Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

McVirus,McLaw Suit,McGadget, McSales

It feels like the vacuum cleaner phenomenon.That's when you need to buy a new vacuum cleaner, open up the paper( if you still get a hard copy of the paper)and voila..there is a vacuum cleaner sale. Now what you learn in an advertising class is that vacuum cleaner sale ad has probably been there for months but until you need the vacuum cleaner you never saw the ad before. That's how I feel about all the bizarre stuff I found about McDonalds this week. Some of it just happened last week, some a month ago..it was all new to me.

First, there's the contaminated MP3 player.

Under the category that you can't win for losing, McDonald's Japan has issued a recall of some 10,000 MP3 Players it gave away as part of a promotion. As reported in the Register

"Punters received the contaminated gift after purchasing a large drink form the fast-food chain in Japan and submitting a serial number contained on the beverage holder as part of a competition, sponsored by McDonalds and Coca-cola. Users who connected the McDonald's-branded MP3 player to their Windows PC were exposed to spyware code programmed to transmit their web passwords and other sensitive information to hackers. The cause of the accidental infection is unclear but past experience suggests a contaminated machine involved in loading content onto the players is the likely culprit."

Then there's the judge who reversed himself and said two teenage girls could sue McDonald's for making them fat because of misleading advertising. ABC's John Stossel is not amused about the case that is now entering its fourth year.

"Whatever happened to self-responsibility? Sure, McDonald's commercials put the best spin on its products. All advertisers do that. Individuals should exercise caution, and parents should teach their kids a little skepticism. It's not as if information about nutrition is hard to come by. Today we're constantly harangued about cutting calories, reducing fat, and exercising more. McDonald's competitors, such as Subway, provide lots of counter-information. You'd have to live in a cave not to know about this stuff.

Fast food doesn't have to make you fat. Soso Whaley of New Hampshire once ate only at McDonald's for a month. The result? Unlike the guy who did the "Super Size Me" documentary, Soso lost 10 pounds, and her cholesterol dropped 40 points. How? She didn't pig out. Low-carb dieters have lost weight at McDonald's by eating the burgers without the buns and skipping the fries."

Speaking of informing  customers  about nutrition, Customers in McDonald's Japan ( yes those same customers who got the infected MP3 players) can scan their food with a gadget that displays nutritional info on their cell phones.

Known as a QR Code, these printed codes look somewhat like a barcode and are scannable by many photo cellphones. All sorts of information can be packed into these little codes, from the website to find the amount of calories and fat in a Big Mac to a company’s contact information on a business card.

Meanwhile, despite all the turmoil, business has never been better.

After months or declining sales and despite a good deal of negative publicity, McDonald's announced that they hit a six year high in sales both in the US and abroad, with the best performances from stores in the UK. The company cites in increase in healthier menu items, including salads and less fattening kids' choices. At UK restaurants, the new options include deli sandwiches, free-range eggs, more fruit and beef that is only "from the forequarter or flank of a cow."

P.S. In case you missed this in May ( I did), McDonald's is also undergoing an extreme McMakeover which will include cozy couches, WiFi, plasma TVs and premium Coffee. Think of it as the Starbuckization of McDonald's.

"After 30 years without a major design overhaul, the 51-year-old fast-food giant is adopting a hip new look. The world's largest hamburger chain is redesigning its 30,000 eateries around the globe in a 21st century makeover of unprecedented scale.

The redesign is risky and has many franchisees up in arms over the high costs of a makeover. But company officials believe the overhaul is needed. McDonald's, whose restaurants are visited by more than 40 million people every day, has moved aggressively over the past three years to revamp its menu and attract a new breed of customer."

While customers may enjoy the change, the franchisees are less than enthused. It will cost them around $300,000 to make the change. This is not an optional change. The only way to stay part of the McDonald's family is to order that cozy couch.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand iPods

Thousands of engineers are at the Moscone Center in San Francisco attending Apple Computer's  Worldwide Developer Conference. They were greeted with this sign. This is not the first time Apple has attempted Silence of the Blogs. Last May, a California Appeals Court...

"smacked down Apple's legal assault on bloggers and their sources, finding that the company's efforts to subpoena e-mail received by the publishers of Apple Insider and PowerPage.org runs contrary to federal law, California's reporter's shield law, and the state Constitution."

In traditional journalism it's called being on "deep background"--a very accepted policy where journalists agree that the information they are about to learn is not publishable. In his blog,Steve Rubel takes a swipe at this policy saying,

This raises an interesting question. Is information that is presented at a public forum bloggable? I am not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, but this seems somewhat draconian to me.

To which the commenters  not only took him to task for not disclosing that his employer,Edelman,has Microsoft as a client but reminded him this is an invitation only conference. It is curious that someone of Rubel's experience  didn't know that the conference is not a public event. A point that was shared in the comment section.

WWDC is a private event for developers which sign NDAs to be developers and NDAs to attend. They're given advance looks at technology in person and in lectures that they will later receive on DVDs and online. So it's not a public event in any real sense. There are a few public press events tied to WWDC because they found it was a better forum than Macworld Boston in attracting press, and it's a forum they control. This is one of Apple's rare regular events in which they slip the kimono in the interests of providing enough information for their partners to get their job done.

But it is Blogher's Susan Getgood who sums up the situation with this rather pithy comment--

Does this seem like a little bit of a PR stunt at all?

Image Credit: Flickr member and blogger John Gruber

Same Time Meetings-- taking multitasking to the limit

From the web developers perspective, the content management system was easy to use. For those of us who had  to work with it , it's been buggier than Bugs Bunny.

the web developer's solution was to have us participate in some training sessions on the software.   I was given the trainer's name and email address. I thought I was setting up a time for a training session over the phone.

Turns out the training would take place over MSN Messenger. When I protested, the web developer insisted this was the best way.

It wasn't until I had gone through two of these sessions that my trainer shared he lived in Cairo,Egypt -- which was when I finally understood why I had to participate in a training session via a chat room rather than a phone.

The thing about getting trained via a "real time" meeting is that it feels like watching the Internet via dial-up. It's incredibly time consuming and boring. My approach is to have some knitting available and I keep track of home many rows I can get done while I'm waiting for the next set of instructions.

What would take 15 minutes on a phone call clearly takes over an hour via a training session on MSN messenger. In selling us on this training session , the web developer reminded my client that this training was free -- maybe from his perspective it's free but not from my time or the other person in the office who is also going through the training. It's sucking up a lot of time.

A friend of mine works for a major corporation that also uses real time meetings, only they call them "same time"meetings  that's because they conduct these meetings at the same time they are supposed to be attending
a different meeting.

So let's say you are on a conference call but your boss also needs to meet with you and the only time available is during the conference call-- the boss will hold a "same time" meeting via their real time platform

What's the point? Just to say you've done it? Can most people's brains really work as a split tunnel and hear what is going on during the teleconference or Webex meeting and simultaneously conduct a "same time meeting"?  Is this a skill that can be learned? Do we want to learn it? And what does it say about corporate cultures that promote it?

I think the little green icon has it right..all you hear is blah, blah, blah.

On The Road To BlogHer-First Stop Atlanta aka What's with all these supersized electrical plugs?

On any given business trip there are a certain amount of electronics that accompany me. Can anyone explain why we have to have such big honking plugs? Unless you travel with a power strip ( which didn't occur to me until this very second)   you have to use a divide and conquer strategy for plugging in all your stuff in the hotel room because  these plugs --or are they adapters ( and what is the difference?)won't share a standard two plug outlet...they're TOO BIG.

A few months ago I purchased this iGo adapter.    I use it for my blackberry. The idea is that you you can use I adapter and then change the tip for your various electronic devices.Which is a great concept except when you need to charge two devices at the same time. Say when you need to charge your blackberry at the same time you want to listen to your iPod.

Along for the trip is my adapter for my Sony mini recorder. I detest this adapter/plug. It will only fit in the bottom outlet. The prongs fold when its not in use.I guess the idea is for easy packing but it takes a tool to pry out the prongs from their resting position and then when you think you have it good to go, it snaps back into the resting position. Who has time for this?

And, then there is the  plug for my RAZR(so I could take these pictures). I can charge my blackberry with this charger but I can't  charge my RAZR with  my Blackberry  plug.

Last but not least the plug/adapter for my laptop. It has stuff coming and going from both ends.

If I hadn't lost the plug to my portable speakers to listen to my iPod  when I moved in October I would have brought that along as well.

In the short-term since hotels can't offer more outlets,  I want hotels to offer powerstrips.  In the near future I want everything to go wireless. No more plugs. No more long cords.  I want to take one standard Bluetooth mega charging thing ( that is small and cute and easy to pack) and then I want to be able to charge everything from that one source.

Where are the Jetsons when you need them?

Lexar JumpDrive Recalled for fire hazard

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is recalling 60,000 Lexar JumpDrive Firefly USB Drives..saying they are a potential fire hazard. If you own one of these drives,you can receive a free replacement by contacting Lexar at (800) 248-2798 anytime, or visiting the firm’s Web site at www.lexar.com

While Lexar is embroiled in a product recall, Sony has just launched the MicroVault --the tiniest flash drive yet and as the folks at Me, My,Coke And I quipped "probably the easiest to lose". the folks at Me,My Coke & are also featuring some wonderful products that any business person may want. For folks who travel and miss those airline pillows, there's the Aromatherapy Travel Pillow

But the piece de resistance is the Keyboard Food Tray

This is a case where the picture says a 1,000 words about our culture, work style and the oft missed lunch break.

The USB Mini Drive--Weapon Of Mass Destruction

IIn 2005 it was a top 10 business give away. In 2006, it"s on the 'most wanted' list for potential corporate criminals. That's right. the oh so convenient, oh so small, oh so coveted USB Mini Drive could soon be banned in a corporation near you because it has the power to be a weapon of mass destruction.

Steve Stasiukonis ,VP and founder of  Secure Network Technologies Inc. wrote a piece in Dark Reading all about the vulnerabilities corporations because of the beloved USB Mini. Here's a clue--buy stock in SuperGlu

As part of his business Stasiukonis is hired by companies to test the security of their networks. The client in this case asked them to really push the social engineering button. Stasiukonis writes,

Typically we would hang out with the smokers, sweet-talk a receptionist, or commandeer a meeting room and jack into the network. This time I knew we had to do something different. We heard that employees were talking within the credit union and were telling each other that somebody was going to test the security of the network, including the people element.

So here is what Stasiukonis did:  He took about 20 USB and had one of his folks write a trojan that,"

" when run, would collect passwords, logins and machine-specific information from the user’s computer, and then email the findings back to us."

Early one morning he "seeded" a bunch of USB drives in strategic locations:
the parking lot, smoking area and other place employees frequented. Then he got a cup of coffee and watched.

Surveillance of the facility was worth the time involved. It was really amusing to watch the reaction of the employees who found a USB drive. You know they plugged them into their computers the minute they got to their desks.

I immediately called my guy that wrote the Trojan and asked if anything was received at his end. Slowly but surely info was being mailed back to him. I would have loved to be on the inside of the building watching as people started plugging the USB drives in, scouring through the planted image files, then unknowingly running our piece of software.

After about three days, we figured we had collected enough data. When I started to review our findings, I was amazed at the results. Of the 20 USB drives we planted, 15 were found by employees, and all had been plugged into company computers. The data we obtained helped us to compromise additional systems, and the best part of the whole scheme was its convenience. We never broke a sweat. Everything that needed to happen did, and in a way it was completely transparent to the users, the network, and credit union management.

As interesting as this possible threat to corporate systems is the ethical discussion that follows the article. Not all readers are amused at the company's tactics to test the security of their system.

As one writer suggested, the easy fix is to simply Superglue all USB ports on corporate computers.
Net Net-- don't be surprised if someone from tech support stops by your desk later today with a bucket of Superglue--why deal with the real problem, when Superglue will do.

Hat Tip to the Daily Irrelevant.

Image Credit: Flickr member, Kansir

 

Time,Time, Time Is On My Side (yes, it is)

If I had been thinking, I would have known that there was no way that I would remember the phone meeting I scheduled for 6:30 on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday was a very busy day. At 6:30 I was not only exhausted, I was facing another three hours of work. So I decided to take a "break' with my daughter and watch two episodes of LOST( thank you Netflix) which we are now addicted to(how did we avoid watching this show for two years?)

The appointment was in my Blackberry and my Blackberry was within hand reach, but in order to see the appointment, I would have had to deliberately open the Blackberry and check to see if I had scheduled something.

I didn't do that. When I heard the phone ringing in my upstairs office at 6:30, I ignored it. I knew that anyone who wanted to get in touch with me would try my mobile. I was on a break and had no intention of dashing upstairs to answer a call.

Now, if I had been using one of the many online calendars that are now available, I could have received an RSS reminder via my mobile phone and/or Blackberry and I wouldn't have had to spend Wednesday groveling about missing the appointment Blogher Charlene Li who blogs about technology developments in media and marketing </a> has been thinking about calendars too. She has lots of calendars to deal with and since 1998 has been using Yahoo!'s online calendar---but she may be making a change.

"Like many working parents, I juggle multiple calendars – my work calendar, two kids, spouse, school, church, visiting relatives, and supposed, an exercise calendar. So keeping track of all of the bits and pieces of my life is the bane of my evenings – I spend WAY too much time managing all of the multiple calendars. Just last week, I spent three evenings scheduling playdates for my two lovely kids – not my idea of fun.


So in an effort to get organized, I’ve been trying a slew of the new AJAX calendar products that promise to be an improvement over my existing online calendar (I currently use Yahoo! Calendar, which has kept my private life buzzing along happily since 1998). Having trialed a half dozen of them (including Airset, CalendarHub, 30Boxes, Planzo, and SpongeCell), Google Calendar is truly a best of breed in terms of ease of use and functionality."

Charlene sees major business potential for the new Google Calendar saying the API will create a new ecosystem of applications around schedules.

"Here’s an example: a hair salon could use Google Calendar to handle online appointment scheduling. Each stylist would have their own calendar, and a script would match the requested services with various schedules (a service currently offered by companies like spasalon.com). The analogy to Maps is particularly poignant if you think that Maps helped us control “space”; now Calendar is helping us control “time”.

However, Google does have some competition and one of the upstarts is a calendar called Kiko that Cheery Visage blogs, "I have the hots for Bubbleshare and Kiko"

"I simply must gosh over its slick, sexy user interface. The interface is very interactive; you can click on any day and start typing, drag an event around the calendar, change an event's time by resizing it. After trying out Google's calendar as well, I can honestly say that Kiko beats Google in the user interface area, hands down (Kiko is much better developed). ... The overall color themes are very tasteful and pleasant on the eyes. It sure knows how to win a girl's heart by doing a smashing job on coordinating colors (nothing turns me off more than clashing colors, ouch).

It's got a public calendar view (if you enable it), attendee invitation and status, and appointment reminders can be sent by e-mail, instant message or text message through mobile phone (which also includes some international service providers, not just United States)."

Not only does Cheery Visage have the "Hots" for Kiko but she's also enamored with Bubbleshare- a photo sharing site that offers some "fun" features like captions, bubble captions. Bubbleshare will also create online puzzles and jigsaws out of your photos.

So in the unlikely event that you have some time to kill today, try the  Online Jigsaw  of a Mayan Calendar

Image Credit: Mayan Calendar from Calendars Through The Ages, a Web Exhibit

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Lost in Translation

As frustrated as I get talking to folks at call centers in India -- and it is a frustrating experience 90% of the time-- it is still better than trying to deal with companies who just don't think its important to give customers the option of a phone call.

Just today I wanted to try a new software called Notepager,I discovered it at a blog called Small Business Software which is run by the parent company of Notepager.

The concept sounds great. You install some software, create a recipient list and you can send txt messages via your computer. Why is that important? Primarily because I have a 17 year old daughter whose primary communication method is TXT messaging.

But also, TXT messages are a lot less invasive than the phone and  there are many people I deal with in business that don't have a PDA or Blackberry Being able to send a quick TXT message to a regular cell phone is just easier than leaving a voicemail.

The only problem--I can't get it to work. I read the instructions but something is getting lost in the translation of the setup wizard. I am obviously not understanding something that I need to do.

I have tried it three times. I believe in the three strikes and you're out philosophy of doing business.

 Yes, they have support forums up the yahzoo but I don't have the time or inclination to figure out which topic will provide me with the answers I need. Once I am at the point where I can't interpret the instructions, I want a translator and that usually means I want someone to talk to.

 This company doesn't  even have a technical support email system that I can send my questions to. So I sent it to the webmaster.If I don't get an answer soon I will be requesting a refund.

Then there is the design company that requests are discussions about layouts and creative design be conducted through a password protected communication system.

I sent the requirements, expecting the graphic designer would contact me to discuss the project. Instead they presented a layout. It was all wrong.

We gave feedback via their note system  and explained what we wanted.They revised.It was still all wrong.

We gave additional feedback. I wanted to call. They don't do business via the phone.They came back with yet another design, and it was still wrong.

My client, who also  believes in the three strikes and you're out philosophy of business, has instructed me to send them a note saying the job is cancelled.

Normally it is not something that I would do via a note. However, since that is how they want to do business, that is precisely what I did.

While I understand there is a benefit in having everything written so you have precise documentation, a quick 10 minute phone call would have been all the graphic designer would have needed to understand exactly what we were looking for.

After that call, if the graphic designer wanted to send a note confirming our requests.just for the documentation, then that would have been terrific.

But that's not how they are choosing to do business. Had they just picked up the phone at the beginning of the project, they would have saved time and kept a client.

Image Credit: Flickr image by MireO5

Tags: business, communication, mobile phones, software, advertising, customerservice

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Let Me CAll you Sweetheart aka Kibbutz Capitalism

The headline reads: The Best Company to Work for in the World-Period. Featured in this month's issue of The American Way, the magazine for American Airlines, this article will make you smile, create job envy, inspire you, and confirm and reconfirm that in order to have a successful company you do not have to operate as "business as usual."

This is the story of Motek( it means sweetheart in Hebrew) , a software company in Beverly Hills. It's founder and CEO is Ann S. Price. The article begins with a scene where Price is scolding her Marketing Director for taking a three week vacation to Europe. Price wanted her to take five weeks.

“I have had many talks with Amanda about why she isn’t taking five weeks off,” Price says. “It’s impossible to function at maximum productivity without at least a month away.”

Is this a PR stunt or the latest business-management gimmick? Hardly. Price offers her employees a $5,000-a-year travel benefit — for flights, tours, cruises, you name it — but only if they take at least a three-week paid vacation. She gives employees another two weeks off for paid holidays throughout the year and leases luxury automobiles for any employee who has worked at the company for at least 10 years. Then there’s the fact that Price sends employees home at five p.m. sans laptop and locks the doors on the weekend.

Motek's main product is Priya a warehouse automation software that is used by companies including General Electric, Heinz and ConAgra.Observers say Motek's success is not just based on its product but on its processes.

But it’s Motek’s business processes and how it interacts with customers that set the firm apart. Price’s business philosophy — which has been dubbed “kibbutz capitalism” — is enough to make most executives squirm. For starters, everyone at Motek — from executives to the receptionist — knows how much everyone else earns, and they can view the firm’s balance sheet at any time. In fact, Price makes sure that they understand how to understand corporate finances. Employees also vote on strategic decisions, including raises. “By sharing data, we share power,” Price explains.

It’s no idle rhetoric. Consider that every Motek employee has a designated backup available to provide cover while they’re out of the office. The only requirement is to check with the backup to make sure he or she is around before the employee leaves. This, says Price, ensures that “we’re focused on the process rather than on the person.” Employees also know when an employee isn’t able to keep up with the workload. The result? Price offers a financial reward to employees who ask for help in order to stay on schedule. “The goal is to get the work done, not establish a star system,” she says.

This article is so motivating that I want to just copy and paste the whole thing. Most of all, I want to print it out and keep it as a reminder  to myself that the status quo doesn't have to be.

Name

Writely, Writely,Writely,Writely, Live is but a Dream

Name

This is a crosspost from Blogher

Depending which view you ascribe to, last week's announcement that Google had purchased six month old Writely</a>  is either Microsoft's Pearl Harbor  OR NOT.

Or in other words, is the beginning of the end of Office Products? Will users adopt Writely with the enthusiasm and speed  of social media like Flickr and You Tube? Does this represent a sea change of how we will do our jobs, or is it simply another sailboat on the lake?

Writely is, according to creators,

"a web-based, collaborative document editor, but it's also a service in its infancy. To us, it's the beginning of a whole new way of managing documents, projects and websites online."

The anti-microsoftists contend that this purchase is beginning of the end of Office.They see it as a victory for Web 2.0. The Microsoft Supporters say,not so fast--Microsoft's main business is from corporations and they are not so eager to have their confidential documents stored in an online space.

In her blog,Writely co-founder Claudia Carpenter talks about why they sold to Google.

Here are our "top 10" reasons why being part of Google is fantastic for Writely and the Writely team:

10. Writely is like a caterpillar that we hope to make into a beautiful butterfly at Google!
9. We love Google's philosophy and values -- especially "Focus on the user."
8. We're as passionate as Google is about respecting users' privacy.
7. Many of our users are already Google fans using other Google services.
6. Being at Google will help us do more great things faster.
5. Some people didn't feel comfortable trusting a tiny startup with their documents...and we're no longer a tiny startup.
4. We like lava lamps and they're pretty much standard decor at Google.
3. Three words: Free Googleplex lunches ;)
2. As fun as it's been to launch a popular, global, 24x7 Web service, it'll be nice to take a vacation once in a while!
...and the number one reason???
1. We'll be able to bring Writely to not just thousands but millions of users -- the more, the merrier :-)

You can read a complete review of Writely at Googlist.

True Confession: Until last week I had paid absolutely no attention to the online document processing market. And, I probably wouldn't know anything about it if my windows media player had not stopped operating and I learned(6 hrs with technical support over 3 days) that there is no way to uninstall or fix it.

So to humor myself, I decided to read some Microsoft hate posts to calm myself down.That's when I found Writely. I did sign up for their waiting list.

My question is ...will you use Writely? If you won't,why not?