Recently in off topic Category

Former SBC chief Ed Whitacre is going to be the next Chairman of GM. Huh? According to Bloomberg, Whitacre is doing his patriotic duty and loves the challenge. Rich Tehrani thinks that Whitacre was a strategist. He dismantled the regulatory landscape, fought off (and then ate) is competitors, and turned a local Bell back into Ma Bell after numerous acquisitions that have never been integrated. (AT&T still acts like 7 different companies to anyone that has to work with them).

So how successful will an insider monopolist from SBC be at a dying auto maker? Well, less debt to deal with. Inside political track, which is the only way he plays the game. He didn't really understand the Internet and probably doesn't understand the auto industry either. 

His "partners" at SBC (authorized sales agents) are much like dealerships, who should expect the worse, since every company SBC bought tightened the screws to the agents. 

Rich writes, "For too many years GM had lousy management and created cars that for lack of a better word sucked. Americans ran away from Detroit automobiles like AT&T ran away from VoIP in the nineties." Rich, SBC (now called the new AT&T) isn't exactly known for being innovative either. No VoIP. Compete on price. Long installation intervals. Bad billing. What exactly is Whitacre going to bring to the new GM? From what I can see having dealt with all the Bell companies over the last 10 years, he was a lousy cheif exec except that he could put deals together. So what? GM is selling parts and Whitacre knew as much about internal organization and integration as Level3 execs. 

This is also the guy whose company allegedly helped the NSA wiretap the nation. I guess this is his thanks, since Crazy Ivan at VZ is still busy.

Who is my choice? How Elon Musk? How about someone from P&G or Unilever? 

Success is measured a number of different ways, but make a big, hulking, inflexible, non-innovative tech company isn't what I would consider a success. GM needs fast, flexible thinking; innovation; reach out to dealers and workers; and a huge re-branding campaign (which might be the only thing Whitacre is capable of: re-branding GM as the new GM with the same crap as before).

SUMMARY:

GM needs a creative thinker that is flexible and industry knowledgeable. Someone who can bring new partners and ideas to execution quickly, because mergers and acquisitions are not going to be the solution for GM.

GM has two prime missions: convincing people to buy its cars; making cars people want to buy despite the state of GM.

Unfortunately, the government once again shows that change has not come to Washington as they pick a crony instead of the right person - something we have seen too much of during these times of re-invention and government intervention.

So social media expert, Chris Brogan, blogs about Michael Goodspeed being wronged by YouTube. Since Google owns YouTube, this is the beginning of Google becomes the Evil Empire.  I've been watching this happen for a while. When GrandCentral was upgrading to Googel Voice in waves it was a bitchfest on Twitter because people had to wait. *gasp*. They had to wait like 10 days to get access to an upgrade to a free service. WTH?

I just don't understand the issue with entitlement in this world.

It's like the people who have sued Google when Google makes changes to its algorithms, causing their business to fall off. Or when Google started charging for Google Apps and Gmail for businesses. People were not  happy. (What will they do when Google Voice comes off Beta and has a price tag? Voice has a cost).

I now understand why businesses fail: lack of common sense; lack of business sense; no knowledge of business or contract law; and entitlement.

Google, YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Twitter, and Facebook are free to use. If your account gets deleted like Goodspeed's did, it is a bad day. You have back ups, right? But is Google evil because the account was deleted? I don't think so.

If you base your business on a free software platform and that company changes something, you better have plan B. What if the government decides to take ARPANet back for government use only? Or Net Neutrality policy fails so that you only get content form your ISP?  No more INternet as we no it. What then? You better have a Plan B.

I understand that Goodspeed is upset his account was suspended, but it happened on Thursday, March 26th. It's only the 31st. Google isn't set up for customer support to consumers on its free services.

And he forewarned people that this could happen. How did he know?

When twitter is slow, people complain all day. There's a Facebook group titled I will not pay to use Facebook - Keep it free. I just don't understand the mentality. It costs big dollars to provide these platforms and keep them running. And to do it for free is unheard of until the Internet came along. It's the Generation of Entitlement - and it is annoying. No one owes you anything.

A quick aside. Today is the 12 for 12k social media drive to raise $12,000 for Child Hunger.  Donate  USD 12 and get entered into a raffle to win prizes all day. 

You can follow the drive by following Scott on Twitter. If you donate $120, Scott will give you a website review. (I've seen many of your sites, take advantage of this deal!

I'm going to add to it: if you donate $24, leave a comment or tweet me or email me and I will give you my e-book on SELLECOM.

The first three who donate $36 and leave a comment or tweet me or email me  will get a signed hard copy of the book. (Just email me the receipt so I have a mailing address).

USA Today has the latest business travel trends. While it looks like prices are dropping, in fact, it's only the base airfare ticket price that is dropping. With all ancillary fees airlines add, you are likely paying more for your ticket - and according to what I hear at airports, your final ticket price is unknown until you get home and add it all up.

Airlines are cutting schedules which means we are back to bumping on flights (as I saw in Vegas). Also, if you get bumped or miss a flight, see you tomorrow. Not as many flights.

It's all about the airlines at this point. Customers are nothing more than a body to suck revenue off.

Hotels are learning from airlines. USA Today says that they will start eliminating amenities like fruit in the lobby, newspapers, and shampoo. Great. I hate the nickel and dime mentality.

The USA Today also writes, "Meetings are another casualty of the economic downturn. A recent survey conducted by Meeting Planners International and American Express indicated 7% of 2009 meetings had already been canceled, and meeting attendance is expected to be down by 5%."  I'm not sure about that. There are more conferences then ever before on my horizon. Many are smaller and niche but the number is growing. And I haven't seen a decline in attendance either.  Good time to book holidays though!

Arnold Schwarzenegger was on ABC's Sunday morning news with George. he had the best analogy I have heard:

As a patient, when the oncology team diagnoses you with cancer, you want a unified solution, not a bunch of doctors arguing over the best treatment for you.

This is what we have now: party politics. No one in DC seems to get that it's one country and we fail or succeed together. Disagree if you must but show us an alternative plan.

The other problem is that most people in DC don't know much about economics or business. So they probably shouldn't be telling anyone how to run their business. (Balance a budget and look past your next fundraiser and I might change my mind).

That being said I have been at 3 shows this year so far. It seems that SMB (under 250 employees) is still doing business. And maybe if the media would stop the gloom and doom, the rest of America could unpucker and start doing business again too.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There

It seems that as 2008 comes to a spiraling end, everyone is giving business advice. If you run a small business, here's some of it:

• No Recession from Us has a bunch of links.
• Duct Tape Marketing has some thoughts from thought leaders.
• Caruso on Embracing the Internet
• Doug Sundheim with Showing Up advice
• Predictions for 2009
• Advice from SCORE
• Tips for Web companies from ReadWriteWeb (directed at companies, but solid advice for all)

Other Best Of lists for Business books in 2008:

• Fast Company
• John Moore at Brand Autopsy
• 800-CEO-READ
• Reuters list

I vote for you reading Seth's best blog posts.  And my own thoughts for businesses in 2009 is: Differentiate and Sell. Not be everything to everyone. Be Unique and actually sell services. Especially in 2009, although I have elected not to participate in the recession at all.

This has been a busy networking week. Business Buddies holiday party, AMA Tampa Bay Luncheon, and the Tampa Bay CEO Awards dinner last night. The emcee for the event, Brent Britton, is an interesting guy, a lawyer from MIT in Tampa via Silcon Valley. Another person of interest was a finalist for a CEO Award. She worked on Obama's campaign doing online marketing. She writes for Huffington Post. You just never know who you will run into.

The problem I have with it is how so many intriguing people can live in Tampa Bay - and no one knows it!  So a couple of us are on a mission to cross-pollinate the creatives in town with the techie/geeks in the Tampa Bay area. Find all the hidden gems in Tampa Bay. It started with BarCampTampaBay in October and will continue with Lunch 2.0, maybe Jelly, Dev/Design, some other stuff and culminate at BarCampTampaBay in Sept./Oct.

It's the last full day of work for many of you. Here are some tips to get through Thanksgiving:

1. Stop watching / reading the news. It's going to be more of the same news for a while and listening to it and reading it are not going to help you. It will only increase your anxiety. The Law of Attraction actually works. You get what you think about. If you think negative, you get negative. Think Positive, you gain positive. That's The Secret.
2. Remind yourself of the things to be thankful for. It may seem tough with all the doom and gloom that the TV throws at us, but there are still many things going right.
3. Business is still being done. It's just taking longer. 
4. Now is a good time to do more networking and marketing.
5. Give a little to charity. (You get it back).

Happy Thanksgiving. (The cartoon came from here)

 

In case you feel bad about things not going well, here's a video of other failures to give you hope.  (It can't be embedded sorry). Then there's my short list of telecom failures that I am certain will be updated in 2009. And then one last hopeful video: Did You Know? / Shift Happens by high school teacher Karl Fisch.

Pharma is having troubles anyway. Patents expiring on the Billion dollar drugs like Viagra. A trickle in the pipeline of new drugs. So today's announcement that  GlaxoSmithKline plans to reduce its U.S. sales force by about 12% is a big WOW.  Even though it is eliminating 1800 sales positions, it will have about 7500 left in the US!!!  Pharma sales isn't really sales; it's marketing. It's touching the procurement officers - physicians, HMO's, hospital admins, pharmacists - to get the drug on the formularies (in to the inventory).

Here's hoping you are actually in Sales and not just marketing. It's great to do the networking, the touching base with current customers, but don't forget to prospect, qualify, follow up, follow up, follow up, and close with some new customers. It's just a reminder, since it is far easier to do the marketing stuff.