Working Your Way to Greener SMB

On September 28, 2009

Working Your Way to Greener SMB

Big businesses often use big bucks to go green. Small businesses, on the other hand, haven't a dollar to spare even for a good cause like saving the environment. Shouldn't they just pass on the whole green scheme -- at least until the economy improves? Not necessarily.


On September 28, 2009

Continue Shopping Means What?

You’ve added your item to your cart, but you’re not finished shopping. So, you look for the “Continue Shopping” link to thrust you back to…to what? The product page? The category page? The home page? Most sites don’t give you a clue where you’ll end up. GrokDotCom mentioned this in Grok’s Biggest Gripes [...]


On September 28, 2009

EADS, Northrop And Boeing Gird For Third Tanker Try

On Friday the 25th the U.S. Air Force posted the draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for the new KC-X aerial tanker. This will be the third attempt since 2001 to begin buying aircraft to replace the KC-135 fleet that has served since the 1950's. The full RFP may be found here at FedBizOpps.gov. This initial RFP is for 179 aircraft with two further batches that might not be the same aircraft (KC-Y and KC-Z). This initial batch may be worth $30 - 35 billion to the winner. In 2001 - 2002 time frame the Air Force negotiated with Boeing for a lease of about 160 Boeing 767 aircraft. This decision was overturned by Congress after revelations of corruption in the...


On September 28, 2009

Has The Recession Stress-Tested Your Boss?

I've seen at least three separate pieces of research in as many weeks that suggest around a third of us don't particularly like our CEOs. And? Aren't we supposed to dislike our bosses? Or at least a third of us probably should, because we all look for different things in what makes a good boss. Some people wish their boss wasn't so aloof, others wish he or she would just stay away. Some like a boss who takes tricky decisions in their stride, others mark somebody down if they seem trigger happy or clinical. The recession, I believe, has fundamentally changed our perception of what makes a good boss and what's really interesting is how our criteria have changed. What makes...


On September 28, 2009

Weekend Round-Up

Sunday Times Alistair Darling acts on bank bonuses: The Chanceller of the Exchequer will be summoning the remuneration committee chairmen of the big four banks to a meeting this week to warn them they must adhere to guidelines established agreed by world leaders at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh last week. New Look listing: High street retailer New Look's private equity backers, Apax and Permira, are said to be readying the the 40-year-old clothing chain for an early 2010, £1.7bn float.The equity firms acquired New Look five years ago for £699m and tried unsuccessfully to auction it off for £1.8bn to £2bn a couple of years ago.Other retailers (and New Look itself) have struggled post-flotation -- steady earnings expectations and...


On September 27, 2009

The Future Still Trying To Catch Save-A-Lot

Save-A-Lot was a small-format food retailer long before compact store concepts became popular among major chains, but it has been shifting from its original focus on grocery products to feature perishables and develop into more of a full-line supermarket operator for frugal consumers. And, in that way, it may be the supermarket of the future. In a certain manner, it came into being as the supermarket of the future. Launched by its former president Bill Moran in 1977 as an alternative format for customers of his food distribution operation who were being put out of business by rapidly expanding regional and national supermarket chains such as Kroger, the original model for Save-A-Lot was Aldi and the rational applied was that,...


On September 27, 2009

EQ and the Entrepreneur

In "The Humm Handbook: Lifting Your Level of Emotional Intelligence" there is a chapter on leadership that defines and discusses the three necessary core emotional drives of the successful leader. For those familiar with the Humm, great leaders have high H, M and P drives. President Bill Clinton is a good example of such a personality. One innovation I introduced in my 23 years as a venture capitalist was to obtain a psychographic profile of our prospective entrepreneurs. Initially we were seeking mini-Bill Clintons. Unfortunately, over time we discovered that while these people are great at running large organisations, they were poor entrepreneurs. We had forgotten that critical piece of Australian advice: “A good builder of mine is rarely a...


On September 27, 2009

What’s the Outlook for the Media Business? Read Here.

One media publication worth looking through this week is Mediaweek's annual Media Outlook report (yes, boys and girls, I once worked there). It doesn't necessarily tell you anything you didn't already know — that basically right now the medium whose business model sucks the least is considered a winner — but, as it combines reportage with aggregated numbers from sources including parent company Nielsen, media investment firm Veronis Suhler Stephenson, media agency Zenith Optimedia and PricewaterhouseCoopers, it presents a comprehensive view of how the media business is going to look next year. You are better off reading the whole report, but here's a Twitter-style recounting of how each medium is going to do: Broadcast TV: Right now nothing matters as...


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