ads instead of care

I wanna know how much the US Army spent to have their recruiting ads aired during a brand new Simpsons Sunday eve, that could have been spent fixing Walter Reed.

Business Week bashed Wal-Mart

Business Week's April 30th issue details Wal-Mart's midlife crisis: slowing growth, dimming prospects.

See what being the meanest kid on the block gets ya!

spring has finally sprung in nyc

yesterday at shakespeare garden in central park, i just had to snap a few flower pics.

Gel highlights

my 5th gel conference, or good experience live, helped me refresh and renew with new ideas, perspectives and people to talk to.

my favorites:
- museum of natural history tour, esp. the discovery center
- knoll offices were way cool, great view and right across from chelsea market
- chris jordan's portraits of american mass consumption gave me chills
- hospitality makes all the difference according to renouned nyc restraunteur danny meyer and john williams creator of frog's leap vineyards
- ira glass of this american life told us stories sprinked with his wit
- i think i laughed hardest at marie lorenz' stories from her nyc tide and current taxi project

talking to first-year attendees, i realize i've gotten used to attending a conference with folks who really get it. hoping this soon will be the norm.

Wal-Mart makes the shit list

The first entry for 2007’s shit list (a.k.a. companies that have let us down) is Wal-Mart

for spending money on the reputation, while ignoring the spirit of community service Wal-Mart has been paying Edelman roughly ten million dollars annually to renovate its reputation on such issues as low wages, miserly benefits, sex discrimination, and union busting, according to an article in the New Yorker.

for excessive executive pay: Lee Scott, Wal-Mart’s president and C.E.O., . . . last year earned $15.7 million in salary and bonuses. Early this month, the company announced that it was granting him an additional twenty-two million dollars in stock. In the past year, Scott earned roughly two thousand times the salary of the average Wal-Mart worker.

for crappy employee pay: Wake Up Wal-Mart notes that $10.51 may be the average full-time wage, but the company won’t disclose the average hourly wage of part-timers. “We think the true average is probably less than nine dollars,” Chris Kofinis, the Wake Up Wal-Mart spokesman, said. By comparison, Costco’s average wage is $17.46.

and for doing the right things:

• supporting universal healthcare . . . simply because it’s cheaper for them not to provide healthcare for their employees.
• Jobs and Opportunity Zones program . . . to get stores in urban areas which have been thwarted by residents.
• green campaign: cutting fuel and electricity use . . . saves money, provides positive PR

only to make more money (for the wrong reasons)

Profitable and fun? you bet!

Fortune’s 100 best companies to work for hasn’t been in the recycle pile all that long and Business Week comes out with its 75 best performers. I’ve known for years that a great work environment leads to profitability, but I wanted to see if these two lists by two different magazines would help prove my case.

Only 12 companies were found on BOTH Fortune’s 100 best companies to work for and Business Week’s 75 top performers.

Drum roll please

12 companies who get it:
Adobe Systems
Cisco
EOG Resources
Goldman Sachs
Google
Intuit
Microsoft
Nordstrom
Paychex
Starbucks
Synovus Financial
Valero Energy

Google taking the number 1 spot on both lists definitely proves that happy employees are more productive and absolutely impact the bottom line.

Most notably missing is Apple which did not make the best companies to work for list, but ranked 34th in performance from Business Week. Whole Foods-5, Yahoo-44 and Marriott-89 on best companies to work for didn’t make the top performers list.

Business Week top performers
Fortune's best companies to work for

listen to those suspicions

today i'm being reminded, yet again, to listen to the hair standing up on the back of my neck and the voices in my head that simply didn't believe the gig was worth it.

thought i'd pass along to everyone, especially those in a consulting role: if a potential client seems difficult, they probably are as dysfunctional as you suspect.

this is a problem for me because i seem to have a knack for enabling difficult people and unfortunately the corporate world is their habitat. there are some problems that can't be solved because the folks involved don't want them solved.

listen to your instincts. work with people who "get it!" that's my mantra