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			<title>Nigeria + Gazprom = Manufacturing Branding Fail</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/fotLLs4iMBw/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:03:37 GMT</pubDate>
			<description><![CDATA[The Russian energy giant Gazprom in a 2.5 billion dollar joint venture (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8118721.stm) with Nigeria&#8217;s NNCP (Nigerian National Petroleum Company) just formed a firm with the ill advised name &#8220;Nigaz.&#8221; The name is apparently a conjunction of the first three letters...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>The Russian energy giant Gazprom in a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8118721.stm" target="_blank">2.5 billion dollar joint venture</a> with Nigeria&#8217;s NNCP (Nigerian National Petroleum Company) just formed a firm with the ill advised name &#8220;Nigaz.&#8221; The name is apparently a conjunction of the first three letters for each of the parties involved in the transaction (&#8220;Nig&#8221; and &#8220;Gaz&#8221;) but unfortunately closely resembles an invective that has come under intense negative public scrutiny in the US for some time now. <br />
<br />
There&#8217;s little doubt that the joint venture with the NNCP was a savvy business move for the Russian company. According to <a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-14656-Africa-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m6d26-Whose-diabolically-brilliant-idea-was-it-to-give-Russia-access-to-Nigerias-gas-reserves" target="_blank">Isaac Ugbabe at examiner.com</a>, Gazprom and the NNCP are cooperating to build refineries, power plants, and possibly a trans-Saharan pipeline between Nigeria and Europe that would increase Europe&#8217;s dependence on Russian natural gas, hence increasing Russia&#8217;s growing political power and clout in Europe.  <br />
<br />
What the Russian energy giant doesn&#8217;t have, apparently, are informed PR consultants. Or maybe they're not at all concerned about the US market. (Or maybe we just haven't seen the ads yet?)  <br />
<br />
Although it's an unfortunate linguistic coincidence, they're not the first, nor will they be the last, manufacturer to walk into a colloquial language trap -- <a href="http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:uDFSx1BGkKQJ:redo.me.uk/oink/ping.fm/Wu5x7+%22branding+fail%22+Pinto+Nova&amp;cd=3&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us" target="_blank">a list by Graham Smith</a> (excerpting from Matt Haig&#8217;s book &#8220;Brand Failures&#8221;) at Logo/Identity/Design touches on some of the more egregious examples of international &#8220;Branding Failure. <br />
<br />
*A translation error of a Parker Pen ad ended up promising Mexican consumers that it would not &quot;leak in your pocket and make you pregnant&quot;<br />
*Chevrolet couldn&#8217;t sell its Nova in South America because &#8220;no va&#8221; is translated there as &#8220;doesn&#8217;t go&#8221;<br />
*In Brazil, &quot;Pinto&quot; (Ford) is slang for &quot;small penis&quot;<br />
*Pepsi's &quot;come alive with the Pepsi generation&quot; in Taiwan ended up as &#8220;Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.&#8221;<br />
*Kentucky Fried Chicken&#8217;s Chinese add campaign slogan &#8220;finger lickin&#8217; good&#8221; played as &#8220;eat your fingers off&#8221;. <br />
*Perdue Chicken&#8217;s slogan &#8220;It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken&#8221; is translated as &quot;It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate&quot; in Spain.<br />
*Coors' slogan &#8220;turn it loose&#8221; was perhaps the most unfortunate of all -- colloquially, it read in Spain as &#8220;suffer from diarrhea&#8221;. <br />
<br />
There are a couple of other instances that are as hilarious as they are a stark reminder that in today's global age, money spent on quality, globally-minded PR is never a waste.</div>

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			<category domain="http://forums.industryweek.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18">MFG 2.0</category>
			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title>You Can Take My 401K, But Leave My 72 Dozen Bottles Of Beer Alone</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/EnJTA2MaqIQ/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:51:44 GMT</pubDate>
			<description><![CDATA[Saw a "sad" story at Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE55956U20090610) that details how the recession is affecting hardworking (and apparently hard-drinking) Canadian brewery workers at Molson. According to the story: 
Molson retirees in the province of Newfoundland...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>Saw a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE55956U20090610" target="_blank">&quot;sad&quot; story at Reuters</a> that details how the recession is affecting hardworking (and apparently hard-drinking) Canadian brewery workers at Molson. According to the story:<br />
<blockquote><i>Molson retirees in the province of Newfoundland will see their monthly allotment of beer fall from six dozen a month to zero over the next five years.<br />
<br />
Current workers will see their allotment drop from 72 dozen bottles a year to 52 dozen.</i></blockquote>What other job would give you 72 dozen bottles of beer a year as part of your employee benefits program? I can't decide which is worse -- giving employees tons of free beer, or taking it away.<br />
<br />
And this might not be the end of the story, as the unions involved &quot;have launched grievances in Montreal and Vancouver, where the allotment is less.&quot; So, crack a cold one, and stay tuned.</div>

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			<category domain="http://forums.industryweek.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18">MFG 2.0</category>
			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title>Just How Big Is The Teen Market? And Who Is Winning It? (Nike, HP, Sony)</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/AXcmkYwgoms/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:39:30 GMT</pubDate>
			<description>Habbo — an international online virtual world for teenagers with (according to their own numbers (http://www.sulake.com/habbo)) 135 million registered viewers — recently released its Global Habbo Youth Survey Update 2009 (http://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/view/1289/). The survey incorporates data...</description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>Habbo — an international online virtual world for teenagers with (according to <a href="http://www.sulake.com/habbo" target="_blank">their own numbers</a>) 135 million registered viewers — recently released its <a href="http://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/view/1289/" target="_blank">Global Habbo Youth Survey Update 2009</a>. The survey incorporates data from 112,000 teenagers across thirty different countries (ages 11-19) about their favorite brands. Following is a list of these brands for your viewing enlightenment, but first, let’s take a look at the buying power of teenagers in the US to underscore the relevance.<br />
<br />
According to a <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/driving.html" target="_blank">2004 article</a> entitled &quot;Driving teen egos--and buying--through branding,&quot; teens influence 600 billion dollars worth of spending every year in the US, and a 2008 study by the market research firm Harris Interactive called <a href="http://www.harrisinteractive.com/services/pubs/HI_PAP_SHEET_YouthPulseOverview.pdf" target="_blank">&quot;Youth Pulse&quot; (pdf)</a> posits that teens have a literal purchasing power of 132 billion dollars annually—that &quot;the influence they exert on their families’ purchase decisions is enormous.&quot; (Which is not necessarily news to many reading this.)<br />
<br />
Wow. To think that today’s teens with their hyper-solvency could have single-handedly bailed out AIG. <br />
<br />
Here’s <a href="http://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/view/1289/" target="_blank">the list</a>:<br />
<br />
<b>Electronics</b><br />
Sony<br />
Apple<br />
Nintendo<br />
Samsung<br />
Hewlett Packard<br />
<br />
<b>Websites</b><br />
Girls     |          Boys<br />
YouTube     |  YouTube<br />
Facebook   |   Facebook<br />
<br />
<b>Clothing</b><br />
Girls     |          Boys<br />
H&amp;M     |          Nike<br />
Zara    |            Adidas<br />
<br />
<b>Shoes</b><br />
Girls      |         Boys<br />
Converse    |   Nike<br />
Nike       |         Converse<br />
<br />
<b>Sportswear</b><br />
Girls      |        Boys<br />
Nike       |         Nike<br />
Adidas    |        Adidas<br />
<br />
<b>Personal hygiene</b><br />
Girls         |      Boys<br />
Nivea      |        Axe<br />
L'Oreal     |      Nivea<br />
<br />
It’s interesting to note that <a href="http://news.cnet.com/Sony-eyes-teen-market-with-latest-electronics-line/2100-1040_3-237568.html" target="_blank">according to CNET News</a> Sony started to develop its marketing strategies specifically for capturing the online hive mind of the teen market as far back as pre-2K. Looks like it's paid off for them. <br />
<br />
And by the way, don’t worry if your brand isn’t on today's top teen fave list&quot; — in today's hyper-faddish, jump-cut culture, it'll probably change again by tomorrow.</div>

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			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title>Twitter Can Ruin Your Brand (Just Ask The Ayatollah)</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/EWgxd5MZfFM/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:02:15 GMT</pubDate>
			<description><![CDATA[Twitter is an online social networking/microblogging/SMS (short message site) started in 2006, where people can post continuous updates (called &#8220;tweets&#8221;) about their whereabouts, doings, and anything else they deem to be interesting enough to broadcast to the world at large. (I say "they deem to...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>Twitter is an online social networking/microblogging/SMS (short message site) started in 2006, where people can post continuous updates (called &#8220;tweets&#8221;) about their whereabouts, doings, and anything else they deem to be interesting enough to broadcast to the world at large. (I say &quot;they deem to be&quot; because Twitter often proves the subjective nature of reality.) Sometimes, that can be 140 characters of total inanity; other times, this microblogging service is perfect for the lightning-fast informational needs (and, perhaps, attention spans) of today's world (Is what we're seeing happen in Iran <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1905356,00.html" target="_blank">revolution 2.0</a>, perhaps?)<br />
<br />
But what does it mean for business today? Here&#8217;s <i>my </i>tweet: Ignore the hype, and focus on the outcome. From the articles I checked out, the potentially malevolent influence of Twitter can be broken down into three categories: 1) customer relations, 2) information leaks, and 3) advertising/marketing.<br />
<br />
<b>1) Customer Relations (don't be the canary-in-the-mineshaft)</b><br />
<br />
Dominos Pizza recently went through a &#8220;baptism by fire in social media&#8221; when a video of employees sabotaging food surfaced on YouTube that ended up getting over a million hits. According to an <a href="http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/editors-blog/2009/04/dominos-creates-twitter-accoun.html" target="_blank">editor&#8217;s blog in Computer Weekly</a>, Dominos missed an essential opportunity to nip this PR nightmare in the bud: as soon as the video hit the YouTube airways, conversation about it spread like wildfire on Twitter (but Dominos wasn&#8217;t on Twitter). Dominos now has an account on Twitter.<br />
<br />
<b>3) Loose twits sink ships</b><br />
<br />
Twitter can also pose issues from the inside. According to a <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/may2009/ca2009058_089205.htm?link_position=link13" target="_blank">recent article in BusinessWeek,</a> the advertising firm Toquigny nearly lost a major prospective client account, when the client found out (through an employee post on Twitter) that Toquigny was courting one of its main competitors. Toquigny didn&#8217;t lose the account, but the near disaster underscores the need for businesses to have an official employee policy concerning social media sites like Twitter (The article states that IBM has had employees sign a document concerning social media sites since 2005).<br />
<br />
<b>2)Beat the brand-jack</b><br />
<br />
In an interesting article called &quot;Why Do Top Global Brands Ignore Twitter&quot; <a href="http://econsultancy.com/blog/3284-why-do-top-global-brands-like-coca-cola-ignore-twitter-for-engagement" target="_blank">Chris Lake from econsultancy.com</a> cites Coca-Cola&#8212;the top global brand&#8212;as an example of how &#8216;not&#8217; to take advantage of the advertising and marketing power of social media sites. According to the article, Coca-Cola&#8217;s brand name got snapped up on Twitter because the company didn&#8217;t have an official presence on the site. The author expresses alarm that top brands are ignoring electronic social media; he says, &quot;All too often the internet (and mobile) is a last-minute thought, when it should be built into a campaign at the outset. More than that, it should now be hardwired into marketing strategies by default.&quot; <br />
<br />
An article in the LA Times <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/20/business/fi-twitter20" target="_blank">describes Twitter</a> as a social media site &quot;whose expansive micro-messaging network is becoming an online circulatory system for news, pumping information between media organs, consumers and businesses themselves.&quot;<br />
<br />
Hmm, circulatory systems sound pretty essential to a well-functioning, agile corporate organism. Best exercise caution, don't you think?<br />
<br />
Related post: <a href="http://forums.industryweek.com/showthread.php?t=1928" target="_blank">Exxon Mobil Gets Brand-Jacked On Twitter</a></div>

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			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title><![CDATA[Detroit's Six Deadly Sins (And How To Avoid Them)]]></title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/c-HIQg1kl54/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:56:28 GMT</pubDate>
			<description>Umair Haque at Havas Media Lab gives six new rules for 21st century businesses (http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/11/detroits_6_mistakes_and_how_no.html) to replace the old ones that he says tanked Detroit.  
 
*1. Choose good (not evil).* According to Haque, Detroit chose an “evil”...</description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>Umair Haque at Havas Media Lab gives <a href="http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/11/detroits_6_mistakes_and_how_no.html" target="_blank">six new rules for 21st century businesses</a> to replace the old ones that he says tanked Detroit. <br />
<br />
<b>1. Choose good (not evil).</b> According to Haque, Detroit chose an “evil” business model: pushing costs onto others to maximize company benefits, “lobbying, marketing wars, and low-cost hardball”, and fighting public transportation tooth and nail.<br />
<br />
Instead of this, Haque argues, choose a “good” business model and reap the benefits: Tata built cars for the less affluent, BMW and Porsche invested in “talent, people, and imagination” and Honda and Toyota invested in energy savvy vehicles and “partnership with the public sector”. And guess what? These “good” business strategies continue to succeed.  <br />
<br />
<b>2. Purpose is self-interest (selfishness is not).</b> As early as this year, according to Haque, Detroit’s lobbyists have been fighting against higher fuel efficiency standards, underscoring a self-destructive myopia and selfishness that’s been endemic to Detroit for years now.<br />
<br />
Haque argues that selfishness isn’t self-interest, but purpose is, and that a true purpose is characterized by businesses looking beyond short term gains and truly considering the effects that their strategies will have on society, people, and the environment—that in doing this, businesses can “…radically change the world for the better”.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Get Constructive (not destructive).</b> Detroit’s MO has been one of destruction: ““destroy the ability of others' to imitate or commoditize you…patenting, trademarking, and litigating”, destroying the competition by controlling distribution, spending vast amounts of revenue on marketing and advertising, creating entirely new brands to take advantage of market niches, and using strategy “as an exercise in exclusion, isolation, and barrier-building.”<br />
<br />
Haque's new 21st century business model calls for constructive and cooperative strategies:  “. . .let demand spark and fuel co-creation…co-produce from a pool of shared resources. . . [let] value activities be co-managed. . .cooperate.”<br />
<br />
<b>4. Seek difference (not differentiation). </b>According to Haque, Detroit offered the same products under different names and the public wasn’t fooled. “True difference is built by making different choices from the ground up - different in the very essence of the value activities that make the wheels of production and consumption spin.”<br />
 <br />
<b>5. Seek crisis (not agility). </b>Detroit’s MO was to avoid crisis, to wheel ‘n deal and duck ‘n dodge. Detroit, Haque argues, cocooned themselves from economic pressure and right into economic oblivion with the “agility” game.  <br />
<br />
The new MO is to face the music head on, and in doing so, fostering the innovation that would otherwise be the opportunity cost of trying to avoid crisis.<br />
<b><br />
6. Advantage happens for (not against). </b>Detroit sought advantage against “suppliers, dealers, consumers, and society alike”, and the result was an adversarial relationship among everyone concerned that undermined constructive business.<br />
<br />
Haque's new rule is to seek advantage for “suppliers, dealers, consumers, and society alike.” He argues that seeking advantage against is “simply bullying” and that this is no different than economic “musical chairs”. (In other words, seeking to put people out of business—in the long run—isn’t good business.)<br />
<br />
So there you have it: a new paradigm for a 21st century business model, and one that sounds remarkably like the manufacturing version of the golden rule.</div>

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			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title>Rush Limbaugh Tells Dittoheads To Boycott GM</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/cSv89KwmOc8/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:23:31 GMT</pubDate>
			<description><![CDATA[The trade site Detroit Bureau has a story up today talking about how a conservative talk show host is whipping up his listeners to boycott GM products, and of course, if it's controversial and can drive ratings, Rush Limbaugh will get his one cent in...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>The trade site Detroit Bureau has a story up today talking about how a conservative talk show host is whipping up his listeners to boycott GM products, and of course, if it's controversial and can drive ratings, Rush Limbaugh will get <a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_060509/content/01125108.guest.html" target="_blank">his one cent in</a>, egging his listeners onto the latest misguided crusade. Here's a sample:<br />
<blockquote>They don't want to do anything to make Obama's policies work! This is an untold story, by the way.  Of course, the government-controlled media is not gonna report anything like this but there are a lot of people who are not going to buy from Chrysler or General Motors as long as it is perceived Barack Obama is running it, because people do not want his policy to work here because this is antithetical to the American economic way of life. The government does not own car companies; the government does not design cars, not in a country that works. So people aren't going to buy products from companies that Obama runs. </blockquote>Is this the opposite of Buy American? What do you think?</div>

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			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title><![CDATA[What Do Cat, Dow, Lockheed-Martin, Hershey's and Harley-Davidson Have In Common?]]></title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/kmly2EpMN_4/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:51:06 GMT</pubDate>
			<description><![CDATA[A little late coming to this flap, but TPM reports (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/your_corporate_media.php) that successful NYT columnist Andrew Sorkin was recently on a successful morning TV program saying that neither he nor the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe could name one...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>A little late coming to this flap, but <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/your_corporate_media.php" target="_blank">TPM reports</a> that successful NYT columnist Andrew Sorkin was recently on a successful morning TV program saying that neither he nor the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe could name one successful unionized company. <br />
<br />
The fact that a set of talk show hosts couldn't come up with a single intelligent thing to say is not surprising; however, I'd expect more out of award-winning business writer and host of the <a href="http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/" target="_blank">DealBook blog</a> like Sorkin. Especially since, ironically, he was making the assertion on a set owned and operated by GE, one of the most successful companies in the world, and a long-time unionized workforce. <br />
<br />
TPM also <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/06/your_corporate_media.php" target="_blank">lists a number of manufacturers</a> under the heading &quot;Successful Unionized Companies,&quot; a list that includes the group from the title as well as General Dynamics, Merck, Kellogg's, Kimberly-Clark, PepsiCo, and about 10 other flagship American manufacturers. <br />
<br />
To his credit, Sorkin has already walked the statement back, but it begs the question -- is there a model for successful union/management partnership in 21st century manufacturing? And if so, what can we learn from it?</div>

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			<title>The Great Google-Lapse -- Did You Even Notice?</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/VmV4N7rgrCw/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2009 02:16:47 GMT</pubDate>
			<description>Noted futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil) has been heard to say that he considers Google, with its millions of users performing untold millions of searches per day (not to mention 5% of global web traffic), to be one step towards truly artificial...</description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>Noted futurist and inventor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil" target="_blank">Ray Kurzweil</a> has been heard to say that he considers Google, with its millions of users performing untold millions of searches per day (not to mention 5% of global web traffic), to be one step towards truly artificial intelligence. If that's true, then I guess the below -- an outage from earlier this month -- is a stumble on that path. (I'd call it a &quot;senior moment&quot; but Google's only 10 years old!)<br />
<br />
As they say on the <a href="http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/05/the-great-googlelapse/" target="_blank">Arbor Networks site</a>, this is what it looks like &quot;when 5% of the Internet disappears on an otherwise uneventful Thursday morning. . .&quot;<br />
<img src="http://www.destinationcrmblog.com/images/googlelapse.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />
I was completely unable to access my Google mail client (Gmail) at that time, but because I'm so used to nonstop uptime with their services, I actually thought it was a proxy or hardware problem. Silly me. Next time, I'll start with thinking it's Google's fault, and work backwards to Microsoft.</div>

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			<category domain="http://forums.industryweek.com/forumdisplay.php?f=18">MFG 2.0</category>
			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title>Those Days Are Over. Blame Technology, Says Robert Reich</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/0fWmlGP9eyg/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2009 15:26:34 GMT</pubDate>
			<description><![CDATA[Interesting blog post from Robert Reich (http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/05/the-future-of-manufacturing-gm.php?ref=fpd), the nation's 22nd Secretary of Labor (under Bill Clinton) and one of the Wall Street Journal's top business thinkers of 2008...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>Interesting <a href="http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/2009/05/the-future-of-manufacturing-gm.php?ref=fpd" target="_blank">blog post from Robert Reich</a>, the nation's 22nd Secretary of Labor (under Bill Clinton) and one of the Wall Street Journal's <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120994652485566323.html?mod=US-Business-News" target="_blank">top business thinkers of 2008</a>. (Of course, 2008 was a horrifilcally bad year for business thinking.) <br />
<br />
In a post entitled The Future of Manufacturing, GM and American Workers, Reich references a study from a that says that, between 1995-2002, increases in productivity meant the decline of jobs in manufacturing. <blockquote><br />
&quot;The United States wasn't even the biggest loser. We lost about 11% of our manufacturing jobs in that period, but the Japanese lost 16% of theirs. Even developing nations lost factory jobs: Brazil suffered a 20% decline, and China had a 15% drop.&quot;</blockquote><img src="http://www.bchinab.com/images/WSJ102803.gif" border="0" alt="" /><br />
<br />
He takes what I'd call a Friedman-ite &quot;flat-earther&quot; view towards what the economy will look like, post-recovery. <blockquote><br />
&quot;We should stop pining after the days when millions of Americans stood along assembly lines and continuously bolted, fit, soldered or clamped what went by. Those days are over. . . When the U.S. economy gets back on track, many routine jobs won't be returning--but new jobs will take their place. A quarter of all Americans now work in jobs that weren't listed in the Census Bureau's occupation codes in 1967.&quot; </blockquote>While this may be true, I believe that this brave new workforce, engaged in occupations that Reich calls &quot;symbolic analytic work, because most of it has to do with analyzing, manipulating and communicating through numbers, shapes, words, ideas&quot; -- are actually less &quot;productive&quot; than the traditional manufacturing that he has all but consigned to the dustbin of history.</div>

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			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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			<title>How To Recognize An Executive Psychopath</title>
			<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndustryweekMfg2point0/~3/NU_3SslbMcg/showthread.php</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 20 May 2009 02:58:57 GMT</pubDate>
			<description>Interesting that an article on Executive Psychopaths (http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2004/10/executive-psychopaths/ar/1) should come from the Harvard Business Review, the very institution probably most responsible for churning out the same hyperentitled, amoral, ladderclimbing backstabbers who...</description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div>Interesting that an article on <a href="http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2004/10/executive-psychopaths/ar/1" target="_blank">Executive Psychopaths</a> should come from the Harvard Business Review, the very institution probably most responsible for churning out the same hyperentitled, amoral, ladderclimbing backstabbers who still claim million dollar bonuses after the companies they ran into the ground barely stays afloat despite massive infusions of taxpayer cash. <br />
<br />
Key line:<br />
<blockquote>Hare believes that psychopaths are increasingly common in business because they’re attracted to the pace and volatility of today’s hypercompetitive workplaces. And because companies unwittingly nurture them . . .they’re rising through the ranks. First, make it easy for rank-and-file workers to express concerns about colleagues. Have an ombudsman or an anonymous tip line. Because regular employees are less useful to a psychopath than leaders, the psychopath’s mask will often come off in front of staff, and employees will pick up on the psychopath’s game before management does. </blockquote>Reminded me of an article I read recently, that also had a great title, <a href="http://www.aei.org/article/100082" target="_blank">Harvard Narcissists with MBAs Killed Wall Street</a>. Key line:<blockquote><i>Psychologists at Ohio State University studied the behavior of 153 MBA students, who were put in groups of four and asked to orchestrate a large financial transaction on behalf of an imaginary company. The psychologists observed that the students who had the strongest narcissistic traits were most likely to emerge as leaders.<br />
<br />
According to Amy Brunell, the lead author, the results of the study had large implications for real-world settings, because &quot;narcissistic leaders tend to have volatile and risky decision- making performance and can be ineffective and potentially destructive leaders.&quot;</i></blockquote>Between former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain and former President George W. Bush, it's good to see the Harvard MBA mystique taking some knocks. A little humility could go a long way...</div>

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			<dc:creator>Brad Kenney</dc:creator>
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