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Friday, February 11, 2005 |
WT. Trade deficit in 2004: $618 billion.
Despite a substantially weaker dollar, which makes U.S. products
cheaper overseas, a deficit emerged for the first time in farm goods
after 50 years of surpluses, according to yesterday's Commerce
Department trade report. The U.S. edge in advanced technology products
disappeared two years ago, and analysts forecast that at the current
rate, many remaining U.S. strong points in trade -- including banking
and legal services -- also soon will be toppled and succumb to the
burgeoning deficit. [John Robb's Weblog]
These are not good signs. Note especially the first-in-50-years farm
goods deficit, which will play topsy with the long standing US strategy
of exporting topsoil for foreign oil.
4:50:41 PM 
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[NY Times business writer Lawrence M. Fisher, in Salon]: Hewlett-Packard's ousted CEO Carly Fiorina destroyed a great company's creative soul and trashed its business.
Quoted at at length here not to pile on HP (disclosure: my company has worked with HP, producing their first corporate citizenship report
and other strategy work), or onto Carly (though there certainly seeem
to be ample reasons to), but because Fisher's post-mortem gets at
qualities that are emblematic of the illness of short-term,
narrow-focus, devil-take-the-hindmost profit maximization fashion that
has American 'capitalism' in its thrall, to the detriment of
shareholders and society alike.
Yet Carly and the HP board chose to
dump this profitable business to concentrate on commodity products like
printers and PCs. Why? The answer at the time was that securities
analysts accustomed to following straightforward companies such as Dell
Computer really couldn't understand a complex business like test and
measurement....
Undaunted, in 2002 Carly moved to
acquire Compaq, which was bleeding market share to Dell and losing
money at an even faster rate than HP's PC business. Never mind that no
big merger in the history of high tech had ever really worked; never
mind that Compaq itself had already made two big acquisitions --
Digital Equipment Corp. and Tandem Computer -- that had failed to add
any value; never mind that Dell rapidly seized on the inevitable
uncertainty to take even more customers away from both HP and Compaq.
Even the pointed opposition of founder's son Walter Hewlett didn't
dissuade Carly and the HP board from this historic blunder....
So why did she do it? For one reason:
Wall Street loves big mergers. The investment banks collect immense
fees for their roles as advisors, regardless of the ultimate soundness
of the deal. And their securities analysts all write positive reports,
which prompt a lot of rubes to buy shares, which generates a flood of
trading commissions. Big mergers and acquisitions are almost always a
net negative for the companies and communities involved, but a win-win
for the bankers, lawyers and other deal makers.
(It's a marvel that boards and investors so rarely consider the dismal
success rate for such mergers -- estimated at as low as 2-20%.)
4:23:56 PM
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Graines de Changement
est une agence d'information qui a pour mission de partir en quête des
'entrepreneurs du meilleur', ceux qui se sont donné pour rôle de
transformer positivement leur société, leur entreprise, leur vie. Nous
produisons ou co-produisons pour cela, seuls ou avec nos partenaires,
des livres, des conférences, des dossiers ou suppléments pour la presse
ou encore des programmes de télévision...
Seeds of Change is an information agency whose beginning mission is the quest for 'social entrepreneurs,' those
who have taken on the role of positively transforming their society,
their company, their life. We produce or co-produce, for that
purpose, alone or with our partners, books, conferences, articles and
supplements for the press, television programs...
Haven't had a chance to look into their work yet, but their site is stylin'...
1:05:56 PM
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Thanks to being listed as one of 'Les Blogs qu'on aime' at QuotidienDurable.com,
I've discovered another ally, there on the other side of the pond. Some
of the same perspectives, from a different perspective. (I guess I
should follow the trail of my referer links more often!)
12:51:24 PM
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I just stumbled across this rich collection of quotes, billed as Software Engineering Proverbs (thank you, John Fraser) but, as you will see, of much more universal applicability.
My favorite of the moment:
Abraham Lincoln reportedly said that, given eight hours to chop down a tree, he'd spend six sharpening his axe. (TidBITS 654, quoted by Derek K. Miller, via Art Evans)
My favorite of the moment:
Deming's 14 points
1. Create constancy of purpose.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality.
4. Minimize total cost, not initial price of supplies.
5. Improve constantly the system of production and service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between departments.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and numerical targets.
11. Eliminate work standards (quotas) and management by objective.
12.
Remove barriers that rob workers, engineers, and
managers of their right to pride of workmanship.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.
My favorite of the moment:
On the radio the other night, Jimmy Connors said the best advice he ever got was from Bobby Riggs:
- do it
- do it right
- do it right now
9:22:47 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Gil Friend.
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