GM to Close Four SUV/Truck Plants

Finally, figuring out that gas prices, which were less than $1.50 in 2003 are not going to decline much from their record four bucks a gallon, General Motors Corp. has announced that it will shutter production at four pickup truck and sport utility vehicle plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico starting later this year.

CNBC lists those factories along with the models they make along with the numbers of workers each factory employs.:

Oshawa, Ontario: Employs 2,900. Makes Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra
pickups. Likely to end production in 2009.

Moraine, Ohio: Employs 2,400. Makes Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy and Saab 9-7 mid-size SUVs. Closes at end of model run in 2010 or sooner if demand warrants. GM's last midsize SUV plant, meaning models won't be built any more.

Janesville, Wis.: Employs 2,800. Makes Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban SUVs. Also GMC Yukon and Chevrolet, GMC, Isuzu medium-duty trucks. Medium-duty production done by end of 2009. SUV production ends in 2010 or sooner if demand remains weak.

Toluca, Mexico: Affected line employs 250. Makes Chevrolet Kodiak medium-duty trucks; production ends by end of 2008. Other production at the Toluca complex will continue.

Eighty-five hundred people. I wonder how many of these jobs could have been saved had GM operated with a tab more foresight.

And the Hummer, that gas hog that puzzled everyone who didn't own an oil well, is up for sale or a dramatic revamp.

Monday Morning Melodies

I know. I'm way too young to have experienced Bo Diddley, but I remember watching my mother putting on his records and rocking the house for years. It's from her that I got the love of old, old school and Miles, Herbie Hancock and Miriam Makeba who were the staples of Momma's repertoire throughout our lives. I'm still an old school girl.

Well Bo, "The Originator," died today at age 79. He gave us "I'm a Man" (remade by George Thorogood as "Bad to the Bone,"), "Who Do You Love" and much, much more.

Hey Bo Diddley in 1966. He's backed up by Norma-Jean "The Duchess" Wofford on the second guitar and the Bo-ettes, Lilly "Bee Bee" Jamieson and Gloria Morgan.





Who Do You Love, which starts

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire,
Used a cobra snake for a neck tie.
Got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made out of rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of human skulls.
Now come on darling let's take a little walk, tell me,
Who do you love,
Who do you love, Who do you love, Who do you love.

Dang! No wonder I strolled over in the land of punk!

Star Trek's Pevney Dies

The Trekkie in me mourns. Joseph Pevney, who directed some of the very best episodes of the original "Star Trek" has passed away on 18 May in his Plam Desert, California, home. He was 96.

"The Trouble With Tribbles"

In "Trouble" the Enterprise is infested with the cute, fuzzy vermin (who don't seem to like the Klingons).

"The City on the Edge of Forever"

In "City" Kirk and Spock travel back in time to the Depression.

Pevney directed episodes of such TV greats as "The Hulk" (OK, I have issues) and "Fantasy Island" (I really have issues).

The series, in its original run, was a failure. It was cancelled after three years and poor interest and has lived for the past 40 years in syndication, having spun off 5 additional series and eleven motion pictures, books, comics and games.

The series has taught me to fundamentally alter my relationship with failure.

It seems Apple is doing very very well these days.

Apple’s retail market share is 14 percent, and two-thirds for PCs costing $1000 or more. Should I repeat those numbers? The share data is for first-quarter brick-and-mortar stores, as tabulated by the NPD Group. Apple’s market share is but one measure of success. Sales growth is way up, while Windows desktop PC sales are way down.

Daring Fireball

BUY BUY BUY!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The World Bank and the Gods of Lending

Some Jamaican policy wonks will tell you this bank helped our country get into deeper unescapable debt. I don't know how true that is but I think this book will open the eyes of many undeveloped countries.



"A passionate, informed, and devastating first-hand
account from the front lines of World Bank operations. Students,
development professionals, and especially policy makers in Washington
should read this book." - Jeffrey A. Winters (Professor of political economy, Northwestern University and co-editor of Reinventing the World Bank)

"Recommended reading as a hard-hitting lesson on how not to run the Bank." - Paul Arlman (Former Executive Director of the World Bank (1986-1990) and member of the Dutch Treasury

Plaxo's Personal Card

Big doings at Plaxo today! We are really excited to announce some of the biggest news in the history of Plaxo: We have just signed an agreement** to be acquired by Comcast, the nation's leading provider of entertainment, information and communications products and services (and our largest customer and partner).

Plaxo's Personal Card

Social Media’s wall St. cred is building ever so rapidly. Now even for the slightly smaller companies. Congrats Plaxo, you guys have truly come a long way!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

LNB #052: The Dip (pt. 2)

This week, we cover ways to think your way through quitting. Knowing the answers to the key questions for your business or accountability, you can figure out pretty quickly what you should be saying "yes" or "no" to.

To remind you, in Seth Godin's little book, The Dip, he describes three key conditions when we get stopped:

• The dip: a deep, wide break in the action. You just need to hang on and get to the other side.
• The cul de sac (or dead-end): you can blow and blow and blow, but, little wolf, you'll never blow this house down.
• The cliff: this looks like it will work, but it will run out of gas and land you back in the cul de sac with your Big Wheel.

Be sure to grab a copy of this little book. I'll be chatting about it for a few more 'casts.

Listen Now: 17:17

The Force is Stong in You, Young BizWalker

For those of you who know me, I'm a pretty fine coach and consultant, who's gotten to write some of the guiding literature for the coaching profession and created and lead coursework in coaching psychology for such illustrious venues as New York University.

I'm all that. (Ask me sometime how long it took for me to be able to say that and know it for the unabashed, unapologetic truth that it is.)

That doesn't mean that stuff is necessarily any easier at Camp Lita. I love those coaches who say that they coach themselves. Ever see a dentist pull her own teeth or a doctor remove his own appendix. Didn't think so. Coaching's power comes from the interactions between an actor and an observer, and not from the perfection of a coach's life (that's called a Messiah, kidlets).

So, when I get messages out of the clear blue like this one from the hubster, I'm inclined to listen carefully. In addition to watching me work my business and live my life, he's been watching as I work to finish graduate school (Masters in HR with honors later this summer--then off to dive into a doctorate...I can sleep when I'm dead...I can sleep when I'm dead...I can sleep when....).

Being the stress kitten that I am (ain't gonna change it, either....just learning more and more how to make that way of being work for me rather than work me over), he's just got a different sense of how I work.

Something from Star Wars comes to mind. “Luke, trust the force”. Your innate ability and sense of excellence is one manifestation of your “force”. Learning to trust it will reduce your stress and worry many fold. I know, cause I’m there too.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

God, I love this stuff.

Monday Morning Melodies

I love this guy. Before KT Tunsdall hit the scene with her ubiquitous hit "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree," there was Owen Pallett, his violin and a loop machine.

Fantasy (a cover of the Mariah Carey song)

This Modern Love (a cover a hit from British group, Bloc Party--also a fave)

This Modern Love (Not stuttering. Here's Bloc Party with the original. Very excellent!)

Peach, Plum, Pear (covering Joanna Newson's work)

Going to be an excellent week, people!

LNB #051: The Dip (Thanks, Seth)

Marketing guru, Seth Godin's book, The Dip, forms the basis for this podcast (and several more to come). Seth describes three key conditions when we get stopped:

• The dip: where the break in your action is so deep and wide that you can't move out of it with the resources you're expending. Kind of like the straight-A highschooler who never really had to expend herself...until she got a snootful of Calculus 115.
• The cul de sac (or dead-end): staying here will keep you from doing something that will work for you and it will never, ever change. His suggestion? Get out as quickly as possible. Remember, the analogy of the kid on the Big Wheel? It was cute the first few times around, and then it never seemed to stop.
• The cliff: you can keep this going for quite a while, but it runs out of gas and leaves you on the side of the road with no options. Kind of like smoking, that doesn't seem to really hurt anything--that is, until the doc gives you That Look, you know the one.

Be sure to grab a copy of this little book, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick). I'll be chatting about it for a few more 'casts.

Listen Now: 20:23

I'm Too Sexy for this Work!

I saw this on Seth Godin's blog:

You can't hire that guy because he's not as good looking as George (Clooney). And you can't believe that speaker because he doesn't present as well as George. And that guy? He's short. Short? Well, shorter than George. And you can't trust him to make good decisions because his skin is much darker than George's.

You can't date her because she's not as good looking as Jennifer (whichever Jennifer you want to set as the standard). And her? Well, she stutters, and Jennifer doesn't. And Jennifer herself, of course, is not nearly as smart as George.

Jennifer and George may be extraordinarily good looking movie stars, but you don't get to work with them. By buying into a standard of expectation for what's normal (or great or very good or trustworthy) we shortchange ourselves every single day. (Read the rest)

Seth's right. Back in my HR days, I remember reps clearly making decisions on which resume to put on the top of the pile based in such (illegal) banalities as "He's cute" or "Her name sounds nice." That, by the way, is when my hair really started turning prematurely white. Seeking to draft an AA/EEO program to help "deal with this," I went to work gathering research on looks and expectations, the positive and negative Pygmalion Effects, and such.

Here's where I found myself scratching my noggin: Studies showed that CEO's were between 45 and 55, were traditionally good looking, worked out regularly, were heterosexually married to a pretty wife. More than their education or past experience, the researchers found that their presumed attractiveness was more of a constant. Their ability to succeed was, in part, predicated on the expectation that pretty people did well. Around that same time, where was a rash of CEO flameouts where they fell to earth like comets. Their good looks bought them all kinds of space, but didn't change gravity then they became less than lighter-than-air.

Remember the horribly ubiquitous Right Said Fred song, "I'm Too Sexy?" a novelty hit that was so successful, that they re-released it in 2007 (could Mac Daddy, Macarena II be far behind?). That, it seems, is quite a bit of what can be seen at networking events, as people, oddly, preen and stut their looks rather than their other...um, wares.

Monday Morning Melodies

Getting the week started. Thought I'd send out a little love to Rachelle Ferrell, who can do some stunning things with her voice.

Autumn Leaves



I Can Explain



Bye, Bye Blackbird (with unrelated montage)



Have a great week--taxes and all--ya'll!

Boil Those Start-up Grunts

Reading Fastcompany.com, I found a discussion thread, which began with this quote from Michael Arrington, the Editor of TechCrunch: “Startups should hire people who work 24 hours a day because there is nothing else they’d rather do. ”

Silly rabbit, that Michael Arrington! The notion that start-up grunts will work for slave hours AND slave wages indefinitely is, um, (choosing words carefully) dunderheaded.

Start-ups should hire people who will be with them--not only in those first heady days--but will stay for the long haul. The corporate memory that's lost when good people leave (especially those who were there in the greenfield days) is tremendous and irreplaceable. We don't even have a good calculator for Loss of Talent-Intelligence, but we do have a calculation for cost of turnover. Trust me: it's high and only those start-up managers who are tone-deaf to their HR gurus (or, not wanting to be bothered by those pesky strategic staffing types, just blew off having someone in that role in the first place) will ignore the impact of their expectations of staff both during and after start-up.

Besides, those who thrive on the crisis-driven thrash and crash cycle of your start-up won't be there long...and if they are, they won't be worth a steaming puddle of spit (a technical term from us HR and leadership development types). I don't know a lot of people from back in my college days who produced excellent results from cramming (and if they pulled it out, they were useless in short order).

Think it through, plan it well, treat your people like gods and rock on! If you can't do that, turn your business plan over to people much smarter than you and get out of the way.

Monday Morning Melodies

Heading out to the gym. Weight's beginning to really melt (15 pounds), but I'm being an ingrate. I just want a bagel and a big cup o' joe. At this point, I am reminded that the nice Korean doctor-- (Dr. Young ki Park) the one who was smiling gently at me when he told me I could no longer have wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, rice, mint, caffeine, milk and heavily spiced foods--as an acupuncturist was also standing in front of a rack of needles as long as my cat. His message was clear to me: mess this up and it won't go well with escalating treatments and more disabling pain.

Well, I haven't messed up, though this took quite a number of foods of the list and made business lunches a real pain (I opted for breakfast--more easy options).

So, here's some tunes from the fabulous Gap Band, Zapp and Roger to get your day started.

You Dropped the Bomb on Me (a college staple from the Gap Band)

Burn Rubber on Me (by the Gap Band)

More Bounce to the Ounce (by Zapp and Roger)

OK, now with more bounce to my ounce, I'm done whining and heading to the door.

Peace and chicken grease, people!

It Continues to be the Economy, Stupid

The airlines are clearly struggling. House members are trying to figure out how Southwest Airlines could have for so long violated safety rules and how the FAA, the agency responsible for oversight, could have missed these safety violations. Planes have been flying with cracked fusilages (one of which cracked open in the 1980's, sucking a flight attendant out of the plane to her death), inspectors being told to "hush up" missed inspections of fusilages and rudder systems...

Horrible.

Now ATA, like many other low cost airlines like Aloha which pulled up stakes, are shutting their doors. As fuel prices keep going up and discretionary travel is drying up, the smaller players are going to continue to disappear, either filing bankruptcy or being absorbed by other businesses. Even the bigger players are feeling the pinch, particularly with domestic flights (they make more money from international flights). Fewer flights, more crowding and higher fares. What an unholy mix.

This from MSNBC on ATA's collapse:

ATA Airlines shut down operations and stranded thousands of travelers Thursday when an unexpected loss of key charter flights and soaring fuel costs forced the carrier into bankruptcy.

Once the nation’s 10th-largest air carrier, ATA entered bankruptcy for the second time in just over three years. The company had more than 2,200 employees, and “virtually all” were told that their jobs were gone, company spokesman Michael Freitag said.

Many passengers learned of the collapse at ticket counters, where advisories were posted in the handful of cities ATA still served. About 10,000 passengers flew ATA each day before operations were shut down, according to the airline.

Oh, and while I was tapping out this post, I read a report on NPR which extolled the failures of the newly revamped Heathrow Airport in London in doing the little things--say, like keeping track of baggage. Turns out they're having to send the mountain of misplaced luggage to Italy to be sorted and processed.

(sigh)

"The doctor will see you now. Be sure your webcam is turned on."

Interesting article on NPR:

Doctor-Patient 'Web Visits' Spur Privacy Concerns - As more doctors go online to communicate with patients, two of the country's biggest health insurers have started reimbursing patients for the Internet visits. But critics say the online advising could lead to errors, and patient privacy could be compromised.

I think this is an excellent idea and, with the rise of Minute Clinics which are springing up at grocery stores and pharmacies, doctors need to consider the growing need for speed in getting treatment. Most doctors seem to be taking Scheduling 101 from beauticians, for example, who routinely overbook leading to long waits. Their clients--I'm loath to use the word "patients" because it fails to capture the market relationship between the provider and his/her customer--are expressing their frustration by seeking other forms of doctor-client contact.

Before one recent doctor visit, I found myself waiting mid-morning for over an hour. I was scheduled for a follow-up visit which turned out to be no more than "How are you feeling? I think we should continue the treatment as is. Come back in two months." No internet connection (which even my auto dealer has figured out to offer), no tea and the water cooler was empty. With travel and wait time, that took an hour and forth minutes out of my day.

This could also be a boon to communities where there aren't enough doctors to go around--that is, once, they suss out how they'll manage internet connections in these, sometimes, technologically depressed areas of the country.

Before, there was nowhere else for "patients" to go if they were displeased with customer service issues. All the doctors were doing the same thing. A different level of competition has now arisen in medicine--both the retail sectors and the internet will certainly change what has been a "given" in medicine--you'll get your treatment when and in the manner in which I want to dish it out.

 

Back After a Long, Hard Winter

Many of you have written me, asking about my family which is, miraculously, quite fine. Dad's had a complete recovery, Garland's heart is less the worse for wear, my young nephew does not have cancer, my owie wasn't a melanoma, my heart is now fine, my digestive system is healing and my cat didn't die.

Though, barely, on that cat front.

What I learned for certain in the last 12 months is how very powerful I truly am. Though my business needed to be ramped slightly down to give me the freedom to be where I needed to be, I kept it going and am on the home stretch run towards my Master's in business (with highest distinction, thus far).

It's not the things that can stop us. Kids, there were plenty of things out there that can fit that bill. It was who-I-said-I-was-going-to-be in the face of each and every thing that happened since March, '07 that means anything--that and whether I lived up to who I really am at each turn. I remember yet another doctor coming to tell me that Dad's case was hopeless and me saying "I'm taking my father out of here on his way to being whole, healthy and well and he'll be cared for by people who love or are predisposed to love him." One doctor just stared at me, telling me that I wasn't being realistic. I suggested he find another patient because he was the one who didn't get it. Later that week, that doctor kissed me on my cheek in the quiet of the ICU. Just a little human contact in that dim hallway that enriched my life. I think he could see his daughter in me, battling for her own father's life. There was so much love in that hospital those weeks there and even more in the rehab center where Dad lived for the next two months before I took him home to live on his own.

He's working out three times a week now, bragging that he's got a "two pack."

I amazed myself and when I think back on it I want to cry for the times I didn't know if I had it in me---particularly when busses weren't falling out of the sky. When I didn't think I knew enough to start my business all those years ago, or get into graduate school, or land that client...

We are--every one of us--more than we know or can suspect.

Enjoy this piece from Bobby McFerrin--essentially a love song to Mary. He and his music are just plain beautiful.

Just Had a College Flashback

This revelation hurt almost as badly as learning several months ago that the inventor of Ramen noodles had passed away:

All Things Considered, March 4, 2008 · Imagine a mournful horn echoing across thousands of fantasy worlds: E. Gary Gygax, the co-creator of the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, died Wednesday morning. He was 69.

Listen Now to the NPR report.

I remember holing up in the Off Campus Student lounge at Purdue on Sunday evenings with a character, some dice and several people--many of whom I wouldn't recognize in daylight.

I'll miss you, Gary G. What an incredible contribution to collaboration and imagination.

Been Watching Dunkin Donuts?

I have and they're eating Starbuck's lunch. Now, aside from the "Doing Things is What I Like to Do" commercial that it'll take a jackhammer to uproot from my noggin, there's this one:



This is exactly what I've been thinking when I've had to go to Starbucks: "What the hell language is this and why are the barristas so insistent that I use it when all I want is a small cup of tea?" I laughed like a goon!

What Movie Most Inspired Me?

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" changed my life. When I went off to college, I was a very shy bookish girl from semi-rural Indiana. Late one Friday night, a dorm-mate suggested I go to the movie with her. I said "yes" and she got out spray bottles and started making toast!

This movie broke ground in a way none before had. It was the earliest winner in the midnight movie market and included incest, cannibalism, homosexuality and a host of other previously taboo topics that got people talking in college campuses around the nation. Though it was roundly panned by critics everywhere, in its 30+ years post release, it's still going strong and has made more than 100 times the initial investment. The movie helped launch the careers of Academy Award Winner Susan Sarandon, actor Barry Bostwick (played the mayor in Spin City), singer / actor Tim Curry (now in Spamalot) and made the singer Meat Loaf a household name (“Paradise by the Dashboard Lights”). Recently, it was recently included for preservation in the National Film Registry, a collection of only 475 films (as of 2007) by the Librarian of Congress.

What really got me thinking that first year in college was how the movie portrayed people who were pretty OK with themselves—they dressed and acted how they liked and weren’t held hostage by convention (or, um, normality). As a result, I loosened up quite a bit, started having fun with my fashion sense and choices in music and began enjoying my life while completing my degree.

I thank the makers of the movie and the stage play on which it derived, who were themselves mavericks. Because of my experience with this movie, I was able to consider interracial dating, refused to dye my hair when it started turning prematurely white (at age 25) and grew my hair into beautiful, thin, waist-length dreadlocks. I left a successful career and started a business 12 years ago to the tune of “you’ll never make it”…I’m still going strong.

I became a force of nature rather than someone who people just had to deal with (or not).

The movie was fun and freeing and made no sense. That, I think, was its power. That and being able to lob toast at a movie screen.