Henry Phish

Kind of an interesting article, and something that kind of lends itself to marketing. I know businesses change quite a bit when catering to differing cultural demographics such as stores and businesses in states with high Mexican-American influences such as California, but I wonder how much this is reflected in state by state demographics? If you believe this article, it would make some amount of sense to market differently to these groups.

Regional Personality Traits Differ by State

I saw an article this morning about GM’s suspension of employee stock purchases in their 401k programs. It seems that with the recent dip in the stock price and the renewed excitement about the companies future, a higher number of employees than usual have been enrolling to buy stock from the plan and have bought up all the shares.

It’s really telling of how high expectations at this company are for the future of GM, and it’s also telling of their management. Your workforce generally knows before everyone else what the general disposition of the company is by how much they respect their managements decision making, and while it isn’t always always a good indicator of the overall success of the company, in this case, I think they have a lot to be excited about.

With changes to their product line such as upgrading the Malibu, the Chevy Volt, Cruze, and overseas investments, this company is starting to see signs of life that it hasn’t seen in years.

According to the article, management cannot buy or dispose of any GM equity securities that were acquired in connection with their employment. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act generally prohibits directors and officers from trading in their company’s stock when most participants in the company’s stock plans are not able to purchase or sell stock.

It looks like they’re in this for the long haul.

GM suspends stock purchases in employee plans

I caught a video on Yahoo! Finance that talks about our current financial crisis in relation to world trends over the past few years. They mention how a large percentage of the population has been making more money (in some cases billions of dollars), and they also talk a little bit about the stock drop a couple of days ago (Sept 29, 2008)…the one in which 499 of the 500 stocks in the S&P 500 fell except for Campbell Soup. They also break apart the economy a little bit and compare our current situation with historical events such as the great depression, an era in which the government was required to step in and mandate regulations on the economy…namely Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Some background on the great depression helps a little to get the full effect:
…the New Deal merely introduced types of social and economic reform familiar to many Europeans for more than a generation. Moreover, the New Deal represented the culmination of a long-range trend toward abandonment of “laissez-faire” capitalism, going back to the regulation of the railroads in the 1880s, and the flood of state and national reform legislation…

What was truly novel about the New Deal, however, was the speed with which it accomplished what previously had taken generations. In fact, many of the reforms were hastily drawn and weakly administered; some actually contradicted others. And during the entire New Deal era, public criticism and debate were never interrupted or suspended; in fact, the New Deal brought to the individual citizen a sharp revival of interest in government.

When Roosevelt took the presidential oath, the banking and credit system of the nation was in a state of paralysis. With astonishing rapidity the nation’s banks were first closed — and then reopened only if they were solvent. The administration adopted a policy of moderate currency inflation to start an upward movement in commodity prices and to afford some relief to debtors. New governmental agencies brought generous credit facilities to industry and agriculture. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured savings-bank deposits up to $5,000, and severe regulations were imposed upon the sale of securities on the stock exchange.

It’s interesting to note that Campbells soup is the only stock to go up on Monday, and it seems to indicate that people are moving their money to safer ground. Staple goods always tend to do well even in a bad economy, since everyone needs to eat.

Goodbye $1 Billion Salary, Hello Campbell Soup

Bailout, Take II: What the Feds Do Next

Just a couple of notes:

GM announced today that it was issuing 16 million shares of stock in exchange for debt, therein lowering their interest rate. A good move for a company with some liquidity problems. A company with it’s credentials has some leeway in how it manages its assets. In this case it sold part of its own stake to lower its interest rates and gain liquidity. I’m told that GM owns a rather large stake in their company, but I haven’t been able to track down the percentages from a trusted source. I’ll post it when I do. Also, GM has stated it is open to other such deals with creditors as well.

With this move they are banking on their future success, and truth be told, it looks fairly decent. I’ve noticed a few Malibus on the streets this past weekend. The car’s have been getting good reviews, and should build up some steam competing against the Accord and Camry in the next year or so; if it weren’t for the recession they would be doing a lot better. The Cruz debuts next year in Europe and 2010 in America as a 2011 model; the Volt goes into full production in 2011, so they are starting to look pretty good on paper.

A lot of their money is being put into the foreign market right now. With the current strength of the dollar on the rise, it looks good for overseas investment, and a lot of production facilities are going up overseas. Percentage wise, GM is expected to shift a majority of it’s business to foreign markets, which probably makes some amount of sense, at least in the short term. However, it’s another one of those stats that I wouldn’t mind checking my sources on.

Also, GM on Tuesday is set to relaunch it’s GMNext site, which should answer quite a few questions about it’s operations going forward. They’ve been fairly forward thinking in their communications with the media…honestly it’s a little desperate, but they need the transparency in order to maintain trust with creditors and the public alike. Thus far I’ve liked how there management has handled the situation. Check out GMNext.com

I found an author interview on American Express’ Open Forum site. The book itself answers the age-old question that small business owners face all the time is, “Why do intelligent people make stupid choices?” It’s a good interview, and I encourage you to check it out.

The book is called: Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

IBM has issued a statement about practices and standards and how it intends to enforce best practices in information technology within the realm of its influence.

As stated, “IBM’s new standards policy champions the needs of developing nations and the open source community, and places emphasis on intellectual property fairness, consistency, transparency, and standards quality.”

Fishkind says IBM will be judging “how consistent the behavior of standards development organizations are with these ideals will help determine our membership in these groups.” Specifically, IBM complained that “the traditional standards community runs the risk of alienating developing countries” and is giving them the “perception that they are being marginalized or ignored outright, and that rules are being changed on the fly.”

As the world grows larger and information becomes more important on a global scale, standards and practices continue to become more important in the work environment. We’ve seen an increase by the government recently in the enforcement of business standards as well, especially with the development of SOX and GAAP. IBMs statement is just another example of the importance being placed on the accuracy of information in business and technology.

IBM takes a stand against bad standards

Government $25 billion dollar incentive loan for ailing car companies may be approved by Friday of this week. Detroit right now is holding their breath.

Congress to Consider Auto Loans in Spending Bill

The other day on Dispatch Online, I read an article on how Ford wants to wait until hybrids have picked up mass appeal before it brings it’s own models to market.

“We don’t believe in making cars for hundreds of people or thousands of people,” said Finnegan, marketing manager of hybrid vehicles for Ford. “They have to be affordable to our customers and capable of sustaining millions (of vehicles) in sales volume.”

It’s an interesting strategy coming from a company that has made most of it’s money in the flailing truck market, and has steadily dropped in sales the last few years to companies with more eco-friendly product lines. Still, many cars in their lineup have sold reasonably well, including the Ford Focus, which has been a mainstay in their books since inception. While they’re sales aren’t spectacular, no one is talking bankruptcy either. They’ve also done well with updating their current lineup of vehicles…trucks still dragging behind…with existing eco-friendly technology, which means they are still on par or ahead of competitors such as GM.

Playing a waiting game and conserving money until demand picks up may be a smart move for the company. It’s a little bit of a gamble with new cars such as the Volt and Toyota Hybrid plug-ins coming out. It might not win them the first place medal, but it might just pay off in the end.

Ford wants mass appeal before releasing hybrids

Right now the news and media is jumping up and down a lot about the $700 billion dollar bailout of the U.S. banking system. For most people, it seems like a crazy amount of money. To put it in perspective, according to CNN, the U.S. government could give every man woman and child $2300 dollars a piece, 2000 McDonalds apple pies, or buy 6.6 billion barrels of crude oil.

700 billion dollars as seen on CNN

Where the whole thing gets complicated is that $700 billion may not even be enough to save the banking system. With the politicians arguing over whether to nationalize the banking system, it feels a little bit like we’re entering the twilight zone. Russia is supposed to have a nationalized banking system, not us. Which just goes to show how weighty this issue is in a real world context. These banks could litereally fail without continued government support.

As it is, these banks brought it on themselves by providing high risk loans and other services to a public that couldn’t hold up it’s end of the deal. As banks and lending institutions begin to take more risks, it seems like these sorts of problems continue to worsen. As important as banks are to the health of the nation, they need to make better decisions about their corporate lending policies…there just isn’t a better way to say it.

What if the bailout plan doesn’t work?

I caught a clip of the News Radio episode Super Karate Monkey Death on Hula the other day. Thinking back to 1997 when I saw the episode first air, I remember thinking it was hilarious, but the reason it’s so fun is because it so deftly pokes fun at the rigid archetypes that the culture hangs on people in the business world, as well as the utter absurdity of business culture at large.

As we’ve seen in recent years: we’ve seen this depicted in Dilbert, in The Office, as well as the new Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates ad campaign.

Enjoy.