Good writing is largely a subjective perception.   But most reputable pundits agree that good writing, overall, is more difficult to find than equitable health insurance.   Or a politician who…oh, never mind.

As someone in the background checking industry, I sift through countless articles about human resource management, background checks, and recruiting agencies.   I receive emails, newsletters, magazines,  and RSS feeds from assorted outlets.    I pass on most articles after the first couple of sentences and consider it a laudable situation when I can get halfway through the content.

But Matt Charney and Bullet to the Head is a wonderful exception.   It is at once funny, incisive, and informative.  No rare feat.   You can access the entire article on ERE.net.   By all means, go there, read it.  Enjoy!

Corra group is always delighted to see our clients succeed.   This week we are honored to tell you that Bluenog,  an enterprise software and solutions company, has been named to Information Week’s first ever Top 50 Start Up lists.  Truly big stuff, and during this economic downturn it is good to see a company doing so well.

While Bluenog conducts its Preemployment Screening and Background Checks through Corra Group, Blue Nog helps its clients manage website content for a fraction of the cost of the more traditional systems.    We would love to go on about it, but we suggest you read the Blue Nog Public Relations Announcement for a better feel of the company.

Congratulations, guys!

Bluenog, an enterprise software and solutions company, announced that InformationWeek has named Bluenog to its first ever Startup 50 ranking. The award for Bluenog was voted on by the editorial staff as well as reader votes. It recognizes Bluenog for the innovation, value and enterprise-readiness of Bluenog ICE, an award-winning commercial product built on open source CMS, open source portal and open source BI projects.

Piscataway, NJ (PRWEB) April 27, 2009 — Bluenog, an enterprise software and solutions company, announced that InformationWeek has named Bluenog to its first ever Startup 50 ranking. The award for Bluenog was voted on by the editorial staff as well as reader votes. It recognizes Bluenog for the innovation, value and enterprise-readiness of Bluenog ICE, an award-winning commercial product built on open source CMS, open source portal and open source BI projects.

Companies named to the prestigious list were required to undergo a three-step voting process that included nomination, online voting and editorial vetting. The InformationWeek editorial staff made the final selection based on reader votes and their analysis of several criteria: the companies’ ability to inject innovation into existing business processes; value, which is reflected in lower costs, increased sales, higher productivity, or improved customer loyalty; and enterprise-readiness, meaning that a product or service scales and can be deployed and managed as necessary by IT pros.

It was difficult to limit ourselves to 50 startups because there are a lot of exciting companies out there. That said, we believe the Startup 50 have innovative solutions to critical business problems and are worthy of enterprise consideration
We’ve worked hard to make Bluenog ICE a breakthrough product for all types of organizations to build Enterprise 2.0 applications with the scalability, reliability, availability and extensibility necessary for today’s collaborative enterprise
It’s especially gratifying that the editorial community and enterprises are seeing the value of our integrated solution.
InformationWeek created the short list to provide IT stakeholders with an analysis of leading-edge companies that represent innovation and the ability to help solve critical IT problems, cut costs, and improve operations.

For the rest of the article go to PR Web

The news is depressing.   It is not so much the news that is depressing but the various cable shows and the assorted politicians and pundits who populate these shows, filling the air with platitudes of every shape and variety.   As the economy had declined and times have gotten tougher, there is a lot more hemming and hawing among the so-called experts.   It appears increasingly, to quote the noted screening writer, William Goldman, that “nobody knows nothing.”

Sure, they get paid for voicing answers, so there will always be answers.   The answers may be irrelevant and my not even address the questions, but they are answers nevertheless.   Everybody needs a payday.    As for the politicians who appear in the news, we would sometimes feel a whole lot better if they would merely admit they really don’t have an answer for all the challenges facing us and they are only doing the best they can.  Most of which is out of desperation.

There are general threads the pundits allow.   The first is the more intelligent, where people with certain expertise project what actions they would take and what actions they believe should be taken.   The second group discusses other people and comments on their actions and whether or not these are positive acts that will rescue the economy.   The third group mainly inveighs some jingoistic nonsense along partisan lines and repeats tiresome mantras that are supposed to win points for their party or cause.

Of course there are a number of themes interlaced among  these general threads.   How is the new President Obama doing?  Is the country going Socialist?  Is there an end in sight to this Recession?     And, of course, the omnipresent chestnut, comparing the travails of Wall Street to Main Street.

In translation, this invites a discussion of whether the increasingly expensive bailouts are worth it and really helping the average American.  It is also code for those thieving rogues in the banking and financial industries, versus the poor but honest working Joe and the small business guy in need of a loan to keep his business afloat.  Factor in the housing meltdown, the mortgage crisis, and you pretty much have the picture.

There is also the talk about the breathtaking increase of government expenditure and the run up on our national debt.    Those in favor see it as a necessary evil and contend that there will be long run benefits.   Those opposed see national ruin and gather on Tax Day to make speeches and toss teabags into the river.   Of course they wish their fellow Americans will compare this tepid symbolism to the Boston Tea Party that helped kick off the Revolution.   Comparing the two is like comparing nose picking to a Menage a’Trois.

But none of this is really the issue here.   Simply put, America has stopped making things.  Sure we do some manufacturing, but not enough.   We let others do it for us, and then we wonder how and why we end up poorer and facing second tier status as a nation.   Some of what we still do manage to manufacture is first rate, while other products are sub-par in this competitive environment.   Or too expensive, so the products are not cost competitive with the products of other nations.

Largely, compared to how we once were, we do not make much.  Instead, we call ourselves a service industry.   Or we shuffle papers around in various financial transactions that generate outrageous salaries and llusory profit.  Couple the fact that two thirds of this economy is dependent on consumerism.  Consumerism brought on by money advanced often through false financial statements, commercial and private.   Money that was meted out against overvalued property and goods.

Nevertheless, for the past number of decades we have declared this a viable economy; it is the new America.   We have milked every which way possible.   We have borrowed money from other countries to fortify our spending.    And now we realize we have milked it for as long as we could.   As with most occasions, everybody loves the party, but no one likes to pay the tab and the end of the night.

Our economy has become a charade.   A game of smoke and mirrors. The overheated real estate market was a charade.  An illusion.   Common sense should dictate when houses rise in price to where people can no afford them without the assistance of some trick loan, then we are heading for disaster.

But common sense just ain’t so common.  In fact, it is often difficult to come by when everyone is busy buying stuff and shuffling papers around.  Instead of common sense, we had a… business model.   Not just any business model, but the kind that didn’t take into account failure to pay debt as a hurdle that couldn’t be surmounted.    Despite Newton’s law that everything that goes up must come down, this business model speculated to the contrary.   It was the business model that defied history.

The fact remains, as history has dictated time and again, an economy built on fluff and illusion is doomed to failure.   A civilization too self-absorbed to pay attention to its competition will end up in the second tier or even as a civilization in past tense.  Instead of a bonafide business model, so many financial people love to model, we had instead a game of musical chairs.   When the music stopped, the fun really started.  People found themselves without a chair.

We called this debacle an economy for as long as we could.  We called it the rule and beauty of the free market.   It was never really a free market; it was just a market devoid of regulation.   It was a license to steal.  As history again dictates, you give people a license to steal and they will take it down with a shovel and a rake.

That is exactly what they did.   Of course when things turned sour, as most proponents of the quasi-free market are wont to do they demanded government assistance.   Had they been real free marketers they would have acknowledged they screwed it up big time and would have suffered the consequences.   They would have gone out of business or struggled to survive.  Because in the real free market system you are accountable for your actions.     So instead, they have a more socialistic platform where government helps determine the actions of business.   It’s Karma, I guess, the Yin and Yang.   Some think of it as poetic justice.

So  to quote Oliver Hardy of the seminal comedy team, Laurel and Hardy, “what a fine fix you got us in, Stanley.”   Indeed.  Here we are, out or work, broke, killing time with futile networking or watching pundits on television telling us the things we know or ready.  It’s amazing to see what some of the pundits will say with a straight face  just so they can pose as experts, collecting a pay check and hate mail while swapping dignity for cash.   whether or not they have a clue to what they are talking about.   Perhaps as a formula, the average viewer should calculate the more big words the talking heads like to bandy about, the less they know about the subject.

However, there are some salient points that do come up on these news show discussions.    It is not all for naught.   Fortunately, there are some intelligent souls whose knowledge and insight can supersede the commercial break.   And among the talking points most discussed is comparing this economic downturn to the Great Depression.   There is a debate about how the Roosevelt Administration took it on and whether the methods were successful or a failure.

There is talk about the Works Progress Administration, better known as the WPA.  In short, under the Roosevelt’s New Deal, the WPA with government funding put millions of people to work.   Many of our greatest public projects were built through the WPA.   The Hoover Dam is but one that comes to mind.

Not everybody was thrilled about the WPA.     As with some of Obama’s bankrolling, Roosevelt’s programs looked like an advocate of folly.    Some of its detractors labeled it as Socialist.    They assigned various acronyms to the initials, including “We Poke Along, We Putter Around,” and my favorite, “Whistle, Piss, and Argue.”   But in touch economic times, you have to do something.   And Roosevelt did something.   He also told his friends, the scions of American Industry, you either kick in your share or I will tax it out of you.   Some became more generous in response to that threat.

Today we need a new WPA.   We need a program that will meet our times.   We need a program that is as sensible as it is proactive.  We as a nation have to go back into production.    It is not enough to devote funding to rebuilding our infrastructure.  We have to develop and produce the new technologies for alternate energy and environmental recovery.   We also have to manufacture some of the more basic goods that we can purchase.  You know, the essential stuff, like clothing, shoes, and about half the junk we buy from China in its cheap and toxic form.

It is not easy creating a new WPA.   Or, rather, it is not easy creating a new WPA that actually creates a meaningful legacy by putting us back on track as an economic power and not a diminished civilization on the slippery slide to second tier status.   This does not mean we end globalization but develop the principles in which we have always prided ourselves.   That key principle is self reliance.

Yes, it’s a matter of pride.  We pride ourselves on self-reliance as individuals and as a nation.   At least we did.  Now is the time to separate the practical realities from the lip service.   To be self-reliant means we do not have to run up a steep debt buying energy from other countries or articles based on planned obsolescence.   We can make quality goods that last.    As we had learned in years past, quantity does not surpass quality.  We buy quantity because we have been trained to shop until we drop.  We buy ten cheap articles instead of one good one.   Without branding, a label, most people can’t tell the difference between good quality and poor quality.  And quite often the label is just another lie.

So what do we do?   Well for one thing we take stock of all the factories out there that are lying in ruin.   We look at the rest belt and the more blighted areas where workers haven’t had decent jobs since the manufacturing left the country.   We form teams that rejuvenate and reinvigorate these old factories.   We determine what goods could be manufactured and then we make them.   We make them not the old fashioned way but in modern plants with contemporary technology and business acumen.  It worked for the steel industry.  Why not others?

We combine teams so that they are represented by older workers and executives who are used to economic downturns.   The WPA will need the senior employee who has experience coping with disaster.  Senior workers bring experience to the projects and not just theory.   They can assess what works and what will not, and they may have better management skills in forming the work force.

As the same time you need younger workers who can contribute skills in the newer technologies.   Younger people understand the more modern business practices and how to apply them.   Merely having an MBA is not enough.   We will need well rounded younger people who on the job can develop better interpersonal skills if by no other manner than proximity to the work force.   The younger executive’s experience with the newer technologies would coalesce with some of the older and often stronger business practices that can develop industry for the common good.

And what is the common good?  Essentially, it is moving America forward by putting millions of people back to work.   On one hand it is retraining workers, but on the other it is providing work with which they are at least somewhat familiar.   In the common good, these rejuvenated industries are developed as profitable institutions but not with the absolute emphasis on the bottom line.   Too much emphasis on the bottom line has proven too often to diminish the quality of the work force and the products they make.   Those who invoke only the concept of the bottom line tend to cut corners.   They tend to outsource jobs and industries to foreign countries in order to enforce the code of the bottom line.   In the end, by enhancing the bottom line for a multi-corporation it has also ruined much of American industry.  So make money, but without idol worship of the bottom line.

As for the work force itself, there are enough out of work construction works who would welcome gainful employment by rehabilitating factories and rejuvenating industries.   Surely some will be needed to rebuild the national infrastructure but with the construction industry among the hardest hit, there are skilled craftsman in every region of this country who would like nothing more than to put American back on track.   Especially when a paycheck is involved.

Workers could be paid a salary, but a significant portion of their incomes should come from profit sharing.   Employee co-ops make sense.   It is a self-policing system, fortified with the oversight of both private management and Uncle Sam.   Simply put, if you don’t produce you don’t make money.   If you can manufacture quality goods at competitive price points, then everyone benefits.   Some may declare this Socialism, but then some thought of the original WPA as Socialist.

We are not a Socialist society.  We prospered as small business owners at first, and then as the nation grew so did its companies.   We can base this on the perception it is an amplified form of a smaller business.   Additionally, we are a pragmatic nation.  We have always prided ourselves in all things practical.   We are a nation that likes to do what works.  It doesn’t really matter what you call it.  If it works, do it.  If it doesn’t, then come up with something else.  Clearly, it is time to come up with something else.

So how to finance the new WPA.   Funding is a mix and match between Uncle Sam and the private investor.  Going back to Roosevelt’s threat to his giants of industry, if they don’t contribute he would tax it out of them.   The energy companies, Wall Street, they can all pony up.   Fund our industries here and not in China, India who wherever else we deem the flavor of the month.  If you want national status and tax credits, then fund American industries.  If not, then pay more taxes.

As some have said from the time this nation was born, certain freedoms are not rights, they are privileges.   We utter this absently and then forget its context.   You want to do business here, you contribute to business here.    This is not a charitable obligation to pass the time until things rewrite themselves and some can go back to making obscene salaries and profits.   It is a time to be accountable.   Kick in your share.   We are either in this together, or we are not all in this together.

There are many benefits to a working economy that starts from the bottom up.   There are benefits to manufacturing in our own back yards.   We can develop new technologies that will be needed throughout this century and into the next.  We can develop alternate energy sources.   We can rebuild the infrastructure to make this all possible.

But we can also make things.   We can make things and not just make things up.   We can make things and stop pretending this will all go away and the good old days will come roaring back.  We can forget the world where we can charge things to our hearts’ content, have boats, trinkets, and fourteen houses.   Instead of buying things, we can make things and in doing so we can be assured that most of us can at least make a living.

This is the perfect opportunity for turning our world around.   By forming the teams of younger workers who bring their skills to the party and combining them with older workers who use experience and the wherewithal to survive the hard times, we can rehabilitate the rust belt and other regions where abandoned factories and warehouses dot the landscape like so many eyesores.   We can provide jobs not only to the educated and the technologically advanced but also to the more fundamental working group who, let’s face it, are hard pressed to learn the skill sets we believe are in their capacity.

We can use this time when people are no longer spending like drunken sailors to reassess our values and to determine what is need and what is excess.   We can provide the insight to the underclass and in some cases our middle class that educating their children is far more important than buying a boat or cute little outfits for their pets.   We can make the new WPA a meaningful experience and not just another government entitlement project that costs a lot of money and ends up going nowhere.   It is time that the stimulus packages not only helped the economy get back on its feet but where it also made money for the taxpayers, the ultimate investors.

Instead of importing so many goods to the point of a substantial annual deficit, we can make our own.   Instead of going into debt with China and everyone else to pay for our energy and to pay for our more basic products, we can make our own.   We can make stuff and no longer refer to ourselves as a service industry economy.   Because as solely a service based economy, we risk reducing ourselves to a subordinate role in the global economy.    But couple that with a manufacturing economy, and then we are the reality of the American ethos and not just that of bygone era.

We would be better off for it.   Even if our dogs had to wear their own fur coats.

A lot of people love to goof on FaceBook and the other social networks.   For good or for bad, it allows people to project their inner personalities, act out the different aspects of their personas, even when at times it makes them look simple.  But employers also review the social network postings in order to vet their employment candidates and even their current employers.

According to an article that appeared recently in Xinhuanet, an English speaking Chinese news outlet, at least 22% of 3,169 hiring managers review the social networks to see if job candidates are drinking too much, doing drugs, trashing previous employers, letting out trade secrets, or doing anything else that would deem them unworthy of employment.   Another nine percent of the hiring managers are expected to begin reviewing their prospective employees as well.  This is according to a survey conducted by CareerBuilders.

The article goe on to report that 24% of the hiring managers actually hired someone based on their profile.  Over 33% took a pass and hired someone else.   This means what may be appealing to your friends is not particularly appealing to your future employers.   In tough economic times and with the job market shrinking this might give some of your pause before acting out on MySpace or FaceBook or wherever else you are acting out.

We have been approached from time to time by companies that wish to retain our preemployment screening services to monitor the social networking profiles of future candidates.   We have demurred, believing the criteria is too difficult to establish, it is at least somewhat intrusive and the time consumption is far too great for what we could charge.   But there are background checking companies, I’m sure, that would be mroe than willing to review job candidate profiles on FaceBook.

So if you are looking for work, think twice about what you post in your social networking profile.   You may gain a few laughs, showing what a wild and crazy guy you are, but you may lose out in the job market.   And with no money you can’t go out partying anyway, so if you are looking for work, maybe keep that to yourself.

Check them out before you hire.

The trade deficit has just hit a 16 month high.  Despite the boost in exports, we are still importing more than we are shipping abroad.   Job cuts are predicted, and it is expe cted he economy may get worse.

Maybe it is time to think about manufacturing here again.  Perhap when we measure the true cost of goods and services we import, it would be cheaper in the long run, overall, to just make them here.   With the changing paradigm of the world economy it’s time to rerun the numbers and take another look at what we truly spend on imports.

We once made stuff.  Not just a few things.  We made a lot of stuff.  Our cars were among the best.   We made durable goods that were actually durable and didn’t fall apart.  Same for garments and other goods.  Our service was among the best in the world.   We were good at our game.

And then we started to believe we shouldn’t manufacture so much.  The lowly manufacturing should be left to the other, developing countries, as this was now a global economy.   We outsourced and imported.   We found where we could make it cheaper and had it made.  Quality control and the toxicity of the materials and chemicals used in the products made in China and elsewhere cased to be a large concern.

And now it’s coming back to bite us.   As the Congress explores loaning money to the auto manufacturers to make them competitive again, perhaps it is time to look at other industries as well.   We could go back to manufacturing shows and even textiles, hard goods.   With the knowledge we have, we can make them technologically viable and environmentally secure.   We could make product that would be better quality than a great many of our imports.

Perhaps it means modifying our consumer mentality.  Rather than buying a dozen cheap acrylic sweaters from China that fall apart with a couple of months, we buy instead a couple of good wool sweaters than could last for years.   We could again review the quality of what we buy and not just the quantity.   We can train domestic workers and cut down on the cost of energy and transportion by making it here and shipping it here, as well as abroad.

It’s an idea.  But may it’s an idea whose time has come.  Again.

Retail sales are down again.   People are pulling back on their purchases.  Instead of sales rising .3 percent, they fell by .3 percent.   So much for predictions.

The only venues with brisk sales are the Costco’s and the Wal-Marts.  Stands to reason since people are bargain hunting and these are the places where you find the bargains.   The mid-sized stores and department stores are hurting, and while the smaller venues and boutiques also feel the pain, I would think there is a better prognosis for their sales figures.

Why?  Because people are preferring either to shop at the big box stores or to make their selections at the more intimate shops.   The intimate shops offer ambiance and selection, attention to detail, while the mid-size and department stores offer you pricing higher than the big box stores with no service.   So now, there is the word–service.

Time was most stores gave you service.  No, you didn’t expect it from the big box stores, but you did get lower pricing instead.   Department stores were supposed to give you service.  Nordstroms was revered for its sales training and service.   Now it is often only slightly better than the other department stores and chain shops were you find the sales person on the phone talking to his or her friends, or studying the different ways to snap and crack chewing gum.  No service.  In fact, to ask the sales person a question makes you feel like you are putting them out.

In certain boutiques not all that much is different.  The sales people are far too caught up in themselves to pay you any mind.   As for what you buy, what do they care?  Buy something and leave them alone.   If they bother to find the size and color you want, they make you feel like it’s a major contribution to the sales effort.

Times was the reason you had service is because managers trained people how to sell and how to give you the service you once received.   It’s probably time to revist those days.  Teach people how to sell, how to deal with customers.  Teach them how not to chew gum and how to stay off their cell phones when customers are in the store.

If you train your sale staff properly, who knows, they may actully be able to sell and not just ring up the cash register.  In other businesses, besides retail, they may sell and not just take orders.   You may be able to actually boost your business when times are tight and people aren’t buying.   Buying, after all is based on perceived need, price and the comfort the customer feels toward you goods and services.  Feels toward you.

If your a a specialty shop or boutique, especially train your people so they act like it is really a specialty shop.  Train them how to assess fit, color, how to make a fuss over the customers, to make them feel they are special.   They are, after all.  They have selected your shop instead of the other thousands.

Those that know how to sell will do better than those who do not.   The poor economic times practically dictate this rule.   Unless you have a big box store.   No?   Then hire sales people.  And check them out before you hire.

There are a lot of true crime buffs.   We all know a few.   Some are fascinated by the more bizarre, the murders with strange sex twists.   Others dwell on the pathos, abducted kids and murdered spouses.   The media is filled with stories and these stories as small in scope as they sometimes are will often take priority over more major events.   People are fascinated by what gets to them emotionally, more than what gets to them intellectually.   This has been proven time and time again.

For me, I prefer the business section for my true crime stories.  Nary a day seems to go by when there isn’t some article about people being arrested for one scam or another.  Most often they victimize people with the Ponzi scheme, promising big returns and then using Peter’s money to pay Paul.  Until they are caught.  They then make headlines where it is reported they have lived a lavish lifestyle on investors’ money and all the promised returns are as bogus as the business plan.

There are any number of wire fraud cases, SEC infractions, chicanery, stock frauds, stock option and securities frauds.   Recently the Los Angeles Times reported an Orange County Salesman was ordered to repay $66 million to investors in a securities scam.   James Halstead was indicted on 16 counts and has denied any wrongdoing.  A few years ago Santa Barbara’s own Reed Slatkin defrauded fellow investors in the largest Ponzi scheme in history.   He was sentenced to 14 years for that.

One wonders how these scam artists keep getting away with what are essentially the same scams in different packaging.   You would think with so many of these cases making headlines, the investors would run background checks on these guys.   You think, before turning over what is usually a substantial sum, they would do the research and see if these people are who they really say they are.  They would look deeper and review the financial histories of these characters, measure their successes, if any.   They would ask around and see if these guys were reputable.  No, it doesn’t happen.   They ask their friends who are taken in by the same line of bull as they believed.

In the case of Slatkin, a simple check on at least one of his cohorts would reveal previous criminal histories for financial fraud.   If you look deeper into the other characters you will most often find it is a good sales game supported by hype supported by nothing.   And then the victims all get on the news for their lost millions to tell their tales of woe.   Inevitably, there is one character who has dumped his life savings into the scam.   To get nothing back.   Well, they do say buyer beware and you can’t cheat an honest man, and all sorts of things that lead you to believe that greed often gets in the way of a clear vision.

There are ways to research people, before you invest your hard earned cash.  There are background searches for business research and for potential venture partnerships.   Take advantage of these searches.   The money you save could be your own.

There is a growing controversy about the hefty salaries and bonus companies are awarding the CEO’s and other C Level Executives.   The controversy may have reached critical mass when the politicians climbed in on the act, decrying the bonuses to be awarded to the chief executives at Freed Mac and Fannie Mae.   It’s the rare time when Republicans and Democrats seem to agree.

I have always found it odd that cheif executives are rewarded for their failures.   I realize they are contracted to receive these weighty bonuses, but shouldn’t these bonuses be performance based.   With Fannie Mae and Freedie Mac it is difficult to see how these guys should be rewarded for running these businesses into the ground.   In this case the taxpayers are going to pay, and pay plenty, so why must they pay extra to deliver a few million bucks as the screw ups take their leave?

More than a few influential folk have categorized the bonuses and salaries of key executives as “obscene.”   It is not surprising they would do so, especially when you hear stories about major layoffs of laborers and lower worker peoples while the CEO’s get their unfair share of the loot.   I realize that if a CEO greatly improves the lot of the company he or she should be awarded.   But when they drive it into the ground, rewarding them for their failures does seem somewhat illogical, if not insane.

The failure of Freddie and Fannie brings out the controversy between free market values and the need for government assistance.   You can argue the case either way and make some decent points, although I always find it odd that the free market people are the first to ask for government aid when it is their business that is in trouble.   In this case, after years of greed, corruption, fraud and mismanagement, the real estate industry is just begging for a hand out.

So then we deal with the larger concern, that of accountability.   Who is accountable for their actions, anymore?   And where do ethics cease to be ethics, if no one pays any attention to their general principles?   In this case companies are melting down one after the other, financial institutions, real estate concerns, investment concerns, but no one seems to be around to take the heat.   And for the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, if tradition allows, we will kiss them on the way out the door.

The golden parachute is perhaps a concept whose time has come and gone.  Especially in this economy.  Perhap it’s time to reconsider the heft rewards of the C level offers.  That appears to be what the public desires.  Small wonder.

AP released a story that was posted on Yahoo, claiming that in July perosnal income dropped by the largest amount, causing consumer spending to slow significantly.  The article goes on with the usual fears and worries that accoompany a downturn in the economy.   The main one being, will the economy drop even further?

For businesses out there, it is time to review marketing practices.  Many companies are cutting way back on advertising and their marketing departments are looking for new and better ways to reach consumers.   But the issue I have to wonder about is whether the marketing groups really understand people.   Do they really understand people at their core or is it all numbers, segments and gemogrpahics to them?

I have listened to enough marketers in my life to know that many have come from fines schools and can employ the most advanced technology.   And while the advanced technology should definitely be utilized, I fear sometimes we are moving away from a more immediate understanding of people.   Marketing analysis is only as good as the people who can analyze it and, more importantly, relate it to the needs, desires and concerns of the consumer.

While certain marketing tactics may work well in boom times, I fear they are less successful in economic downturns.   It is best to know people on an intimate basis and not just on on a quantitative level.   In short, to know people intimately is to know what will motivate them to part with the few hard earned bucks they have remaining at the end of the week.

With the adventu of technology, it is possible we have moved away from a more intimate understanding of our target audience.   It is not the technology so much that hinders us, it is the reliance on it to the point where we don’t really mingle.   We don’t get direct interchange.   And even when we are out on the street we are so busy text messaging, emailing or talking on our cell phones, we have little opportunity to gauge what is really going on around us.

Perhaps when you review your marketing plans, you should consider marketers who better understand people.   Marketers who have experience and not just degrees.   As part of your preemployment screening process, perhaps you should be asking more their thoughts on the times, the issues and their impact on selling goods and services.

Just a thought.   But if you look at some of the more cutting edge commercials right now, they harken to a time when marketing was based on human interchange and not just numbers.   Who knows?   If you are hurting in business, try something different.   Recruit marketers who understand your consumer on a gut level.  Your consumer may welcome the change.

Check them out before you hire.

There is a man in Israel who says he has at least part of the solution to global warning. According to Haaretz, the Israeli English language newspaper, Max Nadel, has a simple means of creating alternative energy. You would think a guy like this would be working for one of the larger conglomerates or at least a cutting edge alternative energy group. Think again.

Max doesn’t have a job. Max can barely afford a small room in a run down apartment building in downtown Tel Aviv. So for the time being, anyway, this leaves Max out of any presentations of his findings to science groups at the United Nations or anywhere else.

Max calls him premise the Totem system. This is short of the Total Energy Modulation Model. (see diagram) Max’s machine produces energy through steam, heat produced by solar cells, and the colling liquid produced in biogas power plants. Max claims the system could be made even more efficient by using wind, thermal, and energy from the rivers or seas.

I don’t know if it works. Who does? Maybe Max does. But I am reminded of all the great inventions that were discovered by accident or through the miracle of simplicity. From Ben Franklin to Charles Goodyear, the list goes on an on about accidental and simple inventions that have changed the planet.

Maybe Max can change the planet. Maybe Max deserves a job, or funding…something. I’m sure Max is a ready candidate for preemployment screening and the usual host of background checks. I’m sure Max could use a little money so he could show his system to the world. In this world of mega-mergers and complex approaches to our energy needs, maybe Max has one of the answers. Good luck to him.

Check them out before you hire.