Book Review 58: Company

Monday morning and there’s one less donut than there should be.

Keen observers note the reduced mass straightaway but stay silent, because saying, “Hey, is that only seven donuts?” would betray their donut experience. It’s not great for your career to be known as the person who can spot the difference between seven and eight donuts at a glance. Everyone studiously avoids mentioning the missing donut until Roger turns up and sees the empty plate.

Roger says, “Where’s my donut?”

Page 1

Occasionally a novel comes along that reminds me why I am so grateful that I work from home. Company, by Max Barry, is such a novel.

Like his previous novel, Jennifer Government, Company cynically skewers life in cubicle land. Unlike Jennifer Government, Company takes place in the present day, rather than some dystopian future. It’s the type of thing that could theoretically happen in most people’s lives. Since reading the book doesn’t require accepting an entirely different universe, it’s more relatable. Also, since Barry uses today’s world, the reader can focus more on the story itself, and less on understanding a new context.

The book is similar in tone to the movie “Office Space,” but the scope iis much bigger. If you enjoyed that movie, you may want to pick up this book.

Characters in the book cynically work around the impediments that senior management throws in front of them.

Jones says, “So with this freeze, how did you hire me?’

“It was Freddy’s idea. We process your salary as office expenses. Copy paper, specifically”

“That reminds me,” Freddy says to Holly, “do you have to xerox all of Elizabeth’s orders? Because the paper in that machine has to last until January.”

“We probably won’t last until January. I might as well xerox while I can.”

“I’m copy paper?” Jones says.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a paperwork thing. It doesn’t affect anything. Well, unless they cut our stationery budget. But there’s nothing to sweat about, this is just a little creative accounting. It goes on all the time.”

page 25-26

Large portions of the books are about the unintended consequences of senior management decisions. What happens when you cut the budgets so far that a department can’t function properly? Or when you pit departments against one another?

“Infrastructure Management bills for windows. Covering them up cut our overhead by 8 percent. But we’re just getting started. Today we’re getting rid of our desks and chairs. We figure we don’t really need them anymore, since we’re not doing any marketing. And it’s way better feng shui. We’ll put the computers on the carpet.”

“What do you use the computers for?”

The communications manager’s eyes widen. “Hey hey. That’s the kind of thinking we could use in marketing. That’s a great idea.”

Holly stops crunching. “If you’re not actually doing any marketing, aren’t you worried they’ll cut you?”

“With expenses this low? Which company do you work for?” She laughs. Her ponytail swishes.

Page 60

Salespeople who really focus on their clients are doomed to be disappointed. Especially because the clients they are selling to are other departments.

On level 14, Elizabeth is falling in love. This is what makes her such a good sales rep, and an emotional basket case: she falls in love with her customers. It is hard to convey just how wretchedly, boot-lickingly draining it is to be a salesperson. Sales is a business of relationships, and you must cultivate customers with tenderness and love, like cabbages in winter, even if the customer is an egomaniacal asshole you want to hit with a shovel. There is something wrong with the kind of person who becomes a sales rep, or if not, there is something wrong after six months.

Elizabeth doesn’t rely on the usual facades of friendship and illusions of intimacy: she forms actual attachments. For Elizabeth, each new lead is a handsome stranger in a nightclub. When they dance, she grows giddy with the rush of possibilities. If he doesn’t like her product offering. she dies. If he talks about sizable orders, she feels the urge to move in with him.

Page 11-12

My favorite story is one that explores how absurd practices can be perpetuated.

Holly folds her hands on her desk. “These chimps, they’re in a cage, and the scientists poke in a banana on a stick. The chimps try to grab it, but as soon as they do. the scientists electrify the floor, so all the chimps get a shock. This goes on until the chimps learn that touching a banana equals electric shock. Right? Then the scientists take one chimp out and put in a new one. This chimp, when he goes to grab the banana, he gets beaten up by all the others, because they don’t want to get shocked. You see?”

“That’s a terrible story,” Jones says.

“The scientists keep switching chimps, one at a time. until none of the originals are left. Then they add one more. The new chimp, he goes for the banana and the others jump him, same as before. But, see, none of them was ever shocked. They don’t know why they’re doing it. They just know that’s the way they do things.”

“So I’m the new chimp.”

“You’re the new chimp. Don’t try to understand the company. Just go with it.”

Page 49 - 50

The natural evolution of a company is to a slow, stagnating death.

Last is what The Omega Management System officially calls Realignment but is privately referred to by Project Alpha agents as “Evacuation.” This is when all the employees who are unhappy with their new role polish their resumes and start trying to find a better job somewhere else. If they’re successful, they leave; otherwise they stay, along with those who were close enough to Senior Management to be tossed a political scrap. In essence, the company is quickly reduced to to the incompetent and the corrupt. But it will struggle forward, laboring for as long as possible under the illusion that it is suffering from mere teething issues and not a deep, systemic sodomy of the entire corporate structure, until that becomes impossible and Senior Management does the only thing it can: announce a reorganization.

Page 220

The story has a number of surprise twists, and we get to follow the various characters along their growth paths. I don’t want to spoil the surprises, so I won’t go into detail on that, but the plot is solid and the moves at a decent pace.

The book does not glorify the cubicle worker who drives the white collar world. In political squabbles small and large, they are no better than the mythical senior management.

What I like most about the book is Barry’s humorous style. It’s funny despite its darkness. the characters are a little flat, but not distractingly slow.

The action sequences and epilogue could have been tighter and clearer, but they were still good.

If you’re interested in a novel that satirizes corporate life, or are just looking for something to read in your cube when you don’t think the boss is watching, pick up Max Barry’s “Company.”


You can see more of my book reviews here.

$2 million to study the lunch line

I know research is expensive.  And I know that $2 million is nothing in the big scheme of things. If it improves the health of tens of millions of kids, it's worth it.  But isn't there a better way?


Yes.  Skip the psychologists.  Talk to the marketers.


A recent article in the Seattle PI talks about psychological research to encourage kids to eat better.  It's worth a read.

Hide the chocolate milk behind the plain milk. Get those apples and oranges out of stainless steel bins and into pretty baskets. Cash only for desserts.

These subtle moves can entice kids to make healthier choices in school lunch lines, studies show. Food and restaurant marketers have long used similar tricks. Now the government wants in on the act.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced what it called a major new initiative Tuesday, giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to find ways to use psychology to improve kids' use of the federal school lunch program and fight childhood obesity.

A fresh approach is clearly needed, those behind the effort say.

...

Some tricks already judged a success by Cornell researchers: Keep ice cream in freezers without glass display tops so the treats are out of sight. Move salad bars next to the checkout registers, where students linger to pay, giving them more time to ponder a salad. And start a quick line for make-your-own subs and wraps, as Corning East High School in upstate New York did

...

The agency requested proposals from researchers on how to get kids to actually eat the good stuff. Cornell scientists Brian Wansink and David Just will get $1 million to establish the child nutrition center. Fourteen research sites around the country will share the other $1 million.

...

For example, some Corning schools had express lines for a la carte items - mostly chips, cookies and ice cream. The idea was to reduce bottlenecks caused by full tray lunches that took longer to ring up. But the result was a public health nightmare.

"We were making it very convenient for them to quickly go through the line and get a bunch of less nutritious items," Wallace said.

After studies by Wansink, they renamed some foods in the elementary schools - "X-ray vision carrots" and "lean, mean green beans" - and watched consumption rise. Cafeteria workers also got more involved, asking, "Would you rather have green beans or carrots today?" instead of waiting for a kid to request them.

...More

I hate to disappoint the USDA, but this research has already been done.  Maybe it's not published in psych journals, but it is done.  Talking to the psychologists is the wrong answer. They need to talk to people in Marketing.

This is a merchandising and marketing issue.  Grocery stores, retail stores, and markets around the country conduct this experiment everyday.  The experts in displaying foods and promoting one item over the over work it all out in aisles and cubicles around the world.  They know how to do it because their jobs depend on it everyday.

 The USDA needs to step away from the psychologists and work with the product marketing and store merchandising specialists who already know how to move the product.

Book Review 57: Only the Paranoid Survive

I'll describe what a strategic inflection point is a bit later in this book. For now, let me just say that a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.

Page 3

Andrew Grove’s well known book, “Only the Paranoid Survive” was quite different from what I expected. It was more narrowly focused than I anticipated. I’m not disappointed though. I learned some new things about my industry, and it made me think more about the challenges a corporation will face. While Grove does not discuss this part of it, it’s clear to me these challenges can affect smaller organizations within a corporation. That, however, goes to my thoughts on how managers need to think strategically about their role in the organization, and is a topic for another blog post.

The book is all about corporate Strategic Inflection Points. Those are points in a corporations life when suddenly the wold is a very different place. Grove’s discussion is detailed and frank.

Clearly, the old world was no more. Something had changed. And the more successful the players were in the earlier industry, the harder a time they had to change with it.

Page 48

As Grove discusses these changes in the business environment, he often uses the phrase, “Something has changed.” Of course, whenever I see that phrase I think of Elphaba from Wicked. While Grove isn’t discussing good versus evil, he is still talking about similar things. Something happens and you can never go back to the way things were before. When it happens to a company, either the company makes major changes and grows, or it slowly contracts and dies.

The trick is to spot these Strategic Inflections Points while they are happening, recognize their potential impact, and act accordingly.

For Intel, Grove says that point occurred with shift to a PC compatible computer market and Intel’s decision to get out of its primary business -- making memory chips and focus on a new business -- making processors.

He also discusses the Pentium flaw from 1994 and its impact on the company. Since the he wrote the book at the birth of the consumer Internet in 1995 (it was published in the middle of the Dot Com boom) he disccussed the web only briefly. Even then, though, it was obvious it would be a Strategic Inflection point, perhaps not for Intel, but definitely for the computer business in general.

All this suggests that the Internet is not a strategic inflection point for Intel. But while the classic signs suggest it isn't, the totality of all the changes is so overwhelming that deep down I think it is.

Page 181

I have only a basic knowledge of the computer business prior to the advent of the PC compatible. I’d heard the names Wang and DEC, but besides some vague commercial memories, I couldn’t tell you much about them. Grove sketched out how the computer business worked in that era.

The computer industry used to be vertically aligned... this means that an old-style computer company would have its own semiconductor chip implementation, build its own computer around these chips according to its own design and in its own factories, develop its own operating system software (the software that is fundamental to the workings of all computers) and market its own applications software (the software that does things like accounts payable or airline ticketing or department store inventory control). This combination of a company's own chips, own computers, own operating systems and own applications software would then be sold as a package by the company's own salespeople. This is what we mean by a vertical alignment. Note how often the word "own" occurs in this description. In fact, we might as well say "proprietary," which, in fact, was the byword of the old computer industry.

Page 40

As the industry shifted from horizontal to vertical orientations, and memory chips became a more commoditized business, Intel faced the prospect of dwindling profits and revenue. Intel ultimately made the decision to abandon its core business to focus on new opportunities in the CPU business. That decisions in the 80s made Intel the company it is today.

In retrospect, its clear Intel made the right choice, but it wasn’t obvious at the time. As Grove tells the story, it was a heart-wrenching decision and a risky one at that.

Grove goes on about how challenging this was to Intel’s identity. He also explains just how out of touch with the issue his executive team was. While they were struggling with the decisions, it was already happening on the ground.

Over time, more and more of our production resources were directed to the emerging microprocessor business, not as a result of any specific strategic direction by senior management but as a result of daily decisions by middle managers: the production planners and the finance people who sat around the table at endless production allocation meetings. Bit by bit, they allocated more and more of our silicon wafer production capacities to those lines which were more profitable, like microprocessors, by taking production capacity away from the money-losing memory business. Simply by doing their daily work, these middle manners were adjusting Intel's strategic posture. By the time we made the decision to exit the memory business, only one out of eight silicon fabrication plants was producing memories. The exit decision had less drastic consequences as a result of the actions of our middle managers.

Page 96-97

In the case of Intel's exit from the memory business, how did Intel, the memory company, get to where only one factory out of eight was producing memory chips by the mid-1980s, making our exit from memories less cataclysmic? It got there by the autonomous actions of the finance and production planning people who sat around painstakingly allocating wafer production capacity month by month, moving silicon wafers from products where they seemed wasteful—memories were the prime example of this—to other products which seemed to generate better margins, such as microprocessors. These people didn't have the authority to get us out of memories but they had the authority to fine-tune the production allocation process by lots of little steps. Over the course of many months, their actions made it easier to eventually pull the plug on our memory participation.

Page 111

The executives at Intel made the decision to exit the memory business after the rest of the company was already implementing the decisions based simply on day-to-day resource allocation. When Intel finally announced the decisions to its customers, they had a similar response.

In fact, when we informed them of the decision, some of them reacted with the comment, "It sure took you a long time." People who have no emotional stake in a decision can see what needs to be done sooner.

Page 92

Fear of making the decision delayed it for sometime. And Grove realizes that delay was probably a mistake. Echoing a sentiment I’ve heard other executives express, Grove says:

Looking back over my own career, I have never made a tough change, whether it involved resource shifts or personnel moves, that I haven't wished I had made a year or so earlier.

Page 132

(Come to think of it, Wil Wheaton expressed that same sentiment in his book, “Just a Geek.”)

Grove explains that an executive must listen to the Cassandras in the organization. They’re in a better position to anticipate Strategic Inflection Points than management is.

Although they can come from anywhere in the company, Cassandras are usually in middle management; often they work in the sales organization. They usually know more about upcoming change than the senior management because they spend so much time "outdoors" where the winds of the real world blow in their faces. In other words, their genes have not been selected to achieve perfection in the old way.

Because they are on the front lines of the company, the Cassandras also feel more vulnerable to danger than do senior managers in their more or less bolstered corporate headquarters. Bad news has a much more immediate impact on them personally. Lost sales affect a salesperson's commission, technology that never makes it to the marketplace disrupts an engineer's career. Therefore, they take the warning signs more seriously,

Page 108-109

In Greek mythology, Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy, but when she angered him, he cursed her so that no one would ever believer her prophecies. I’ve know some salespeople in my life who can relate to that.

While everything in the book comes back to Strategic Inflection Points, Grove does offer other key business insights. Here’s how he describes the new rules of the horizontal economy. The seem like fairly basic business precepts to me. Did the world use to operate differently?

One, don't differentiate without a difference.

Two, in this hypercompetitive horizontal world, opportunity knocks when a technology break or other fundamental change comes your way. Grab it.

Three, price for what the market will bear, price for volume, then work like the devil on your costs so that you can make money at that price. This will lead you to achieve economies of scale in which the large investments that are necessary can be effective and productive and will make sense because, by being a large-volume supplier, you can spread and recoup those costs. By contrast, cost-based pricing will often lead you into a niche position, which in a mass-production-based industry is not very lucrative.

Page 52

To be successful, a company has to be focused and take calculated risks. Trying to preserve as many options as possible and spreading its efforts thin will not work, according to Grove. An organization needs to choose a direction and go for it. That may limit options later on, but it is the key to success.

If competition is chasing you (and they always are—this is why "only the paranoid survive"), you only get out of the valley of death by outrunning the people who are after you. And you can only outrun them if you commit yourself to a particular direction and go as fast as you can. You could argue that, since they are chasing you, you should give yourself all sorts of alternative directions—in other words, hedge. I say, "No." Hedging is expensive and dilutes commitment. Without exquisite focus, the resources and energy of the organization will be spread a mile wide -- and they will be an inch deep.

Second, while you're going through the valley of death, you may think you see the other side, but you can't be sure whether it's truly the other side or just a mirage. Yet you have to commit yourself to a certain course and a certain pace, otherwise you will run out of water and energy before long.

If you're wrong, you will die. But most companies don't die because they are wrong; most die because they don't commit themselves. They fritter away their momentum and their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is in standing still.

Page 151-152

When a company is meandering, its management staff is demoralized. When the management staff is demoralized, nothing works: Every employee feels paralyzed. This is exactly when you need to have a strong leader setting a direction. And it doesn't even have to be the best direction—just a strong, clear one.

Page 152

Mark Twain is often credited with saying something similar and more succinctly.

Put all your eggs in the one basket and --- WATCH THAT BASKET.

Pudd'nhead Wilson, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, Chap. 15

In another note he explains that the telling others in the company what they CEO’s priorities are doesn’t matter nearly as much as showing what they are. How an executive spends their time demonstrates their priorities.

One more word about your own time: if you're in a leadership position, how you spend your time has enormous symbolic value. It will communicate what's important or what isn't far more powerfully than all the speeches you can give.

Strategic change doesn't just start at the top. It starts with your calendar.

Page 146

In theory, if you look at your calendar, the things that dominate that calendar should also match up with your job priorities. If they don't, it’s likely time to ask serious questions about calendar management or job descriptions.

The book may be 10-15 years old, but the key precepts still matter. If you’re looking for a general business book, you can probably skip this one. If Strategic Inflection Points intrigues you, or you are a fan of Grove’s, definitely check it out. It’s a fairly quick read (I got through 90% of it flying from Greensboro, NC to Seattle, WA). The writing style is entertaining, if not tightly organized.

I’ll leave you with a few of Grove’s thought about the Internet, right when it was starting it’s world-transforming growth.

Netscape went public as I was working on this book. I knew of the company, and I thought that they had a lot of promise. But the way the stock skyrocketed on the first day it was available for public purchase and its continuing growth just blew me away. I could find no obvious rational explanation for this incredibly rapid stock appreciation. Something was going on, beyond merely a promising new company being discovered by a growing number of investors.

Page 167

The second thing is that, when you explore these developments first hand, you'll discover that mostly they aren't what they're cracked up to be. In the early days, getting from one place to another on the Internet took forever and when you got there, more often than not, you found a stale marketing brochure. Electronic banking is still a clumsy way to replace a stamp. And interactive television seems to have vanished even before the ink dried on the mega-announcements.

Page 112

It is likely that the Internet appliance is a case of turning the clock backward, given that the trend over the last twenty to thirty years has consisted of pulling down intelligence from big computers to little ones. I don't believe that the Internet is about to reverse this trend. But then again, my genes were formed by those same twenty or thirty years. And I'm likely to be the last one to know.

Page 184

If you’d like to see more of my book reviews, you can find them here.

Vindicated against my guilty conscience

It's been two years since I last hauled all my shreddables to the industrial shredder.  I've had boxes of retired paper taking up space in my apartment throughout that time.  I probably should have gone last year, but, you know, bright shiny objects and all...

So everytime I passed those repurposed cardboard boxes filled with insurance solicitations, credit card statements, random coupon flyers, small racoons, thermal receipts, and assorted travel confirmations I could feel the growing stack of cardboard and packing tape mock me as I went out the door.  I let it grow and felt the metaphorical weight of it on my shoulders as my floor felt the physical weight on its carpet.

Last week things changed.

I got an email from the Accounts Payable department saying the couldn't find any record of the receipts for an expense report I submitted in April of 2009.  Granted, I would have appreciated it if they hadn't waited 15 months to let me know there was a problem, but these things happen. I searched my hard drive because I usually scan everything, but I couldn't find them either.  (So I guess the fault was mine rather than Accounts Payable.)

I pulled a box from the middle of the pile, cleared off the coffee table, fired up an episode of Eureka on the Tivo and dove into the layers of paperwork like the lamest archeologist ever.  Layer by layer I went -- August, July, June, May -- and finally April.  I slowed down and went through all those pages with a sieve. 

Finally, there they were -- all the receipts for that expense report, stuck in one fat envelope. 

I'm still not sure how they escaped my scanner the first go around, but once again, laziness and inaction proves victorious over ruthless efficiency.

And my conscience no longer feels guilty about the boxes.

Cell Phone and Interview Tips

I was waiting for a flight with dozens of people and one of them decided to have a loud cell phone conversation. I was about 15-20 feet away. I'm not going to discuss whether or not this is rude; plenty of other people have beaten that topic to death.

Judging by the heavily logo'ed, red, button down shirt, he worked for Toys R Us.  He had been doing some interviews, trying to recruit managers from another major retail chain (which I won't name now, even though he had no concern about doing so. Most of the candidates seemed to be working at Oklahoma branches of that store

He explained that he was recommending his executive team not open a a new store in New Mexico due to the high minimum wage.

One of the candidates he interviewed did really well and will likely be invited to another round of interviews in Texas.

Another candidate did well, but wasn't sure how interested she would be in the position.  She had concerns about the job title.  Phone guy felt they could convince her it was a good career move and she could learn a lot.

Another candidate did really well, but then other issues came up.  Phone guy had the definite impression that the candidate was currently working.  The person he spoke with on the phone seemed to have conflicting information.  Apparently the candidate was not currently working.  Phone guy asked the person he was talking to to confirm that.  If the candidate was not in fact working and implied that he was, then phone guy had no further interest in him.

There are four lessons to take away from this.

1. Be careful what you say when you are wearing company logo'ed apparel in public.
2. Don't discuss sensitive information in public. You never know who else is in the airport.
3. If you must discuss sensitive information in public, do so quietly. (Remember, speaking louder into your cell phone doesn't make it easier for the other person to hear you)
4. Don't lie in an interview.  The world is smaller that many people realize, and if you get caught, it will kill your chances.

Great Customer Service from Ergotron with my Samsung Monitor

This post is a bit long (really?  A long post from Cromely?! I’m shocked) so I’ll start with the summary:
To sum up:

• Samsung Mount Design: FAIL
• Ergotron Monitor Arm: WIN
• Ergotron Customer Service: EPIC WIN

Read on to learn about my adventures with a Samsung 24” 2490HM monitor and a VESA compliant monitor arm.  It’s a story of technology, customer service, and making stuff work.  Here are the sections in this post:

1. Introduction to Extended Desktop
2. My Samsung monitor
3. Introduction to VESA
4. Problem with the Samsung 2490HM and Ergotron LX
5. Contacting Ergotron
6. How the Fix Works
7. Wrap Up

Introduction to Extended Desktop

One of the best kept secrets of Windows (besides System Restore) is that fact that Extended Desktop support has been available in the OS since at least Windows 98.  It’s easy to see this on a laptop.  Simply go into your monitor setting and on the screen where you can adjust the resolution, you will likely see two displays, though one may be disabled.

Extended desktop means that I can have two monitors connected to one computer and see different things on different screens.  For example, I can have Tweetdeck and instant messaging apps on one display while I have my email program and web browser open on another screen.  When I move my mouse off the left hand side of one screen, the pointer shows up on the right hand side of the other one.  It’s a fantastic productivity tool, and, let’s face it, having multiple operating displays just looks cool.  Who doesn’t want their desk to look like some sort of command center?

My Samsung monitor

Some months back, I bought a second, bigger monitor for my desk.  I got a decent deal on it at Costco.  It’s the Samsung 2490HM.  I like the size, and for a monitor, the quality is OK.  There’s a band in the middle that appears to be slightly fuzzier than the rest of  the screen, but it works.  I already had an older Samsung 19” monitor attached to an Ergotron monitor arm on the desk.

The monitor arm means I don’t lose physical desk space to the monitor, and that it’s easier to position it exactly where I want it.  I recently picked up a new Ergotron arm for my new Samsung monitor.  That’s when the trouble started.

Introduction to VESA

There’s an industry standard, called VESA, that describes (among other things) where the holes go in the back of a monitor so you can attach arms and other mounts.  The same standard applies to TVs which is why you can get most anyone’s flat panel TV, and any vendor’s wall mount, and, as long the weight is right, they’ll work together. 

Problem with the Samsung 2490HM and Ergotron MX

Unfortunately, the Samsung 2490HM does not appear to be fully VESA compliant.  The holes don’t match up with the Ergotron mount and there is a weird rectangular depression in the monitor that keeps the brackets from fitting.

Because of where the screw holes are, even if the brackets did fit in the depression, the washers for the display will not. And even if the washers fit, the holes are too small for the screws.

 

I don’t know why Samsung would choose such an odd design.  It’s not like they sell their own competing monitor arm.

In fact, my first attempt to fix this issue was to shop for an adapter from Samsung or someone else who might make an appropriate one, but I had not luck.

Contacting Ergotron

I next contacted Ergotron through their website live chat.  While I was doing this, I also Tweeted my frustration.  On the live chat, I spoke with (or typed with) Laura S who was awesome.  She asked about my problem, asked appropriate questions about the issue, and didn’t type down to me. 

She had not heard about the issue before and said she would forward it on to her engineers.  I offered to send pictures of the issue to make it more clear, and she gladly accepted the offer.  She gave me an  email address and I sent over the above images, plus a few more.

A couple days later, I heard back from her that their engineers found a solution involving some spacers, and she promised to send out a kit.  She followed through and sent me the additional hardware, at no cost.

How the Fix Works

There are a few components to the fix.  They include screws, plastic spacers, and a metal plate.

The goal is to attach the monitor to this plate on the arm.

(Yes, that is a Nancy Pearl action figure in the background.  And Rafiki)

First I add the spacers into the holes on the metal brackets that originally came with the arm.

Then I place the black plate in the center of the indentation.  This is important, because ultimately the silver plate on the arm will screw into the black plate in the monitor.

The spacers now mean the long silver brackets don’t need to go in the indentation.  They can firmly attach to the monitor and sit between the silver and black plates.

And it’s fixed all I had to do was attach it to the arm, and now my control center is in place.

Wrap Up

One more thing.  Remember how I mentioned Tweeting about my frustration? While I was in chat with Laura, I got an @ reply from Ergotron offering assistance.  I responded that we seemed to be on track and @Ergotron followed up again a few days later just to make sure.

To sum up:
Samsung Mount Design: FAIL
Ergotron Monitor Arm: WIN
Ergotron Customer Service: EPIC WIN

Next time I need a monitor arm, I'll look at Ergotron first.

The DEW Line of Rock and Roll: Brown M&Ms

The DEW Line was a system of RADAR installations in north Canada built by the US in the late-50s and operated by Canada.  It's purpose was to provide an early warning in the event the USSR launched a bomber attack on the US.

DEW Lines also have their place in large operations and projects such as Rock Concerts.   While they don't draw this analogy to military installations, Fast Company recently published and article about how to spot problems before they become big ones.  There are some interesting examples, but my favorite is the one about Van Halen.

In the hey-day of hair bands, Van Halen put on an incredible show.  It was filled with effects and required careful coordination of the band's crew and the arena's staff.

According to the article:

 Van Halen did dozens of shows every year, and at each venue, the band would show up with nine 18-wheelers full of gear. Because of the technical complexity, the band's standard contract with venues was thick and convoluted -- Roth, in his inimitable way, said in his autobiography that it read "like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages." A typical "article" in the contract might say, "There will be 15 amperage voltage sockets at 20-foot spaces, evenly, providing 19 amperes."

Van Halen buried a special clause in the middle of the contract. It was called Article 126. It read, "There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation." So when Roth would arrive at a new venue, he'd walk backstage and glance at the M&M bowl. If he saw a brown M&M, he'd demand a line check of the entire production. "Guaranteed you're going to arrive at a technical error," he wrote. "They didn't read the contract.... Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show."

... More

A single brown M&M may not be an extensive cold weather RADAR purpose, but it would alert Roth that there were likely other problems -- that were more important than candy -- that needed to be addressed.

What are the brown M&Ms in your work?

Movie Review 13: Up in the Air

I fly roughly 90,000 domestic butt-in-seat-miles every year. I spend about 120 nights in hotels. My Alaska Airlines MVP Gold Card, Hilton Honors Diamond Card, and Hertz Gold President's Club Gold cards mean I get to go to the front of the line in travel facilities around the country. I even decorate my apartment with Industrial Post Shelving. I have dual citizenship with the USA and the ephemeral place known as "Air World." In that respect, I have a few things in common with Ryan Bingam, George Clooney's character in Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air."

The movie is based on Walter Kirn's novel of the same name. I first heard about the book when Terry Gross interviewed Kirn on NPR's Fresh Air. As I recall, I found the first part of the book to be great, but was a little disappointed in the second half.

The movie diverges significantly from the book, and the main plots really have nothing to do with one another, and that's a good thing. The book and the movie do share the culture of the frequent flyer and their commentary on corporate downsizing.

As the GF and I sat in the theater, I found myself chuckling with recognition of travel moments. There appeared to be a few other frequent flyers in the theater chuckling at the same moments. And I did recognize many of the airports he goes through (including a couple times when they pretended STL was OMA). But there's more to this movie than just travel moments to relate to.

The story follows Ryan Bingham, who travels the country firing people for other companies. His own position is threatened by a new employee who wants to replace Bingham and his colleagues with video conferencing. The possibility of being taken off the road and subjected to going into the same office day after day terrifies Bingham.

In the meantime we see Bingham relate to people he meets on the road, his co-workers, and his family. Some are mystified at his lifestyle; others relate perfectly.

The movie is a nice portrait of those people. While the plot moves forward at a good pace, not too much happens in it. If you are looking for huge world changing stories, go see "Avatar." If you want one that is more about people and how they deal with opportunities for personal growth this is a great choice.

The cinematography is also quite good. The sweeping vistas of the skies, shots of the irrigation circles in the midwest, airport schedule boards, and the shuffling of luggage are all well done. Even though it's not a big special effects movie there is still good reason to see it on the big screen.

Themes of loneliness and alienation run through the movie. In that respect, it reminds me of "Lost in Translation."

I have read some criticism that the product placement is overdone, but I don't agree. Sure it's there, and I have no doubt Travel Pro, Hilton, American Airlines, and Hertz paid dearly to be featured so strongly in the film, but the fact is corporate branding is a part of travel, and brand loyalty is the whole key to success in loyalty programs. These brands are part of travel life and simply make more sense than throwing out an Oceanic Airlines or some other fake brand.

There has been Oscar talk for "Up in the Air," along with "Avatar," and after seeing these two movies, "Up in the Air" deserves a Best Picture Oscar more than "Avatar." They're both very good movies. "Avatar" is a beautiful movie, and definitely deserves a slew of Oscars, but the story and character development aren't as strong. If it wasn't such a gorgeous film, didn't blaze new trails in computer graphics, and didn't push 3D films to a new level, it would just be a good film.

"Up in the Air" has a much stronger script. The writing is better and the characters are more interesting. No planet or civilization is at stake, but the story still has plenty to keep the viewer interested. It doesn't have the cliches of "Avatar." And while it does offer commentary on corporate life and greed is doesn't beat the viewer over the head with its commentary.

Weeks after it's release, "Up in the Air" is still filling theater seats, and for good reason. If you like movies about characters, or just spend a lot of time traveling, check it out.


You can see more of my movie reviews here.

John and Molly Get Along

This is a bizarre and well done short about a brother who interviews his sister for a job.  It stars John and Molly Knefel.  You may recognize John from his performance  in The Negotiation.

Logo hate

I've been a Flickr member for more than 3 years. It's a great service for displaying, sharing, and organizing digital pictures. The forums are also interesting and shockingly civil.

Which is why this thread was so shocking.

Yahoo! bought Flickr a couple years back, and there was much grumbling. But folks seemed to get used to it.

Now, though, Yahoo! has done something unbelievably sinister. They added the Yahoo! logo to the Flickr logo.
Okay, I'll grant it's ugly and just looks thrown together. And maybe "from" is overstating it since Yahoo! had nothing to do with creating Flickr.

But I was shocked at the anger bile directed at Yahoo! for this decision. From reading this thread, you would think Yahoo! was doing bad things to puppies.

It seems wildly disproportionate.

What's really interesting about this (besides the cheap laughs at the expense of people are so angry about this logo) is that it demonstrates how much a strong core of Flickr users loves Flickr. They don't just love it, they are in love with it.

It's almost as though they see the Yahoo! buyout as some sort of adulterous defilement. And the new logo serves as an everyday reminder of that affair years ago.

Many companies never anticipate the problems that can come from having customers love their product so much that they connect in such a visceral manner.

Still, though. I think some folks in that thread could really use a vacation.

Micro Grid versus large utility

In the current issue of Fast Company, they have a fascinating article about the Micro Grid.

It's focused on small, local power generation technologies -- things life roof top solar, home based wind power, smart meters and related technologies. Increased use of the local, small scale power generation means there is less need for large, cross country power transmission lines and less reliance on on more carbon hungry large scale power plants.

It seems like a great idea in theory, but we have heard plenty of stories arguing it's not a viable solution because of cost, scale, home owners associations, etc.

But one thing I hadn't heard about before was the active opposition of traditional utilities worried about losing business.

Ed Legge of the Edison Electric Institute, the lobbying organization for the utility industry (and leader of the national effort to oppose federal renewables targets), is surprisingly frank on this point: "We're probably not going to be in favor of anything that shrinks our business. All investor-owned utilities are built on the central-generation model that Thomas Edison came up with: You have a big power plant and you move it and then distribute it. Distributed generation is taking that out of the picture -- it's local." This attitude is understandable. After all, if utilities don't own it, they can't bill for it. And with close relationships between power companies and state regulators, they can and do throw up a variety of roadblocks to see that rooftop-solar programs and the like remain tiny.

...

The tactics utilities deploy to protect their profits can make a reasonable person's head spin. "In Arizona a couple of years ago, we got a renewables incentive passed," says Adam Browning, executive director of Vote Solar, a national advocacy group. "A local utility proposed that it collect money for all the electricity that you didn't buy from it. The argument was: We've got fixed costs associated with maintaining the transmission and distribution grid. So if you don't buy from us, we want to charge you for your 'fair share' anyway," which it reckoned as everything but the avoided fuel costs -- the oil that you don't burn by choosing renewables. So regular customers would pay 11 cents a kilowatt-hour, but customers with solar panels on their roofs -- not even using the utility -- would still have to pay 6.8 cents an hour. "We hired a lawyer contesting this, and eventually we won," says Browning. Today, Arizona has decent, though not finalized, net-metering rules.

...
Jim Rogers, Duke Energy's CEO, told Fast Company he's a fan of putting solar panels on his customers' homes and businesses -- he just thinks Duke should own them. "I believe at the end of the day, we'll be able to do it cheaper and better than everybody else." But Urlaub says, "We know that's not true," pointing out that Duke recently submitted a public bid for a utility-owned 20-megawatt rooftop-solar program and came in higher than several independent, nonutility solar companies.

...More

There are more stories in the article.

Utilities are trying to prohibit private generation and local energy project that threaten their business. Or they are trying to use the law and Public Utility Commission to make it cost prohibitive. Instead of encouraging entrepreneurship, innovation, new business, and job creations, they are putting up road blocks to progress.

Now, I don't expect the private ones to aid local power generation (though incentives for them to buy power from private generators might be a could idea).

But to actually use the law to prevent these types of projects is disgusting.

We need a new approach to the grid -- one that blends local, micro generation with large plants and utilities. One that uses a combination or resources -- some clean coal, some nuclear, some hydro, some wind, some geo-thermal, etc. New innovations in battery technology and power storage should round out our electrical plan.

It's a fascinating article and well worth the read.

Healthcare Reform 01: Government sponsored health care

A key initiative of the Obama administration is to bring health insurance to the uninsured in one form or another. Whether this is the US finally coming out of the dark ages or the beginning of an apocalyptic slide into communism is a more complicated discussion than I have the energy to get into tonight.

But that won't stop me from opining on the topic.

Here are some assumptions I am starting with, and I think many people are likely to agree.

We already have socialized medicine.

Between Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, workers compensation, the VA, Federal employment benefits, and assorted other programs, the Federal, State, and local governments already provide millions of people with health care.

A person in need of immediate medical attention won't be denied care at an emergency room. Millions of people already use hospital emergency rooms for primary health care because they can't/won't pay to see a regular physician.

Socialized medicine is here today -- it's just delivered with terrible inefficiency.

We have some of the best medical technology in the world.

The medical schools and technology we have in the US create some of the best procedures, medical instruments, and medication. We have fantastic physicians and they are typically well compensated after years in their profession. Many other health care providers (RN's for example) are not as well compensated as we would like, but are still extremely talented.

The US pharmaceutical industry is a technological leader.

The US drug companies come under fire for their prices and for their defense of patents around the world. But the reason they are so often attacked for not sharing their products with the poor of the world is because they make such fantastic and innovative products.

Employers in the US have an extra burden they don't share with the rest of the world.

The primary provider of health care coverage in the US is the employer. Large companies provide coverage for employees. This cost, which is measured in the thousands of dollars, either depresses cash wages, or it reduces profits. Companies in other countries do not have to pay for health care for their employees.

Any health care plan we implement in the US must meet the following standards:

1. Preserve the health care technology leadership the US has
2. Keep and fairly compensate the skilled people in the industry
3. Make the system more efficient and less wasteful than the current system
4. Make health care affordable for those who currently can't afford it
5. Reduce the burden on employers

We don't have to get there in one step. And I've always doubted that health care reform will come from the Democrats. Not because I question their commitment, but because there are too many industries opposing it, and too many varied constituencies within the party to reach consensus on one plan.

The true impetus for health care reform in the US will not come from the left. It will come from the corporate interests on the right. Health care reform in the US will come when big and medium business decides it is time to shift the burden of paying f0r health insurance to someone else.

In the meantime, the tragic stories of individuals will provide headlines, but are not likely to result in a significant changes to the system.

A small proposal

In the interim, here's a way to tweak the system that may help lower individual costs and increase coverage. I am making up the numbers out of thin air, so bear that in mind.

Everyone should have a government provided health insurance program that features a $50,000 annual deductible. Above that amount, the Feds (taxpayers) would cover the costs.

This will mean the private health insurance providers can lower their rates to make health insurance more affordable since their losses will be capped.

This will also lower the costs for employers.

Most people don't spend more than $50K per year on health care, so there is still an incentive for individuals to look for ways to minimize their costs.

The pharmaceutical and hospital industry can continue to operate as they currently do. Doctors and pharmacists don't suddenly become government employees, so the local hospitals don't become the local DMV.

This plan addresses some of the concerns above, but it's not comprehensive. It's a simple plan that provides a step forward. And maybe it will break the current political log jam.

Music on the floor

There are very few cities in this country, where, at the end of the first day of a corporate trade show, and alternative marching band will parade through the conference.

San Francisco is one of those cities.

Union Ad in Seattle Times

I saw this ad in the Seattle Times on 2008-11-09.

Recently, Boeing and its machinists union ended a strike that went on for more than 8 weeks. Boeing now faces a possible strike with it's engineering union.

This ad (click the image for a larger version), which purports to be from the union mechanics at a local Ford dealership, chastises the other unions in the Seattle area for not supporting one another. It call on member of the IAM,SPEEA, and other organizations to support all union workers by buying only from other unionized companies.

We support you in all your endeavors. But do we support each other? We think not. Is support between unions often nothing mor than lip service used to threaten management? Clearly, we don't begin to support each other nearly enough. We are aware of even our own union leaders purcahsing non-union-made automobiles and not having them serviced by union technicians. We can all make excuses. Or are you just hypocrites who won't put your money where your mouth is?

It goes on from there.

The point of the ad is to encourage union members to bring their vehicles to Sound Ford for service.

Printed in smaller- (but certainly not fine-) print at the end of the ad, it says, "Paid for by Sound Ford in support of its Union Service Technicians."

I am neither and big union supporter, nor a union hater. I'm not sure how I feel about this ad. On the one hand, calling on those with similar interests to bring their business to you makes sense. On the other hand, it seems like cheap shot some how.

Regardless, it's an interesting move.

GM bailout proposal -- 10 point plan

CNN Reports that GM is burning through cash at a mind-boggling rate.

But the most shocking news came in its statements about its cash position. GM said it had burned through $6.9 billion during the quarter and warned that it "will approach the minimum amount necessary to operate its business" during the current quarter.

In addition, the company said that in the first half of next year its "estimated liquidity will fall significantly short" of what it needs to continue operating. It said the only thing that would save it would be a significant improvement in economic and automotive industry conditions, help from the federal government, better access to capital markets or some combination of those options.

... More

The slowing economy, poor product decisions, and the Union/Management relationship have all contributed to this situation, but one of the biggest issues likely has to due with the short term credit markets that froze up after Lehman Brothers fell. Ultimately, this credit freeze is what the $700 billion bail out may help with.

Regardless, looks to be seeking $10 billion to $60 billion in federal loans.

Shelly Lombard, senior high yield analyst at Gimme Credit, an independent research firm, estimates that GM will need to get between $10 billion and $15 billion in federal assistance in order to avoid bankruptcy by 2010 and that the chance of bankruptcy without help is probably 80% to 90%.

...

Among the topics discussed were a $25 billion loan to fund union-controlled trust funds that would be set up in the coming year to cover the health care costs of retirees and their family members. Shifting about $100 billion of those costs from the automakers' balance sheet to the trust funds was a key concession the companies won from the UAW in the 2007 labor deals.

...

The automakers also renewed their pre-election request to double the $25 billion low-interest loan program approved by Congress to help automakers convert operations to make more fuel-efficient vehicles and meet the demands of car buyers and new federal rules.

But Wagoner said just doubling the money available under that program won't solve the immediate cash crisis facing the industry. And for the first time, he put a dollar amount on the cash that automakers are looking for from the federal government right now.

"In the meeting yesterday we talked near-term liquidity support for the industry in the range of $25 billion," he said. "No one said yes or no to that number."

...More

Should the get the loans?

Absolutely. GMs failure would have serious repercussions for the economy. The hundreds of thousands of people that would be out of work would cost the US a huge amount of money anyway.

But we shouldn't reward GMs failures easily.

Here are my proposed terms for a GM Bailout

1. Up to $75 billion loan to be given to GM over 5 years.
2. Interest rate will = 30 year Treasury Bond rate, plus 2%.
3. Repayment begins in 6 years, and must be complete thirty years after that.
4. Within 10 years, the GM fleet fuel efficiency must be 5 MPG higher.
5. Each year after, the GM fleet fuel efficiency rating must rise by 1 MPG more. Note: the target fuel efficiency will always be based on today's standard. In other words, by year 10, standards will be 5 MPG higher. In year 11, they will be 6 MPG higher. In year 12, 7 MPG higher than today. If in year 11, they are actually 8 MPG higher than today, in year 12, they still only need to be 7 MPG higher than today, removing the incentive to sand bag the number.
   
6. The government will receive 20% of the company in some form of preferred stock that can, at the government's discretion, be sold on the open market.
7. That stock will earn dividends at the same rate as other share holders.
8. After accepting the loan, the CEO, CFO, and 50% of the remaining executive staff will leave the company, with renegotiated severance.
9. At least 50% of the replacement executives must come from outside the auto industry and be from companies that have generated a profit for at least 5 of the last 7 years.
10. Replacement executives from within the auto industry must come from companies that have generated a profit for 5 of the past 5 years.

This is a first draft, and there may be plenty of things to adjust here. Given the challenges with pay, working hours, locations, etc., I am open to discussing changes to the UAW contracts. While I'm not one to say the whole problem with the US auto industry is the union, decisions by both management and the union got GM to where it is today. And like the stock holders, suppliers, and local communities, the unions will also suffer tremendously if GM goes bankrupt.

It's an expensive plan for GM, but it's also a risky investment of tax payer dollars.

This plan should help GM survive, ensure there are consequences for executive failure, bring in people with a track record of success, compensate US tax payers for their risks, minimize the chances that hundreds of thousands of autoworkers will lose their jobs, and provide increased environmental protection through greater fuel efficiency.

Hiring Tips in the Seattle PI

In a recent column in the Seattle PI, Maureen Moriarity offers 10 common mistakes when hiring people.

Many green managers simply don't prepare or spend enough time on the hiring process.

They often succumb to the short-term pressures of "needing to get someone in the chair" right away versus taking the time to determine what skills, talents and abilities they need and then finding the "right fit."

Seasoned managers, on the other hand, know the pain and cost firsthand of a bad hire (experts estimate that it can cost two to three times an employee's salary to rehire someone).

...More

One thing I would state a little more strongly is the importance of not hiring.

When reviewing candidates it's important to be positive, but it's more important avoid hiring the wrong person. When looking at candidates, give them the opportunity to show and explain how they can meet your needs and do the job. In doing so, look for all the reasons you shouldn't hire them.

If the reasons are serious enough, pass on the candidate. It may seem harsh, but a good manager must avoid a bad hire.

Hiring the wrong person means:

1. The work you are hiring to get completed will not be completed well.
2. You will have to spend excessive amounts of valuable time correcting the person.
3. You may have to spend more time in the disciplinary process than you want.
4. You may need to rehire that position again, soon, and start the interview process from scratch.
5. A bad hire can cost you head count if you have to fire them at a time of corporate layoffs.
6. A bad performer will make your effective performers have to work harder to pick up the slack.
7. A bad performer will have a negative impact on morale and encourage your star performers to seek greener pastures. After all, who wants to work with poor performers?

A bad hire is never worth a short hiring process. Spend the time and find the right person. It will be worth it in the long term.

Brief thoughts on PowerPoint

In many organizations, people use PowerPoint for two different purposes:

1. As a presentation tool for a speaker
2. As a word processor where the author intends the recipeient to read the slides at their desk

Whether people should be using PowerPoint as an alternative to Word is another matter.

Much of the bad PowerPoint presentations in the world exist because many users fail to make that distinction. A PowerPoint file intended for reading must be written differently than one intended for use by a speaker. The same slide deck is unlikely to be appropriate for both purposes.

If more authors pay attention to these distinction, PowerPoint may cease to be such a painful experience.

Bennigan's is Bankrupt

It's a sad day in America. Bennigan's just closed half their stores and filed for Bankruptcy.

From CNN:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Restaurant chains Bennigan's and Steak & Ale have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will shut their doors, less than two months after their parent company said it was not preparing to do so.

The companies filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday in the Eastern District of Texas. Their parent company - privately held Metromedia Restaurant Group - is based in Plano, Texas.

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, a company seeks to liquidate its assets and shut down.

...More

Finding a Bennigans on the road was always a rare treat. There I could gorge myself on the cardioligist's accountant's dream -- the awesome Bennigan's Monte Cristo.

Does this mean I'll now have to eat reasonably everywhere now?

Party in cube land

From the Kansas City Star

Office cubicle celebrates 40th anniversary

The cubicle celebrates its 40th birthday this month. A party is unlikely.

What’s to celebrate? The cubicle office system is one of the most derided realities of modern work life.

...More

This is an interesting article about the object that has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with white collar work. And yet, it is a significant improvement for workers over the alternative of huge open pens filled with nothing but rows of desks. The analysis in the article touches briefly on a number of these points.

Every now and then I think it might be nice to work in an office again. Then I spend a few days in one and come back to my senses.

Book Review 26: An important idea

The theory of the Long Tail can be boiled down to this: Our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve, and moving toward a huge number of niches in the tail. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space, and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

Page 52

How does a store's business change when it has unlimited shelf space?

Chris Anderson answers that questions in "The Long Tail: Why the Future Is Selling Less of More." This is one of the hottest business books of the past couple years and its title has moved into the main stream.

In this book, he discusses the impact of the internet not just how people by products, but on what it means for content producers.

In recent history, the most successful products are the big hits. If you chart product sales from most popular to least popular, you get a chart that's tall on the left and tapers off towards nothing on the right. That section of the chart to the right is what is meant by the long tail.

Hits have dominated music, movies, TV shows, and books for decades, simply because stores had limited space to show stuff, and as a result, they carried only the products likely to generate significant sales. With the advent of ecommerce now, that changes. Amazon does not have a limit to their shelf space. They can offer all products.

When that happens, people start buying the less successful products. They're not choosing inferior ones, but they are choosing products that only appeal to a small niche.

For the content producer, that means it's not as important to make hits -- they can appeal to the niche. There are millions of dollars and livelihoods now being made in the niche markets in a way that simply wasn't possible with ecommerce.

That’s the root of the calculus of the Long Tail: The lower the costs for selling, the more you can sell.

Page 88

Chris Anderson explores these issues in depth in his book, and does a better job describing the phenomenon than I do.

There is great content in the book and it is an important read for anyone interested in how ecommerce and the internet are transforming traditional retail.

I'm not thrilled with the execution of the book, however. There seems to be a lot of stuffing. It's only 230 pages long, but Anderson could have made his point just as effectively, if not more so, in 50%-60% of the pages. I'm not sure how well a shorter book would have sold though. More pages makes people think they are getting more for their money.

I'm also not thrilled with how he structured the book. It comes across as inefficient. He introduces concepts in different ways and then talks about some examples , whether it's Amazon, Google, or Rhapsody, then seems to throw in more concepts.

I would have preferred it if he introduced all the major concepts up front, and then dedicated each chapter to analyzing a different company in detail, while explaining how it demonstrates each of the concepts he discussed earlier.

The company stories he tells are the best parts of the book, but they don't get the focus they deserve.

There are some fascinating stories in here. Early on, he talks about the rise of catalog shopping, by telling us how Sears got started.

Railway cars delivered this new variety on a network of iron tracks that were transforming the country's economy and culture.

The man who first showed the American consumer just what all this could mean was a railway agent in North Redwood, Minnesota. His name was Richard Sears. In 1886, a box of watches was mistakenly sent from a chicago jeweler to a local dealer in North Redwood who didn't want them. Buying them up for himself, Sears sold the watches for a nice profit to other railway agents up and down the line. He then bought more and started a watch distribution company.

Page 42

When people could easily shop by catalog, you could have the rise of a mass consumer culture. People were no longer limited to local products. Thousands of people around the country could have the exact same product.

Over the decades this evolved into the modern retail business model -- it's all about efficiency.

Today's retail display shelf is the human interface to a highly evolved supply chain designed to make the most of time and space. Standing as much as seven feet high and four feet wide and extending up to two feet deep, the average supermarket shelf module has the cubic capacity of a minivan.

Page 151

Again, it's ironic, this paradox of plenty: Walk into a Wal-Mart and you're overwhelmed by the abundance and choice. Yet look closer and the utter thinness of this cornucopia is revealed. Wal-Mart's shelves are a display case that may look like everything , but in a world that's actually a mile wide and a mile deep, a veneer of variety just isn't enough.

Page 156

This wasn't just the case with physical goods. As radio consolidated throughout the nineties, the record companies cracked the formula for creating a hit.

The industry had cracked the commercial code. They had found the elusive formula to the hit, and in retrospect it was so obvious: Sell virile young men to young women. What worked fro Elvis could now be replicated on an industrial scale. It was all about looks and scripted personalities. The music itself, which was outsourced to a small army of professionals (there are fifty two people credited with creating No Strings Attached), hardly mattered.

Page 31

The industry is facing challenges today in that their core demographic is changing.

Every year network TV loses more of its audience to hundreds of niche cable channels. Males age eighteen to thirty-four, the most desireable audience for advertisers, are starting to turn off the TV altogether, shifting more and more of their screen time to the Internet and video games. The ratings of top TV shows have been falling for decades, and the number one show today wouldn't have made the top ten in 1970.

Page 2

It's more than just not watching TV though. It's using the Internet to both find niche products and to create them.

My favorite story from this book is that of The Lonely Island. They are a group of guys who made sketch videos, uploaded them to the Internet, and then got discovered by Saturday Night live.

The Lonely Island really is relevant to these cultural transitions in multiple ways. First, they couldn't get hired as writers because that was a highly competitive field, which left them out in the niche space, apart from the hit makers.

Second, the took the new technology of the Internet and inexpensive video production and editing software to create content that would have cost thousands of dollars to do a decade earlier.

Third, by setting up their own website the bypassed the restrictive nature of the retail shelves (or network TV time slots) and made their content available to whomever wanted to see it. They didn't have to compete with anyone for space.

Fourth, once they were discovered and hired on to Saturday Night Live, it was fans on the Internet posting their favorite Lonely Island bits on YouTube at no cost. Once the Chronicles of Narnia hit, through the Internet, SNL was suddenly relevant again.

It isn't easy for an individual comic to make it in TV -- even as a writer -- but it's even harder for a preassembled team. Sure enough, the threesome quickly ran up against all the usual barriers in their hunt for work in Hollywood. However, rather than subject them selves to endless rejection, the three took their act -- now named after their home -- online. Borrowing some video gear, the Lonely Island Crew started producing short-form comedy videos and songs. Schaffer's kid brother Micah -- a tech consultant and Internet agitpropster -- threw together their website, thelonelyisland.com, in 2001.

Page 79

Jeff Jarvis, a media commentator, described the impact like this: "I haven't heard anyone buzz aobut, recommend, or admit to watching SNL in, oh, a generation. But suddenly, I hear lots of buzz about the show. And it's not because millions happened to be watching when the show happened to actually be funny again. No the buzz is born because folks started distributing the Narnia bit, which, indeed, is funny, on the Internet, and people are linking to it. NBC is learning the power of the network that no one owns." And sure enough, links to the SNL site increased more than 200-fold in the two weeks after the video started circulating.

Page 80-81

The Lonely Island tale has come full circle. Misfits rejected by the entertainment industry go online and get popular. Entertainment industry wakes up to this phenomenon in the hard to reach demographic of influential twenty-somethings and hires the misfits. The kids do the same thing on broadcast TV, but since the influential demographic doesn't actually watch much TV, it isn't until the skit goes back online (now amplified by the net-kids-make-it-big appeal) that the skit gets really popular. Thus SNL , previously scorned by the online generation, suddenly gets cool again by tapping into the authentic underground spirit blossoming online. Once upon a time, the show used to handpick its talent pool from obscure regional theaters and improv troupes. Now they also find it online.

Page 81

What I find interesting, and which Anderson doesn’t go into much detail on is that by empowering the niches, and empowering people to create content, we are not creating and entirely new paradigm of cultural existence. In fact, we are simply reembracing the Professional/Amateur ethic of the 19th century.

Astronomical discoveries are not just the province of professionals. With access to data, the Internet, and high power amateur equipment, people who don't make a living in astronomy can contribute to break throughs.

This is how one of the greatest astronomical discoveries of the twentieth century unfolded. A key theory explaining how the universe works was confirmed thanks to amateurs in New Zealand and Australia, a former amateur trying to turn professional in Chile, and professional physicists in the United States and Japan. When a scientific paper finally announced the discovery to the world, all of them shared authorship.

Demos, a British think tank, described this in a 2004 report as a key moment in the arrival of a "Pro-Am" era, a time when professionals and amateurs work side by side: "Astronomy used to be done in 'big science' research institutes. Now it is also being done in Pro-Am collaboratives. Many amateurs continued to work on their own and many professionals were still ensconced in their academic institutions. But global research networks sprang up, linking professionals and amateurs with shared interests in flare stars, comets, and asteroids

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The 20th century saw the demise of the amateur scientist doing significant research. Invention, science, research, etc, became the realm of professionals. Silicon Valley, with the now cliché garage based company may seem to buck this trend, but the fact that people are astonished that large companies grew from such small enterprises further emphasizes how rare this has become.

All that is changing now. Astronomy can be worked by both amateurs and professionals. In recent years, writing for the public required a newspaper. Blogging changes that. Advanced photography required and expensive and big dark room. Photoshop and digital cameras changed that. Creating music required a full studio and advanced sound board. Audio software changed that. Broadcasting movies required a cable channel. YouTube changed that.

To do these things before you had to be a professional. You had to specialize. In the modern ear, that's simply not necessary. People can pursue and explore a variety of interest.

We are witnessing the rebirth of the Renaissance Man.

It's possible the 100% dominance of the hit over the niche was simply a historical aberration. It's like when take a giant bowl of water and dump more water into it. It ripples and splashes and sloshes. But eventually it all settles down at a higher level.

I think that's what we're seeing now. The growing success of the Long Tail is the settling of the water.

Chris Anderson's book covers a lot of these things in detail. It's an important book. I just wish it was a little shorter and organized differently.

Here are a few other passages I enjoyed:

"For many years American Airlines made more money from its Sabre electronic reservations system (essentially the travel industry's shared navigation layer for the bewildering world of routes and airfares in the seventies and eighties) than the entire airline industry made collectively from charging people money to ride on planes. From time to time, certain Baby Bells were bringing in more profits from their yellow pages -- essentially the navigation layer of all local business before the web came along -- than form their inherited monopolies. And at its peak, TV Guide famously rivaled the actual networks in profitability.

In a world on infinite choice context -- not content -- is king.

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When you look at a widely diverse three-dimensional market place through a one-dimensional lens, you get nonsense. It's a list, but it's a list without meaning. What matters is the rankings within a genre (or sub-genre), not across genres.

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What the Long Tail offers, however, is the encouragement to not be dominated by the [80/20] Rule. Even if 20% of the products account for 80% of the revenue, that's no reason not to carry the other 80%. In Long Tail markets, where the carrying costs of inventory are low, the incentive is there to carry everything, regardless of the volume of sales. Who knows -- with good search and recommendations, a bottom 80% product could turn into a top 20% product.

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Both hits and niches see their sales slow over time; hits may start higher, but they all end up down the tail eventually.

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This huge expansion in selection was accompanied by a major shift in movie access pricing. Where before, the standard was one person, one ticket, now there was one small price for as many people as you could cram into your house. This transition was loathed and resisted long before it was grudginly accepted and finally embraced by Holywood interests. (Recall the early attempts to sell movies at retail for $70 to $80 -- a price that was calculated based on the amount of money a typical family would pay at the box office to see their favorite movie two or three times.)

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