corporate-america – Page 4 – Observations Along the Road

News Chum: Things that are Going Away

Posted onThursday, December 17, 2009Authorcahwyguy

Today’s lunchtime news chum provides three reports on things that are going away. Will you be sad to see them disappear? Share your thoughts.

From the “Familiar Brand Names” Department: CNN has a gallery of 8 brand names that were killed in 2009. These include familiar names such as Saturn or Pontiac, Circuit City, and Kodachrome, and less familiar names such as Encarta. In some ways, I’m sad to see Pontiac go: at least they kept NUMMI alive, and that helped California.
From the “You’ve Got a Friend In Me” Department: Disneyland is replacing the Aladdin show with the Toy Story show, according to the LA Times. The Aladdin show was evidnetly great because of the ad-libbing (I haven’t seen it); the Toy Story show is a more static show imported from Disney Cruise Lines. No indications of where Aladdin is going, or whether it might be expanded and moved into Disney Theatricals.
From the “What a Beautiful Doll” Department: The Ventura County Star, via AP, is reporting how American Girl is phasing out the Kirsten historical doll. Now, my daughter was never into the American Girl characters (although she did read the books early on)… what I find interesting here is the marketing angle: girls losing interest in historical dolls (except for the older girls that grew up with them), and the notion that the dolls were overexposed, and might come back at some time in the future (raising the question of whether Mattel, which owns AG, is learning from Disney… and what other properties might be periodically “retired”).

Miscellaneous News Chum: Pop-Up Stores, Credit Cards, TV Themes, and LAX

Posted onTuesday, October 20, 2009Authorcahwyguy

I’ve been home sick today with a cold, but I’ve still got some chum for you to chew on:

From the “Selling It” Department: We’ve all grown up with the model of the brick and mortar store that is always there. But that’s changing, and the LA Times has two interesting articles on the change. The first article related to those kiosks you see at a mall, and how they provide a low-cost entry for new retailers to try an idea. But even big retailers are going into the short-term-store business: the second article related to pop-up stores. These are stores that rent a space for a few weeks or months, and then they are gone. They started with the Halloween and Christmas stores grabbing empty storefronts, and now retailers like Toys R Us and Sees are doing them.
From the “Paying for Doing Good” Deparatment: Some of us carry credit card balances. Some of us don’t. I’m in the latter camp: I pay in full every month, and do sufficient transactions that, so far, I’ve had nary a fee. According to USA Today, that may change for some: some banks are adding fees for those that pay in full each month. They are doing this now because the government is taking away their ability to gouge in other areas. I’m sorry, but if a credit card company did it to me, I’ll take my business elsewhere.
From the “They’re Creepy and they’re Spooky” Department: In addition to honest bankers and retailers that stay around, one thing we have lost is our great TV themes. Few shows have great original themes these days. The LA TImes brings the obit of a famous TV theme writer: Vic Mizzy, who wrote the themes for “Green Acres” and “The Addams Family”.
From the “When 24 is old” Department: LAX is planning a major remodel. No, they aren’t refreshing some of the terminals that really need it, such as Terminal 2, 3, or 6. They are planning to demolish the Tom Bradley terminal (TBIT) and replace it with a new larger terminal with a mid-field concourse. All this so they can accomodate the Airbus 380 and 787. Now, I’ve never flown out of TBIT, but some of their other terminals are in even worse shape (I particuarly hate Terminals 7 and 8 with a passion — no power outlets!). But then I have a history of not being enthused by what LAWA does — I had friends living in the areas they depopulated!

Technological News Chum: Northrop CEO, Security Battle, Facebook Outings, Textbook Rentals

Posted onTuesday, July 7, 2009Authorcahwyguy

My first installment of lunchtime reading brings a number of articles related to technology and security:

From the “Up From The Ranks” Department: The Los Angeles Times has a very nice profile on Ron Sugar, CEO of Northrop Grumman. Sugar started in South LA, and worked his way up the engineering ranks to become CEO of one of the largest defense contractors… and is running it very successfully. It is always nice to see engineers succeed like this. It is one of the reaons I admire my employer so — they made a very good choice for President — an engineer that worked her way up the ranks at the company.
From the “Me First! No Me!” Department: The NY Times has an interesting piece on a security battle going on: Symantec and McAffee are battling for your desktop. Their goal is to get their security suite on your computer. Of course, each suite has its impacts. It’s almost like the old battles between Microsoft, WordPerfect, and AmiPro for Word Processor superiority.
From the “Trusting One’s Family” Department: Speaking of security, there was an interesting security breech over the weekend: personal details about the head of MI6 were publically revealed. The interesting part is the how: his wife bragged about her family on Facebook.
From the “Book Em” Department: One last item from the NY Times: Yet another idea has emerged from Silicon Valley for these trying times: modelled after Netflix, two young businessmen have started chegg.com, a site that aims to rent textbooks instead of selling them. Some believe it could be quite successful. It is an interesting notion — after all, you don’t need the text after the class (unless you want it for reference).

Everything Old is New Again

Posted onMonday, March 23, 2009Authorcahwyguy

Sometimes the lunchtime news review just aligns with a theme:

From the “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before” Department: Yet again, a large computing company is being accused of stifiling the competition. No, not Microsoft. IBM. That’s right, IBM is accused of using problematic (yes, that’s the word) tactics in order to continue to dominate the mainframe market. The compusaurs out there will recall this is nothing new: IBM did this before with bundling of software and hardware, and all sorts of other tactics. But nowadays, you mention computing beheamoths, and everyone thinks M$.
From the “What’s In a Name?” Department: In a situation that would make R. J. Reynolds amused, it seems the AIG name no longer holds the cachet it one had. In fact, the few profitable AIG subsidiaries are now trying to distance themselves from the name (for example, AIG Direct has gone back to 21st Century). Will this work? Well, we are talking American consumers here.
From the “Just Go To the Movies” Department: Do you have an obscure movie you like that hasn’t made it to DVD yet? Don’t fret. Warner Bros (which may also have the MGM catalog) is opening up its archives and making a number of lower-popularity titles available “on demand”, meaning they don’t generate the DVD until you buy it. For more info, visit the Warner Archive. Alas, there is no “Sterile Cuckoo” (actually, that’s already on DVD) or “Crazy World of Julius Vrooder”, or even “Another Nice Mess”, but there is “I was a Communist for the FBI”

Some other news links of interest, but not falling within the theme:

Chum for a Monday Morning

Posted onMonday, March 9, 2009Authorcahwyguy

Some selected items for your enjoyment, from the lunchtime scan of the papers:

From the “You Think They Would Learn From Bar Mitzvahs” Department: The LA Times has an article on how the Catholic Church has issued a new booklet to provide a more specific religious ceremony for quinceañeras. The article notes how the aim is to ensure religious meaning in what is often just a lavish celebration. Perhaps they should talk to a rabbi. That problem has been a big one on the bar/bat mitzvah circuit. There was even a movie about it.
From the “I don’t want to hear about your one God because my one God’s the one” Department: Speaking of religion, an article in USA Today notes that most religious groups in the US are losing members (except, perhaps, for the muslims). Specifically, the percentage of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. In fact, so many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. Additionally, nearly 2.8 million people now identify with dozens of new religious movements, calling themselves Wiccan, pagan or “Spiritualist,” which the survey does not define.
From the “Are You Going Out Like That?” Department: USA Today is also reporting that retailers are starting to introduce more modest clothing for teens. The reason is not religious (so they claim) but economic: In these markets, one cannot turn away customers, and most parents don’t want the revealing stuff that is marketed to teens these days. Further, most parents know that such revealing stuff can’t be worn to work.
From the “Do You Really Want Us To Add to the Job Losses” Department: The tanking economy is influencing many things. One thing it is affecting is the debate about cutting defense contracts. Sure, they are wasteful, but they employ people. So (the argument goes) in this economy, do you really want to add to the unenemployed. This isn’t a joke argument. The NY Times is reporting that it is being used by Congress to reduce defense contract cutbacks. After all, by building fewer F-22 fighters (which even Bush 43 didn’t want), you put people out of work. Lockheed Martin says 25,000 jobs depend directly on the F-22, and perhaps 70,000 more indirectly. According to the article, some potential cutbacks include parts of the $10 billion missile defense programs, a radar-evading $3.3 billion destroyer that even the Navy says it can no longer afford, and cutbacks in the Army’s sweeping $160 billion modernization plan.

Getting Chummy

Posted onWednesday, March 4, 2009Authorcahwyguy

Some lunchtime news chums, garned from the usual skimming:

From the “More Things Going Away” Department: Yesterday, I wrote about some things that are going away, like Bakers Squares and the old Pepsi logo. Today’s news brought another thing that is disappearing: Viewmaster Scenic Reels. Hell, I’m surprised that Viewmasters are still around.
ETA: In other restaurant news: Jack In The Box unveils a new logo, to be announced by a reenergized and recovered Jack Box, fresh from his recent accident.
From the “Making Lemonaide from Lemons” Department: Even wonder what happened to the folks who made bad loans at Countrywide? Surprise, surprise (as Jim Nabors would say): they are back in the loan business. Specifically, they have started a new company, PennyMac that is purchasing the bad loans and attempting to turn them good. I say: “More power to them”. If they can figure out a way to turn these bad loans into perfomring loans, take them off the balance sheets of the worried banks, that’s inginuity at work.
From the “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” Department: Guess who wants an iPhone, but can’t get it? Hint: It’s not the price that’s stopping the purchase, it’s the manufacturer. Yup, Melinda Gates. Seems the household has a no-Apple policy. Raise your hand if you think Apple should send her one, gratis.
From the “Get to Work” Department: Want a job? It appears that some folks are still in demand. No, I’m not talking about folks who repossess things. I’m talking about folks with security clearances. According to the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles area (including OC) was one of the top 10 areas for folks with clearances.
From the “I’m Cooking with Gas” Department: I’ve had a few food related articles collecting space in the to-post list, so I thought I would share them. The first explores how much water does pasta really need? What’s interesting is the answer: not as much as the package says. The second explores a humble cooking tool that one can acquire at Home Depot: kitchen twine. Sometimes, it is the littlest items that are the secret to a great bacon wrapped roast :-)… but just make sure you don’t use that plastic coated stuff. The last is an article on a retro-favorite: cube steak. I’m actually a fan of this stuff, especially Southern-style Chicken Fried Steak. Yum. Oh, that reminds me, I need to finish my lunch….

Chum for Square Root Day

Posted onTuesday, March 3, 2009Authorcahwyguy

Although it’s not a prime as it could be, here’s some choice news chum I selected for you over lunch for Square Root Day, 3/3/9:

From the “When Times are Hard, Rebrand” Department: There have been a number of articles recently about how groups are coping with hard times by rebranding themselves. For example, the Girl Scouts are rebranding by deemphasizing badges and emphasizing the Internet and Blogging. The cookies will remain, but they too are being downsized. Other things are rebranding as well: Pepsi is changing its logo, and that doesn’t sit well with some.
From the “But Some Change Can Be Good” Department: Yesterday, while driving the van to work, I noticed that the Granada Hills Bakers Square had changed names: it was now a Du-pars. I did some further investigation, and found that the same thing had happened to the Bakers Square in Oxnard. In fact, I learned that almost all Bakers Squares in California had been closed. The NoCal ones are becoming Shari’s; the SoCal ones are either Du-Pars or Pollys. This actually is good news: Du-Pars is a local chain, recently brought back under control of the Naylor family, who used to operate the Tiny Naylors chain, which I remember quite fondly. I shall have to go try the new Du-Pars.
From the “Are You Feeling Secure Yet?” Department: Slashdot is reporting that the stimulus package is pouring boku bucks into Cybersecurity, which is a good thing. But on the other side of the ledger, there are more breaches: USA Today is reporting that there has been a third major breach in MasterCard and Visa accounts, although no details are provided.
From the “Good Things Come In Threes” Department: I’m sure you’ve heard by now of the Spiderman musical coming to Broadway in 2010, as well as the Addams Family Musical. Here’s a third: “Sleepless in Seattle: The Musical”… with music by Leslie Bricusse. I’m not encouraged. This is not a good time for the performing arts. Companies are closing left and right, and the money has gotten even tighter. The public views the arts as a frivolity in hard times, forgetting that the arts creates jobs just as any manufacturing business, and the people in these jobs use their paycheck to pay their mortgage, their credit card bills, their grocery bills, and to take care of their families just as any other worker. We’ve decimated our schools by cutting back on arts education; let’s not decimate our lives and culture as well.
From the “Won’t You Be My Friend?” Department: It seems Facebook is really in the news these days. There’s a good article in the NY Times about how to deal with friending co-workers and family safely on Facebook. Specifically, it talks about how to use friends groups to provide more fine-grained controls on who can see that Facebook picture where you’re tagged in a drunken bacchanal. Well worth reading.

And Talking of Dinosaurs

Posted onWednesday, February 18, 2009Authorcahwyguy

Ah, lunchtime. A time to read the papers… and to think of the past… and the present…

From the “I Always Thought The Name Was Redundant” Department: There’s a fascinating article in the LA Times about a major trove of fossils unearthed near the La Brea Tar Pits. This appears to be the largest known cache of fossils from the last ice age, and includes a nearly intact skeleton of a Columbian mammoth — named Zed by researchers, as well as loads of smaller fossils of tree trunks, turtles, snails, clams, millipedes, fish, gophers and even mats of oak leaves. Now, it’s no surprise that they found something: they are excavating under the old May Company garage in the Park La Brea area, right near La Brea Pits. What is interesting to me is how they are doing things, because they are in a rush to build a new underground parking garage for the adjacent art museum: Instead of having paleontologists spend days to weeks carefully sifting through the soil at the site of a dig, they are treating the areas like big trees: Carefully identifying the edges of each deposit, the paleontology team dug trenches around and underneath them, isolating the deposits on dirt pedestals. After wrapping heavy plastic around the deposits, workers built wooden crates similar to tree boxes and lifted them out individually with a heavy crane. The biggest one weighed 123,000 pounds. In 3½ months, working seven days a week, they removed the entire collection two years ago and delivered them to the museum. For some of the deposits, they had to wear oxygen tanks with full gas masks because of unusually high levels of hydrogen sulfide escaping from the soil. The only exceptions to the crating process were the mammoth named Zed and a horse skull. Because they were separate from the other assemblages, they were partially excavated and encased in plastic casts for cleaning in the museum — the conventional technique for recovering fossils. There are now 23 crates available for the conventional slow approach.
From the “And Speaking of Dinosaurs, Take I” Department: Yes, there is a theme today. In our first class of modern dinosaurs, I present: wealthy cities. According to the LA Times, it seems they are discovering they aren’t immune from the recession. They are seeing significant decreases in sales tax revenues and property tax revenues. Beverly Hills now projects a $24-million drop in tax revenues over the next 16 months, representing 15% of the general fund budget. Santa Monica has a budget gap that could swell to $10 million next year. Newport Beach has seen a drop in luxury car sales resulting in an anticipated $3.5-million budget gap. There are vacancies on Rodeo Drive, pink slips abound, and conspicuous consumption is dead. We’re seeing a shift in mentality folks to what our parents (or for you youngsters, your parent’s parents) had from the depression: save, don’t spend. Think about what that means for getting people to spend our way out of the recession.
From the “And Speaking of Dinosaurs, Take II” Department: Our second class of modern dinosaurs: Pontiac and Saturn. Yup, GM has a proposal to ~~shred~~ shed brands, and it looks like Pontiac and Saturn are on the chopping block, together with Saab and Hummer. This is a significant change for GM, which loved its myriad brands like Gollum loved his ring. They may try to spinoff Saturn (but to who… and would it survive). Both brands had their caches… well, Saturn did once when it first came out, but now it is just rebadging. The Pontiac name may become a mini-brand, probably just a sub-line within Chevy or Buick. The NY Times also has a nice car-blog entry remembering Pontiac, when it was actually something unique and muscular, before the brand jumped the shark.
From the And Speaking of Dinosaurs, Take III” Department: Our third class of modern dinosaurs are the extinct stores. Ever wonder where their customers go, after the store is gone? The usual answer is: Wal-Mart. The attitude seems to be “If I can save that much money, I’ll live with the lack of selection or customer service”. In a recession, do you blame them? Other stores are trying to position themselves, but not seeing the profits they expected: Best Buy (grabbing Circuit City folks), Bed Bath and Beyond (going after Linen & Things), and Kohls (going after Mervyns).
From the “Censoring and Dinosaurs” Department: There are two interesting cases of self-censorship in the news… and both have some connection to dinosaurs. The Mayor of Television (mayor_of_tv) is reporting that TV Land is adjusting episodes of Sanford and Son (a dinosaur of a TV show) where Red Foxx (who never had a clean mouth) was using the “N-Word”. What’s next? Archie Bunker? That was the point of the show. In more local censorship, the LA Times Culture Monster Blog (lat_cultrmnstr) reported that a Corona Del Mar High School production of the student edition of the musical “Rent” (which has already been censored) has been cancelled. One report says it was due to gay characters, but the principal and staff at Corona Del Mar high school deny that, just claiming there was still unidentified “objectionable material”. By the way, want to know what the replacement is? “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown”. Talk about dinosaurs!
By the way, since we’re talking Orange County and high schools, I should note some things never change: two Orange County HS students (Beckman HS in Irvine) are accused of hacking grades. Specifically, they allegedly used a stolen password to change their grades in the school’s computer system, apparently using the password information of a teacher they had befriended to log onto the system. Last year, two seniors at Las Flores’ Tesoro High School were charged with a combined 73 felony counts for purportedly breaking into their school at least six times to steal tests, hack into school computers and change grades.

Theatre Note: In some recent posts, I’ve been talking about The Wedding Singer at Rep East. Well, it appears that an upcoming National Tour of the show has resulting in the rights for Rep East being cancelled. They are voting on a new spring musical at their website, and I encourage those in the area to vote. My thinking on the potential shows: Little Shop is being done by too many high schools, including Van Nuys HS in the same time period. Singing in the Rain was recently done by Cabrillo, and I don’t think Rep East has the space to top that. Forbidden Broadway might work, but it is more of a revue of potentially older shows (unless they have the latest version) and I don’t think would draw. Debbie Does Dallas might not work well up in Santa Clarita. That leaves Great American Trailer Park Musical and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Forum is one of the weaker Sondheim musicals (although funny), and better suited to the Canyon Theatre Guild at the other end of the block. That leaves Trailer Park, which hasn’t been done in Southern California before (giving them a premiere, which Wedding Singer would have been) and has great music. You can probably guess how I voted.