JACK MIXNER STRATEGY

714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Twitchell on men, church attendance, and marketing strategy for mega-churches:

Men are the crucial adopters in religion. If they go over the tipping point, women follow, children in tow.

The best strategy for growing a mega-church? Focus on the men. Use sports metaphors in the sermons (Riley, D8). Additionally, look at the church like a brand. Offer playgrounds, coffee shops and services.

Not that much different from a regular branding strategy. It may be useful for getting folks in the door. Keeping them coming, week after week, requires a different strategy.

Reference

Riley, Naomi Schaefer. A Congregation of Customers. The Wall Street Journal. 23 October 2007. D8.

Twitchell, James B. Shopping for God. Simon & Schuster. 2007.

Posted by jackmixner at 09:57 AM | Permalink

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Interesting fact buried in an article about the woes of builders in today's market:

The credit spread between Treasury bonds and corporate and other debt was at 2.5% to 3% earlier in the year. What with current problems, the spread has slipped to 6%. That's a problem, yes, but things have been far worse in the past. "During the past two recessions, spreads increased to almost 12% (Mueller, 78)." 

Looks to me like things could get a bit worse before they get better.

Reference

Mueller, Mark. Standard Pacific Corp. Bets Against Itself with Stock Offering. Orange County Business Journal. 15 October 2007. 78.

Posted by jackmixner at 10:08 AM | Permalink

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We have talked about Apple's woes concerning pricing on its iTunes website in the past (Mixner). Now comes the next chapter in the saga.

Universal Music recently refused to re-up its contract with Apple (Grover, 30). It left its music on the site, but only on a month-to-month basis. The music is still 0n the Apple site, but Universal has upped the ante by announcing the launch of an industry-owned subscription service. Sony BMG Music Entertainment has signed up, and Warner Music Group may as well. Universal is also talking to WalMart and Best Buy about agreements independent of Apple.

Apple has seventy percent of the download market (Grover, 30). The artists are bothered by lack of control and pricing on the iTunes site.

However, and this is a big however, Apple still has the sales.

It guess we'll have to wait for Chapter III to know how things work out.

Last time I said Apple would win out in the end.

I'll bet there isn't a winner. Looks to me like they will all get together with a new agreement. We'll see.

References

Grover, Ronald and Peter Burrows. Universal Music Takes on iTunes. BusinessWeek. 22 October 2007. 030. 

Mixner, Jack. Ill Bet Apple Wins Price War. http://mixnerstrategy.com/blog/2007/08/ill_bet_apple_wins_price_war.html

Posted by jackmixner at 09:13 AM | Permalink

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"He's up."

"He's down."

 Sounds like a fight movie from the fifties.

This isn't a movie, unfortunately. Airbus finally shipped its A380 to applause. Boeing has delayed its Dreamliner for six months.

What's it all mean?

The Airbus saga includes one key fact. The plane wouldn't have gone anywhere, what with Board-room battles, unless a French middle-manager  (Michaels, A1) finally got his team and an equivalent German team to work together to iron out difficulties in the fiendishly complex design.

Boeing is delaying because it needs more time to put its new plane together because of supply shortages for fasteners.

Airbus announced first, had the spot-light for a while, and lost it - and a huge portion of its stock-market capitalization - because of its difficulties.

Now it is Boeing's turn, or so it seems.

The message?

Airbus succeeded in part because middle managers toughed it out and completed production.

Boeing faces the same obstacles.

A final winner? I'll bet there isn't one. Both planes will launch, behind schedule, safely. We'll have to wait and see how much profit the planes product.

References

Michaels, Daniel. Airbus, Amid Turmoil, Revives Troubled Plane. The Wall Street Journal. 15 October 2007. A1.

Posted by jackmixner at 03:03 PM | Permalink

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The US leads in innovation, probably by a long shot. The buzz is that things are changing and that China, India, et al are about to change.

What to do, according to the Council on Competitiveness?

• Improve science, engineering and mat education
• Welcome skilled immigrants 
• Beef up government spending on basic research
• Offer tax incentive to spur US-based innovation.

At the same time (Economist, 2):

• Remember that innovation comes from elites with access to information and capital AND ordinary people.
• Allow government to be involved, but don't let it dominate
• Free information
• Foster human ingenuity.

Reference

The Economist. The Age of Mass Innovation. Economist. 15 October 2007.

Posted by jackmixner at 02:50 PM | Permalink

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The economy of China is challenged by environmental problems that threaten to undermine continued growth. Some examples (Economy):

• China is host to sixteen of the world's twenty most polluted cities. Blame that on coal fired energy.
• Water is grossly polluted country-wide.
• Japan and Korea are now effected by Chinese pollution like acid rain and yellow dust from Gobian dust storms.
• Biggest indirect threat is to continued expansion and economic stability.

Grim statistics say that there are three hundred staffers in SEPA, the national environmental watch-dog. The EPA has nine thousand in D. C. alone.

China will accept advice from non-governmental organizations and other countries, as long as the advice doesn't include criticism of the national government ( Economy, 9). Now they need to actually act on change, or threaten future growth.

Reference

Economy, Elizabeth C. The Great Leap Backward? Foreign Affairs. 1 September 2007. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86503/elizabeth-c-economy/the-great-leap-backward.html

Posted by jackmixner at 01:17 PM | Permalink

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My Aunt Mary knew how to laugh. She knew how to inspire. And she knew how to lead. For me, she knew how to encourage.

All that was special enough. On top of all that, Aunt Mary apparently was Amish from around Lancaster, as well, at least that was what I "osmosed" along the way.

I figured that reading a book about someone's experience getting to know the Amish wouldn't tell me too much, but Mackall lucked out in that he was able to spend a lot of time with the patriarch of a family who was willing to share.

What'd I learn? Mackall's Amish laugh a whole lot more than expected, they inspire in sad times and happy, they lead when necessary and stay out of the way when they don't, and, finally, they encourage their soul-mates in faith to stay involved in an institution that not many people understand.

I was one of the lucky ones. I knew all that. I knew my Aunt Mary.

Reference

Mackall, Joe. Plain Serets. An Outsider Among the Amish. Beacon Press. 2007.

Posted by jackmixner at 12:52 PM | Permalink

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BusinessWeek re-did their graphics in the print edition. Here's the why and how (Adler, 008):

• Brief "intelligently and efficiently" was the message from readers
• More global coverage was needed, thus the re-do of the Contents
• They'll include more referrals to stories in other magazines and newspapers.
• They'll focus on clarity and substance over style.

My suggestions? Lose the pagination (page 8 reads 008 in the mag). This isn't Ian Fleming. 

Reference

Adler, Stephen J. A BusinessWeek for a Busier World. BusinessWeek. 22 October 2007. 008.

Posted by jackmixner at 12:36 PM | Permalink

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What to do when your competitor is much stronger than you are? 

A 1978 chess manual, Chess for Tigers, describes how a Tiger (a strong player) could take on a stronger player (a Heffalump) (Hoffman, 340):

On open territory a Tiger doesn't stand much chance against a Heffalump"... . He can ... "entice the Heffalump on to swampy ground and hope it falls into a bog and gets sucked underground by the quagmire. He can put up a fight neither on open plains nor in the jungle." Finally, he can ... "hope that the Heffalump gets stuck before he does."

A chess board doesn't give you many places to hide. You have to confront the enemy on a defined turf, many times in a constrained time-frame.

The business solution to a fiercely competitive position? Consider changing the battlefield. In the forest? Bring things out into the light and slow them down, if necessary.

Reference

Hoffman, Paul. King's Gambit. A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game. Hyperion. 2007.

Posted by jackmixner at 03:01 PM | Permalink

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Man grows up in China, speaks his mind at the wrong time, gets thrown out of college into forced labor, declines to the peasant class, is re-habilitated, teaches in a college, is published, joins the Yale staff in America to teach Chinese, returns to China and is almost re-imprisoned, returns to America and, to top it all off, watches his son - now with an American passport and new MBA - return to China to take part in the new revolution. The reviewers are saying the book is the most lucid account of a life from Mao's time into recent times.

My read? People are people. If you manage to leave cynicism behind (not an easy task in China based upon this experience) even the worst of situations has a good side.

The book's meaning for the modern manager?

Teams can be effective even in the most constrained of societies. The Chinese experience isn't done yet, possibilities still exist for change, and, finally, those possibilities are still enticing even to folks who we might assume ought to know better.

Reference

Kang, Zhengguo. Confessions. An Innocent Life in Communist China. W. W. Norton & Company. 2005.

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Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

The Gallop organization has been surveying senior managers for many years. They are interested in what makes a great manager great.

When it's all said and done, one thing came out in their analysis. Great managers accept their employees as they are and try to leverage their strengths. The quote:

"People don't change that much.

Don't waste time trying to put in what was left out. 

Try to draw out what was left in.

That is hard enough (Buckingham, 57)."

That doesn't say, however, that you have to accept everybody into your organization. The rest of the book talks about how to select the right folks the first time around. Key point: focus on talents, not as much on experience or skills (Buckingham, 83).

Ultimately, it is your attitude as a manager that effects folk's performance at work the most, not company values, vision, or all the rest (Buckingham, 63).

If you were going to change one thing in your search for the right people to work with you, what would it be? Focus on interviewing for talents, not experience or skills. Hiring accountants? Look for precision (Buckingham, 84). Make sure when you hire, that you are getting what you want, as many things we assume are changeable, aren't. You can train for skills. You can't train for talents. Hire for talents.

Reference

Buckingham, Marcus and Curt Coffman. First, Break All the Rules. What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. Simon & Schuster. 1999.

Wagner, Rodd and James K. Harter, Ph.D. The 12 Elements of Great Managing. Gallup Press. 2006.

Posted by jackmixner at 10:54 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.    714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Any Rand's Atlas Shrugged is fifty. It has been called "one of the most influential business books ever written" (Rubin). Reviews are all over the press. The most interesting was a synopsis of who claimed to have read - and followed - Rand's precepts (Rubin):

• Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve and author of the newly published The Age of Turbulence. [Greenspan scores Reagan highly, along with Clinton. Lower scores go to Nixon, H.W. Bushand G.W. Bush and Republicans in Congress who voted for big budgets that have led to big deficits (Mandel, 99).]
• Jim Kilts, recent CEO of Gillette during its turn-around and subsequent sale to P&G and past CEO of Kraft and Nabisco.
• Jack Stack, CEO of Springfield Manufacturing, and author of The Great Game of Business.
• Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks
• John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods.

Any Rand on capitalism (Rand, 414):

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose-because it contains all the others-the fact that they were to people who created the phrase 'to make money.'

References

Greenspan, Alan. The Age of Turbulence. Adventures in a New World. The Penguin Press. 2007

Mandel, Michael. The Maestro Speaks His Mind. BusinessWeek. 1 October 2007. 99-102. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/sep2007/db20070919_658580.htm?chan=search 

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Random House. 1957. 

Rubin, Harriet. Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Stack, Jack with Bo Burlingham. The Great Game of Business. Currency/Doubleday. 1992. http://www.greatgame.com/

Posted by jackmixner at 02:18 PM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Databases make things more interesting.

Gallop, for instance, has used the same survey on employee satisfaction with hundreds of companies. As best I can tell, the beauty of the information not only is the trend of your company over time with multiple surveys, but how your company compares with other companies in the same situation as yours.

The most interesting statement in the assessment (and the one that has more complaints about its inclusion) (Wagner, 139)? "I have a best friend at work."

Got friends - or got politics? Might want to have a look.

Reference

Wagner, Rodd and James K. Harter, Ph.D. 12. The Elements of Great Managing. Gallup Press. 2006.

Posted by jackmixner at 09:41 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.    714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Incremental value changes won't make you stand out in the marketplace (Kim, 13).

Innovation without value is technology-driven and market pioneering, a possible formula for failure.

If bleeding-edge technology or slow incremental changes to your product aren't important, what is? One solution is to align innovation with utility, price, and cost positions (Kim, 13).

Innovation and value go together. If your newly innovated product is priced too highly, only early adopters will be interested in buying. If all the features don't work, or maybe worse, there are too many of them, no one will be interested. If you haven't figured out how to reduce manufacturing costs - and pass them on to customers - your market will wither.

Innovation is important. So is the ultimate utility of your product, its price, and your ability to make a profit from your product.

Reference

Kim, W. Chan and Renee Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy. How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Harvard Business School Press. 2005.

Posted by jackmixner at 09:31 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Seven step process for formulating technology strategy (Porter, pages 198-200):

1. Identify all the distinct technologies and sub-technologies in the value chain.
2. Identify potentially relevant technologies in other industries or under scientific development.
3. Determine the likely path of change of key technologies.
4. Determine which technologies and potential technological changes are most significant for competitive advantage and industry structure.
5. Assess a firm's relative capabilities in important technologies and the cost of making improvements.
6. Select a technology strategy, encompassing all important technologies, that reinforces the firm's overall competitive strategy.
7. Reinforce business unit technology strategies at the corporate level.

One last overlay is important, that of price and differentiation.

If you will focus on a broad market decide if you will lead on costs, or differentiate your product (Porter, 12).

If, however, you will focus on a narrow market, you have the same choices of differentiation and cost, but in a focused manner. 

References

Porter, Michael E. Competitive Advantage. Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Free Press. 1985.

Posted by jackmixner at 09:08 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.    714 449 1040.      www.mixnerstrategy.com

In 2001, Jim Kilts described "The Circle of Doom" in a speech at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (and following his turn-arounds at Kraft and Nabisco) "as occurring when companies

1. Set unreasonably high growth targets,
2. Throw money at problems and
3. Raise prices in order to grow profits in the fae of falling sales (McGlothlin)."

Kilts said he would fight problems at Gillette, his latest assignment, with four critical success factors:

• Integrity,
• Enthusiasm,
• Action and
• Understanding.

In 2004, after ten of his fourteen senior managers had left Gillette (Brooker), Kilts was on track to straighten things out at Gillette. Sales were growing and working capital as a per centage of sales was down. He had implemented a quarterly goal/results grading system, stopped trade loading at quarter-end and overhauled financial reporting (Brooker).

In 2007, after selling Gillette profitably to P&G, Kilts published a book. His philosophy hasn't changed. The section titles:

• Fundamentals, Attitudes, and People Matter 
• Leadership Matters
• The Future Matters
• Doing the Right Things Matters (Kilts, vii).

Strategic Implications

Kilts had a vision of what management was all about all along. He applied it in Kraft, Nabisco, and, finally, in Gillette.

There's something to having a vision of what is right and sticking to it. It certainly worked for Kilts.

Roman makes an interesting comment: the test of a business book is whether it is useful to junior managers. This one is.

Reference

Brooker, Katrina. Jim Kilts is an Old-School Curmudgeon. Fortune. 24 December 2002. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/12/30/334571/index.htm

Kilts, James M. with John F. Manfredi and Robert L. Lorber. Doing What Matters. Crown Business. 2007.

McGlothlin, Ryan. Escaping the Circle of Doom. James Kilts Enlightens GSB on the Art of the Turnaround. http://www.chibus.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=cb5f4f9f-acd7-4f5b-89e2-ae170df64b36

Roman, Kenneth. The Man Who Sharpened Gillette. New York Times. 5 September 2007.  http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118894391680217370.html

Posted by jackmixner at 04:23 PM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

When you are hiring or promoting a marketing person do you hire a generalist or specialist? Focus on intuition or analytics? Promote from within the organization - or from outside?

All of the above.

How to do it (Hartner, 3)?

• Foster curiosity about new mediums. Force folks to learn about new ways of doing things, even if it creates new alliances within the marketing company or to agencies with e-experience.
• Don't do creative work on an island. Customers, both upstream and downstream, have to participate in planning and execution. Innovation is included, along integration with all the functions, on the floor is necessary.
• Training is part of it. P&G brings in media-friendly moms for senior management to watch in their daily media activities.

Realize new attributes of marketing (Hartner, 6):

• Consumers are watching on media channels dominated not by advertisers but by consumers themselves.
• Media strategy is the center of marketing strategy.
• Try new metrics. Experiment. Look for lower costs.
• Marketing's definition has changed. It includes such new things as user-generated content, and complex relationship management.
• New capabilities - from outside, maybe - are strengths that, while short-lasting perhaps, build value over time.

Reference

Hartner, Gregor, Edward Landry, and Andrew Tipping. The New Complete Marketer. strategy+business. 1 October 2007. http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/07308?gko=50ccb-1876-26316006

Posted by jackmixner at 03:42 PM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.    714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

EBay buys Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005. It just paid an additional $530 million based upon performance. Claims initially said EBay would profit by increasing fees for services and additional traffic its auction and payments services (Hansell). Synergy was supposed to pay.

Skype hasn't grown. No way is it worth more than $3 billion.

What went wrong?

• New revenues weren't there.
• The synergies just didn't pan out.

The message? Be very careful what you buy, especially when it supposed to result in synergies and increased revenues.

References

Hansell, Saul. EBay's $4 Billion Lession in the Value of Hype. New York Times. 1 October 2007. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/ebays-4-billion-lesson-in-the-value-of-hype/index.html?hp

Posted by jackmixner at 03:12 PM | Permalink