1969

     1969 was an eventful year… at least to me. 
     It was fifty years ago and I was sixteen years old. I was coming of age. It was a year full of hope and also a year of dichotomies. It was an amazing time to be sixteen and an amazingly weird time to be sixteen. I have written about before in November 2008: Was it the Weirdest of Times? 
     It was a time where some of my generation, me included, truly believed we could change the world. I attribute that to the post World War II prosperity in the United States. University education was available and encouraged for all. It was more affordable compared to these days. The labor market supply and demand was such that we were essentially guaranteed jobs, good jobs, upon graduation. We were the generation raised on TV. Everything and anything could be solved and rectified in an hour. We thought we were different. We believed we were different. We believed we could and would change the world. We had the Summer of Love. We had Hell No, we won’t Go. We had the Age of Aquarius. We had Woodstock, the moon landing, the Vietnam War, the Generation Gap, and women, blacks, Indians, and Latinos advocating for equal rights in our land of the free. It was a time of some significant changes in morals and mores for a sixteen year old to deal with on top of all the normal coming of age things sixteen years have to deal with. 
     1969 was special because of the moon landing and Woodstock. It was special given my age. It was special in how my ideas, thoughts, and vision changed and changed marked by these two important and unrelated events.     
     When John F. Kennedy laid down the challenge to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, I became fascinated with the possibilities. I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to become an astronaut. I watched every launch of the Mercury and Gemini programs. I had written Kennedy as a nine-year-old asking for information on the Space Program. I got a manila envelope from NASA full of booklets and pamphlets on the plan to get to the moon, biographies of the astronauts, and more. I read it all, several times. In watching the launches, I would take notes about any delays, the actual time of the launch, and how the mission went. I never scored a baseball game but that was what I was doing with the space program. 
     Somehow, I started losing interest midway through the Gemini program when the missions were longer then a TV show. I was dismayed by the Apollo 1 capsule fire that took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee. Maybe I was just getting older and my interests were changing. I believe that the social turmoil of the era also competed for my attention. By the time of the Apollo 11 Mission, I was missing the childhood exuberance I had for the space program and wondering how and why I lost it. 
     Oddly, a few weeks later, Woodstock became all the rage. It came out of nowhere and captured as much or more news, from my perspective at that time, than the moon landing. And, I knew nothing about it just a week earlier. It went from being a big rock concert to becoming something much bigger. It seemed liked everyone around my age (actually a few years older), were trying to get there to be a part history, to be a part of what we thought or were being led to believe, was a turning point in the history of mankind. I am laughing, now, as I type this fifty years later, but did it seem real back then. I wrote about it in August 2004 and I am pretty much in agreement with what I wrote then. Woodstock was not the beginning of a millennial change, it was the beginning of the end that era’s peace and love movement. 
     The moon landing and Woodstock… oh, the times they were a changing and changing still.

Really? Apple?

     There was an article in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, June 28th: Apple Shares Fall as Design Chief Jony Ive Plans Exit.  From the article:

Mr. Ive, who has been at the helm of the design team since 1996, helped design the iPhone, which has driven Apple’s sales and profit for most of a decade. Mr. Ive also oversaw the development of key products such as the iPod, iPad and MacBook. 

His departure marks the end of an era at the iPhone maker as it shifts to an emphasis on services from product development.

     Really?!? Apple is shifting from a focus on products, innovative and game changing new products, to services. All I can say is wow…
     In March 31, 2012, I wrote a blog Morita and Jobsin which I talked about the legendary founders and innovative driving forces behind the innovations for which Sony and Apple were known. When Morita passed away, the innovative spirit at Sony died with him. I feared that the same could happen to Apple. It seems to be a very natural occurrence when a founder who drove and demanded innovation passes on. Corporate “wonks” take the helm. While they might be good finance, operations, or marketing, they lack the entrepreneurial soul of the founders. There is a high risk of a company known for innovative and market changing new products to become a company of line extensions that is then vulnerable to losing their edge with consumers.
     The Apple Watch work began under Steve Jobs. So, it cannot really be counted as a post-Jobs innovation. AirPods may be the only true innovation. The buzz about the latest version of the iPhone seems to have waned since they have made the price for phones with 256 GB of memory about $1,000. They were thinking everyone would continue to buy them and were bucking the trend of supply and demand. They were wrong. First the newer phones were not innovative enough, not so different in features and performance, than predecessors to justify the higher prices. Also, the market for smart phones has become saturated. Both lead to lower volumes of sales.
     The growth and success of Apple has been based on innovative market busting products and they simply have not had them since the passing of Jobs. Will forsaking product innovation for service innovation be any better for them? Only time will tell.
     IBM used to make physical products. The M stood for “machines.” They were the dominant desk and laptop company in the US if not the world. They deemed they could not cut it anymore in that market and sold their laptop business to a Chinese company: Lenovo.
     The movement from products to services is not necessarily a bad thing. Apple is making money for sure. IBM is making money. But, there is something about making things that are on the cutting edge and that everyone wants. Akio Morita and Steve Jobs understood this very well. Lastly, it is a personal thing with me. We need to be a nation that makes things that people want and helps them live better. It seems like the innovative part of the American Spirit that was so strong in the last century is slipping through our fingers like sand.
     I grew up admiring Ford, Edison, Bell, Firestone, Jobs, and even retailers like Walton and Bezos. I believe if you are not a good and competitive manufacturer of a product in your own factories, you will lose that expertise plain and simple.   Eventually you will also lose the innovative edge to whoever you outsourced the manufacturing to.  One follows the other.  To keep that innovative edge, you need a leader with scope and vision of an entrepreneur and not a corporate apparatchik.
     Almost on cue, there was another article in the Wall Street Journal on July 12: Red Wing, Iconic U.S. Shoe Maker, Labors Mightily to Bring Production Home. Red Wing Shoes is a privately held maker of industrial shoes: the safety shoes factory and warehouse workers are required or encouraged to wear. From the article:

Rebuilding U.S. manufacturing presents complex challenges for industries like footwear, electronics and bicycles, where most of the supply chain has moved abroad. Even a company like Red Wing—with a long history of U.S. production, private ownership and control over a key raw material and distribution—makes more than two-thirds of its shoes abroad. 

“The reality was that we had not developed a lot of new products for U.S. manufacturing,” said Mark Urdahl, a former General Mills executive who joined Red Wing 14 years ago and became chief executive in 2015. “You start to lose the skill set—through retirement and attrition—of people who have the ability to develop footwear here.”

     They simply exported the manufacturing and lost that expertise. The ability to develop new products naturally flowed to where the manufacturing went.
     Are shoes something we want to and have to protect? We are not a country of having governmental manufacturing strategies like China. So, in our case, it is up to the leadership in each industry to want to fight, innovate, and make the best things in the world here. I am not sure we are training those kinds of leaders these days. Jobs, Morita, Ford, and others were not financial guys. They were innovators and makers. That is probably the mojo Apple needs to find again before they sell their phone hardware business to Huawei or Oppo just as IBM sold their ThinkPad business to Lenovo in 2005.  That would be a sad day.

Multiple Shampoos?

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Note:  I wanted to title this piece Shampooⁿ but I could not make the exponent work in the title window on blogger.

     I still have enough hair that require cutting and trimming every three to five weeks. I used to go to barbershops which then gave way to salons. Now these independent businesses seem to have given way to the franchises like Great Clips, Supercuts, and, the place I have gone for the past several years, Sports Clips.
     They do a good job at my Sports Clip location and the prices are reasonable especially now that I get a senior discount. Their locations are sports themed in all the décor that gives the feel of being in an arena. There are TVs everywhere and they, by policy, are tuned to either ESPN or a live sporting event. Of course, I always ask if they can put on Oprah or the Hallmark Channel.
     There are a few irritating factors but nothing that makes me want to find another place to get my haircut. First, they are always trying to sell me an upgrade. They have a service called MVP which includes, beyond the haircut, a shampoo, a hot or cold facial towel, and a neck message. I believe it is a $10 upcharge to the cost of a haircut. I never get it, unless it is free. Second, they are always trying to sell me product such as shampoos, creams, conditioners, and other styling stuff. They always ask, quite nicely, and I always say, “No fries with that” with a big enough smile to keep things light. I get it. They are running a business and want more revenue per customer. But, I just want a haircut… that’s all.
     The last thing that frustrates me is from a purely perspective of a professor of business. Their systems are lame. Their online log in system was slow in coming and cumbersome to use. While at each store, they have my records of when I have been there and details of how I like my hair cut. This is cool but that data cannot be accessed by any other Sports Cut location which seems more 1982 to me than 2019.
     The irritants are mild compared to the value of their service and ambiance of their shops and friendliness of the ladies (only ladies) that work there. So, I am a loyal customer and actually give them my endorsement.
     But, this is not why I am writing.
     I needed a haircut yesterday. I went online and saw the wait time at my prime location to be almost an hour. Another nearby shop had no wait time. I have never been to the other shop, so I thought I would give it a try. It was bigger. While the décor was the same, it had a different vibe. It seemed hipper and edgier than the shop I go to. My stylist was a lovely, perky, young lady with short blond hair. She was energetic in both mannerism and in her pace and cadence of how she talked.
      She told me of the Double MVP promotion running in the month of July. I thought it was a buy one get one free offer. I misinterpreted thus causing a comic back and forth until she could better articulate or I could finally understand, that it was all free and involved two MVPs in the same visit. That’s right, two shampoos, two hot or cold towels, and two neck and shoulder massages during the same visit. Part of my not understanding was that I rarely want the service at all and was confused why anyone would want to double up on it. The fact that they offered the double service at all boggled my 1950s issue mind.
     So, being the inquiring person I am, I asked why people would get the double service. In her perky, charming, fast-talking way, she told me multiple shampoos and massages were quite popular with lawyers and marketing people. I found that quite specific in terms of professions favoring this added service. Oh yes, it seems some of these folks would get two, three, or four shampoos in a row. Some even get ten with the record being fifteen as far as she knew. I was kind of astonished. Now, I was the energetic and perky one, talking fast and asking questions.
      I will say that the shampoo experience is very pleasant and very relaxing. You are seated in a recliner with your head in the sink designed just for shampooing hair. They put a perfect temperature hot towel on your face and the stylist basically gives you a head massage lubricated with shampoos and, again, perfect temperature water.
      As pleasant and relaxing as it is, the thought never crossed my mind to ask the stylist to keep doing it. Never. Ever. Yet, this is a real thing. Guys are getting multiple shampoos at I am guessing $10 a pop. “What another?” Sure, why not.”
   All I could think about, but did not say, was that this was some kind of nouveau millennial lawyer marketer replacement for lap dances… which is something I have, of course, only read about.

Lee Iacocca

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     Lee Iacocca passed away on July 2. He was 94 years old. His passing caught me by surprise since I had not seen him mentioned in the business news, as far as I can recall, for several years. Part of the surprise might have been because I might have thought he already passed.
     Iacocca was a big deal in the auto industry. I was well aware of that growing up in Detroit. He was the President of Ford Motor when I began working there in 1976. His ambitions and ego clashed with the ego of Henry Ford II who fired his #2 on July 13, 1978. The shock of that rippled through the company like wildfire in an era well before email and internet. Ford logged a profit of $2 Billion the year that the “Deuce” fired Iacocca.
     Much has been written about Lee Iacocca this week. He was the father of the Mustang, one the most popular and enduring cars to come out of Detroit. He was also the credited with the Ford Pinto which was most infamous for its design flaw that made it prone to gas tank explosions in rear end collisions. After Ford, he took the helm at an ailing Chrysler. There his celebrity took a quantum leap as he secured government loans to buoy the failing and became the spokesman of the company in their television advertising. At Chrysler, he introduced the K-Car and the Mini-Van, the latter of which has been as iconic as the Mustang. He also bought American Motors which brought the Jeep nameplate to Chrysler. He authored three books, two of which I read.
      Many of the articles referred to him as the first celebrity CEO. This observation also surprised me a bit because I thought of Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and others. Upon further reflection, everyone before Iacocca was a founder, inventor, or entrepreneur and not professional managers rising to the top in well established companies.
     I never met Lee Iacocca. I would have loved to have and maybe worked for him. Minimally, I would have liked to have heard him speak. I enjoyed his Autobiography (1984) and Talking Straight (1988) books. I got and read them both when they were published. Oddly, I completely missed his third book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone, which was published in 2007. I have added that to my reading list.
    Here are a few recollections and reflections when I think about this larger than life leader in the auto industry.

• All the senior executives at Ford had access to a fleet of cars to drive. They all drove brand new Ford cars for certain. But, they also had access to the best cars in the world to drive for “competitive evaluation.” The lore around the company was that Iacocca took a Ferrari from the World Headquarters, the Glass House, to a meeting at another of the many Ford buildings in Dearborn. When it came time to return to the Glass House, Iacocca couldn’t figure out how to get the Ferrari into reverse and had to call the garage personal to come out and show him. 
• This one I believe is from Iacocca’s Autobiography or the Detroit Free Press. On the other hand, it may have also been corporate lore. When Henry Ford II fired Iacocca, he walked him out in front of the Glass House. He pointed up at the blue oval Ford logo on the building and told Iacocca, “Do you see whose name is on the building?”
• This one is from his Autobiography. Iacocca was amazed at how good the hamburgers tasted in the Glass House executive dining room. One day he asked the chef (I want to say his name was Bernardin) how he prepared he burgers. He took Iacocca into the kitchen, opened up the refrigerator and took out a filet, he put the filet into the meat grinder, and then formed the output into a patty. That was the secret.
• The obituaries all referenced that Iacocca in his last years at Chrysler, he tried to expand beyond autos in a series of acquisitions. This plan put Chrysler into financial turmoil again and hastened Iacocca’s departure. He tried to take the company over again in a hostile takeover partnering with Kirk Kerkorian. That takeover did not pan out but instead lead to Mercedes Benz taking over Chrysler. I once knew about these lesser parts of Iacocca’s storied career but chose only to remember his huge successes.
• I wonder what impact Iacocca had if had become Ford’s CEO? Would they have had the same quality focus? Would they have developed the Taurus? Certainly, Philip Caldwell, Don Petersen, and Red Poling did a pretty good job. Iacocca was certainly more popular and well-known than Philip Caldwell, but Caldwell equally, if not more, successful.
• The Mustang came out while I was in elementary school. We were Detroit kids which meant everyone had a family member or extended family member working in the auto industry. So, it goes without saying that the popularity and excitement of the Mustang was part of our young lives. I recall my friend telling me that “My Dad designed part of the Mustang.” I said, “Wow! What part?” He responded, “The rear window molding!” I remember thinking “the rear window molding… not very exciting.” It was my first glimpse into the “not very exciting” aspects of the auto industry.
• Again, most of the obituaries I read, alluded to Iacocca as a cigar chomping executive. Ah, for the good old days where you could smoke a cigar anywhere you wanted. Certainly, we are better off with smoke free workplaces but I would occasionally smoke one in my office or while teaching if it were allowed.
• I wonder if any of my students would know who Lee Iacocca is? I will have to poll them when classes begin.

     To end, here are some memorable quotes from Lee Iacocca.

• Management is nothing more than motivating other people. 
• The one word that makes a good manager – ‘decisiveness’.
• In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.
• You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.
• We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insolvable problems
• The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.

Happy 40th to the Walkman!

The Original

     I was writing a bloggy bit about Apple in which I was wondering if they had lost their competitive edge in being able to innovate truly exceptional new products. In this regard, I always relate and compare Apple and Sony. They dominated the consumer electronics markets in their heyday with innovative products. The innovation was driven from the top by Steve Jobs at Apple and Akio Morita at Sony. The stream of innovative products at both companies dropped dramatically when the founding icon left the helm.
     In the midst of writing this, an article from USA Today popped up on a news feed informing me that the Sony Walkman was launched on forty years ago on July 1, 1979: Before Apple iPods and iPhones, there was Sony Walkman, 40 years of portable music. This amazing innovation was basically a small cassette player that was either clipped to one’s belt or held in one’s hand and worked exclusively through headphones. There were no speakers. The Sony Walkman was the first personal music player and Sony owned that space until Apple out innovated them with their combination of iPod and iTunes.
     Certainly, people used headphones before the Walkman. The use of headphones was usually on devices or systems that were designed to be played primarily with speakers. People used them at home with the stereo systems that were anything but portable. The headphones themselves weren’t designed with portability in mind. They were big and bulky. Transistor radios, another Sony innovation, made the radio portable but had a low-grade earbud option rather than high quality headphones. Also, with the transistor radio, one was subject to the offerings of the radio stations.
     As far as playing the music you wanted to hear when you wanted to hear it. The options were records and tape. Record were never really portable. The tape players were first reel-to-reel and also not very portable. The innovations of the 8-track and cassette players allowed for players in the car. The cassette format became the standard for two reasons, the tapes were more compact and only had two sides versus the 8-tracks needed to switch directions eight times and disrupting the music in doing so.
     The first truly portable music players were big and loud. They were called “boom boxes” and ranged in size from a cigar box on the smaller end to a case of beer on the large side. They were AM/FM radios and cassette players. There is a recurrent image of movies from the 70s and 80s of folks walking around with boom boxes on their shoulders belting out music at a volume that an entire

My Workhorse Walkman

neighborhood could hear.
     The Walkman was much more portable and much more personal. You could hear someone else’s music only if they turned their volumes up so high you could hear the music from their headphones in their ears. Forty years later, the hearing aid industry is a benefitting from generations of folks listening to loud music on headphones. You could listen to anything you wanted, provided you had the cassettes at hand.
     The original Walkman actually had two headphone jacks. The thinking was that one could walk on the beach or down the street with a significant other both listening to the same music. That was so rarely the case that subsequent models only had one jack. The Walkman was truly a personal, one person, device.
     When first introduced, the Walkman was kind of pricey for the day. When

released in Japan they were selling for $150 and, if memory serves me well, they were about that price when they came to the us a few years later. The price came down in the second iteration. At the party held to celebrate the success of the Walkman, Morita made a challenge to the engineers and designers at the end of the evening. He held a block of wood that was two-thirds the size of the Walkman. He told the engineers that this was the size he wanted the next version to be and it should have half the number of parts and half of the cost. This is the kind of creative tension Morita brought to the table!

My Walkman MiniDisk

When I finally bought one, I paid something like $50 or $60.     When I was traveling a lot for business and commuting from Wilton, CT to Manhattan. I always had a Walkman in my briefcase. First it was a yellow sport version and later the mini-disk Walkman. Mostly, like 90% of the time, I listened to Armenian and Turkish music. About half of that music was live recordings that a group of musician friends would record, duplicate, and share. The Walkman was a big part of expanding our repertoire.

     I have very fond memories of the Walkman but easily gave them up when gifted an iPod. Innovations are really awesome and breed great loyalty until something better comes along.