estate BOOM was launched. Just like day traders and the California gold rush in January 1848, real estate speculators appeared almost overnight in the form of real estate agents, loan originators, appraisers, flippers, and bankers, creating yet another ‘perfect storm’ of greed.

Real Estate Boom: No Loan Left Behind

If my brother – four years my junior – was offered in 2005 the exact job I was recruited for in 2001, he would have had a problem. The $110,000 salary would have increased with inflation to $130K by then, so he would have been able to buy a $350K house, but there were no longer any single-family homes in the area for $350K. In fact, by 2005, even townhouses and condos were selling for $450K! However, the “speculators” - who had no desire to see the party end until THEY could get out – became increasingly creative, as it became obvious that people would give an ARM and a leg to get in on the real estate boom. New financial products sprung up like For Sale signs to finesse the required paperwork, including “interest only” loans, delayed interest, no money down, adjustable rate mortgages, the 40 year mortgage introduced in 2003, and finally, the coup de grace – the introduction in California of the 50 YEAR MORTGAGE in May 2006! And if this wasn’t bad enough, there was even the introduction of the new “stated income” option – whereby the buyer provided no documentation of income whatsoever – whatever the buyer “stated” his income was, that was good enough for the lender, which is why they came to be commonly known as “Liar Loans.” The entire supporting industry collaborated to create an “un-real estate” market, like pushers enabling their addicts with one more fix, including the appraisers who used the escalating home prices of recent sales to inflate the appraised value of the next sale to meet even the flimsiest of loan requirements. In the end, it was the millions of stated income buyers that provided the HGH (Housing Growth Hormones) of the real estate boom, the speculative, performance-enhancing steroids that enabled instant, outsized, Herculean growth with very little effort.

The Day the Music Stopped

Just like day traders, the real estate speculation bubble burst suddenly, I think it was on a Tuesday. Instead of multiple offers complete with escalation clauses for their home posted on the Internet the night earlier, the couple selling their Nixon-era rancher for $620K woke up to find their driveway, voicemail, PDA, and In-Box empty. And then, like Wile E. Coyote in a helium balloon that had just exhausted its last breath of air, the euphoria ended. Like a cup of black coffee the Sunday morning after Y2K, our irrational exuberance was replaced with the sober reality of a country propped up on inflated valuations and Liar Loans. The smart money – the top of the pyramid - had already left the building with their pockets full and a one-way ticket for a First Class flight to Quality (complete with soft landing). Left holding the empty bag were the masses who got to the party late but didn’t realize it. Caught in the crosshairs were speculative flippers, fresh from their $14,000 2-Day “No Money Down” real estate course, who now have 4 spec houses to liquidate and builders who were constructing condos faster than the rate of population growth.

Whose (De)Fault Is It Anyway?

Just like the dot-com bust, the blame fingers are now starting to look for a target, but here’s the bottom line. Somewhere in 2002, when real estate took on the characteristics of a high-reward investment, it also took on the associated high-risk characteristics as well. There’s a great commercial (ironically for home lender Ditech) that asserts “People are Smart” and for the most part I agree – but they’re also greedy. During the dot-com era, people could have invested their money in railroads, but the appeal of exploding tech stocks was so enticing that they chose instead to plow their life savings into Cisco. They understood full well the risks, but the rewards of 200 to 300% returns repeated over and over by their cubicle colleagues were just too enticing. The same thing happened in real estate, where “the ends justify the means” mentality overtook rational thought. People were so bent on just “getting in” they forsook logic and basic math. Compounding this problem was the growing popularity of shows like HGTV, which helped reset American’s expectations for a baseline dwelling from the 1400 sq ft home our family of 6 shared growing up, to a 4200 sq foot tear-down McMansion. (If you don’t believe me, pick up next Sunday’s Home Depot or Lowe’s flyer and see the “typical” house featured on the front page). Even worse was the blatant “Flip This House” series, a show which has “inexplicably” dropped in popularity and may be poised to be relaunched as “Flip This Burger.”

Just like you can’t blame a jockey for not winning the race, or your stockbroker for selling you Enron stock, people can’t blame their lender for giving them the loan they begged for. If the real estate market was still going up, there wouldn’t have been a peep out of these peeps! Even a 5^th grader knows that buying a $600,000 house is a big deal and shouldn’t be done in haste, and frankly, I don’t think any of this was done in haste. Millions of normal people in our instant gratification society (where we now require microwaves because popcorn takes TOO LONG to make on the stove) made the conscious decision to roll the dice, leverage their futures, and take on sizeable risk, all for the chance to get rich in real estate. And now, when it’s their turn to roll the dice and it turns up snake eyes, they need someone to blame, because personal accountability is no longer a popular concept in our society.

Can’t AFFORD It? That’s the Math Problem

Single-family home prices in major metro markets like DC, Boston, and Vegas, plus nearly the entire states of California and Florida have increased over 100% since 2001, in my case, from $300K to $600K. Incomes during that time have increased much less, in my case from $110K to $130K. It ALL COMES DOWN TO AFFORDABILTY! Incomes have increased 20%, homes have increased 100% - this didn’t matter when loans were based on lies, but those days are over now. When I bought my home in 2001, my mortgage was $2400 a month. The person that bought that same house in 2005 is paying $4200 a month, requiring an income in excess of $200K! It’s not that people don’t WANT to buy houses now, it’s just that the simple math of loan debt-to-income ratios don’t allow it. With the nationwide “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” loan approval policies finally curtailed, people are no longer able to AFFORD homes. The result – according to global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas - is that more than 156 institutions have filed for bankruptcy since the subprime collapse, and banks with ties to the subprime mortgage industry laid off more than 26,000 employees in August, more than any month since Challenger began keeping such records, with many more layoffs (and foreclosures) on the way.

American Hangover: The Aftermath of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Lending

Just like the tech stock prices lost touch with reality, so has the price of real estate. Nothing will happen in real estate until the price of housing becomes realigned with REAL (not stated) family income. If housing went up 100% and income went up 20% in the past 5 years, then there will have to be significant discounting in the price of housing to get this back in line. Dropping the price of a house that went from $300K to $600K in 4 years “all the way down” to $550K isn’t going to cut it. While it shouldn’t be necessary to trace an 8% price increase from 2001 to 2007 to find that balance, a sub $490K price is a good first step towards restoring sanity. Unfortunately, the problem that many of the existing homeowners trying to sell into this market are finding is that the 1400 sq ft split-level they purchased in 1975 (complete with 1.5 bathrooms and a kitchen the size of a Sub-Arctic Freezer) is no longer considered desirable by many in an era of granite countertops and stadium-seating home theatres. This fact is reinforced by the recent housing numbers, which showed new home sales (complete with builder-laden incentives) far outsold existing home sales in the most recent quarter. To their credit, builders – with inventories of hundreds of brand new homes for sale, have been far more willing to discount price than individual home owners, still clinging to the “Comparable Sales” figures of the hay days of 2006. You’d think with all of the “reality shows” on TV that people would have a better understanding of this concept! The fact is, until the voodoo economics which created this bubble are worked out, the real estate frenzy which created these fantasy prices are simply doodoo economics. (Note: As I write this, Hovnanian Builders just announced a “Deal of the Century” sale on their burgeoning inventory of new homes nationwide. Hovnanian is offering buyers incentives and perks if they will sign a contract in the next 72 hours, with website examples featuring a condo in NY recently reduced by $240K to $862K (22% reduction) and a 2-bedroom home in NJ reduced 25% to $300K. With a glut of over 10 months of housing inventory already on the market, foreclosures up 93% from a year ago (adding even MORE houses), and housing starts and permits for new houses at their lowest level in 12 years, home builders confidence in the market just hit a 16-year low in August…and so begins the real estate “Fire Sale”).

How will Main Street and Sesame Street Affect Wall Streeters on Easy Street?

The impact of the real estate implosion on Main Street means that, for the first time in nearly a decade, Americans will be forced to live within their means. The “lucky” ones that got IN and OUT of the dot-com and real estate bubbles at the right time will have plenty of cash to spend on high-end luxury goods like Porsche (with a stock price up 100% the past 12 months) and Tiffany’s (with a stock price rising from $33 to $53 the past year), and still live within their means. However, there are many, many more who will struggle just to survive, as the broadening chasm between the haves and have-nots expands. Foreclosures will continue to rise as ARM’s reset, and any promised help from the government will arrive too late. The suburban legend of “disposable income” will be a thing of the past for millions, as vehicle, furniture, homes, and other high-dollar purchases will be postponed for as long as possible. Every dollar will be spent frugally, a phenomenon already evidenced by McDonald’s yearlong stock rise from $35 to $55 a share, and the simultaneous plummet of Ruby Tuesday’s stock from $30 in February to $20 last week. When cash is hard to come by, a McDonald’s salad for $3.50 always wins over a smaller portion for $7.50 somewhere else. Remember, when push comes to shove, Americans will ultimately put their money where their mouth is.

Unfortunately, it’s not just restaurants that are taking a hit – the stock prices of these popular retailers foretell an ominous future, as evidenced by the following sampling of malaise: Wal-Mart: Stock dropped from $52 in June to $42 in September. JC Penney: From $87 in February to $64 in September. Sears: From $195 in April to $127 in August. Kohl’s: From $79 in April to $52 in August. Macy’s: From $46 in February to $29 in September. Dilliard’s: From $40 in May to a 52 week low of $19 on September 14^th. Circuit City: From $28 in November to $18 in April to a four-year low of $8 on September 21^st. If 2/3 of our economy is truly dependent on the consumer, then a recession is all but guaranteed, with these Main Street stock prices all PLUMMETING by 20-50% just in the past 3-6 months! Expect retail numbers to continue to fall into Fall, and price discounting for Christmas will be unlike any we’ve seen before – with “Black-Friday-like” sales inching closer to Halloween than Thanksgiving, as stores wage an all-out war for the consumer with PRICE being the exclusive driver and brand loyalty becoming a thing of the past.

Wall Street will finally have to stop waving their “Bernanke Hanky” and realize that any incremental interest rate cut this “House Whisperer” makes will do nothing to stop the bleeding and rebalancing of real estate affordability brought on by the original Bubble Boy Alan Greedspan. It’s not a credit crunch – it’s a CASH Crunch, and it’s the reality checks that are bouncing. People don’t have enough CASH to go out to dinner, let alone purchase homes at the inflated prices reflected in today’s real estate market, and so they will buckle down, batten down the hatches, and a nation of desperate housewives will make do with what they have.

So to answer Wall Street’s question, subprime contagion is inevitable – in fact, it’s already started. Local steakhouses have recently added Subprime Rib to their menu, math curriculums are now including a subprime numbering system, and “The Transformers” have since renamed their upcoming sequel, “Optimus Subprime: A Farewell to ARMs.”

I find it ironic that Countrywide Home Loans is the poster-child for this countrywide problem, and that Bear Stearns was the harbinger of the Bear market destined for our immediate future. And even though you can turn on the TV and find “insiders” who say we’re about to enter a Bull market a month after LIBOR Day – it’s a load of crap – in fact, that’s why they call it a “Bull” market...any 5^th grader knows that!

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ADDENDUM: 5^th Grade Math = Good News for Cleveland

Cleveland has enough political and emotional baggage for a guilt trip to the planet previously known as Pluto, but through the hopeful Buckeyes of a 5^th grader, things start to look pretty good. Cleveland is one of the few big cities remaining after the real estate bubble where you can still “Have It All” – premium quality lifestyle at a value price. Cleveland offers convenient playoff-caliber major league sports teams (baseball, basketball, and football), major league performing arts, major league airport, rail, and interstate transportation, and world-renowned health care facilities – at a fraction of the price of cities on the coasts. As of 2007, here are the stats:

San Francisco: Median Home Price: $835K Median Family Income: $88K

Years it takes Median Family to Buy Median Home: 9.4 years

Germantown, MD: Median Home Price: $450K Median Family Income: $97K

Years it takes Median Family to Buy Median Home: 4.6 years

Greater Cleveland: Median Home Price $153K Median Family Income: $60K

Years it takes Median Family to Buy Median Home 2.5 Years

So, it takes NEO residents 2.5 years of income to equal their home value, versus nearly double (4.6 years) in the DC metro area and nearly quadruple (9.4 years) in the San Fran area! Cleveland is a place where the American Dream is still within reach for 83% of the population. Plus, the U.S. had the warmest April on record this year (4.5 degrees above normal) - so even global warming is working in our favor!

Because NEO was not part of the euphoric real estate highs, it is now buffered from the tumultuous lows brought on by Appraisers Gone Wild, and continues to offer residents a glimpse of Greenwich Village style at Bay Village prices. So whether you’re a Public Square or a University Circle, Cleveland is increasingly becoming a place where Superior and Commerce meet, as more than one CEO comes to NEO. A Great Lake deserves a great city – so bring your Cavalier attitude and join the Tribe working to put the “You” back in Euclid…..or my 5^th grader will come to your house and sing High School Musical II songs until you beg for the return of The Wiggles.

Written by Douglas J. O’Bryon, Soundbite Laureate

September 24, 2007

The PC: An Oxymoron. The PCE: Pure Moxie

2006-05-10T16:10:00.000-05:00

Let’s face it, we’ve been had. All of us. Duped, tricked, gypped, swindled, and hoodwinked. Incredibly, every last one of us, our collective psyche, has been deluded into thinking that that thing on our desk is a Personal Computer. Well folks, I’ve got news for you – it’s not.

Originally “coined” by Dr. Roberts and “invented” by IBM, the “Personal Computer” name was created to differentiate this smaller device or “microprocessor” from the more robust mainframe and minicomputers being offered. Unfortunately, like so many innovations in technology, the Personal Computer moniker was quickly compressed into an acronym (“PC”) and the scam was on. In no time, the “PC” nomenclature had become ubiquitous as society plunged headlong into the Information Age, so quickly in fact, that we forgot to consider what it was that we were using.

In its purest form, you would expect a Personal Computer to be just that – a Computer designed for the needs of a Person. Pretty simple, right? Well, they got half of it right – it IS a Computer, but it is anything but Personal. Perhaps if the inventors were trying to describe an “ownership” relationship it could have been called an “IC” - an Individual Computer. Or perhaps PC could refer to a Public Computer at work, or a Private Computer at home, even a reference to a Particular Computer would be okay; but a Personal Computer it is not.

In case we’ve forgotten, the word Personal is a prefix affixed to situations which describe the unique consideration of a physical self or “body” in all of its manifestations. Personal Trainers provide customized fitness programs based on different body types; a Personal Foul discriminates based on a discrete infraction by a single player, a Personal Bodyguard is charged with protecting the physical wellbeing of a select individual, and Personal Effects and Personal Hygiene identify an increasingly intimate and unique subset of articles and attributes. When the PC’s usage of “Personal” is contrasted with its meaning in every other aspect of our culture, it becomes evident that the phrase “Personal Computer” is actually an oxymoron, a “combination of contradictory or incongruous words,” (which also include phrases such as jumbo shrimp, safe sex, Social Security, and Advantage Chrysler). Folks, what you’ve got on your desk is NOT a Personal Computer.

As far as I can tell, there is very little about the PC that suggests it was ever designed to be Personal - optimized for the physical, bodily needs of the human as a species - let alone the unique size, shape, and preferences of individual persons. When you think about it, today’s PC scenario usually involves purchasing a unit, plugging it in, going through the labyrinth of decisions to get a desk, a chair, arrange the screen, keyboard, mouse, and hardware, and then finally inserting a person into the equation. Funny, but it seems to me that if this were truly a Personal computer, this equation would be reversed. You would START with the Person, getting them first in an optimal 108-degree reclined sitting position, supported with a footrest to reduce pressure points, and then supporting the wrists and forearms to minimize the chance of carpal tunnel and repetitive stress injury while interfacing with the keyboard and mouse. Only when the physical requirements of the body have been met should the cascading intellectual and usage decisions of hardware placement and device orientation be considered. Because computers have never been designed with a proactive focus on the needs of the human body, they have no business being called Personal. Heck, even the computer industry’s selection of the word “desktop” is a telling revelation of their priorities – focusing on furniture and where the hardware will sit – rather than how it will be used and accessed by the human operator.

HOPE IS ON THE WAY

I wish I could say that I thought this all up myself, but a radical company called Personal Computing Environments (PCE pronounced “Peace”) beat me to it. Fresh off their selection as a finalist for PC Magazine’s “Best of Comdex Award – PC Category,” PCE showcased their product at WinHEC, CeBIT, and also had a strong presence at an earlier E3 show, being featured in the booths of both Illuminix and ATI, which is where I stumbled upon them. To say that PCE has launched IT’s next disruptive technology would be the understatement of the year. This pioneering Nevada-based firm has obliterated the status quo by introducing an entirely new form factor, a revolutionary revamping of the computer workstation designed to be comfortable, ergonomic, and most important - centered around the human.

PCE’s “environments” integrate an award-winning Freedom chair into a modular frame design, creating a cockpit that surrounds the user in a cocoon of high performance computing, entertainment, and display technology. The company’s first product, the MasterPeace, was cited in a CNN report as “The future of the workspace,” and they have received kudos from Popular Science and Wired magazine as well.

GOOD ERGONOMICS = GOOD ECONOMICS

PCE Vice President Douglas O’Bryon consistently and passionately referred to their launch as a “crusade,” a counter-cultural movement flying in the face of every current message in the mainstream tech media. “They say make products cheaper, we say make them better. They try to improve the bottom line by buying inexpensive desks, chairs, and computers. We improve the bottom line AND morale AND employee health by creating a superior workspace which maximizes employee productivity and minimizes work-related injuries.” The PCE executive continued, “Ergonomics is NOT fitting the WORKER to the JOB, it’s fitting the JOB to the WORKER. We’ve become a nation of knowledge workers, enabled by the computer, and the body is increasingly identified as the weak link in this cerebral supply chain. By first cradling humans in an ergonomically healthy and productive position and then aligning the supporting technology for each user, we can minimize the causes of neck, back, and wrist injuries associated with extended computer usage.” It sounds like their, “Ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” strategy is the right message at the right time, especially for firms with skyrocketing health insurance costs often associated with carpal tunnel syndrome and other ergonomic maladies.

To continue their “human first” message, these Personal Computing Environments have a modular design which can be adapted to any computer-related task from financial trading and web design, to video gaming and programming. “Think of this as a delivery mechanism for all of the latest technology,” was how O’Bryon put it, meaning it didn’t matter if you wanted Samsung or Sony, a video camera or DVD, one monitor or four monitors, each environment could be created and expanded for the unique technological and physical needs of each user. The company appears uniquely positioned to capitalize on the anticipated massive PC replacement cycle as hardware purchased after Y2K sinks into obsolescence (under the weight of 6 years of digital pictures and Napster downloads).

PCE’s pricing is designed to be just as flexible as their customized environments. For under $2400, buyers can purchase an ergonomic technology environment in a variety of colors, and with the choice of either a DAD racing chair (for gamers) or the plush, more “civilized” Freedom chair designed by Humanscale (think Aeron meets La Z Boy) and both include a footrest. The fun begins once immersed in your Computing Environment as you decide how to make it Personal. Do you want one flat panel or two? A six-speaker surround sound system or an external hard drive? A Dell or an HP? At PCE, it really doesn’t matter where you start, as each Environment is designed to scale and evolve with the changing needs of each user. As they say around here, “WE make the Environment, YOU make it Personal,” and after sitting in this for a few minutes, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back!

I can happily say I’ve finally discovered a true Personal computer, and the guys at PCE are quick agree, but they don’t want to stop there. “The next frontier is not about the PC, it’s all about the E, the Environment. It’s not about the computer, it’s about Comfort. It’s not about programs, it’s about Productivity. It’s not about hardware, it’s about the Human.” Frankly, it’s about time!

Check out their website at www.mypce.com, if for no other reason than to read their tag line: “PCE – THIS time it’s Personal.

Disclosure: I had honor of helping to launch this firm, which just went public in 2006. I was also the PCE executive on the convention floor at E3 (the VP who was interviewed), and I also wrote this entire article – effectively “interviewing myself” for the purpose of this blog. I hope you enjoyed it, I hope it made you think, and I welcome your feedback.

Coffee, Cars, Cable, Content, and next - Computers!

2005-07-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

A Study of Commodities in North America

North American’s are an odd, yet predictable sort when it comes to commodities, commercialization, and mass consumption. Probing deep within their continental psyche is a curious and seemingly conflicting imbalance, which can only be rectified and rationalized when analyzed over time increments of a decade or more.

The societal moorings of a latent Protestant work ethic drive this culture to unprecedented levels of invention and subsequent innovation. New products are introduced at a premium, and then gradually reduced in cost, as processes become more efficient, competition is introduced, and mass production enables a lower price point. Paralleling this reduction in price is a gradual erosion in profit margins until both price and profits flat-line at the lowest sustainable cost and margin. Price and profits remain here for a long time, at a place where success is determined by sales volume and market share, and competitors expend enormous resources fighting for a tiny slice of the diminishing profits that remain. At this point, the product has become ubiquitous, firmly entrenched in the fabric of our collective lifestyle. Readily available, these products have quietly transitioned from a luxury or novelty to an assumed commodity exalted (or reduced) to the status of a “hygiene” entity with all of the bland utility of electricity.

And then something happens. A pioneer in each product category, in a fit of rage or serendipity, suddenly decides to change all the rules. In the coffee industry it was Starbucks who suddenly decided to buck the rules in an industry focusing on selling a hot beverage as cheaply as possible. Starbucks determined that the “coffee experience” was more important to customers than low price. Starbucks believed that a hot, premium cup of joe could be sold for four times the going rate because, in the hustle and bustle of life, people wanted to feel pampered and “do something for me because I’m worth it.” Humans have the need to feel special and Starbucks created an environment where for $3.50 a day customers could reward themselves with a premium product in a classy setting. This branding soon evolved into its own caste system, where holding a Starbucks cup became a status symbol and mastering the complex beverage options a sign of sophistication. The result is an enormously successful coffee chain, which is now bringing their product, as well as their message of “entitlement,” to an international audience.

Studying the Starbucks case is baffling because of the apparent hypocrisy. Coffee is introduced, prices are driven down, coffee is available everywhere from gas stations to McDonalds for 75 cents, and it has settled into its own place and price in society. Then suddenly, otherwise rational consumers decide it makes sense to pay four times that amount for an incrementally improved product and are willing to stand in line 10 minutes a day to buy it. If Starbucks were the only example it would be an outlier, but this phenomenon has been repeated throughout various industries and as such delineates a predictable pattern. At a certain point in the maturity of a ubiquitous product, a statistically significant percent of consumers decide that “a superior product experience is more critical than price as the primary buying criteria” and prove this with their wallets. Legendary companies are the first ones in each industry to recognize this “tipping point” and position a product to capitalize.

The second example of this phenomenon is in the motor vehicles industry. In short, cars were introduced roughly 100 years ago with advances made in design and technology over the years. In the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s, market share for Japanese companies exploded with their introduction of vehicles smaller and cheaper than those offered by US firms. Soon, Toyota and Honda were fielding the top-selling vehicles in North America and eroding profits and prestige from Detroit’s Big Three. The tipping point for this industry came with the explosive popularity of the SUV beginning back in the early 1990’s. The SUV is an incredible story because in spite of being over-sized (for a nation of city dwellers), gas guzzling, in danger of tipping, and triple the price, sales started to soar. Like Starbucks, rather than focusing on marketing a utilitarian transportation device, SUV-makers decided to sell an “adventurous driving experience” designed both to pamper drivers with creature comforts and add some sizzle to the mundane chore of commuting. SUV’s quickly became a status symbol and the prices consumers were willing to pay created huge margins, spawning SUV offerings from everyone from Volvo to Porsche. Only now is this craze starting to approach rationality as smaller CUV’s are introduced, a more appropriate match for the soccer mom who just wants to put a little zest in her taxi duties.

Cable TV and Internet Content are two other examples of this phenomenon. TV was invented decades ago as a free broadcasting medium available to anyone with a television and rabbit ears. Cable TV was introduced in the 1970’s and HBO decided that people would be interested in paying for TV if they could provide a “superior television experience.” The rest is history.

We are seeing this same dynamic playing out on the Internet, where online content has reached the tipping point in the past few years as evidenced by this press release on Digital Media Wire:

“U.S. Consumers Spent $1.3 Billion On Online Content in 2002

New York -- Consumer spending for online content in the U.S. grew to $1.3 billion in 2002, a 95 percent increase over 2001's totals, according to a report released by the Online Publishers Association and Internet measurement firm ComScore. The number of U.S. consumers paying for online content grew 4.3 million to 14.3 million in 2002, although the average amount spent by these users increased only 4 percent year-over-year. Online personals drew the most money in 2002, with $302 million in revenues, up nearly threefold from $72 million in 2001. "The year 2002 will go down as the year in which the conventional wisdom about paid online content changed," said Michael Zimbalist, executive director of the Online Publishers Association. "Whether or not consumers will pay for content is no longer a matter of debate. Clearly, they will." The top five online destinations ranked by 2002 paid content revenues, according to the report, were Yahoo.com, Match.com, Real.com, Classmates.com and WSJ.com.” (Note: A follow-on statistic reports that in 2003 U.S. spending on Online Content was $1.6 billion, and surpassed $1.8 billion in 2004, according to the Online Publishers Association).

Consumers have determined that, even though they can get content for free in the vast expanse of the Internet, they are willing to pay for a “superior Internet experience.” It’s ironic how Michael Zimbalist picks up on the theme of this blog by calling 2002, “The year conventional wisdom about paid online content changed.” By recognizing the pattern of historical North American behaviors, this “unconventional wisdom” and “attitude reversal” can be quite predictable and beneficial to those positioned to capitalize on it.

Conclusion: Personal Computers are next

I believe that the next product to hit the tipping point will be the personal computer. The PC has quietly become a ubiquitous fixture in both the home and the office over the past 10 years and like the other industries profiled, is currently mired in a near zero profit margin environment characterized by competitors continuing to drive down costs to gain market share. As we sit on the cusp of both a major “PC replacement cycle” AND a major “New PC buyer cycle” (Gartner Group says PC owners will go from 1 to 2 billion by 2008) the market is ripe for the introduction of a new computing experience. Realizing their utter dependency on the PC for communication and entertainment, and the thousands of hours to be inevitably spent communing with their computer for their livelihood, buyers are now poised to reverse their price metric in exchange for a “superior technology experience.”

I predict the emergence of a product designed to expedite this rationalization by captivating buyers visually and emotionally, as well as intellectually and rationally, through the promise of comfort, performance, and reduced neck, back, and wrist pain. Like Starbucks and SUV’s, people are ready to be pampered in a luxurious “media rich cocoon” and to use this status symbol as a way of distinguishing themselves. The message is, “No, I don’t have to pay $5000 for a superior computing experience, but it makes me feel special and I’m worth it.” I believe that five years from now, such a product will also have transcended technology to become a ubiquitous hygiene product, only observable when it’s NOT there. Stay tuned.

Where There's a Will, There's a Bill

2005-06-28T10:16:00.000-05:00

I’ve had the privilege of learning from some truly amazing mentors throughout my business career. William J. Sacco, Ph.D. was one of those people on a short list who truly inspired me. Even though his many accomplishments in multiple careers spanning applied mathematics, trauma research, and ground-breaking educational methodologies reached to the highest levels of industry, he asked that instead of calling him Dr. Sacco, we simply refer to him as Bill. Just Bill. His humility and grace are the legacy he left with me, and I had the pleasure of speaking at his recent retirement dinner, presenting a poem I wrote in his honor, entitled-simply and appropriately-"Bill.”

Bill

It’s difficult to encapsulate
This entity, this Bill
To define, nearly impossible
Like skiing up a hill.

So like an academic
I sought a learned book
T’was Webster’s Intercollegiate
Periodical I took.

And on page hundred thirty
Relieved was I to find
The many unique attributes
Of this Bill, left behind.

The jaws or mouth of a bird
Appropriately called a bill
For it was from this orifice
Great wisdom he distilled.

The visor of a cap or hood
Shares this same moniker
And in the shade of his benevolence
Generosity we have learned.

A draft of law presented to
Legislature for enactment,
Speaks loudly and a tribute to
His penchant for taking action.

A statement of, charges for
Food or drink consumed,
A connoisseur of life’s finer things
Like flowers in full bloom.

A programmed presentation
Of a concert, show, or play,
He reminded us to recreate
And enjoy life every day.

As you can see, this litany
Could stretch on for many days
For we have been so furtunate
And blessed in many ways.

A bill of fare, a bill of goods
A bill of health ongoing
A bill of sale, a bill of rights
All have a way of showing

Our heartfelt thanks for all you’ve done
As a colleague and a mentor
We’ll miss you as a scientist
And your role as chief inventor.

Sure there are more famous Bill’s
A Clinton comes to mind
But you have been more faithful
More giving and more kind.

Bills final definition
Ironically is this
The amount owed or expended
Yet it is we who are in debt.

You fit the bill, you fill the bill
You’re exactly what is needed
And as a group, we honor you
So glad that you’ve succeeded.

Where the Boys Aren't: Why there are no Men's Hospitals

2005-06-01T11:21:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed whereas there are Women’s Hospitals, and Children’s Hospitals, and Women’s and Children’s Hospitals, that you never see any Men’s Hospitals? You know "Pittsburgh Hospital for Men," or the "Men’s Hospital of Dallas." My theory is that men DO have dedicated facilities for long-term care – they’re called funeral homes! We’re so stubborn that we try to "walk off" whatever is ailing us and because of this we usually end up skipping the 15 year nursing home stay and go straight to the curtains. I mean, have you ever looked at the funeral industry? Owned by men, run by men, built for men. Talk about stiff competition! Ever seen a female undertaker? I predict it will be some time before women break through this "grass ceiling." Who knows – it could be a huge cover-up by the florist industry! I can just hear Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes: “Healthcare or healthscare? Will your provider send a nurse or a hearse? A physician or a mortician? A caretaker or an undertaker? Is the ‘Rest In Peace’ industry being ‘Arrested in Pieces?’ Stay with us as we reveal a conspiracy that the underworld is dying to hide, false accusations that are finally laid to rest, and insider secrets that powerful men are taking to their graves. Next, on 60 Feet Under.”

Leadership Unleashed

2005-05-24T13:50:00.000-05:00

The embarrassing exposure and resulting humiliation of some of businesses top executives the past few years compelled me to revisit my life-long quest for insight into this murky world and served as a catalyst for crystallizing these thoughts into a distillable format. The problem is simple: Why are there so many managers and so few leaders? No one ever goes to “Managership Training,” there is no “International Manager University,” you can’t buy a plaque that says, “Manage, follow, or get out of the way,” and I’ve never heard of a firm marketing themselves as “thought managers.” (Heck, even kids know the value of a leader; ever hear them play “Follow the Manager?”)

Yet in spite of all of this emphasis on leadership, we’ve become a nation with managers everywhere and almost no leaders to be found. Somehow society repeatedly sets out to create leaders and ends up with managers and I think I’ve finally figured out why. A manager is someone you follow because you HAVE to, whereas a leader is someone because you follow because you WANT to. Think about those pet owners you’ve seen walking their dog on a leash. How satisfying is it for the dog OR the owner, knowing that, if the leash wasn’t clamped tightly around the dog’s neck and held firmly by the owner, the dog would immediately bolt and never look back. Now contrast that with the joy and freedom of a dog and an owner out for a walk without a leash, free to run and play. The net result, a “walk,” is still the same, but the experience is incomparable; transformed from pride-swallowing drudgery into a mutually satisfying exchange. You don’t follow managers – you report to them, you obey them, you cc them. Most managers are only “in charge” because they “hold the leash” and have the ability to reward or punish those beneath them. A true leader is the one with the confidence to remove the leash, in fact, to not even OWN a leash, confident that their vision and direction is so compelling that people will follow voluntarily, convinced and motivated on an individual basis that by following all will be better off.

I believe the reason there are so few leaders is because few have a truly compelling vision, few have the fortitude to take the risk, and because organizations are designed to punish those who aspire to lead. Because leaders are focused on results, their mind is always on the future, predicting how evolving external trends will overlay with existing processes. This outward facing “visionary” posture leaves them little time to “watch their back” and hence extremely vulnerable to “managers” who see them as a threat to the status quo. All too often, organizations will “kill their own” as aspiring leaders are stymied by politically-minded managers, seizing the exposed vulnerability of the risk-takers to deal a death blow, thus ensuring the continued reign of mediocrity.

As Harold S. Geneen once said, ''Leadership is practiced - not so much in words - as in attitude and in actions,'' and another famous person (can’t remember who, but it wasn’t Seth Godin this time) said, “Managers say “Go”- Leaders say “Let’s go!” My hope is that you will muster the courage, accept the challenge, and unleash your leadership!

Human Beings or Human Beans?

2005-05-10T08:25:00.000-05:00

Baseball 2005: A New Season, A New Crop

Like most sports enthusiasts, I enjoyed watching “March Madness” last month, relishing the opportunity to see college basketball stars perform in the NCAA Tournament before they turn pro. And it’s hard to believe that five months have already passed since the New Year’s Day foot-Bowl games provided a glimpse of future NFL stars in action in their final college performance before a nationwide audience. But where do big league Baseball players come from? Have you EVER tuned in on a Saturday afternoon to watch Notre Dame and Gonzaga in a pitchers duel for college baseball’s highest honor?

How DO baseball players get from Little League to the Big Leagues?

I have confidential information from reliable sources suggesting that professional baseball players are not human at all; they are actually synthetic beings organically grown in the heartland of America. In Top Secret parcels of land, each year hundreds of new ballplayers are planted, nourished, and harvested. Every April, I pick up the newspaper and read articles about a new “crop” of talent that has just come up from the Orioles “Farm System.” You’ve never seen or heard of them – they just kind of “appear” in Spring Training. Then, these “human-beans” are paid millions of dollars to stand in the “field,” either the “in-field” or “out-field” – can you name any other sport where professionals play in the dirt? And isn’t it odd that they put both pitchers AND crops in a “rotation,” and they warm up in the “bullpen?”

Suddenly it makes sense that baseball players are the only pro athletes using chewing tobacco (and why Bonds needed flaxseed oil). And how else do you explain why the original baseball town – Boston – is called “BeanTown,” when a player is hit by a pitch it’s called a “bean ball,” and why they always refer to the 162 games played as a “season.” Further, is it any wonder that the most famous baseball film of all time was called “Field of Dreams,” (they almost gave away the secret, which is why it was never released on DVD) and that the greatest baseball player of all time was Ty COBB; until he was “supplanted” by Pete ROSE.

Still don’t believe me? If you look closely, the on-deck circles are actually crop circles, and have you ever seen a farmer NOT wearing a baseball hat? Hey, they don’t call it a “League of Their Own” for nothing.

What I Believe

2005-05-02T11:53:00.000-05:00

I believe in the power of a single idea. A single good idea, anyway. Frankly, there’s just not a lot of power in a single bad idea, like scheduling “Bat Day” when the Red Sox play at Yankee Stadium. I believe in long, slow downloads that last 3 days. I believe in the designated driver, the fungo bat, and keeping words like gazebo and zamboni around just because they’re fun to say. I believe in naps but not Napster. I believe in clicking Save Document three times just to be safe, and believe in stick versus spray. I believe in waiting for "Best Of" albums and that most outtakes are better than the actual show. I believe that marriage is forever, and the best deals are ones that involve a word and a handshake. I believe in leading versus managing, and in showing versus telling. I believe that the hardest thing in life is rigorous, regular exercise, which is the reason most people won’t do it. I believe in locking out athletes when their salaries get too high, and punishing insider traders. I believe you’re smart if you observe differences among humanities’ races, but stupid if you think any race is better than another. I believe in snow days, and believe you’re either pro life or pro death. I believe in getting rich slow and in taking longcuts on the road to happiness. I believe in closed floor plans, that Alex is a boys name, and that Cliff Clavin was right – comfortable socks are one of the most important things in life. I believe in coupons, and that there’s a difference between being “For Sale” and “On Sale.”

I believe it is harder to make someone laugh than to make someone think. I believe in Bass over Treble, in the Arabic number system, and wish Metric would just go away. I believe I.T. DOES matter (but not for the reasons IT people think it does) and that ultimately, people don’t want drills, they want holes. I believe that RONI is just as important as ROI, and that you don’t need followers to be a leader. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, and that it is far superior to love someone than to tolerate them. I believe fortune cookies (when they say something I like), and think they’re a waste of wonton when they don’t. And I believe the best video game of all time was GORF. I believe in big desks and warm slippers, and that you can’t be truly happy until you can stay home with your family on a Saturday night and not feel like you’re “missing” anything.

I believe that abstinence makes the heart grow fonder. I believe Subway needs to put more meat on their sandwiches. I believe in Letterman versus Leno, Aerosmith versus Rolling Stones, Bugs versus Daffy, and Seinfeld versus Hawkeye. I believe quality time is a lame excuse for quantity time, and boxer briefs have trumped both boxers and briefs. I believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility; if you want to have a high-risk lifestyle – go for it! Just don’t ask others to pay for it. I believe that creativity is a direct gift from the Creator, and just like some people shouldn’t be singing in public, some people shouldn’t be writing in public either. I believe one of the great joys in life is quoting yourself on occasion, and I believe if you’ve got a problem with red meat, just cook it more. I believe the pen is mightier than the pencil, (unless it’s one of those NASA pencils that is made out of titanium and can write upside down) and just like our flag - you can’t create America without both Red and Blue. I believe I’ve said enough.

Welcome and Apology

2005-04-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

No no no no no no. I do NOT want to write a blog. Nope, nope, nope. And I particularly DO NOT want to write a blog just because some smartypants somewhere declared 2005 “The year of the blog” (okay, it was Tom Peters). Hence, I have lived with the dread of what I am about to do for over a month (kind of like that feeling as you pour yourself a tall glass of syrup of Ipecac). I found the prospect of starting a blog in the “Year of the Blog” downright nauseating. It was so Me Too; it was so American Idle, so trendy in an "Ashton Kutcher in a trucker hat" kind of way. And as such, it contradicts everything I stand for. I predict. I prognosticate. I lead. I think outside the wrapping paper the box came in, and get blissful satisfaction out of NOT going along with the crowd. How could I possibly reconcile this? How could I look at myself everyday in the cracked mirror by the Icarian Smith Machine in the Washington Sports Club and still respect myself? It ultimately came down to this. Most ideas, like bread, have a “shelf life” – a finite period of time when they are at their best. By creating this blog, my hope is to maximize the shelf life of some of the insights and ideas pinballing around in my brain, by immediately sharing them with the online community at large. Another unintended benefit of blogging is that it provides a universal ‘carbon dating’ system, where Conceived On dates for fresh commentary can be traceable should it be necessary to track the origins of a new concept. And finally, as blogger Seth Godin so eloquently stated, “It keeps me from having to publish a book for every mundane idea I have” (and, in my case, storing the 998 unsold copies in my basement).

I think I’m going to like the challenge of a blog because – if done correctly – it should quickly winnow out the wheat from the chaff in the cyberworld of new and good ideas. Several years ago, I conceived of the idea of Innovention and my plucky moniker “Dances with Words.” Only later in a search did I discover I wasn’t the first. Naming this blog I considered “Thunder Enlightening” and “Venture Capital Punishment,” only to discover that I was late here as well. It seems that the global community will only embrace and reward those with truly unique ideas and the first one with a vision of something new. I welcome the challenge.

Before I started this project, I did a little snooping around to determine the current state of the blog. What I found was a mix of self-proclaimed experts, combined with frustrated writers with self-esteem issues who start every other paragraph with the disclaimer “In my humble opinion.” My hope is for this blog to settle somewhere in between these two extremes, and keep it real and relevant. Not real in a “reality TV” kind of way, but in a “real life” kind of way. This blog will take you inside my head and, as you’ll quickly find, I’m not good at small talk. Never have been. And that goes for writing too. My preference is to keep this blog short on entries and long on ideas. I want this to be like that friend you can call up once every 4 weeks and instantly connect right where you left off, NOT that other annoying friend that calls every other day and just blogs, er blabs, on and on. Hopefully each entry will offer you a nugget of an idea that you didn’t have before.

Welcome to my Digital Casserole - Dig In!