A Prioritization Ramble

 

lanpdt.com

   This is a follow-up to my last bloggy bit: Overwhelming Perspective
     I really should be working on task A but instead I choose to do task B. Task A has the higher external priority. Furthermore, Task A is late and not doing Task A will be visible to others. Task B, however, is my priority and no one else will really care if it gets done or not. Which should I do?
     There are many possibilities. The first and easiest choice is not to choose. Basically, do nothing. But, that would have a zen-like sage, wisdom laden, and somewhat aloof choice with a certain air of coolness about it. Did I say it was the easiest choice? It is easy to do nothing, lots of people do this each and every day. The hard part is the zen, aloof, cool part.
     When I choose to do neither task, there is nothing cool about the way I do nothing. There is instead lots of fretting. There is guilt. There is angst. Sure, overeating helps. Naturally, watching TV helps. In this decision space where 1 + 1 = 3 or more, watching TV and overeating is the bomb. If this is not enough, I could layer another totally unproductive activity on top of this by playing a Yahtzee on my phone (this particular game may be a family tradition). So, I suppose there is an app for this… whatever this is.

Sidebar: It should be noted that if one chooses to watch TV instead of doing what you should be doing, you should watch old movies or old sitcoms preferably ones you have watched a thousand times before. Do not, and I cannot emphasize this enough, DO NOT Supreme Court nominee confirmation hearings.

     This morning, however, I am feeling ambitious. I want to do something. I have to do many somethings. I am choosing Task B. This means, I am really doing what I want. I am first addressing my priority not anyone else’s. This is good (unless the anyone else is the IRS or a court order). I am officially a senior citizen. This means I really don’t have to care what the heck (insert the f word here if works better for you) others think. Yes, I know, this is just rationalization for doing whatever I want to do… so there is no need to point this out in a text or comment.
     You may have guessed it already, but this blog post is the Task B I have been talking about. Oddly, Task A along with Tasks C, D, E, F, and G are all writing tasks all of which have external priorities linked to others. So, this five-hundred ramble is a just a first cup of coffee limbering-up, get the juices flowing, in preparation for the other tasks.
     I may be a world-class rationalizer. I wonder if I can turn this into a lucrative consulting business? You know, it could be like being an executive coach for underachievers.
     Oh my, did I just create a Task F that I could spend the rest of the day contemplating and thus avoiding the other more important Tasks? I told you I was good at this.

Overwhelming Perspective

https://hopeafterbetrayal.com/perspectives/

     Note:  As North Park University is the University of the Evangelical Covenant Church, we naturally begin all meetings with a prayer or short homily and a prayer. In our School of Business and Faculty Senate, that honor rotates amongst the professors. At our Faculty Senate Meeting on Monday, September 24, 2018, it was my turn.
     Most times, the theme of the devotion is clear to me. This time it was not. So, I started with what was bothering me and it led to the following, which I thought was #blogworthy.

Overwhelming Perspective

     Just five short weeks ago, we were excited to greet our students and colleagues and begin this school. Like our students, we… well at least I, were excited and enthusiastic with the start of another school year.
     Now, it is just week 4, and again speaking for myself and a few others I have polled, I am wondering where that excitement and enthusiasm went. It feels like the 25th week of a 16 week semester. Heck, I will admit it, I am feeling overwhelmed. In our school, we are down two full time professors as a result, a few of us, including me are about to have three quads of double overloads. One is a course that needs some surgery and I only have taught it once, like three years ago. Another is a brand-new course that we need, and I am best suited to develop and pilot. It is not clear if I volunteered or was conscripted for this workload.
     I looked up Bible verses on being overwhelmed. There were plenty of them. Here are two, representative passages from Psalms (NLT):

When I am overwhelmed,you alone know the way I should turn.
Wherever I go,my enemies have set traps for me. (Psalm 142:3) 

From the ends of the earth,I cry to you for help
when my heart is overwhelmed.Lead me to the towering rock of safety, (Psalm 61:2)

     I simultaneously felt better and suddenly foolish. Needless to say, things are not nearly this bad. There are no enemies, that I know of, setting traps for me. I am not anywhere near the ends of the earth crying to God for help. I am not this kind of overwhelmed. But, I am some kind of overwhelmed.
     Clearly, this is a matter of perspective. So… yes, I did seek out bible passages on Perspective. These kinds of searches never really pan out in my humble opinion unless I am searching on words like Salvation, Sin, Love, or Forgiveness. Perspective? Forget about it.
     So, I have written my own prayer on Feeling Overwhelmed and Seeking Perspective.

Dear Heavenly Father. 

I am feeling overwhelmed. I have more tasks than I can accomplish. I have more responsibilities than I believe there is time or mental capacity to achieve. I am feeling lonely and helpless in this regard.
Please, lead me to that towering rock but not for safety. Take me to the towering rock where I can have perspective, where I can clearly see priorities, and I can realize how blessed I really am.

Lead me to that towering rock to see and understand that I am blessed to work in this wonderful school, with great colleagues, teaching amazing young people. Let me see and understand those around who are truly overwhelmed with illness, family issues, hunger, in true physical or mental jeopardy. Help me to realize what I so easily forget, that in my humble case, I need to take some deep breathes, to stop being paralyzed by the seeming mountain range of tasks, and instead organize and prioritize them so I may begin chipping away at them. Lead me to the towering rock where I can see that the mountain range is but a small hill. 

Help me to keep the old German Proverb with me at all times: Start to sew and God will provide the thread. It is a truth I too easily forget. 

Lastly, Father, forgive me for exaggerating my pressures. Please provide comfort and safe passage to those who are truly overwhelmed with their lives, dealing with serious illnesses, or otherwise in desperate need. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Newsy?

     I stumbled across a cable news network that I had not heard of before: Newsy. It was tucked in a part of the channel guide I rarely frequent. It is surrounded, oddly, by Christian ministry channels just below the series of movie channels I frequently peruse.
     I thought it was a kind of an odd name for a cable channel, and as I was feeling kind of newsy, I decided to watch it for a bit. I did not know what to expect. If anything, my expectations were on the low side because the name of the network did not sound serious.
     My first reaction, after a few minutes of watching, was that Newsy seemed to be unbiased. Believe me, this assessment did not involve any serious analysis. It is was a quick judgement relative to my other news sources. I listen to Morning Edition from NPR on my morning drive to work and whatever is on NPR when I drive back home. When I am home in the mornings, I tend to watch MSNBC’s Morning Joe. I read the Wall Street Journal six days a week and The New York Times on Sunday. The only magazine I read is The New Yorker. So, I have a mix of conservative, centrist, and liberal news sources.
     I am watching Newsy while I am typing this. This is only the second time I am watching it. Their evening news magazine, called The Why, is airing now. At this moment, they are doing an in-depth piece on Venezuela. It seems their President Nicolas Madura is in Istanbul. He is shown smoking cigars and eating steak and Newsy is reporting that this is not sitting well with his people who are, literally, starving. They contrasted Venezuela to Cuba as they are both Caribbean socialist countries. It was a fascinating comparison that again seemed amazingly unbiased. They then provided the history of how Venezuela went from an oil rich democracy to poverty ridden socialist dictatorship that has the country past the brink of collapse. The coverage was, maybe, fifteen minutes long and was very well done. The Why airs for two hours every evening.
     I did a google search on Newsy and learned the following:

• Newsy was founded in 2008
• Bought for $35M in 2014 by E. W. Scripps Company, a media company based in Cincinnati with $865M in sales in 2017
• The slogan is: Be informed, not influenced
• Newsy is not even mentioned in websites and articles that track cable news ratings. 
• In 2017, Scripps bought Retirement Living Television and rebranded it as Newsy making it available in 26 Million homes
• Website: www.newsy.com

     Per Wikipedia:

Newsy was founded in 2008 on the premise of creating quality video journalism that was easily digestible on mobile devices and the web.[2] In its early years, Newsy operated primarily as a syndication business, selling news and original content to major digital journalism brands that included AOL/Huffington Post, Microsoft and Mashable. Since being acquired by E.W. Scripps, Newsy has become the national news brand focused on delivering news to millennials and Gen X consumers.

     Per Tubefilter.com

“Newsy has already made a name for itself among millennial news consumers who rely on over-the- top television. Now we’ll be reaching Americans with cable and satellite service who are looking for a fresh approach to news coverage,” said Adam Symson, president and CEO of Scripps, in a press release. “This expanded reach for our advertising business alongside carriage fees furthers our strategy to develop Newsy as a prominent multi-platform news network with dual revenue streams.”

     I am thinking, seriously, of making Newsy my TV news source. My go-to source had been MSNBC’s Morning Joe with my morning joe. But, frankly, the liberal perspective has just become a Trump bashing platform. I found Newsy kind of refreshing. Are they truly unbiased? Compared to MSNBC and Fox News, I would have to say yes.

     While I think they are unbiased, a poll I found considers them "slightly" left of center.  But, the polling site is "slightly" right of center.  So, if "Least Biased" is number 2 on this least, I stand by my view.

The Impact of the Great Recession

     I am not a great prognosticator. I am certainly not a futurist. But, this does not stop me from prognosticating or pretending to be a futurist. As with most people who dabble in trying to figure out what might and might not happen in the future, I am not all that accurate. When we cover forecasting in my classes at North Park University, I always tell my students if I were better at predicting the future I would be much richer. But, as I love it so, I would continue to teach. The difference is we be in much plusher classrooms with catered gourmet meals.
     I am sorry about one thing I did predict ten years ago. It has come true, at least in part. When the Great Recession was unfolding, I was afraid that the economic turmoil the US was going through was going fundamentally change our country. I predicted in a few different blog posts, e.g. November 2009: It’s the Stupid Economy, that:

First, with the number of manufacturing jobs that have simply gone off shore, we wondered if we could maintain any economic prowess as a service based economy. Second, will we come out of this recession a different country then we were before this recession? Would we come out of this downturn permanently altered looking more like a European country, say UK, Italy, or Greece, than the United States at the turn of the century? These are excellent questions that have been on my mind for some time.

In other blog posts, I referred to the change using a phrase, new normal, lots of others were using (November 2010: Mid-Term Elections). My prediction did not change much. Just to be clear, I was not the only person making such predications.
     I do believe that this has happened especially when I consider my own case. While I have redefined myself and have an encore career as a college professor, I am lesser economically than I was. I am making less than a quarter of my peak salary.
     Today’s, September 16th, New York Times had me revisiting my predictions. As it has been ten years since Lehman Brothers collapsed on September 15, 2008, the business section and a few Op Ed were dedicated to a retrospective. There was a fascinating essay in the Magazine on poverty which was rooted in part in the Great Recession. The picture painted is that this new normal may be even worse than I predicted.
     Sure, we hear that the economy is booming. Well, the stock market is certainly booming. People that can and have invested such have profited from this. I indeed have but that is a vestige of my old pre-Great Recession life thankfully. Now, I would be on the sidelines like millions of others watching the rich get richer across the abyss that is the wealth gap these days. I am not against people getting richer. I am against the poor getting poorer however.
     There is a graph in an article by David Leonhardt, We are Measuring the Economy All Wrong, that summed it up for me. We have talked about a jobless recovery until recently

We are Measuring the Economy All Wrong

when unemployment reached record lows. Yet, it seems large numbers of people have lesser paying jobs in this recovery. The numbers of people working in minimum wage jobs, where it is impossible to live without government assistance, has grown as has the median age of that class of workers. This is not a good trend.
     In an article by Matthew Desomond,Americans Want to Believe that Jobs are the Solutions to Poverty – They’re Not, in the Times Sunday magazine rooted the issue well before the great recession:

In recent decades, the nation’s tremendous economic growth has not led to broad social uplift. Economists call it the “productivity-pay gap” — the fact that over the last 40 years, the economy has expanded and corporate profits have risen, but real wages have remained flat for workers without a college education. Since 1973, American productivity has increased by 77 percent, while hourly pay has grown by only 12 percent. If the federal minimum wage tracked productivity, it would be more than $20 an hour, not today’s poverty wage of $7.25.

      One might question that these articles are from the somewhat left-of-center New York Times. Consider another article from the Wall Street Journal on another impact of the Great Recession. In an article by Janet Adamy, Gen Z is Coming to Your Office – Get Ready to Adapt, argues that the generation now entering the workforce was shaped by the Great Recession just as my parents generation was shaped by the Great Depression. This generation is more serious about school and not wanting debt to get the education. They want better jobs, homes, and cars. They want the American Dream but are sober enough to know it won’t be handed to them… they have to and want to go out and get it.
     I will have to process all this before revising my earlier prognostication or making a new one.  Stay tuned.

Natural Gas Leaks? Homes Exploding?

masslive.com

     If one buys a classic old house, it might require extensive renovations. Of course, most tend to focus renovations that show and make the house have the amenities we want in this day and age. These might include upgrading the bathrooms, modernizing the kitchen, replacing the windows, pulling up the wall-to-wall carpets and refinishing the hardwood, and even adding central air-conditioning. There are also things that may have to be done simply for one’s safety and well-being. These repairs are invisible and include changing all the wiring and piping in the house. Sometimes this just has to be done to keep water or gas pipes from leaking and faulty wiring from starting fires.
     The same applies to our municipalities. We have heard about the state of bridges and roadways for many years. President Trump even made it a campaign issue promising to fix the infrastructure. But, there is another danger that is very much like the wiring and pipes in the old house. It is the million miles of aging water and gas lines. Certainly, the water catastrophe in Flint, MI is an example of what can go wrong with aging pipes and poor management choices.
     What happened in Andover and Lawrence in the Merrimack Valley of MA yesterday, September 13th, is yet another precursor of what could happen if we don’t start taking this seriously. The natural gas pipelines in that area are antiquated and need replacement. Columbia Gas, the provider, has been working on that. Some reports speculate that a rise in gas pressure caused gas to leak into homes resulting in the explosions. I am suspecting that the rise in pressure might have been due to turning parts of the gas lines on and off for the repair activities.
     These kinds of leaks and explosions are not new. The Merrimack Valley incidents really got my attention simply because we have close friends and family that live there and were affected by the evacuations. Thankfully they are all safe and their homes all intact. Until I started reading about this, I simply forgot that there are numerous examples of leaks caused by aging gas pipelines. There was one in March 2014 in New York City that killed three people and brought down two apartment buildings. I remember that event now after reading about it again. Like most others, I stopped thinking about it like a day later and buried as deep as the decaying pipe infrastructure.
     The problem is that many of the natural gas pipelines are made from wrought or cast iron and are decades old. Remember that gaslight pre-dated electric lighting. So, in some cities these pipelines are ninety and even over one hundred years old. Cast iron piping is particularly prone to leaking. There are over six thousand miles of such piping in New York city and there two thousand plus miles of the same in Chicago. It is a seriously hard and expensive task to replace piping in suburban regions where there are more open spaces to dig and work. Just imagine the added cost to do the same in New York City and parts of Chicago. The task itself is herculean and the expenses astronomical.
     Since the 2014 explosion, the natural gas provider in NYC, Con Ed, has a fleet of trucks that are out detecting leaks. Each address in the city will have one of these trucks pass by twice a month. This is an expensive venture in itself but only a stop gap activity at best.
      Consider the Chicago example. Peoples Gas is in the midst of a project to replace the aging piping in the city. The project is slated to last until 2030 and they have already been working on it for several years. In true Chicago fashion, the cost of the project has risen over the years and the latest estimate I saw was $7 Billion. I recall reading they have already set and blown past three cost estimates. These costs are slowly being passed along to the consumers who are seeing the natural gas utility bills double if not more. Is this the price we will face to solve this issue?

chicagobusiness.com

     The offices for the School of Business and Nonprofit Management are in a two-story house on Spaulding in Northeast Chicago. In the summer of 2017, Peoples Gas came to our street to redo the natural gas pipes. They were there like two months and ripped up the street and the sidewalks as you would expect they would have to replace the pipes. As an operations guy, I was not exactly impressed with their process but there was not a lot of options available. They had to repave parts of our street twice. Seeing it first hand on just one block, I got a sense for the long-time line and huge costs for this project.
     I fear will see more incidents like we saw this week in the North Andover and Lawrence moving forward before we decide to act on this problem.

Summer Ends, School Begins

Old Main at North Park University

     Today was the last Sunday of August. For the past 18 years, the last Sunday of August have been special. While living in Connecticut, I would attend and occasionally play at the St. Gregory the Enlightener Church Picnic in White Plains, NY. Upon moving to Chicago, that tradition continued at the St. James Armenian Street Fair. For all but three of these Sundays, the weather has been spectacular, perfect to be at an Armenian Picnic, listening to music or performing, having some delicious kebab and other Armenian delicacies, and chatting with friends.
     Today, we played at the St. James Street Fair. It was not the typical glorious weather but rather hot and muggy. Even the welcome breezes coming off Lake Michigan were hot. But, it was a great day of playing the music we love for our people. We sounded great, everyone enjoyed, so overall the day was glorious. It was a beautiful way to end the summer.
     Of course, summer doesn’t officially end until September 20th. I am well aware of this. But, the day before school begins is the unofficial last day of summer. When I was growing up, Labor Day was the unofficial end of summer as the Detroit Public Schools always started the Tuesday or Wednesday after Labor Day. Somehow today, schools and universities seem to start before Labor Day. To the kid in me, that seems so wrong and unfair. It is wrong and unfair to the point where I think Congress should enact legislation making it illegal for schools to start earlier. Of course, that will never happen.
     My children never experienced the after-Labor Day start of classes. They always started classes on the last Monday in August. Hence, the wonderful picnic day of the last Sunday in August has become my new unofficial end of

Set-up and ready to play at St. James
in Evanston.  Mike Adajian photo.

summer.
     I am starting my 5thyear as a full-time faculty member at North Park University. We always start classes on the last Monday in August. So, tomorrow is my first day of school and I excited for it. I get to meet incoming freshmen and other students who will be in a course of mine for the first time. I get to greet students who I already know who are taking a second or third class from me. It is exciting for them and equally exciting for me… that same kid in me.
     I am excited because this is the best job I have ever had. It is far from being the best paying job, but it is the most fulfilling. It is where I feel I belong and enjoy it more than any other position I have held. My friend, colleague, and our interim Dean in the School of Business and Nonprofit Management, Professor Ann Hicks, was clearly thinking along the same lines and posted the following in Facebook:

Tomorrow I begin my 17th academic year at North Park University. Over the last couple of weeks, people have asked me if I was ready for the new year. Each time I responded with a resounding, “Absolutely!” (Note that I took that as meaning was I emotionally and mentally ready, NOT were all my classes prepped and ready to go! Otherwise, my answer would have been quite different.) 

These conversations have made me realize how truly lucky I am to LOVE what I do for work! Is it sometimes frustrating? Of course! Do I always agree with the decisions that my institution makes? Of course not! That is life! More importantly: Do I thrive on being able to influence the lives of my students - both inside and outside the classroom? Without doubt! For that privilege, I am and always will be thankful!!

I do believe Ann perfectly captured the essence of why I am excited for the first day of class.

#blogworthy

     My friend Ara, yes that one, always tries to find ways in Facebook to get under my skin. I must admit that he is world class at this. For example, for years, he takes jabs at my singing which for the record is quite an easy target. Lately, on any post I make be the topic smallish or benign, he asks if I am going to blog about it and adds #blogworthy. I think the first time he did it, I responded with “already working on it.” Almost every other time, the topic he jabbingly suggested held no interest with me… and he knew that. I do have to thank him for planting the idea of #blogworthy in my head which has turned into this bloggy bit. No doubt, he will take credit for this and provide some humorous zinger in the comments.
     Over the years, people suggest I blog about this subject or that. My cousin David gives me the most and best suggestions. Certainly, others have provided suggestions here and there. I take these suggestions as compliments. The person making the suggestion either feels that they would like to hear my take on the topic or they think the topic fits my particular tone and style of bloggy babbling.
     For the most part, I have not acted on many of the suggestions. Most of the suggestions are good ones. Even some of Ara’s ideas, made in jest, were good ones. Yet, I almost know immediately if a suggested topic is something I will write about. The ones I write about are those that resonate with me. They are something I have already mulled over, and I feel I have something to say on the subject. Others strike my fancy because I want to or need to think about the subject to the point where I have something to say on the matter. When the topic doesn’t resonate, I simply say nothing or mumble something akin to “I’ll think about it” which really means that I am not interested in that at this time.
     Would I have made a bad newspaper reporter because I am basically shunning assignments? Not really. My blog is a labor of love. It is not a job, nor do I get any financial gain from it. Thus, I do not feel that I have a choice about what is #blogworthy. In business, at the university, or when I was a student, I certainly took assignments seriously and cranked them out on-time. Therefore, in this regard, I feel that I can pick and choose.
     Consider my latest blogs. I have written about my love for the music Ara and I play. I have written about it before and I wrote about it again because I had just heard some great musicians perform. I wrote about the closings of Carson’s, Brookstone, and some Sears stores. Why? I am fascinated about the changing retail landscape as e-commerce grows. I even teach a course about it. I also wrote about Turkey and the free-falling Lira against the dollar. Duh… that was a no brainer.
     This blog? Well I already explained that in the first paragraph. Now, I will wait for Ara’s comments and phone call.

Where Ya Gonna Go with this Recep?

Stratfor.com

     I have tried several times to write about the popular and enigmatic President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I did get one decent piece out two years ago, July 2016: Turkey.
     My opinion of Erdoğan has not changed much since then. I thought he was a bad actor then, I am even more firm about it now. Most of the Turks I know in the country feel the same way. They are adherents of Attaturk and devoted one of his principle tenets: the secular state. Erdoğan is an Islamist and envisions himself as an Ottoman Sultan. I really question if he didn’t stage the coup attempt in 2016 just so he could crackdown on his opponents and move his Islamist agenda ahead at a faster pace. It seems to be well documented that corruption in his governments has made him an incredibly wealthy man. The extravagances of the palace that he built are well documented. His thuggish bodyguards attacked Armenian and Kurdish protesters on May 16, 2017 in Washington, DC.
     Most of the time, Turkey seems to get their way with the US. Seriously, there were no repercussions for the attack of US citizens protesting in Washington, DC… we let them off the hook. The Turkish government blocked the making of The 40 Days of Musa Dagh in the 1930s. So much for freedom of expression. We were fighting ISIS in Syria and our allies were both Turkey and the Kurds. The Turks probably attacked the Kurds more than they did ISIS… and again we never reacted the way most Americans thought we should have reacted. When Erdoğan’s poll numbers dip and it looks like an upstart party might gain influence, there are miraculous act of terrorism attributed, of course, to the Kurds which allows him to crack down on them while stoking the flames of national fervor so that he wins the election and keeps his grip on power. I tend to believe the terrorism is was staged and the elections were rigged. Since the coup, he changed the constitution a la Russia and Venezuela to suit his holding onto power.
     Yet, they were our ally. They have been since Admiral Mark Bristol shunned the Armenians in favor of Attaturk and the Republic of Turkey. We talk about the Incirlik Air Base like it the global lynchpin in our military strategy. And yet, we needed it to attack enemies in the Middle East, Turkey has been quite resistant in letting us use Incirlik for those purposes. We seem to be an ally when it suits Erdoğan.
     After all of the US Presidents, it is President Trump that has finally taken Turkey to task for only being an ally when it favors them. The issue with the ongoing detention of Pastor Andrew Brunson triggered President Trump into action. Erdoğan, naturally, is claiming this is a conspiracy of the West, fake news, and whatever else might play well to his support base in Turkey.
     An article in today’s Wall Street Journal, Debt Powered Turkey, Until it Backfired, took a different stance. It claims that Erdoğan, in essence, “decided to turn Turkey into something resembling China on a smaller scale, a world-class economy under one man’s firm control.” To facilitate a faster recovery from the Great Recession, he eased the access to foreign loans. It worked but, according the WSJ, the amount of loans were exorbitantly out of hand. The problem is that Turkey is not China. It did not have the economic clout, the home market, nor was it able to become an exporting juggernaut like China.  President Trump’s actions may have only hastened what was inevitable. There might not be a quick fix to this.
     So, the US relationship with Turkey is fading. Turkey may quit or be dropped from NATO. They may move more into Russia’s or China’s sphere of influence. Their relations with Israel have soured. They may look to be a stronger independent power in the Middle East. They might even go so far as to annex the Kurdish parts of Syria and Iraq simply because they can. More so, they might do it because they could then “solve” the Kurdish question and taking over the Iraqi oil fields would bolster their economy. How would the US to react to such moves? It wouldn’t surprise me to see some acts of terrorism in Turkey to divert attention from the crisis to the Kurds.
     Of course, my views and prognostications are those of an arm chair analyst. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds moving forward.
     I only wish our President had mentioned the treatment of Armenians, Kurds, and other minorities in Turkey.

Ford Motor Company: Another Turnaround?

     In The Nostalgia of Closed Stores, I gave a two paragraph summary of the general business challenge:

Business is business. It is cut and dry. Provide products and services that customers want, sell these same products at a high volume at a price higher than the cost of goods and production, and, voila, the business is profitable and can thrive and grow. Don’t do this and the opposite happens, the business loses money and will eventually have to cease operations, call it quits. 

Jim Hackett and Bill Ford

This is not a one-time deal. Businesses have to do this continually. To make it even more challenging, competitors would love to steal market share and act aggressively to do just that. Markets and the preferences of customers are always changing. So, businesses need to be aware of all this and adapt and innovate their product and service offerings to remain competitive and relevant to their customers. As a result, some businesses expand and grow while others shrink and even go out of business.

     Nowhere in that Business 101 synopsis did I ever say this was an easy thing to do. It is not easy. But, on the other hand, it is not impossible. It is not easy to do in rapidly changing retail marketplace, nor is it easy in the global automobile markets. These are both tough businesses where technology innovations and customer preferences are intertwined, complicated, and make for a changing landscape in which retail and auto businesses need to operate.
     There was a lengthy article in the August 15th Wall Street Journal on Ford’s new CEO Jim Hackett, Ford Chief’s First Task: Explaining His Vision. The header of the article states “Hired to fix the auto maker, he has confused executives and investors.” Jim Hackett was brought to turn around the storied car maker. This storied car maker is where my grandfather Levon Merian labored in the Rouge Foundry for most of his working years.  It was my first big-boy, grown-up job. Consistent with the Detroit, Motor City culture of 1976 when I started, I fully anticipated working there for 25 to 30 years and retire with a pension… which of course did not happen.
     Ford is the storied auto manufacturer started by Henry Ford who innovated the moving assembly line. It grew wildly with the famed Model T and other great products such as the Falcon, the Galaxy 500, the F-150 light truck, the Mustang, the Escort, the Taurus, and the Explorer to name a few. Of course, Ford has had its share of missteps such as the infamous Edsel and Pinto. In the 1930s and 40s, they treated their employees brutally. In the same time period, they almost went under because their financial systems never really kept up with the growth of the company. Like the other Detroit automakers, Ford was blindsided by the rising oil prices in the 1970s and the invasion of cheaper, higher quality, more reliable, and more efficient cars coming from Japan. To make that storm perfect, Ford, GM, and Chrysler were stuck in their ways, bloated with layers of management, and rarely sought out the needs and wants of their customers.
     Yet, they weathered the storms. Ford made Quality Job 1 in the 80s which culminated with the brilliantly designed and eminently successful Ford Taurus: a car that was designed incorporating the Voice of the Customer into every detail. I would argue that the CEOs from 1979 – 1993, Bill Caldwell, Don Petersen, and Red Poling, raised the company to a new level of performance and culture that would sustain them moving into the future. But, then came Trotman, Nasser, and Ford (Henry’s great-grandson) who were not able to navigate the ship as deftly as their predecessors. Bill Ford knew he needed more help and hired Alan Mulally from Boeing to replace him as CEO. He turned the company around, weathering the Great Recession without taking any government assistance as both GM and Chrysler had to.
     Here is a quote on Toyota from Alan Mulally from circa 2006 (American Icon, page 130) which I also used in a 2015 blog piece Answering Debbie: Why I am Driving a Toyota:

They make products that people want, and they do it with less resources and less time than anybody in the world. They're a magical machine. This system of continually improving the quality, putting the variations into the product line that people want and doing it with minimum resources and minimum time is absolutely where we have to go. If you look at Ford, it's the antithesis.

     Wow… that was his assessment in 2006 not 1980. I had thought in 1990, that Ford had fixed things. Clearly, they unraveled. When Mulally left Ford in 2014, I thought they had fixed things again… but this time for sure. He was succeeded by a lifetime Ford man, Mark Fields. Fields lasted until May of 2017, when he was replaced by Jim Hackett.
      Jim Hackett, started with Steelcase in 1981 and worked there until 2014. In 1996, he was named CEO at the young age of 39. After his 18 years as the Steelcase CEO, he became interim Athletic Director at the University of Michigan where he had played football. He was best known for bringing in Jim Harbaugh as the head football coach. He joined the Ford Board of Directors in 2013.
     So, two of the last two CEOs of Ford, were outsiders i.e. they did not grow-up in the auto industry. They were not lifetime Ford guys. That is astonishing for a company that size ($156.8 Billion in sales in 2017). They have to be able to create a sustainable culture to survive in the industry. That same culture should have both a sustaining product development process to develop vehicles people want to buy and to be able nurture and grow the future leaders of the company. This is simply not happening.
     In the Wall Street Journal article noted that Hackett “has introduced new methodologies from his previous job, including a process called ‘design thinking’ that attempts to solve problems by getting into the mind of the consumer.”
     Gee, it somehow all goes back to making products customers want to buy. Will Ford ever really learn that lesson?

Et Tu Brookstone?

Brookstone Store at Northbrook Court

I just read that Brookstone, the cool store of gadgets, filed for bankruptcy for the second time in four years. As part of their restructuring, they will close all 102 of their mall-based stores. They are keeping their airport stores open… apparently the only profitable stores in the chain. 

     Last month, I posted about the demise of Toy R Us and Carson Pirie Scott in The Nostalgia of Closed Stores. Actually, I never liked Toys R Us. I found them chaotic and messy. I resisted going there unless it was an absolute necessity. As for Carson’s, I actually liked their stores because they always had a “take an Extra 60% off of the already 30% off marked price” sale. It seemed like everything was being sold below cost. So, in my view, it was only a matter of time before they went under. 

     As for Brookstone, I loved the chain the first time I stepped foot in one back in the 1980s at Fairlane Mall in Dearborn, MI. They simply had the coolest gadgets and gift ideas at every price range. I really thought they had great concept. It was like an adult toy store. In the 80s and 90s, if I was going to a birthday lunch or dinner for a work friend and I felt close enough to buy them a gift, I would usually go to Brookstone and buy them something unique there. There was always something that fit my budget. Over the years, I have also received gifts from there which have included a pair of compact binoculars and a variety of different golf gadgets. For myself, I bought a telescopic back scratcher, a dart gun to kill flies, and a slew of travel products. The travel products included a leather case to for ties, another leather case for my travel documents and passport, a money belt, and transformers for the different currents and plug configurations. 

     Over the years, I am guilty of doing the same thing every devotee of all failed stores do or don’t do… I visited their stores less and less. The last time I was in a Brookstone at a mall was in 2010. I had just bought an iPad2 at the Apple store at Northbrook Court, a very nice mall near my home. I went across the hallway to Brookstone store and bought a case with the Wi-Fi keyboard/case for it. The Apple Store had not yet realized the value of selling a full line of accessories for all their products. Even then, before their first bankruptcy, the Brookstone sales clerk said that most of their business was from folks who just bought an iPad at Apple and came over to them to buy a case.

     Other than that, I have only visited their airport store at O’Hare almost every time I fly. Not oddly, one of the articles I read on the Brookstone bankruptcy, in The Verge, referred to Brookstone as “that place you go while waiting for your airplane to board.” Most of the time I go into the airport store just to see what they might have in the spirit of what first made Brookstone a favorite of mine. But, that is not what the airport outlets are. They are travel stores for luggage and related items. I have bought ear plugs for airplanes and converters/adapters as that seems to be the one thing I forget to pack with great regularity.

     The bottom-line is this. Brookstone is going under simply because they have not been able to keep their edge that attracted customers like me in the first place. Cool gadgets of all kinds are not the exclusive domain of Brookstone anymore. The internet, and by the internet I mean Amazon.com, is loaded with them. Everything is available everywhere. Brookstone had things exclusive to them and was known as a place where you could touch and try every cool gadget. That is no longer the case. Like every other failed retail chain they were unable to retain their edge and make a transition to e-commerce world. Consider this, I am or was a quasi-loyal/regular Brookstone customer and the first time I ever visited their website was today while writing this post. 

     I will miss the what Brookstone once was but I understand why they are in the dire straits that forced them into this second bankruptcy. And, I will continue to look for their stores in airport when I forget to pack my charger or converter.

     Thanks for the memories Brookstone.