My good buddy Scott Loftesness, Founder and CEO of Glenbrook Partners (http://www.glenbrook.com/) a payments strategy consulting firm in THE Bay Area, does some pretty neat things with the distribution of news, updates, information and opinions in the payments business. His personal blog (http://www.sjl.us/) reveals as much of a renaissance man as you're going to find these days -- recipes, personal photography, his world travels and some interesting reading lists, too.
His creativity most recently revealed itself in a helpful tool I call the meta blog, a highly networked feed to more than 25 payments related blogs. Check it out at www.paymentsnews.com/otherblogs-2.html. As always, some (many?) posts are not much more than personal opinion and unsubstantiated rhetoric; others contain insightful, provocative content. Enjoy. And nice work, Scott.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Inter-connectedness of Seemingly Trivial Things
I recently came across the following piece (www.SuperHub.com/PrietoPaper.pdf) on the vulnerability of tightly coupled systems that can go unidentified for a very long time. What may look like random events or issues can actually be highly coupled.
Take the simple example of a fire in a small building outside of Chicago that disrupted telephone service for much of the country. Why? Because "It seems that most transcontinental land-lines passed through that single building and they were destroyed in the fire." Excuse me? How could somebody not know, or know and not do something about, that vulnerability? And, why did the price of anti-freeze go up 300% a while back? Turns out ethylene glycol was made in only two places in the US and one of them, a small plant in Idaho, burned down with the obvious result.
You'll enjoy this article; it's short and punchy and can help you ask questions that could potentially illuminate a blind spot, or two.
Take the simple example of a fire in a small building outside of Chicago that disrupted telephone service for much of the country. Why? Because "It seems that most transcontinental land-lines passed through that single building and they were destroyed in the fire." Excuse me? How could somebody not know, or know and not do something about, that vulnerability? And, why did the price of anti-freeze go up 300% a while back? Turns out ethylene glycol was made in only two places in the US and one of them, a small plant in Idaho, burned down with the obvious result.
You'll enjoy this article; it's short and punchy and can help you ask questions that could potentially illuminate a blind spot, or two.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Al-Zawahiri Didn't Care if You Starve .... Neither Does Your Competition
[The following is provided courtesy of Tal Newhart of Parcon Research]
What we seem to be forgetting & why we're in trouble
A finance journalist, and reader of this occasional newsletter, called last week to ask what I thought about the $700 billion bail out plan. The conversation quickly expanded into a discussion of "What happened?". He was referring to the larger picture, as in 'What happened to us [the United States]?' Basically, he was asking what happened to Chrysler, Wall Street, Main Street, you and me, etc. In fact, as I write this on Monday the Dow is down 400 (four h-u-n-d-r-e-d) points.
Well obviously, it's complex. But I think a lot of it stems from 9/11 which was so classic it now seems grimly inevitable. I wrote about the tactic in a corporate setting in a CorpWar way back in March 2003 (to review go here: Concentration of Force). Al-Zawahiri, one of Osama bin Laden's key strategists, knew the only way to bring us down, arguably the most 'powerful' civilization in history, was to help us bring ourselves down. Aside from our spirit America is also a business and as such we 'behave' like a business. And all businesses have their weaknesses which are too often discernable to our competition (e.g. al-Zawahiri, or picture your own competition-there really is no difference). So al-Zawahiri helped come up with this cheap little plan, pretty crude really, and sent a huge arrow dead center into our economic heart. And, let's face it, it's been pretty rough sailing ever since. And if you don't think so you and I don't live in the same galaxy.
If you think your business is any different you are part of the problem. You need to think better. You need to think stronger. We all work for our stakeholders. We OWE them our best, now more than ever, because things are starting to fall apart. And if we don't give it to them we should be replaced. Period. This is no time for dull, slacker, thinking folks.
I've taken on the role of new business development for ScreeningInterviews.com (technically a spin-off) and have noticed a couple of alarming things. To put this in context the service does screening interviews of a client's "short list" of an open job's candidates and makes those recordings available to management so they can efficiently comment on whether or not they think a candidate would be a good fit to the company. Pretty simple.
Now, managers that use the tool typically love it but, conversely, some really hate it (actually loathe everything about it). When I drill in to understand why, it's typically because "things work well enough as they are". All I can say is stop, RIGHT THERE. This is the kind of thinking that some clever guy in a corporate cave somewhere (a.k.a. your competition, some of whom you probably aren't even aware of) is waiting to exploit. This mindset insists "things are cool enough now, we'll survive". Really? Think again. If you're sitting around thinking your business is some sort of invincible fort I GUARANTEE you somebody, somewhere, is x-raying your walls to find weak spots. They are focusing on YOU, trying to find YOUR Twin Towers. And we all know the potential result.
Another thing I've noticed because of ScreeningInterviews.com is the quality of many of the candidates (the resumes are supplied by the client's HR department or retained recruiting companies-we have no control over what we get). I do some of the interviews myself, and listen to many of the others and I'm often shocked at what I hear. We typically interview 4-5 candidates per position and often 1 or 2, sometimes even 3 of these candidates are pretty poorly qualified for the position (even internal candidates up for internal transfer). Sometimes egregiously so. It's just so vivid in the recording that they can't do the job you have to ask yourself, how did these people get on a short list? Sometimes, of course, the process lets somebody really shine that looks weak on paper (that's great when it happens, by the way), but more often we uncover expensive hiring mistakes waiting to happen. Often their only real skill is knowing how to game the hiring system. Thank god we help weed them out.
Look, you need to impress everybody around you, everybody in your company, that there are barbarians at the corporate gate, because functionally there really are. This is no time for lazy, yesterday thinking because competitors that need to eat are hunkered down trying to figure out how to steal your food. This is capitalism folks. Your competition doesn't care if you starve.Think about it.
Feel free to contact me about http://www.screeninginterviews.com/. It's useful at helping you efficiently identify winners and avoid losers.
TalTal Newhart (e-mail)ScreeningInterviews.com847.462.0632 dd
What we seem to be forgetting & why we're in trouble
A comment by T.S. Newhart
Well obviously, it's complex. But I think a lot of it stems from 9/11 which was so classic it now seems grimly inevitable. I wrote about the tactic in a corporate setting in a CorpWar way back in March 2003 (to review go here: Concentration of Force). Al-Zawahiri, one of Osama bin Laden's key strategists, knew the only way to bring us down, arguably the most 'powerful' civilization in history, was to help us bring ourselves down. Aside from our spirit America is also a business and as such we 'behave' like a business. And all businesses have their weaknesses which are too often discernable to our competition (e.g. al-Zawahiri, or picture your own competition-there really is no difference). So al-Zawahiri helped come up with this cheap little plan, pretty crude really, and sent a huge arrow dead center into our economic heart. And, let's face it, it's been pretty rough sailing ever since. And if you don't think so you and I don't live in the same galaxy.
If you think your business is any different you are part of the problem. You need to think better. You need to think stronger. We all work for our stakeholders. We OWE them our best, now more than ever, because things are starting to fall apart. And if we don't give it to them we should be replaced. Period. This is no time for dull, slacker, thinking folks.
I've taken on the role of new business development for ScreeningInterviews.com (technically a spin-off) and have noticed a couple of alarming things. To put this in context the service does screening interviews of a client's "short list" of an open job's candidates and makes those recordings available to management so they can efficiently comment on whether or not they think a candidate would be a good fit to the company. Pretty simple.
Now, managers that use the tool typically love it but, conversely, some really hate it (actually loathe everything about it). When I drill in to understand why, it's typically because "things work well enough as they are". All I can say is stop, RIGHT THERE. This is the kind of thinking that some clever guy in a corporate cave somewhere (a.k.a. your competition, some of whom you probably aren't even aware of) is waiting to exploit. This mindset insists "things are cool enough now, we'll survive". Really? Think again. If you're sitting around thinking your business is some sort of invincible fort I GUARANTEE you somebody, somewhere, is x-raying your walls to find weak spots. They are focusing on YOU, trying to find YOUR Twin Towers. And we all know the potential result.
Another thing I've noticed because of ScreeningInterviews.com is the quality of many of the candidates (the resumes are supplied by the client's HR department or retained recruiting companies-we have no control over what we get). I do some of the interviews myself, and listen to many of the others and I'm often shocked at what I hear. We typically interview 4-5 candidates per position and often 1 or 2, sometimes even 3 of these candidates are pretty poorly qualified for the position (even internal candidates up for internal transfer). Sometimes egregiously so. It's just so vivid in the recording that they can't do the job you have to ask yourself, how did these people get on a short list? Sometimes, of course, the process lets somebody really shine that looks weak on paper (that's great when it happens, by the way), but more often we uncover expensive hiring mistakes waiting to happen. Often their only real skill is knowing how to game the hiring system. Thank god we help weed them out.
Look, you need to impress everybody around you, everybody in your company, that there are barbarians at the corporate gate, because functionally there really are. This is no time for lazy, yesterday thinking because competitors that need to eat are hunkered down trying to figure out how to steal your food. This is capitalism folks. Your competition doesn't care if you starve.Think about it.
Feel free to contact me about http://www.screeninginterviews.com/. It's useful at helping you efficiently identify winners and avoid losers.
TalTal Newhart (e-mail)ScreeningInterviews.com847.462.0632 dd
Friday, October 3, 2008
The WSJ Had It Right
The op ed piece in this Thursday's edition of the Wall Street Journal had it right...calling the federal market intervention plan a 'Wall Street bailout' is just plain inaccurate and a convenient ignoring of the truth. Whatever 'bailing' Washington is willing to do is as much for the benefit of all the home mortgagees who gleefully accepted the low APR, one year ARM at 125% loan to value with no certainty of making the payments unless their home increased in value by 25% a year as it is for any bank or wall street executive. When credit was readily available at record low rates, and the credit card offers kept pouring through the front door with agressive incentive balance transfer rates, these same consumers gladly accepted this 'found money' as if it was their god given American right.
Some how this has all been turned around, and the concepts of personal responsibilty and foresight have been conveniently forgotten. At the risk of sounding a bit Clintonian, "It's the payments, stupid". Non-performing, over valued mortgages are, at the root, the consumers problem. Wall Street doesn't owe Main Street a life preserver; Main Street didn't suffienctly manage their personal financial matters past their own nose. It's not all Bush's fault or those greedy credit pushers on Wall Street, or Freddie or Fannie's problem. Its an American problem, a society whose savings rate has consistently declined over the last 10 years, yet leads the world in the consumption of extraneous luxury goods like personal electronics and high-end purses, the natural result of a self-centric culture consumed with finding someone else to blame when something goes wrong.
The ability to apply small personal disciplines to our daily lives as practical steps toward the creation of an envisioned improved future state is a lost character trait in our culture. After all, we're told if we shop at WalMart we'll "live better", a pithy meaningless promise that subliminally encourages the direct connection between shopping (spending money) and living 'better'. What if WalMart's adds said "Stay at home once in a while and put that $500 you would have spent in our stores toward your mortgage prepayment. Then you'll live better"? Seems almost silly, doesn't it? But, it's our opinion a good bit more personal accountability all around for choices and actions, or the lack thereof, would do our economy good.
Some how this has all been turned around, and the concepts of personal responsibilty and foresight have been conveniently forgotten. At the risk of sounding a bit Clintonian, "It's the payments, stupid". Non-performing, over valued mortgages are, at the root, the consumers problem. Wall Street doesn't owe Main Street a life preserver; Main Street didn't suffienctly manage their personal financial matters past their own nose. It's not all Bush's fault or those greedy credit pushers on Wall Street, or Freddie or Fannie's problem. Its an American problem, a society whose savings rate has consistently declined over the last 10 years, yet leads the world in the consumption of extraneous luxury goods like personal electronics and high-end purses, the natural result of a self-centric culture consumed with finding someone else to blame when something goes wrong.
The ability to apply small personal disciplines to our daily lives as practical steps toward the creation of an envisioned improved future state is a lost character trait in our culture. After all, we're told if we shop at WalMart we'll "live better", a pithy meaningless promise that subliminally encourages the direct connection between shopping (spending money) and living 'better'. What if WalMart's adds said "Stay at home once in a while and put that $500 you would have spent in our stores toward your mortgage prepayment. Then you'll live better"? Seems almost silly, doesn't it? But, it's our opinion a good bit more personal accountability all around for choices and actions, or the lack thereof, would do our economy good.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
On Investing....What's It All Gonna Mean, Anyway?
It used to be if the stock market went down, the liquidated capital had to go somewhere, usually into real estate. If housing and commercial property values started softening, investors sought bonds to even out the trough. And, if corporate bonds or munis took a turn south, there was always foreign exchange, or another sector in the stock market to re-evaluate and hedge. But, today, I wonder "Where's the safe quarter"?
A functional central bank, something which the US didn't have in 1929, and the global nature of capital markets should prevent the US economy from taking a nose dive into the abyss. But the question remains as to where the safe play for investments remains....is it simply under the mattress for a while?
I'd be interested in your thoughts. Longitude generally isn't engaged on investment topics but the swirl of the markets has us talking, and thinking. Clearly, there will be shake out in the payments landscape from this realignment of organizations...I mean, can Lehman really continue to 'prefer American Express' if they're owned by Bank of America? But, there are more profound fundamentals I think we'll see changing over the next several months. What's your view?
A functional central bank, something which the US didn't have in 1929, and the global nature of capital markets should prevent the US economy from taking a nose dive into the abyss. But the question remains as to where the safe play for investments remains....is it simply under the mattress for a while?
I'd be interested in your thoughts. Longitude generally isn't engaged on investment topics but the swirl of the markets has us talking, and thinking. Clearly, there will be shake out in the payments landscape from this realignment of organizations...I mean, can Lehman really continue to 'prefer American Express' if they're owned by Bank of America? But, there are more profound fundamentals I think we'll see changing over the next several months. What's your view?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Change: We're All For It....As Long As It's Familar!
My son, who is doing Masters work at the Johns Hopkins SAIS School, alerted me to a Brookings Institute forum this week on the "Future of Consumer Payments: a Discussion on Business and Public Policy" (www.brookings.edu/events/2008/0916 comsumer.aspx). Some really smart people were scheduled to speak including Ken Chenault of American Express, Dick Schmalensee of the Sloan Institute and Vijay D’Silva of McKinsey. I would have loved to attend and hear these and other speakers comment on what they see as 'the future' for our industry.
More provacativley, however, I was reminded of how many of these types of forums I've attended over the years seldom include the real game changing agents. Somehow, the Elon Musk's of the industry, who built a huge consumer data base of online transactors by offerring ‘free online checking’ via x.com using what at the time seemed like obscene amounts VC money, don't get the invitation to share their visions. They're just too scary and represent too much change to be included in the intelectual excercise.
Musk wasn't a banking maverick; he was just a maverick who believed he had a better idea about moving value between two parties. If you don't know the story, Musk went on to convert this huge new community of consumers into the world of PayPal, today the single largest global base of monetary transfer. As PayPal came on stream, the traditional networks (Amex, Visa, etc) and their constiuent institutions comforted themselves by repeating “Its only auctions, its only auctions” without acknowleging the true reality of PayPal's ability to seriously change the rules of the game down the road. If, or perhaps more aptly when, PayPal decides to "go retail" it could well represent a massive C-change in the retail payments landscape and potentially shift the control of payments question back toward the payee.
In the end, Chenault and company are admitedly smart guys. But, its also in their personal self interest to not change too much or too fast. Otherwise, they risk disenfranchising themselves and their networks. We all like change, if its something we’re familiar with!
More provacativley, however, I was reminded of how many of these types of forums I've attended over the years seldom include the real game changing agents. Somehow, the Elon Musk's of the industry, who built a huge consumer data base of online transactors by offerring ‘free online checking’ via x.com using what at the time seemed like obscene amounts VC money, don't get the invitation to share their visions. They're just too scary and represent too much change to be included in the intelectual excercise.
Musk wasn't a banking maverick; he was just a maverick who believed he had a better idea about moving value between two parties. If you don't know the story, Musk went on to convert this huge new community of consumers into the world of PayPal, today the single largest global base of monetary transfer. As PayPal came on stream, the traditional networks (Amex, Visa, etc) and their constiuent institutions comforted themselves by repeating “Its only auctions, its only auctions” without acknowleging the true reality of PayPal's ability to seriously change the rules of the game down the road. If, or perhaps more aptly when, PayPal decides to "go retail" it could well represent a massive C-change in the retail payments landscape and potentially shift the control of payments question back toward the payee.
In the end, Chenault and company are admitedly smart guys. But, its also in their personal self interest to not change too much or too fast. Otherwise, they risk disenfranchising themselves and their networks. We all like change, if its something we’re familiar with!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Coach or Crony?
University psychologist and researcher Carol Dweck says the “key to success in life is to adopt a ‘growth’ mindset as opposed to a ‘fixed’ one.'” She goes on to discuss results from her research on “mindsets”: “People with a fixed mindset believe their basic qualities are carved in stone, so they are concerned about making their abilities look good. Those with a growth mindset believe their basic abilities can be cultivated through dedication and education. They are more concerned about stretching themselves.”
A “crony” is a good-ole-boy (or girl) who supports another person’s status quo. Cronies don’t challenge each other. They encourage the old, safe ways and with flattery attempt to make the fixed traits of their associates look good. A coach doesn’t care if you look good or not. The effective coach strives to disrupt the status quo of those he or she works with and make them stretch. The crony makes you wary of challenges, especially if the learning involves the risk of failure. The good coach orients you toward learning and the changes that are necessary to get you from where you are to where you say you want to be, even if that involves the risk of things looking worse before they get better.
Be wary when choosing a coach who’s main technique is that of cheering and excessive praise. There is nothing wrong with encouragement and when used at the proper time, can help to solidify gains and progress. But first we need to make the changes and do the hard work of moving out of old comfort zones. A coach worth hiring knows how to work with growth minded individuals and show them the strategies of change. Then that same coach also knows how to help you maintain the changes you took the risks to make.
Interview the coach you are considering. Determine if that coach uses a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. An easy test is to know if the coach praises effort, strategy and improvement in the people he or she works with or intelligence and talent. Beware the coach who places emphasis on the later because those aspects of a person are fixed.
Paul W. Anderson,
BulletProofCoach.com
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