The Indianapolis Business Journal’s

We’re excited to see IMS racing toward a bright future — not just because it’s an Indiana Chamber member, but because it’s such an instrumental figure in the history and future of our great state. IBJ writes:

Tony George is no longer head of the operation. But he is on the board. This is a board that has in recent years decided to significantly expand itself beyond familial borders.

Shortly after George was replaced by Belskus in 2009, several board members were added to the mix, notably LDI Chairman Andre B. Lacy and former Anthem Chief Financial Officer Michael L. Smith. Before that move, the board was largely run by Mari Hulman George, her three daughters, and son, Tony.

Indiana Pacers President Jim Morris and Central Indiana Corporate Partnership CEO Mark Miles, who chaired the 2012 Super Bowl Host Committee and is former CEO of the ATP Tour, were added this year, as was Belskus.

When I asked Lacy why he had been added to the board overseeing the Speedway, he deadpanned: “Everybody needs a boss.”

It was clear, the inner circle had been broadened by a new thinking—and a new level of checks and balances.

At first, Belskus seemed awkward in public and uncomfortable with the media. Quickly it became apparent he was serious about following the new board’s primary objectives: Cut expenses and raise revenue…

Last year, Belskus hung corporate signage along pit lane. This year, he made the bold move to sell wall space in turns three and four to Fuzzy’s Ultra Premium Vodka and Shell Oil Co. It was the first time such ads were hung at the Brickyard.

Also this year, NTB, a national car service and retail outlet, will have signage in the grass at turn one and signage will be hung on the back of existing video boards. Also firsts at the vaunted Speedway.

IMS’ opening up of areas previously off-limits to advertisers has created a swell of interest among marketers. In addition to Fuzzy’s, Speedway officials signed new deals this year with Continental Tire, Nissan, Visit Florida, First National Bank of Omaha, 5-Hour Energy, Farmers Insurance, Nationwide and Banana Boat.

Belskus told IBJ he expects a strong double-digit increase in sponsorship sales this May at the track and a possible 10-percent plus increase in total revenue for this year’s Indianapolis 500 over last year.

IMS Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Mike Redlick said “there’s been a change in philosophy” at the track. At the heart of the change, said Speedway executives, is creating an event that is more friendly toward the track’s corporate partners.

But, I’ve never seen one like this: EMC Precision of Sheridan is celebrating a cost-saving achievement by giving each of its 93 employees a bicycle on June 1. Employees will be recognized with a company-sponsored cook-out that afternoon. (The company’s headquarters in Elyria, Ohio will have a similar celebration with bicycles for those employees as well.)

Each quarter, EMC Precision sets a theme and cost-saving goal. The first quarter of 2012 was “Eliminate Waste,” with a goal of employees submitting $150,000 worth of approved cost savings. The company exceeded that goal by double and now saves $300,000.

The precision machining company has a theme for each quarter and most recently the themes have focused on lean manufacturing. The second quarter theme takes it a step further and ties together being lean with being healthy, so the bicycles will come in quite handy. Each employee was also given a pedometer to track steps each day and every employee who reaches 10,000 steps a day will be entered into a drawing to give away 20 iPads.

EMC’s Travis Watson explains that the themes inspire the company as a whole – something that is often a challenge as the company grows.

“It sets the tone for the quarter and gives all the employees a central focus. We have a common bond of a goal that we’re trying to achieve,” he says.

For the previous quarter, Watson notes that employees submitted a wide range of ideas for cost-cutting: buying cheaper materials to make parts run faster, cutting down on outside operation costs, saving money on paper and more. He called the results “unbelievable.”

The company has partnered with Bicycle Garage Indy to secure the bicycles. Watson adds that if any employee does not wish to participate and receive a bicycle, those bicycles will be donated to a local charity that partners with Bicycle Garage Indy.

More than a third of divorce filings last year contained the word Facebook, according to a U.K. survey by Divorce Online, a  legal services firm. And over 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they’ve seen a rise in the number of cases using social networking, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “I see Facebook issues breaking up marriages all the time,” says Gary Traystman, a divorce attorney in New London, Conn. Of the 15 cases he handles per year where computer history, texts and emails are admitted as evidence, 60% exclusively involve Facebook.

“Affairs happen with a lightning speed on Facebook,” says K. Jason Krafsky, who authored the book “Facebook and Your Marriage” with his wife Kelli. In the real world, he says, office romances and out-of-town trysts can take months or even years to develop. “On Facebook,” he says, “they happen in just a few clicks.” The social network is different from most social networks or dating sites in that it both re-connects old flames and allows people to “friend” someone they may only met once in passing. “It puts temptation in the path of people who would never in a million years risk having an affair,” he says. Facebook declined to comment.

Retirement is coming early for Baby Boomers, according to a new study challenging the prevailing notion that seniors are postponing their workforce departures.

The MetLife report reveals that among individuals born in 1946 (the year the Baby Boom began), 59% were either partially or fully retired by age 65. Men (born in ’46) continued working, on average, until age 59.7. For women, the milestone was 57.2.

You know the famous “you’re only as old as you feel” expression? Most participants, on average, share that they won’t consider themselves old until they near 80 (age 79 to be exact). How cool is that?

Here’s one of the best findings, in my opinion: 96% of respondents are enjoying retirement at least somewhat.

Hooray! We may not have to keep our noses to the grindstone as long as we initially thought. And it’s encouraging to know that when we do bid our jobs a (hopefully friendly) farewell, the best may be yet to come.
 

The Best Places to Work in Indiana awards were a hit earlier this month, with Microsoft and Hollingsworth & Zivitz law firm taking top honors. We present to you this video recap of the evening, and invite you to enter the 2013 competition. May the best companies win!

In the initial 12 months, 71 Hoosier companies and individuals contacted the congressman’s office about 41 different regulatory issues. The work of Rokita and his staff has yielded 18 Red Tape Rollback victories thus far, with efforts continuing on other issues.

An annual report outlines the concerns and the accomplishments. It’s not too late for you to let us know about federal regulations and their impact on your business.

In case you’re not convinced there is a problem, consider that the most recent edition of the Code of Federal Regulations consists of more than 101 million words. That compares to just over 4,500 words in the U.S. Constitution.

Industries on the rise offer something uniquely appealing to 20-somethings graduating from college and looking for jobs: the opportunity to seize brand new positions where competition has not reached critical mass. Jobs that did not exist a decade ago include app developer; market research data miner; educational or admission consultant; millennial generational expert; social media manager; chief listening officer; cloud computing services professional; sustainability expert; and user experience designer.

App devloper

The iPhone was introduced in 2007, the Android shortly after. Since then, more than a million apps have been put up for sale in Apples App Store and Android’s Google Play. Consider this: in 2011, Apple pulled in more than $15 billion in revenues from mobile applications, which shrink  programs that used to run only on desktop computers to make them work on mobile devices.

As demand surges for apps to run on iOS, Android and whatever operating system is waiting in the wings, companies are faced with a dearth of talent with the skills to develop for mobile. This means fresh opportunity for programmers and developers to break into a booming market. Currently more than 16,000 listings for mobile app developers are listed on job site indeed.com.

Market research data miner

As customer information becomes more and more vital to the retail experience, businesses are compiling data in droves—and hiring experts to make sense of it. From different datasets including structured (transaction), semi-structured (user behavior) and unstructured (text) information, data analysts and scientists look for behavioral patterns to help retailers and businesses predict future trends or to build recommendation engines or personalized advertising.

Educational/admission consultant

When a certain set of affluent parents watch their toddler stack his or her first set of blocks, they’re not lost in a moment of cute, they’re strategizing their child’s likeliness of getting into the right pre-school. These moms and dads will stop at nothing to secure the best education for their kids—which for many includes hiring an educational or admissions consultant to help ease the process of interviewing and testing into schools from preschool to college. Admissions consultants can be paid thousands of dollars for their skills—which often include personal connections with school administrators.

 

• Before this debate, few knew the State Department was in charge of the siting process for oil pipelines that cross international borders. That emanates from a 2004 executive order.
• The Canadian oil sands, from which the pipeline would originate, are a mixture of sands, clay, water and bitumen, which is heavy, thick oil that must be heated or diluted before being pumped into a pipeline. Canada has 174 billion barrels in reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia, and 97% of those reserves are oil sands.
• Canada is the largest supplier of imported oil to U.S. markets. According to a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Keystone project could reduce imports from the Middle East and Venezuela by 40%.
• The 1,700-mile project will bring 830,000 barrels per day of Canadian oil to Gulf Coast refineries and help alleviate the current bottleneck of oil supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma.
• Project owner TransCanada has resubmitted its application for the segment crossing the international border and recently announced it plans to construct a 435-mile leg from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast, which requires no federal permit.

As expressed earlier here and in many other quarters, what was the administration thinking? Let’s get the ball rolling on this critical project. The benefits are too numerous.

The United States is now home to 214 bicycle-friendly communities in 47 states, according to a new list released Monday by the League of American Bicyclists.

Municipalities are evaluated based on their efforts to promote bicycling, investments in bicycling infrastructure and bicycling education programs, the league said in a news release. They must apply to be considered for the list. Localities are also divided into four categories: platinum, gold, silver and bronze.

Boulder, Colo., Davis, Calif., and Portland, Ore., remained the only three communities to earn the platinum distinction on the 2012 list. All three ranked in the top 10 for their percentage of commuters who bike to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 American Community Survey, as Governing previously reported.

The league also singled out Durango, Colo., and Missoula, Mont., which were moved up from a silver to a gold designation.

More than 7 percent of Missoula’s commuters bike to work, according to the league’s report, well above the national average of 1 percent. The city has recently installed protected bike lanes, added bike path signage and created more bike parking. Durango has constructed more than 300 miles of mountain biking trails and continues to invest in city biking lanes, the league noted in its release.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans who use bicycles as their primary mode of transportation has doubled in the last decade, up to 730,000.