The Business Insider

The Age of Outrageous Ideas

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor

A remark attributed to the great French philosopher Voltaire goes something like this: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It seems a fitting phrase for the plethora of views of our modern world, economic systems, ways of life, etcetera: think of a problem or issue and somebody's written an article, blog, or book on how to correct it.

The latest entry is Joshua Cooper Ramo, weighing in with his first book, The Age of the Unthinkable. Ramo, a former editor at Time [a magazine - remember?] and currently employed by Kissinger Associates [yes, that Kissinger], gives us a great read and much to think about regarding aspects of the world and its systems that we can do next to nothing about.

Books of this seem to be proliferating. They're reviewed in the New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and at the book's Amazon Web page. Who reads them? Or even parts of them? Why do publishers think we'll buy them?

How about you - what book of outrageous ideas are you reading, and why? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,
Jack

What Do Ruth Madoff and Sasha Grey's Chelsea Have In Common?

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor

The New York Times ran a cover story in its Sunday Styles section last week about what's happened to Ruth Madoff, 68-year-old wife of Bernie, and how she can't get a hairdo or a latte in her old haunts anymore. Nobody wants to be seen letting her in their establishment because she's viewed as complicit in her husband's Ponzi schemes.

I found this comment interesting: "Alexandra Lebenthal, who is a friend of one of the Madoff sons, Andrew, as well as a fixture in Manhattan financial and social circles, said that Mrs. Madoff has not taken any steps that might rehabilitate her image. 'In America, we love tearing people down and then bringing them back, but she hasn’t played the game,' she said."

 Then there's Sasha Grey, the 21-year-old porn star who plays Chelsea in Stephen Soderbergh's new film, "The Girlfriend Experience." The IMDB synopsis remarks that she plays "a determined young woman that has managed to achieve success as an upscale escort without any apparent loss of dignity, but clearly at the expense of her ability to feel anything deeply, be it with her clients or in her personal life. In an uncomplicated way, the film makes a provocative point about the more subtle costs of switching off aspects of our aliveness (i.e. our caring) to get ahead."

What do Ruth Madoff and Chelsea have in common? Greed. As the story in the New York Times points out, Ruth Madoff cares little, if at all, about the people who her husband killed, financially speaking.

Chelsea, the empty-headed young escort in Soderbergh's film, is a highly paid call girl who, thoroughout the film, seeks new ways to market herself at the expense of her personal sense of self and her relationships with others - in particular her boyfriend (who has issues of his own, needless to say).

In short, Chelsea portrays a woman - and Madoff is the embodiment of a real-life woman - who doesn't understand that to gain the world is to lose the soul.

That's the great lesson coming out of our great economic collapse: the danger of being immersed in a commercial and materialistic culture that has lost its sense of the human perspective. While there's nothing wrong with business or making money, let's be sure we understand its true purpose and realize wealth is not an ennobling end in itself.

Greed is karma: it always comes home to roost.

Jack

Jack B. Rochester is a professional writer and editor who has worked in nearly every aspect of publishing since 1974. He heads Joshua Tree Interactive, and is Managing Editor of The Business Insider blog.

Big Brother Redux in China

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor

Is it a coincidence that, within a day of the 60th anniversary of the publication of George Orwell's prescient novel, 1984, the repressive, dictatorial, Communist Chinese government issues an edict that all imported computers must have its homegrown filtering software installed?

 

As if Vista wasn't slow enough to begin with!

Chinese officials say that "unhealthy information" must not be exposed to its people. Under the guise of blocking pornography, this "Green Dam" will block other topics the Communist leaders don't want, "...Web sites that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, and the Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement," The New York Times reported.

Jon Zittrain, professor of law at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, says Green Dam can scan all your personal data, working both directions, so to speak: an insidious Big Brother, just like in Orwell's 1984. You can hear Jon's views here in an NPR interview.

This is a big deal, and scary like North Korea's sentencing the two women journalists to 12 years at hard labor. Make no mistake, even as addle-headed as the Chinese leadership is [and they don't hold a candle to Kim of The North Korea], and even as worried as they are about saving "face" in the view of the world, these are political animals bent on larger issues. [Interesting, how to the Chinese Communist government leaders, saving face about Tianaman Square and social criticism on the Internet consists of sticking their collective head in the sand.] 

Not only are these leaders obsessed with saving face, but they are utterly humorless. Consider the story of "the grass-mud horse...an example of something that, in China’s authoritarian system, passes as subversive behavior. Conceived as an impish protest against censorship, the foul-named little horse has not merely made government censors look ridiculous, although it has surely done that."

I've spent time touring China and have seen its policies at work on its sweet, interesting people. It's very sad.

And it's scary because the Chinese hold most of the paper on the U.S. That means they can pretty much dictate trade and finance terms, and even if a particular company - say Dell - decides it doesn't want to play ball, you can bet that our government will "encourage" Dell to do so.

There's no negotiating with these new Chinese regulations. No computer vendor doing business with China was consulted. It was a fiat, plain and simple. Do we really want to continue to roll onto our backs and let this government tell us how to build our products and do business with them?

I think not. We should be doing business with countries with whom we share common values and want to explore the future.

Yet I think that's exactly what will happen. The Chinese leaders have probably thought through all the implications, ramifications and ratiocinations of their act. We're caught flat-footed, belly in the air, and no position to fall back upon. Regulate. Comply.

That's too bad.

Regretfully,

Jack

Jack B. Rochester is a professional writer and editor who has worked in nearly every aspect of publishing since 1974. He heads Joshua Tree Interactive, and is Managing Editor of The Business Insider blog.

"Getting" Market Segmentation

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor

Tuesday night, June 9, Boston: cold, spitting rain, the Red Sox playing the Yankees at Fenway. Instead, I went to see a band called The Decemberists at the Bank of American Pavilion. A tent, really, dry but not warm. Robyn Hitchcock and his mates tried to warm up the audience, but it took the poofs of smoky mist and the appearance of 34-year-old Colin Meloy and his band to do the trick.

It did. The crowd of about 5,000 was on their feet about fifteen minutes into the performance and remained standing throughout.

I looked around: lots of young people, of course, most of whom wore jeans and short haircuts but no nose rings or colored Mohawks. Quite a few older people, making this 64-year-old feel not so out of place.

What amazed me was the power of this album to draw these people out. We sat next to a thirty-something marketing guy named Ken, whose doctor-wife was otherwise busy and, on a whim, mostly because he really loves this album and this band, decided to attend.

Released in April, "The Hazards of Love" debuted at the South By Southwest music festival in March. This extraordinary piece of music: a rock opera, a novel set to music, a concept album - whatever tag you may wish to hang about its neck - is by any measure an extraordinary artistic creation. It tells the story of a maiden named Margaret and her lover, William, who navigate the shoals and breakers of life in the era of Middle English, the land and times of Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, and Romantic Love.

It is also a brilliant feat of marketing. I would never have guessed that so many people in Boston would attend this concert, much less even know of this relatively obscure band from Portland, Oregon, and its brilliant leader and composer, Colin Meloy. The music itself harkens back to the heyday of folk rock - think Fairport Convention - and Elizabethan era social mores, music, and poetry.

Meloy tells the story of writing "The Hazards of Love" here, but the real story is in how he put the act together. Meloy and his band wear suits and ties onstage, although the coats soon come off and there he stands, a somewhat pudgy guy with a flop of hair hanging over his glasses, surely obscuring his vision, long sideburns-cum-muttonchops on his cheeks, his tie knotted, shirtsleeves rolled up, button suspenders holding his trousers up as he plays his acoustic guitar and sings his heart out. It is utterly captivating.

I first heard "The Hazards of Love"  broadcast over NPR  - you still can -  when The Decemberists first performed it live at SXSW. And yes, I was captivated. I bought the CD, and as I began talking about the album and the group, I learned that I was not alone in not having heard of them. However, since then, their notoriety has spread far and wide: witness filling the BofA Pavilion last night. I stood among people who danced and and sang the lyrics, not just of "Hazards," but many other songs from their repertoire the band played in their second set.

It's somewhat difficult to peg The Decemberists. They clearly have roots in folk music - more Shawn Colvin than Pete Seeger - but they really rock as well (and are referred to in the rock genre) as witnessed in their cover of Heart's "Crazy on You," which drove the crowd nuts. But the point is, they break the rules and conventions with "Hazards."

So here's Takeaway One: As marketers, we should never assume - presume? - we understand the who and what of our market. The unfolding popularity of The Decemberists is a case study in how one performance or venue - can morph a single market into many others - SXSW to NPR to a nationwide concert tour still going on months later and far into the future.

It is also an example of how an operatic suite, made up of seventeen interconnected songs, nearly an hour in length, can fly in the face of a market where everyone thinks buyers only want to purchase single tunes. And Takeaway Two: Don't let your mindset too closely define your the segmentation or differentiation product or service - otherwise, you might not "get it."

Cheers,
Jack

Jack B. Rochester is a professional writer and editor who has worked in nearly every aspect of publishing since 1974. He heads Joshua Tree Interactive, and is Managing Editor of The Business Insider blog.

Kindle: The Final Chapter

By The Business Insider Editors

Two previous posts here have discussed the business potential for the Kindle. For the last post on this phenomenal new device, we discuss what's happened to its core technology.

But before we do so, we thought it worth a yuk-yuk to mention that the future of electronic publishing was discussed last week in New York at a bookseller's fair, where The New York Times reported that author Sherman Alexie saw a woman on an airplane reading on a Kindle and said, "I wanted to hit her." ( Alexie subsequently said he'd meet with Amazon folks to learn more about the "machine" and promised not to hit anyone.

In a previous post, the commenter Mike had mentioned that the Kindle didn't have color capabilities. Well, needless to say the need for it was not lost on the E Ink people, who created this amazing display technology and have licensed it to a number of companies, including Sony for its e-book reader and Samsung for its smartphones. But E Ink needed a capital infusion, and it went wanting from U.S. investors.

 

Thinking Big in Taiwan: The 101 Tower in Taipei

But Prime View International, a Taiwanese company, saw the potential value of E Ink and has acquired the Cambridge, Massachusetts company for $215 million. We think that's a steal. "We commercialize advanced technologies," is PVI's motto.

Hey, Prime View, you rock.

We may be seeing the renaissance of Taiwan as a prime-time player in high tech. Two Taiwan PC manufacturers, Asusus and Acer, have a commanding share of the netbook market, and Taiwan is still a leader in semiconductor manufacturing. 

Here's the takeaway for those of you in business or technical writing: e-books will surely become the most efficient and economical way of "publishing" in the future. Forrester Research is leading the way in explaining this. Yesterday is a good time to begin exploring and understanding the benefits of this technology.

The Business Insider Editors

Wanted: New Tricks 4 Old Dog. Must Be EZ to Lrn.

Ok, I've figured out LinkedIn. Worked well. Got some business.

But FaceBook? MySpace?  And Twitter!  Geez, I don't know.

I write stuff for a living. I also coach adults and students in Standard English grammar and writing. I do classes for corporations to show their employees how to avoid bad business English and write in a clear manner distinct from the scratchings of other primates.

Why should I be on Facebook? Or is it MySpace? Should I use those and, if so, which one?

But hear me now: I refuse to run sordid pictures of myself because I am, well, no longer a teenager. To say the least.

And Twitter. What's all the twitter about Twitter? Why should I need to know where my wife is every three minutes, let alone someone else? And I don't need to know where Jack Rochester or Tim Rosa is every five minutes, although Jack will often tell me.

Geez. What's the big deal here. What am I missing.

Or am I really missing something important?

Roger Peterson

Are There No Limits To Intellectual Property?

By The Business Insider Editors

In the song "Taxman," the Beatles sang, "If you take a walk/I'll tax your feet." A similar phenomenon is being considered by the Supreme Court: If you cook up an idea for a way to do business, can you call it unique enough to patent it? The end result being, of course, that you can then charge others who want to use it: If you think of an idea I already thought of/I'll sue your butt.

"Here's an Idea: Let Everyone Have Ideas"

What's considered intellectual property in the past decade has grown like weeds in a garden. According to the National Football League, a journalist can't use "NFL" in a news story without advance, written permission. Now, according to a story in the New York Times,  a couple of yahoos named Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw think they own an "idea," masquerading as a "business process," which is described in the Times article as "a method of hedging risks in the sale of commodities, including the risks associated with bad weather."

The notion is absurd. In his blog discussing the first court opinion of this case, Joe Mullen wrote at his blog, "I suppose Mr. Bilski's company, now run by his old partner Rand Warsaw, will have to keep making its money the old-fashioned way: allegedly, by helping power companies overcharge consumers with dubious billing schemes."

Say we come up with an idea for a way to think about education, bicycle lanes, soup, nuts, and call it a "business process." We somehow get a patent for it, then we sit around and wait for somebody to replicate it - now we can sue them for damages, thus furthering the ghost economy where nothing tangible is either bought, sold, or in this case transacted.

This is stinkin' thinkin' and it's the cause of much ruination of our economy. It's utterly ludicrous that the Supremes are even hearing the case. Bilsky and Warsaw didn't get a patent, and their case was rejected by lower courts. All we can reasonably hope for is that the Spreme Court throws out the case.

We'd love to see the gang at "Boston Legal" do this one on their television show. They'd have a ball.

The Business Insider Editors

Do CEOs Matter?

By The Business Insider Editors


Well, here we are, the day after the bankruptcy of General Motors, the largest and once most respected and influential corporation on earth. We listened to Fritz Henderson, as you probably did, do the Big Mea Culpa in the radio-TV broadcast yesterday, then promise to create a brand-new, customer-responsive, high-quality auto manufacturing company in 90 days [or less].

We were, quite frankly, stunned. Completely change and restructure [while firing dealerships and closing plants] in three months? Come on, Fritz, give us a break! We're expecting a visit from the tooth fairy tonight, too.

He asked for trust and another chance. Giving GM another chance is right up there with "the check is in the mail" and all the less polite versions of same.

The New York Times reported Henderson walking past a portrait of Alfred P. Sloan, the legendary CEO who guided GM through whitewater on several occasions during his tenure [and for whom the MIT School of Management is named and indentured]. Fritz commented, "If [Sloan] were sitting here today, he would say, 'Just do your job.'"

Which brings up the questions we, the businesspeople of the 21st century, must continually ask ourselves: What's that guy at the top, the one who's making gazillions of dollars, doing to earn his pay? And should we be paying him all those bucks, especially those take-the-money-and-run guys, the ones who tank the corporation and slip a Madaoff on the customers and clients? And what are we, the taxpayers of this country who now "own" GM, getting for our money and what will we - what can we - do with this company?

We wonder what Peter Drucker would do, or recommend we do, with GM. Maybe it's time to pull out our copy of one of his seminal books, Concept of the Corporation, a study of General Motors which went resented, ignored, and unheeded by Sloan. Or perhaps we should re-read The Practice of Management, which is as fresh and illuminating today as it was when he wrote it in 1954.

 

Or, if you don't have time to review these brilliant insights and lessons of business history, simply consider Drucker's comment on CEOs, from a 2005 BusinessWeek article:

"Although he helped many corporate executives succeed, he was appalled when the level of Fortune 500 CEO pay in America ballooned to hundreds of times that of the average worker. He argued in a 1984 essay that CEO compensation should be no more than 20 times what the rank and file make—especially at companies where thousands of employees are being laid off.

"'This is morally and socially unforgivable,' Drucker wrote, 'and we will pay a heavy price for it.'"

How prophetic.

The Business Insider Editors

The Double Whammy of Layoffs...Losing Income and Friends

Like many of you, I appreciate coffee (especially Peet's Coffee, sorry Starbucks I was loyal for a long time), thus I visit my local Peet's coffee shop on a regular basis. Since the beginning of the year, I've noticed the number of people in the local coffee shop has increased exponentially. Recently, I concluded that as layoff's have increased, so has the traffic in the local coffee shops.

I hadn't really given my random coffee shop observation much thought until I read Catherine Bergart's article in the New York Times on Sunday, May 17th titled "Losing the Income, And the Camaraderie." Ms. Bergart's article discusses her realization that not only did she lose her income with her most recent layoff, but she lost the day-to-day camaraderie of her Friends at work and she lost her third place.

Ms. Bergart references social psychologist Ray Oldenburg's book, The Great Good Place, which discusses the social and psychological importance of having a first, second, and third place. Mr. Oldenburg designates home as the first place, work as the second place, and a neutral, comfortable environment (like coffee shops, cafes, bookstores) as the third place. Mr. Oldenburg makes the argument that in America we have lost our sense of place and community. He further argues that for America to become a less fragmented nation, we need a greater sense of place and community to satisfy our cultural loneliness. In Ms. Bergart's case she discusses the loss of not only her second place (work), but her third place as well. For her, work fulfilled both of these important places in her life and therefore she has suffered doubly.

Now my over-crowded coffee shop makes sense. People are gathering in these neutral, comfortable environments to satisfy their third place needs. Where is your third place?

Until Next Time, Shanna

Shanna R. Teel is the founder and CEO of Dr. Shanna Teel & Company, Inc., a leadership and human capital management consulting firm. She has worked more than 15 years as a talent and performance management consultant, executive coach, and facilitator of adult learning.Shanna

Image Credits:

Coffee with heart: http://greenoptions.com/files/683/Coffee_Lover.jpg 

Writing a Book? Read On

By The Business Insider Editors

We like Jerry Simmons and what he's doing.

The publishing world, as a business, often makes no sense; consider Houghton-Mifflin's decision to stop soliciting new manuscripts. The state of this indsutry is clearly evident an article originally published in Publisher's Weekly, the top trade rag of this industry. This is a reposting of an excerpt from Jerry's e-newsletter:

"This is Your Wake-Up Call" by Jonathan Karp in Publishers Weekly (excerpted below - full article at this link).

"For all of the uncertainty surrounding the future of the publishing industry—from the poor economy to the painful layoffs and restructurings in the wake of the digital transformation—to understand what's really hurting us, all you have to do is visit your neighborhood bookstore.

"Here are some of the titles I saw displayed at my local bookshop recently: in new nonfiction, I came across Speaking of Freedom: The Collected Speeches of George H.W. Bush. Any collection is suspect, but you really have to question the need for a volume of political speeches two decades old.

"In the sociology section: The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women. Who exactly is the audience for this book? Self-hating virgins? Those seeking to deflower them?

"On sale now: A History of Cannibalism. Illustrated! A gift book! The subtitle is stupendously, kaleidoscopically all-encompassing: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths.

"Just a few shelves away: Jesus, Life Coach, with the subtitle: Learn from the Best, a companion to the bestselling Jesus CEO, not to be confused with Jesus, Entrepreneur; Jesus on Leadership; or Jesus in Blue Jeans.

"Then there are the arcane books, the ones that dare to be obscure on the assumption that if people will read about cod, or oranges, anything is possible. Who could resist a history of the potato, titled, of course, Potato. Amazingly, this wasn't the only work available on the subject. There's also The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World. Wasn't it intellectually responsible of the publisher to limit the scope of the subtitle to the Western world?

"We all know that a good book should make a promise. But some of those promises have gone outrageously over the-top: How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You… How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You In 90 Minutes or Less…The 4-Day Diet… The 3-Hour Diet… I Can Make You Thin…Stay Rich for Life…Have a New Kid by Friday.

"On the new release table sat two instant Bernie Madoff books, issued in trade paperback, presumably because the people he swindled can't pay hardcover prices. Within two weeks of the Madoff scandal, I received queries about seven different Bernie-related projects, all from well-regarded literary agents. All of this brings me to a point I have made relentlessly for the past four years: publishers must control themselves!

"We are acquiring and publishing too many books. We buy them opportunistically, and at times thoughtlessly. We edit and launch them too quickly. We market them carelessly and ephemerally. Too often, we abdicate our responsibility to be filters, guides, guardians and gatekeepers. And now, as in many other industries, we are suffering the effects. Anyone in a bookstore can see that.

"The underlying problem facing the industry is twofold: there are too many books, and too many of them are derivative of each other. You've heard of Gresham's Law—the idea that bad money drives out good. Our industry has long suffered from Grisham's Law [our emphasis] , where opportunistic authors and publishers try to imitate John Grisham and other category leaders with books modeled on someone else's commercial success. That strategy might make sense if there were great demand for these imitators, but in today's overcrowded, competitive marketplace, this kind of thinking is dangerous, because it devalues the environment into which we present our work.

"It seems likely that the influence and cultural centrality of major publishers, as well as other producers of information and entertainment, will diminish as digital technology enables more and more people to create and share their work. This is exactly why publishers must distinguish themselves by doing better what they've always done best: champion books that offer carefully conceived context, style and authority.

"Other mediums may be faster to market, but publishers will always be the ones best situated to invest time and resources into major works and to market them with overwhelming force. Whether it's Robert Caro on LBJ, or What to Expect When You're Expecting, masterly works will continue to stand out. No technology or competing enterprise is likely to pose a serious threat to that endeavor.

"Our world and our industry are firmly in the midst of a transition in the way entertainment, information and ideas are delivered. There will be more upheaval to come. The essential things that attracted us to publishing, however, the love of a good story, the quest for meaning and illumination will go on. But we must change our ways."

By the way, industry veteran Karp is publisher and editor-in-chief of Twelve.

Your takeaway: Still want to write that book? Drop Jerry an email at jerry@writersreaders.com. He'll offer you good advice.

The Editors

The Early Warnings About Banking That We Didn't Heed

By The Business Insider Editors

The U.S. military has long had early warning systems (EWS) to protect against provocation from other military powers. Why didn't we have one for the banking system, perhaps our most vulnerable asset - both physically and electronically? There were three early warnings that banking was in trouble:

• The Savings & Loan industry meltdown
• All kinds of trading and investing businesses being categorized as "banks"
• The banking and finance industry calling its services "products"

Still not sure what's happening/happened? Please do yourself a favor; watch this interview with Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor tapped to oversee TARP.

Second, read [as much as you can] of The Economist's Special Report in the May 16-22 issue, "Three Trillion Dollars Later...." It's a thorough, worldwide analysis of what happened and how to move ahead, unlike anything you'll read in the lightweight American newsmagazines.

The Obama administration is working on this, of course, but we all need to pitch in with our two cents worth - pun intended.

The Editors

Your New Client: The Roman Catholic Church

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

A quick disclaimer: I am an ex-Catholic who survived eight years of Catholic education. Very ex. I recall vividly the nuns and how their twisted minds stayed up all night planning horrors on us children. And even though I am an ex-Catholic, I was embarrassed at what happened to the President at Notre Dame University.

I wondered if any survey of Notre Dame female students would reveal how many use birth control pills?  I'd guess 80%. I wondered what the pregnancy rate is at Notre Dame. I wondered if it is as high as Utah's, another place filled with people who see life as stark black-and-white silos and obsess about other people's sex lives.   

And I wondered if the anti-abortion protesters at Notre Dame picketed any pedophile priests or bishops on behalf of their young victims.

No, I would guess not. I guess Catholics have to be so very silent about that issue. Don't want to remind people of church hypocrisy and illegalities. Ishy business, that.

But then I remember something my own pastor once said, "I've never known a happy priest."
 

As a marketing guy, I had a terrible dream last night. The Catholic Church asked me to be their public relations strategist. Geez, what a cold sweat that was. Lisa Miller wrote about this potential client in the May 25th issue of Newsweek. The article, aptly named, "How to sell a better pope."

It is clear to me that Catholic zealots such as Bill Donohue are using the anti-abortion campaign to divert attention away from hundreds of years of the Vatican's attempt to manage a desperately sick organization. And Radzinger, the new pope, is another example of how not to manage public statements and excuses. Imagine having to present him with a marketing plan.

But be my guest. I pass the dream to you. What would you do with this nightmare client?

Roger

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

No Post Today - Enjoy Your Memorial Day!

Micro-Training: What Is It, and Is It Effective?

By Shanna R. Teel, Contributing Editor

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour. 
- William Blake

Is micro-training the next generation of training and development? Micro-training is training delivered by subject matter experts, in short segments. These segments can range from 3 to 20 minutes in duration and can be delivered in person, or online via webcasts, podcasts, or through e-learning platforms. The purported benefits of micro-training include:

• Cost savings

• Increased learning (vs. information overload of traditional training courses)

• Catering to the new generation of learner

• Keeping learning and development on the strategic agenda during hard economic times (because it's cheaper)

• Supporting informal learning

As I understand micro-training in a online environment, subject matter experts record several short videos offering a truncated, or micro, version of their training. Participants would log on to a designated Web site (internally hosted or online) at their leisure to take the required and elective training courses as needed. The overarching benefit here is that large organizations can pay as they go (or get a volume discount) which could result in the training modules being as affordable as $1.99 per person. Yes, a $1.99 per person! Sounds incredibly cost-effective.

My question to you: Will micro-training work? Would you buy it as an internal learning and development or HR professional? And, will learning actually take place?

Besides cost-savings, what is the value proposition for micro-training?

Please let me know, and thanks!

Shanna

Shanna R. Teel is the founder and CEO of Dr. Shanna Teel & Company, Inc., a leadership and human capital management consulting firm. She has worked more than 15 years as a talent and performance management consultant, executive coach, and facilitator of adult learning.

The Kindle DX, Part 3

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor, The Business Insider

We've been watching developments with the amazing Kindle these past few weeks. While the Kindle 1 and Kindle 2 are designed for everyday readers, the Kindle DX - the large-screen version - is really a business machine with more potential applications than even Jeff Bezos has likely thought of.

Amazon's intent was to create a device for learning, and its first market is college textbook publishing. Yet it's easy to see there are all kinds of additional business and educational environments where an electronic reader could replace, supplant, or at least augment learning and training.

Rather than recapitulate what has already been written and explained quite well, I'm going to redirect you to another blogsite where the story of the Kindle DX and the three publishers who have jumped aboard is told. The site is Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education, or CITE. Be sure to scroll down the right hand side and read the "In the News" section as well for some other observations.

The Kindle is a quite an innovation in a business that started with Gutenberg and has been going strong for over 500 years. Not only can you wirelessly download and read books, but you can also read a number of newspapers and magazines and blogs as well. Your takeaway: Writing for, or implementating on, the Kindle, should be part of your thinking for the future.

Cheers,
Jack

Jack B. Rochester is a professional writer and editor who has worked in nearly every aspect of publishing since 1974. He heads Joshua Tree Interactive, and is Managing Editor of The Business Insider blog.

A Veritable Whirlwind of Reg & Compliance Activity

By The Business Insider Editors

The complete 180-degree turnaround from the Bush administration's lassitude about regulatory matters to the Obama administration's activity in just a few months is mind-boggling to us.

It seems that no sector of the economy, nor entity affected by the regulatory or compliance environment - from the largest business to the least empowered citizen-consumer - is unaffected. And it's not just rhetoric: consider the President's pushing the implementation of credit card reforms up from July, 2010, to Memorial Day, 2009, or the signals regarding conscience in healthcare.

An interesting article from Reuters regarding the Obama administration's first 100 days in office and push for regulatory reform discusses this trend. It's worthwhile reading, because it discusses many aspects of regulatory change and reform and it shares some interesting comments and viewpoints regarding them. For example, one interviewee thinks the uptick in reg & compliance activity is because we've moved into a slower, down economy: good economic times means no regs, but poor economic times means more regs.

We're not so sure about using this correlation to explain extremely different political and social viewpoints between Bush and Obama. Give this article, "First 100 Days of Obama Administration Pave Road for More Regulation," a read. What do you think?

The Business Insider Editors

Your Next Marketing Client: Daily Metro Newspapers

By Roger S. Peterson, Contributing Editor

As if newspapers are not suffering enough, now comes another journalistic slip: Relying upon Wikipedia for information.

We all should know that Wikipedia is too easy to use. Yes, often when I search in Google, the Wikipedia entry will emerge first. But I know from personal areas of expertise that Wikipedia entries are often political and slanted.

And sometimes just plain wrong. For examples, a student in Dublin made up a quote that was used by several newspapers. Several quality newspapers. On several continents, too.

So why would a journalist use anything from Wikipedia? Recently I visited the newsroom at The Sacramento Bee after a layoff and spoke with a writer I've known for years. I asked, "How's it going?" He lowered his voice and nodded his head toward three colleagues who had six weeks left.

It's the old story about fewer people having to pick up the slack for laid-off workers. Journalists have quotas as well as deadlines. Few of us can handle the pressure of a daily deadline of quotas - I know I couldn't.

On May 10, Maureen Dowd wrote about newspapers in her column for The New York Times. In it she quotes a former Baltimore Sun reporter, David Simon, who created The Wire. He claims that high-end journalism is dying and when that happens, when no one is manning the cop shops and zoning boards, America will enter "a halcyon era for state and local political corruption."

Meanwhile, my 24-year-old son thinks The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is real news.

In the same issue of the Times, Frank Rich wrote about the state of metro dailies in an op-ed aptly entitled "The American Press on Suicide Watch." His final comment is that we will get what we pay for. 

Here's your takeaway: So your client is the collective called metro dailies. Rich points out that we all once received free television through rabbit ears, but now gladly pay for cable. Unfortunately, that is not a good comparison. Television started as everything for everybody: We all watched Milton Berle because he was Saturday night. Cable broke up the audience into distinct demographic, and even psychographic, groups, e.g. sports nuts, cooking fans, travel lovers, history buffs.

Newspaper print editions are still general in audience in spite of separate sections and geographically zoned editions. Only a few big newspapers, each with unique selling propositions, transcend the problem: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA Today.

So, presuming you want to remain an informed citizen who benefits from inquisitive journalists who are keeping an eye on the county boards and especially state legislators, what's your marketing plan?

Don't say local television news. In every instance in which local TV crews covered a story I was close to, the crews got it wrong. Even NBC News got it very wrong the one time they interviewed me. Sorry, Brian Williams. A print journalist knows how to dig and knows how to write and has the luxury of deep and lengthy coverage. TV news does none of those things well.

Yes, I am biased: I like newspapers and trust them. I do not trust Jon Stewart [remember, this is a comedy show, not a news broadcast] or community weeklies. I am insulted when Lindy Lipgloss bats her eyes into a TV camera and uses her breathy voice to throw out histrionic promos about "film at 11!"  I am smarter than she is and I know it. I want the analysis of someone smarter than I.

Frank Rich is right. We will get what we pay for. Do you trust your city and state government to put aside special interests and always spend your tax dollars wisely? If not, what's your plan for the survival of local metro newspapers?

Roger Peterson

Roger S. Peterson heads his own marcomm consulting firm in Rocklin, California. He is an American Marketing Association Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), an educator, and co-author The Secret to Incentive Program Success: Incentive ROI that makes bean counters smile!, the AMA Handbook For Managing Business To Business Marketing Communications and The Magic Megaphone.

What Makes Us Happy? Harvard Knows

By Jack B. Rochester, Managing Editor

Does attending Harvard make one happier? Probably not. As reported in The Atlantic magazine  cover story for June, "What Makes Us Happy," [please try to forgive the insipid photo on the cover], a research study has been underway since 1937 to see how Hahvahd men [yes, all men] turned out. As most people know, Harvard grads do seem, in the aggregate, more successful than other college grads.

But is it true? Again, in the aggregate, the answer seems to be Yes. Joshua Wolf Shenk, the author of the article, reviewed records and discussed research findings with George Vaillant, who has led the research project since its inception. Mature adaptations, along with education, a stable marriage, neither smoking nor abusing alcohol, getting regular exercise and maintaining a healthy weight, were major factors in a happy life. "Mature adaptations are a real-life alchemy, a way of turning the dross of emotional crises, pain, and deprivation into the gold of human connection, accomplishment, and creativity," Shenk explains - like an oyster getting used to having a grain of sand lodged in its soft flesh.

Yet Vaillant's research over the years finds that perhaps the most important factor is having friends. “It is social aptitude,” says Vaillant, “not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging. ...the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

Indeed, this is exactly what Harvard fosters, even above academic performance. I remember reading a novel, The Last Convertible by Anton Myrer, when I first arrived in Boston from California thirty years ago. It's the story about a kid with no money or social advantages getting a scholarship to Harvard and how he succeeds because of the friendships he develops. The novel validates exactly what Vaillant's 70-year study confirms: you're nobody unless somebody loves you, and the more people - family, friends, and associates - the better.

Cheers,

Jack

Jack B. Rochester is a professional writer and editor who has worked in nearly every aspect of publishing since 1974. He heads Joshua Tree Interactive, and is Managing Editor of The Business Insider blog.

No Post Today for Training & Development

See you next week!

Shanna

The Kindle DX, Part 2

By The Business Insider Editors

Last week's post concerned the introduction of the Kindle DX, intended for the college textbook market. We've had a number of responses, including one from a publisher's sales manager who informed us that Pearson Education has jumped on the bandwagon with the Kindle. More on this next week.

Today, we are publishing the reply from "Mike," a 30+ year veteran of college textbook publishing, whom we briefly quoted last week. He read our post and made the following comments:

Interesting that you have a Kindle; so does the bright sunlight of a Jamaica beach totally wash out the screen display like it would do on a laptop or video camera LCD view screen?
I like gadgets as much as anyone, but I still think they have this new Kindle wrong –- at least for now.

First of all, it appears the displays of the Kindles are monochrome.  Give me a break; it’s a color world, color displays are ubiquitous, and intro textbooks are all in color. $500 for a super-size-me Kindle is a game-breaker price.  Jeeze, one can now buy a netbook mini laptop at Costco for $350-$400 where one can read a digital textbook in color AND still do all kinds of research and goof-off things on the internet.  The netbook gives more bang for buck than a Kindle. If I was a student today, that’s what I would bring to school -– not a larger, pricey laptop, nor a Kindle.

I agree, students like gadgets, too – but gadgets that fit in their pockets like iPods and cell phones, and not clunky and apparently fragile-looking things (without a cover?) like large Kindles. From what I observed, most students don’t lug ANY textbooks around unless they plan to study one of them while on campus on a particular day.  With a netbook (or even a Kindle) they could bring all their books in a lighter-weight pkg, so that would be good.
For the Kindle to be truly viable as a textbook delivery system, it has to: cost much less, be in color, be more than a reading machine (i.e. be a flat “laptop” with capabilities to at least use a built-in browser on the internet and for email (oh, then don’t forget to add a usable QWERTY keyboard).

It I had a chance to develop an e-textbook this is what it would be/do: 

• be in color
• have oodles of hyperlinks to flash videos, etc. to bring the graphs, illustrations and people to life
• have built-in pop quizzes to mention a few. Basically, the e-book would incorporate the book’s “student website” material along with the text. 

In other words, be just like a website with all the bells and whistles such as any of the big media company websites have (WSJ, CNN, yada, yada.)

If and when the Kindle can do all this at an affordable price, then I will be “impressed.”

Comments, readers? Do you agree with Mike? Oh, to answer his question about reading on the beach: No, the screen is perfectly viewable because it's not an LCD, but a new technology from E-Ink.

Until next week,
The Business Insider Editors