contracts, depression, google, partnerships
In Media, Politickin' on January 28, 2009
The new refrain in business
I’m seeing an unhappy, but perhaps necessary trend in business relationships of late, one that may well be born of our troubling economic times. I can ’splain best with an example:
Last year, Google approached my company about becoming an “Authorized Adwords Reseller.” The courtship, ramp-up and launch process was high-touch. We had lots of conference calls with lots of people. We had regular email correspondence with the support team– all real people with real names. Our business manager went to Mountain View for live training.
This week, we were unceremoniously dumped from the program via a canned email with no human being’s signature on it. I did get a response to my reply of complaint, but it came from the nameless, faceless, phone numberless “Google AdWords Reseller Team.” Read the rest of this entry »
facebook, juries, justice
In Media, Politickin', PopCult on January 14, 2009
From one of my attorney friends, posted from Facebook with the name changed to protect the honest:
“Chelsea” offers a secret to my FB friends. We look up your FB pages during jury selection. Just sayin… 2:58pm – Comment
Like all things, can be used for good or evil. I like.
bailout, Media, newspapers
In Media, Politickin' on January 2, 2009
Saving the banking industry means saving banks.
Saving the auto industry means saving car makers.
Saving the free press does not mean saving newspapers.
carols, christmas, whistlinginthedark
In Music, Politickin', Uncategorized on December 24, 2008
An underappreciated classic
Previously posted treacle aside, I like my Christmas songs like I like my humor– dark. Provides a nice place to whistle.
I went on a big Christmas song kick this year. Here are my current faves: Read the rest of this entry »
americanairlines, aviation, dinosaurs, economy, rewards
In Politickin', Travel on December 17, 2008
If I've learned anything in the last four years...
I’m pretty firmly against the slew of bailouts being proposed or in process. It’s not that I’m insensitive to the impact of the fall of certain industries or the unemployment that follows. It’s that I don’t believe that the money, which is at some point finite, will make a difference in badly broken businesses. So why throw good money after bad? Let the bad businesses fail and use the proposed bailout money to help the displaced workers by using it to create jobs.
I had an experience today with a company in a troubled industry that reminded me how badly things can be broken… Read the rest of this entry »
crisis, depression, frankcapra, pluck
In Politickin' on December 12, 2008
It ain't no WPA -- That's for sure.
I’ve been writing about this for a while now, but with every passing day — even without media hype — it becomes clearer to me that we are in the early stages of hard times beyond the most devout Cassandra’s ken. You can say that people saying things like this are turning this recession depression holyshit into a self-fulfilling prophecy. I say: “Mithridates, he died old.”
I’ve taken the existence of this thing (whatever you want to call it) as a given for a while now. The question increasingly on my mind is how are we going to handle it? Read the rest of this entry »
gustav
In Politickin' on August 29, 2008
In the cab to the airport and just heard a classic Freudian slip on NPR:
Some New Orleans official re: Katrina:
“The worst natural man-made disaster in human history.”
