Failing Companies at Christmas Time? Not Possible!

As we continue our mad dash through what many retailers herald as the busiest shopping month of the year, an article on MSN caught my eye. The author, Michael Brush, is talking about seven companies that he doesn’t think will make it to the year 2020. I was anticipating them to be seven companies that no one had ever heard of, but as I read deeper into the article, I realized that I had heard of six of them! The only one that I was in the dark on was the seventh, McClatchy.

As for the other six, I was shocked at first that someone could think they wouldn’t be open in 10 years. But then I got to thinking about the trips I have made to those stores or their websites, and it became a little clearer about why they are on borrowed time.

The first company Brush discusses is Palm, the company that was the first to introduce smart phones. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that with companies like Apple, Google, and Blackberry taking the markets by storm, Palm didn’t stand a chance. From a high of nearly $18 just two short months ago, Palm stock now sits right around $12. With this being the season of shopping, a $6 drop is hardly good news.

Sears made the #2 spot on Brush’s list of companies destined to fail. This one didn’t surprise me either, as Sears always appears to be the least busy anchor store at the West Acres Mall in Fargo. Whenever I go in to browse, I am stunned by their high prices. Electronics are the same price at Best Buy, and Best Buy is an electronics store! Another thing that has always struck me about Sears stores is that they seem to be perpetually rundown and/or dirty-looking. There is nothing appealing about shopping in a store that looks like its floors haven’t been washed in years.

Blockbuster and Kodak were next on the list. Several years ago, I was a frequent customer of Kodak’s…you know, back when our cameras actually required us to develop film?! However, I remember cringing when the bill would come back for $8 for a roll of 24 pictures. That $8 was expensive for pictures 10 years ago! When I moved to Fargo and had access to video rental stores, I think I set foot in Blockbuster once. After seeing that renting a movie for one night would cost be $3-4, I left and haven’t been back since.

Borders and Magellan round out Brush’s list of failing companies. I will admit that these ones surprise me a little bit, as I enjoy shopping at Borders more than I do Barnes & Noble. I am not as familiar with Magellan, as I hardly ever go anywhere that requires the use of a GPS system. However, I know lots of people that use their GPS systems religiously, and I refuse to believe that they are all Tomtoms and Garmins….

I wanted to take the time and mention this little article in my blog this week because, especially during the holiday season, it’s easy to forget that some stores are struggling. What with sale prices being the norm, it is easy to overlook the fact that a lot of these stores are not usually as competitive in price. With all the choices out there today for consumers, stores have to be competitive in every arena, including their pricing and their availability to the consumer. Social media helps them with the second, now we just have to help them find something for the first!

Lawns, Tigers & Hydrants, Oh My!

I know I will not be the only one to blog about Tiger Woods this week, but perhaps my view on it may be a little bit different than most…

As we all know, Woods had a single-vehicle car accident over Thanksgiving weekend. Sounds innocent enough, right? No reason to get all bent out of shape and call in the investigative unit from the police department, right? Apparently, the answer to both of those questions is “wrong!” All anyone can seem to talk about is Woods’ accident and the supposed situation that may or may not have led to him having the accident in the first place.

Yes, it is suspicious that he is not cooperating with the police that wish to interview him. It is also rather odd that he is refusing to have his medical and other records released to the investigative unit involved with the case when he keeps insisting that nothing was the matter. A lot of media are saying that if there is nothing to hide, there should be no problem. However, I encourage all of you to think about what your reaction would be if the police or the media asked for your records after you were in a car wreck that you knew was nothing more than a momentary slipup. I know I would be upset that they didn’t believe me and felt that they had to check up on me via my records.

Whatever happened to letting people have their privacy? Or, if privacy for a celebrity is too much, what about the common courtesy to respect the Woods’ family wishes? Also, what is it about this incident that is worthy of over 16,000 articles on Google News? From what I remember about car accidents, there’s nothing that spectacular to report about them…

I also think it is unfortunate that Woods may lose his endorsement deals because of this accident. When I rear ended a car four winters ago at an icy intersection, I didn’t lose my job. No one at my place of employment would have even had to know, except for the fact that I had to beg a ride from a coworker until I could get a rental car. I think it is unfair that Woods is losing his endorsements, which are like his job, just because he was in a car accident.

Besides the fact that it “just isn’t fair,” I also don’t like what that says about or to our society. I think it says that unless you are perfect, you’re not worth anything, which is such a sad statement to make. No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, and the punishment should fit the crime (how was that for a sentence full of clichés?!).

The World of Chocolate!

I am a chocolate fiend. However, I am not the type of chocolate fiend that follows the happenings of my favorite chocolate companies. So when I logged onto MSN today, one particular headline caught my eye rather quickly. Who knew that Hershey is trying to buy Cadbury? I sure didn’t, so I had to look into it!

On the Hershey website, it is stated that Hershey holds a license to manufacture British-based Cadbury products in the United States. They have actually held this license since 1988, and have introduced three new products to the Cadbury line since that time. Note that the license is only for the US; Cadbury Global manufactures the Cadbury products for the rest of the chocolate-loving world.

On CNN Money, Kraft Foods is listed as the front runner for acquisition of the Cadbury company. However, there is an Italian company called Ferrero, and everyone’s favorite Hershey company that are also listed as top contenders, although neither one has said publicly that they are in the ring.

A little bit of background about Ferrero (since we all know what Hershey is): They are a family owned company that has been around for 60 years, and has never initiated a takeover of any company. The owner, Michele Ferrero, is the richest man in Italy. They are the makers of the Rocher chocolates (think delicious and not so very nutritious).

The UK Takeover Panel asked both companies to solidify their intentions after the Cadbury stock reached its highest point ever in the last month! Who knew that rumors of a takeover made stocks soar?! Apparently the people are expecting great things to happen after a new company takes over Cadbury.

What they probably don’t know is that even though Hershey would seem like the logical choice (they’ve already been manufacturing Cadbury products for over 20 years), Kraft is the more stable choice. According to Reuters, Hershey is in a world of financial hurt. In order to take over the Cadbury company, they would significantly add to their already significant debt load. Their bid is rumored to be nearly $17 billion!!

Even though it would add to their debt load, I personally hope that Hershey is able to come out on top on this one. Having a chocolate legend like Cadbury (think crème eggs) owned by Kraft (think macaroni and cheese) just doesn’t seem appropriate, does it?

What I couldn’t find on the internet is what happens to the license that Hershey currently holds to manufacture Cadbury products if they get outbid. Does it continue, even though Cadbury is held by a different parent company? Or does the contract become null and void after Cadbury is no longer the company in charge? If you are a better search engine user than I, and can find the answer to this question, let me know!

The Dark Side...of Social Media

Although this class was supposed to show us both the up and down sides of social media, I think we all have to admit that we’ve seen a lot more of the up than the down. It’s only natural for us, well for me, to focus on how change and innovation is going to make my life better, easier, and more organized. It is all too natural to gloss over those things that perhaps make an innovation or change hard to swallow. After yesterday, I am seeing beneath the glossy veneer of social media. After reading my blog for this week, you may too…

I have found the down side of social media, and it’s not what anyone may think it is. The down side of social media is how quickly bad news spreads from person to person, across states and over the ocean. It spreads more quickly via social media than it can from one human being connecting with another.

Yesterday (Monday, November 16), a woman left work to go home for lunch. As she warmed up leftovers in the microwave, she logged onto Facebook to post a message to her three grown sons’ pages, something she typically does on Mondays. On her youngest son’s page, she sees hundreds of messages that read, “RIP Ryan,” “I’m glad you were preparing to do something you love,” “Much love from all your boys,” etc.

As she grabs for the kitchen counter, her mind reeling I’m sure, the doorbell rings and she hears a key in the lock. It is her middle son Brady, who walks in. He has come to tell his mom in person that Ryan is dead. You see, Ryan was cleaning his gun at his house in Bismarck sometime on Sunday or early Monday (we’re not sure exactly what time yet) when it went off and he shot himself in the head. When he didn’t show up to go hunting with his buddies on Monday morning, they went to his apartment and found him. Not wanting to tell his mom this horrible news over the telephone, Brady jumped in the car and drove the five hours to his mother’s house to tell her in person. However, he was too late; Facebook had already broken the news to her.

Who is Ryan? A boy I went to high school with…

I cannot possibly imagine learning of such a life shattering event in this way. It is horrible enough that something like this happened; it is truly unspeakable to think of finding out in such a cold, impersonal way. My first thought was anger toward those people that posted on Ryan’s page. How could they be so callous? Why couldn’t they have waited? But of course the rational side of me quickly takes over. How could they not post those nice messages to someone that was a friend to everybody? How would they have known that Ryan’s mom hadn’t been told yet, and that she habitually posted to his page every Monday? They couldn’t have; they were just expressing sympathy and memories in the way most readily available to them.

The long and short of my blog is that no one posted to his blog as a way to hurt his mom and his family, but they did. They posted to show how much they loved him and how much they will miss him, and their posts will mean that to his family later on. It’s just that right now, Facebook probably isn’t at the top of their list of friends, but it will be, when they’re ready…

Happy Birthday Sesame Street!

Through this class we have all been exposed to many new and exciting things. Beyond this exposure we have had the opportunity to explore these new things, research their past, discuss their present, and speculate on their future. As I think back about the comments I’ve made throughout this course, I realize that all my posts that address the future of social media tools all sound the same.

In each post, I say that the tool will probably be around for another two or three years, at which time it will be replaced by something better, something more technologically advanced. Some of my classmates agreed with me, saying that is only a matter of time before things like Facebook go the way of the mimeograph.

With the thought that all things slowly die or are replaced before their death by something better swimming in my head, I was amazed by what I saw on MSN today. Did you know that Sesame Street turned 40 today (11/10/09)?! I remember watching Sesame Street when I was a little kid; Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers were the best!

So tell me, how does something like Sesame Street survive for 40 years? What is it about that program that made it capable of withstanding years of changes? Could it have something to do with Caroll Spinney, who has been playing Big Bird since the beginning? Is it because parents who watched Sesame Street let their children watch it because they know it’s age-appropriate? Or perhaps it is the long laundry list of celebrities that have had a cameo on Sesame Street (First Lady Michelle Obama is one). Or maybe it is the simple fact that nothing and nobody can ever replace the quality television baby-sitter / pre-school teacher that many parents rely on Sesame Street for.

If you ask the crew members, the show’s success has to be at least partly attributed to the fact that they stay with the times. The show has discussed birth, death, marriage, shootings, natural disasters, 9/11, and now the H1N1 flu. Perhaps this is what keeps people coming back…

Whatever the case, Sesame Street is indeed 40 years old and 122 Emmys strong, and it doesn’t sound like the crew has any plans of stopping. Although this season started with episode number 4187, there are many adventures left for the characters that live, work and play on Sesame Street.

Perhaps social media creators need to use Sesame Street as a case study to learn how their tools can stand the test of time while retaining a very large, very visible presence. In this new age, it would appear that Sesame Street doesn’t just offer lessons to pre-school children anymore!

I want to know: who is your favorite Sesame Street character and why? Mine is Cookie Monster because I feel like we’re kindred spirits; both fighting our addiction, and more often than not losing, to cookies!

Counterfeits are NOT the Answer to our Economy!

Last Thursday night was an ordinary evening. I met two girlfriends for drinks at the Green Mill, we talked, we laughed, we ate fattening foods, and we came home. Wait; there was one more thing that we did that night: we picked up our counterfeit merchandise from the UPS warehouse and shared secret smiles about the amount of money we had just saved.

Did anyone else think that my last paragraph was a little strange to announce so nonchalantly? To be honest, that is the way I thought about our counterfeit purchases until about 30 minutes ago when I opened the MSN homepage. That is when I learned that over 750,000 jobs and billions of dollars are lost to counterfeiting each year in the United States. Check out the "Spot the Fake" quiz!

I hadn’t realized that the fake Coach and Burberry purses that I ordered from China twice a year were putting people out of work. I thought I was being a wise consumer and saving myself some money during hard economic times. Okay, maybe that’s a bit over the top, but I really didn’t think my purchases were negatively impacting our economy in such a huge way.

On the flip side, the Chinese economy has benefitted a thousand fold from the increased demand for counterfeit products. China is where almost 85% of counterfeit goods come from and where nearly 35 million people are employed by manufacturers of counterfeit goods. Manufacturers of fake goods have been able to provide jobs to people that used to work for companies that manufactured the real version of the products they’re now copying.

Counterfeit does not just apply to purses anymore. Shoes, watches, jewelry, electronics, even medicines and other health products are available in the fake variety, often at a deeply discounted rate. The fact that companies are offering fake medicines and other health products are deeply concerning to me, and I can see why counterfeiting is more and more in the public spotlight.

Fake medicines are something that have the potential to kill you. It’s not like a fake purse that looks nice without costing you an arm and a leg. Real medicines are not something to be messed with, so I cannot imagine who thought throwing fake medicines in the mix would be a good idea.

The United States FDA estimates that over 10% of the global medicines market is comprised of counterfeit medicines. Up to 25% of the medicines used in poor or third-world countries are counterfeit. This puts the earnings of counterfeit medicine manufacturers over $32 billion a year!

As so many of the articles that I found about this topic said, we really need to address this problem with the consumers. The only reason the manufacturers are still making fake products is because the consumers are demanding them, in ever-increasing quantities. If we can educate the consumers about the harm these fake products are causing, perhaps we can strike at the manufacturers that way. If we can couch the argument in terms of the dollars we will save in the long run by buying real, perhaps that will tip the scales slightly. I know it’s just a small step in the big scheme of things, but the purses I picked up last Thursday will be my last designer bags, both fake or real!

What are your thoughts on counterfeit products, both accessories and medicines? Do you think we’ll be able to curb the spending on the fake and bring those billions of dollars back into our suffering economy?

Women Have Value!!

To all the guys in this class that may decide to read my blog for this week, I would like to apologize in advance. I am taking some time to talk about “women issues” this week, so if you feel like being enlightened, please, read on!

Today I had the pleasure of eating lunch with over 400 women from Cass and Clay Counties. No, that is not a typo; I actually did eat lunch at the Ramada Plaza & Suites with over 400 women. We were all there for the Women’s Leadership Council (a division of United Way) Luncheon. This was the ninth annual luncheon that the WLC has done, and by far the largest turnout they have ever had.

I arrived shortly before the opening speaker grabbed the microphone, so I ended up at one of the side tables near the back. From there I was able to observe those hundreds of women interacting with one another, sharing stories, laughter, groans of frustration, and squeals of excitement. The energy in the room was so palpable that I couldn’t help but feel energized and ready to take on whatever challenge the keynote speaker would give us.

The keynote this year was Victoria Rowell, better known to some of us as Drucilla from the daytime soap The Young and the Restless. Her challenge to all the women in the room was to give of ourselves, whether that be through volunteering, giving a financial gift, being a foster parent (she was a foster child and credits much of her success to her foster mother and the system), or any other way that you can help another human being.

Too often I think women undervalue or devalue the power of what they are capable of doing for the people in their lives. I know that I am sometimes guilty of thinking that the little that I could do wouldn’t be enough to make a difference, so I just don’t do anything. Listening to Victoria Rowell today helped me realize that the little things are sometimes the most important. Your gift of yourself doesn’t have to come in a $10,000 package, it can just be you in a pair of faded jeans, ready to volunteer your time and your enthusiasm to make someone’s life better.

After I got back to the office this afternoon, I typed the phrase “do women value themselves” into my search engine. One of the links that popped up was for a woman that does life coaching for other women. This really struck me because I cannot imagine a man receiving life coaching from another individual, regardless of sex.

Why is it that women have to be coached to believe that their life has value? Why isn’t our value self-evident to us in all of the small and large things we do for our employers, our families, and our friends every day? I made a pledged to myself today to start placing more of a value on the things that I do for all the people in my life. No, I’m not going to start charging people for things, but I am going to take the time to pat myself on the back more often for what I do to make life easier for the people around me.

I encourage all of my female classmates to really think about the good things that you are capable of doing for those in your inner circle and those within your community. Take a page from Sarah Palin’s book and take a risk. Stand up for something that you truly believe in; give a project your all because you know it will make a difference; and just believe in yourself and your value!

I know my post didn’t really address any current events, but it was something I was compelled to write. Thank you to anyone that read my post, and thank you in advance for the great things that I know you will go out and do, both in the near future and throughout your lifetimes!