 |
     |
|
|
This from Newsday highlights a study about rising CEO paychecks. Because the stock went up substantially and revenues/profits went up and their organizations became more competitive and because they managed around innovation and . . .
Pay for chief executives at the country's 500 largest public companies soared 22 percent, the survey showed. By comparison, the average increase in pay for all American workers hit 2.23 percent last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In the summer of 2000, I was flogging -- in the wrong places, apparently -- an idea for a reality show about start-up businesses. In essence, a bunch of start-ups would be given a few bucks then followed with cameras to see how they make out. Each week of the episodic "venture" would have commentary from VCs and entrepreneurs, but it would be the audience that voted (or "traded" shares) -- online and through the phone channels -- for the winners each week. As their stock rose, they would get more money to do more. Eventually the ultimate winner, at the end of the ten weeks would win the grand prize of money and support, blah, blah, blah.
It went nowhere slowly. Today I saw on a television entertainment update that Matt Damon/Ben Affleck's production company is producing something similar with Spike TV. NBC story here: LivePlanet to Produce 'American Start-Up,' a Business-Themed Reality Series For Spike TV for '05. Let's see if they get the audience participation into it.
I'm on the road again. Internet connectivity and my schedule allows for spotty ability to comment on stuff here. Besides, I tend to read the paper in its fibrous wood pulp form (!) which makes linking a challenge. Bear with.
NYTimes reporting that the presence of wi-fi at airports is slowly expanding: Business Travel: Wi-Fi Service Expands Its Reach. I've noticed. Still a pain in the ass to connect to though.
The San Diego Union-Tribune is not my usual source for information, but it's reporting on studies that show venture capital funding is up again last quarter. Story: Venture capital funding on upswing. Snip:
The Ernst & Young/Venture One survey reported yesterday venture capital investment in the second quarter rose 11 percent from a year earlier to $5.1 billion.
Not sure what it means except that if you're looking for dough, the odds are very very very little more in for favour. Go for it.
Lance wins again. Armstrong wins sixth Tour
I normally eschew such events because I've been unimpressed with what athletes -- for the most part -- have to say, but if someone held a seminar evening with Tiger Woods, Lance Armstron, Wayne Gretzky, . . . I think I'd buy a ticket.
Apparently it's not as easy as one might think to buy twenty-eight new helicopters. New revelations about disqualified tenderers here, at the G&M: Ottawa forced to buy Sikorsky, sources say.
I heard on the radio that there will be a passel of new beneficiaries in the software maintenance area, including a business run buy a First Nation in the maritimes. Interesting how it all adds up . . .
In what shouldn't be a surprising revelation, the G&M notes that call wait periods are different -- here, in the case of financial institutions -- based on the caller's profitability (value) to the callee organization. Story: Hold on while we take a more important call; and the snip:
what many customers don't know is that, depending on the size or profitability of their account, they could be placed at the front of the queue by special software that matches an organization's preferred clients with customer service agents trained specifically to deal with their needs.Anyone with Air Canada "status" knows this: you get a toll-free number where the agent answers more quickly and does more for you -- or tries, FWIW.
The fact of the matter is that all sorts of things happen in the background that slot "consumers" or "customers" by their perceived value to the organization. To the purist, who would believe that we are all created equal, and should be treated equally, I'm sure it is a troubling revelation.
The NYTimes, in what must be an exceedingly slow business news cycle, runs a story entitled: Blockbuster Tries a Remake as Movie-Rental Business Transforms. D'oh!
This pointer has been getting around. I've watched the Flash parody of Bush and Kerry about half a dozen times now and it's still funny.
So the Court in Delaware thinks that Lord Black is being vexatious, hypocritical, and acting only to "line his own pockets" in his quest to force the sale of The Telegraph to be put to a vote of Hollinger shareholders. I guess the Court believes so at least because Black controls voting shareholdings with some 68%. Doing so might effectively nullify the orders against him viz. Hollinger. Story in the G&M is here: Black accused of lining pockets Saw more in Forbes and elsewhere.
What a surprise.
Everyone can breathe easier now. ICANN announced IPv6 in the root system. So, there will be a limitless number of IP addresses (maybe a trillion trillion) in our future. It was, after all, getting tight with "about two-thirds of the 4.3 billion Internet addresses available . . . used up." The story from the Toronto Star is here: Domain addresses limitless, expert says. The value prop., right from the expert:
Vinton Cerf of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers said the next-generation protocol, IPv6, had been added to its root server systems, making it possible for every person or device to have an Internet protocol address.
The G&M has a late-in-coming eye-opener of a story entitled Aging drivers with dementia on the rise. Second graf:
Canada's most populous province will be home to nearly 100,000 elderly drivers with dementia by 2028, up from 34,000 in 2000, said the study, published in this month's edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.Yeah, yeah 100,000 in 24 years, but there's 34,000 demented people behind the wheels of 3-ton weapons now.
Laws, rights, and regulations are the result not the driver of context and circumstance. And, and this instant, only someone immune to knowledge can not perceive some fairly significant contextual shifts around driving: cost of the risk (litigation, damage, killing, etc.), the aging population, the prevalence (real or merely "now-being-observed") of psychiatric inhibitions, distractions galore from advertising to mobile telephony, the polluting effects, and so forth. Yet, we stalwartly refuse to acknowledge the changing environment and change the nature of the activity in response.
For a long time I've been a proponent of regular testing for all drivers. Once a license is obtained, everyone should continue to be periodically tested (written and road) at their own cost. Perhaps the testing interval would follow a bell shape, being more frequent in earlier and later years than in the "responsible" middle. Not only could the system be cost-neutral because the user pays as part of the right to drive, but it could have beneficial downstream effects such as reduced insurance costs, lower policing requirements, enhanced public safety, etc.
Adding a screen for clinical dementia is merely another aspect of the same process. In that particular instance, however, I would be cautious about implementation for this reason: a driver's test puts the onus substantially on the driver to prove proficiency and capability; a declaration of a dementia condition -- particularly at those tough early stages -- comes from a clinician. Thus, there is the potential for more contention and legal rebuttal of the decision.
As the driving instructor at my high school repeated constantly: driving is a privilege not a right. Time to reassess the conditions under which those privileges are operative.
Microsof and SUN agreed and announced a $1.95-billion anti-trust settlement a few months ago. It looked the the start of a brand new day. But "it ain't over 'til it's over" as this C-NET item shows: Microsoft: Sun deal unsigned; feds look at Longhorn
Made mention of this months -- if not a year -- ago. Now, it seems, the Canadian government is ready to announce that it will be issuing a passport with a smart card. Has to stay in the traditional book because of the many, many countries that won't be able to deal with the highest-end technology. G&M story here: Passports to go high-tech with computer chips.
Funny part of this 3-grafer is that the headline notes the chip but the opening sentence focuses on the digitaized photographs. Reason it's funny: Canadian passports have had digitized photos for at least the past two years. HEH [OK, so it's not that funny. ed.]
Little item from the China View entitled, :: In-flight cellphone network passes test, points toward no safe reprieve from all the self-absorbed, lonely, insecure buffoons who find it impossible to not make a phone call at every waking minute and, when on the phone -- in public -- have to talk at a volume loud enough that we all get to hear about their latest. Crap.
What about broadband access on-board in a local WIFI network?
For those of you who are technically oriented and have SMS capability on your phone, there's a contest running (in Canada) for Nestle. Instant win potential for boom boxes, etc., etc. See how SMS works for this kind of interaction. (Full disclosure: A friend is running the program.)
TXT to: 112233
Mssg: 6680002021
Good luck
Never make a prediction on something that's cut and dry or in the short-term is pretty good advice. There is always the chance you could be proven wrong. Looks like the TD economist lives by that maxim given the most recent prognostication from Eric Lascelles in a research study reported by the G&M (Growth rate predicted to slow by decade end).
First of all, there's been consistent growth for a while and "a tree doesn't grow up to the sky" so it's a safe bet that eventually the economy will slow. Second, by decade end factors will have changed suitably so that if growth persists at a high rate, there's a good out. FWIW
Nobody really cares except the vendors, but Spotnik was perceived as an independent middle-man providing wi-fi hotspot access to the internet independent of carrier affiliation. It provided an arguable valuable and growing service.
Telus has bought Spotnik according to this announcement in The G&M: Telus acquires hotspot firm Spotnik. The paragraph story reveals that Telus's venture group invested $6-million in Spotnik in 2002.
How much did the other telcos invest?
Interesting development (for some people): Nielsen Media and BBM Canada are planning to merge their electronic ratings systems creating a monopoly situation in television ratings. Notwithstanding a peculiar governance issue (the provider of the numbers, which are used to determine advertising costs, is also governed by . . . . the broadcasters who stand to benefit/lose from the numbers), it could be more efficient for all.
Personally, I'm not so concerned about an effective monopoly here because the ratings system is based on viewership. That feeds a decaying marketing (advertising) model that pushes impressions until the consumer submits. A new measure will arise to provide feedback on effectiveness of the advertising. After all, the television viewership volume is less relevant if the effectiveness coefficient doesn't correlate. (To be perfectly clear, if the Super Bowl is the most watched television program its ad spaces will be the highest. But that's only if we infer that most-watched means most valuable because in the causal chain there is nothing to prove or disprove that assumption. What if it could be proven that although the highest volume of people watched the game and the ads, BUT they were so enthralled with the goings on that the effectiveness of the ads neared nothing (i.e., the ads didn't move the needle on consumer interest or actual purchasing an iota)? What would be the value of knowing the volume except as a mere, small factor in the overall calculation? I suspect the value of the rating -- and, hence, the monopoly -- would deteriorate.
The Globe and Mail item is here: Advertisers wary of plan to fuse TV ratings systems.
Apparently HRH Prince of Wales has jaws flapping in nanotech and science circles because he suggested that the almost total absence (5% of spending) of "environmental, social and ethical" research was bad. Moreover, unrestrained research in this uncharted sphere -- without due caution to offset the exhuberance of innovation and discover -- could lead to a "Thalidomide-type disaster." Story here: Prince Creates Big-Scale Debate over Small-Scale Technology.
Funny how in an otherwise positive address (based on what I've read), some in the field have latched on to the word "Thalidomide" very literally. I would suspect that HRH-POW meant it more literarily, in shorthand that would be readily, emotionally understandable.
Apparently, he succeeded. Perhaps not with the effect intended, but . . .
This is very cool: BugMeNot.com. Haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it will rock. Got the link from Rebecca Blood.
The subhead for this article in ZDNet (Apple's absence nibbles core at Macworld) reads as follows:
BOSTON--Organizers and attendees remain upbeat about the Macworld conference being held here this week, despite Apple Computer's decision not to participate.Would being angry and worried at the obvious problem help their show?
Taking a week off with the family. If I blog at all, it will be off a portable device and really, really spotty.