Monday, March 30, 2009

Brain Gyms

Today I read in the Wall Street Journal that the newest craze is to work out in "Brain Gyms". So now, not only do I have to feel guilty for not going to the regular gym, but I have to feel guilty for missing my brain workout.

Basically the Brain Gym is a place where you go to play computer games that are just difficult enough to make you feel a little stressed out because you can't really do it.

Just what I need, a little more stress in my life. I've been telling my husband that the reason I keep forgetting things is because my brain is too full of information that I probably will never use anyway. Now it turns out that the reason I'm forgetting things is because I haven't been working my brain enough.

What else will they come up with for me to put on my "to do" list, and so that I won't have time to do it?

What do you think?

Thursday, March 26, 2009

The new ecomony (Discovery Bank CEO event)

This morning I went to a CEO event put on by Discovery Bank. They had a hot breakfast for us, and the platform speaker was Reo Carr, the Associate Publisher of the San Diego Business Journal. It's always fun and informative to listen to Reo speak, and I thought I'd share some of his observations here.

His presentation was about the current recession and what was going to happen once the recession is over.

Reo said that there were five words that we had to remember from his presentation:
Mean
Lean
Green
Keen
Faster

Mean- This recession is not going to be like the last one. It is going to change our whole economy. Businesses will have to emerge much more competetive becaue now we will be competing with other countries who have an educated workforce and the technological tools to compete. Namely: China, India, Korea, Brazil, Russia, and Europe among others.

Lean-In order to compete, your business has to run leaner. Toyota is a good example of this. There will be great pressures on running leaner. If you used to have a 10 million dollar company with 100 employees, you will need to go to a 10 million dollar company with 80 employees.

This will bring a golden age for consultants, and companies will start to outsource to help them remain leaner. When the job is done, they just won't renew the contract. Once this recession is over, you can't just go back to what you were doing two years ago. You will have to become leaner to survive, because there will be a much greater pressure on margins.

Green-Being green is now a mainstream concept. We are continuing to populate the earth with the same number of limited resources. Because of this, we MUST do more with less. Being green now has to do with Economics. Here in San Diego we are getting "Water Allocation" (water rationing). This will soon become the norm here.

Most companies can become greener by just allowing their employees to stay home once a week. Think of what would happen to our traffic and oil consumption if everyone just worked from home once a week!

Also, the company wouldn't have to house the employee, pay for heat or air conditioning, lights, parking, etc. etc.

(Reo didn't say this, but there are companies that help corporations allow for telecommuting. They help the employer track what the employee is doing, and keep safe for worker's compensation purposes etc. I have a friend who runs such a company. It's called Home2Office)

Keen- Companies will have to be smarter. There is more competition and they will have to lear to do more with less. Being smarter will become very important.

Faster--The speed of business has increased and is continuing to increase exponentially because of the utilization of computers. (I remember when there weren't any computers in a small business, and I'm sure that some of my readers do too, but there are plenty of younger business people out there who do NOT have those memories).

Because of the use of computers our economy has changed. We will see sharper upturns when the market turns around, but also sharper downturns. We will have a period of learning, where we will have some pain, because right now we do not know how to manage the global economy.

Rio had a lot of other things to say, and there were other great speakers there as well, but this is it for now.

What do you think about all of this?

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Unionization of America

I read several articles this morning about FedEx and how they have threatened to cancel an order of 15-30 planes that they plan to purchase from Boeing if the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009 becomes law. For a description of the bill, go to:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-915

Basically, FedEx has stated that they will no longer be profitable if they become fully unionized, and if the bill passes, that is a much more likely event. Currently the pilots are the only unionized employees at FedEx.

Boeing is not commenting on the statement other to say that they have not added the order for 30 planes to their firm orders because of the wording of the contract in place.

The bill would make them more in line with UPS, who is not covered under the Railroad Act of 1926 because they started as a trucking company before aviation became popular. UPS is unionized by the Teamsters Union.

Congress is becoming more and more unfriendly towards business. Public sentiment also seems to be headed towards becoming business un-friendly.

Here in California, businesses are battling the "Employee Free Choice Act" that changes the current voting procedure from secret ballots to allowing unions to organize by collecting signed membership cards. Privacy groups and employers are concerned that employees would be bullied into voting for the union if union members are allowed to view their votes.

Increasingly, unions are gaining access by petitioning our government to change laws that give them the advantage.

Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce, said that the (California) bill would open the door to worker intimidation, and employers could suffer even more than they are suffering now. "Freedom for workers to make the choice to unionize without the threat of intimidation could very well determine the success of any individual employer," Zaremberg said . "In this severe recession, we should be focused on reducing costs to employers so that they can increase the number of jobs they provide."

I'm becoming increasingly concerned about the Business Environment in California. What do you think?

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Bonus Checks...should we take them back?

There has been a lot of comment lately on the bonus checks issue at AIG. A lot of people are saying that we should tax them at 90 to 100%, or that we should make them give the checks back, etc. etc.

Hey, I'm no fan of giving these folks our hard earned tax payer money. I'm just concerned about the negative environment that is being built up right now for businesses.

The other day I was at a dinner with friends, and one of the guests said that he thought that we could fix the problem by making it so that all bonus checks had to be paid out over a ten year period. I laughed and then asked him if he had ever had employees...

As a business owner, I want the flexibility of being able to pay my people enough to get the good workers onboard, but not so much that it is no longer worth my while to take the risk of being a business owner.

What do you think should be done about these bonus checks?