BSG S3 Finale

The season finale of Battlestar Galactica, Season Three was INSANE! I can't wait to get into Season Four--the DVD collection is on my Amazon Wishlist (hint hint).

1st Ski of the Season

Went xc skiing with Adam and Tanner this evening for the first time this season. It was great to breathe the fresh air while straining muscles that have otherwise been inactive!

The snow, for the most part was quite good. A few wet patches caused some stickiness. We skied through some fields and orchards that are typical of the Huron, NY landscape, relying on our headlamps to light the way (Tanner didn't need one, though). Our event concluded--of course--with the ritual consumption of one 8 oz. CherryPharm each.

Looking forward to some great local xc skiing this year!

No Brain Activity at Big Three

So the senior Execs of the Big Three were asked yesterday (when begging for bailout $$$) to raise their hands if any had flown to Washington by commercial air. None of them did. Each CEO had flown via private jet, which are rumored to incur a $20,000 per flight cost. SOMEBODY CHECK THESE GUYS FOR BRAIN ACTIVITY!

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/WallStreet/story?id=6285739&page=1

Hunting Season Hours

Hunting season has been taken into consideration at Papa's Family Diner in Walton, NY. That's good business!

Minds are like Parachutes

Quote from a bumper sticker that came up for me in Google Image Search:

Minds are like parachutes--they only function when open.

Reminds me of the critical failure of many Republicans I spoke with during the recently past presidental campaign...

HP Case Analysis

In 1999, the hiring of CEO Carly Fiorina marked the beginning of organizational change for Hewlett-Packard. She was given the charge to make the company more relevant and marketing-savvy. A company founded in a garage--as many computer giants once were--Hewlett-Packard's tradition had been to offer products on the edge of scientific innovation. A company insider noted that HP had been "a company of engineers...that sold to engineers". That formula was no longer working.


To get the ball rolling, Carly Fiorina championed the idea to "preserve the best of HP and reinvent the rest". So began the transition of a product-company to one aspiring for customer focus.Fiorina started in 1999 with operational changes that she said would "once again capture the spirit of invention and apply it to solving customer problems and meeting customer needs".

The first major step of the branding strategy, though, came a few years later in the rebuilding of HP's value proposition. It was associated with the widely controversial merger with rival Compaq Computer Corp. The value proposition of the "new HP"--as the company was called post-merger--was to offer a unique combination of high technology, low price, and superior customer experience.

To realize such a value proposition, the new HP had to re-write its brand story. Fiorina and Chief Marketing Officer Mike Winkler knew though, that the company itself was only one of numerous authors of the brand story. The other important authors that HP hoped to bring on board were the customers themselves, and their beloved pop culture.

Fiorina, addressing the company's authorship first, directed the creation of a new global branding organization to unify marketing efforts. Previously, marketing was extensively localized, with no central tracking of spending. The new approach--it was hoped--would seed a common brand image for the clarification of the consumer. Operation OneVoice was an initiative unrolled in 2002 to deploy the brand strategy internally and with key stakeholders. Winkler's shop wrote a platform for a cohesive HP voice, and it was crucial to obtain employee buy-in before looking outwards at the customer markets.

With an understanding of the new HP, the company authors of the brand story could start to make their impact on all customer "touch" points. Sales, support, advertising, product design, and conversational verbiage. The goal was for the switch from product superiority to experience superiority to start to take hold inHP's brand image. Mike Winkler explained, "what we wanted to do was address the emotional connections that customer had to the brand. HP wasn't loved".

So did the change to a customer-focused company work? Did HP's brand become a culture? Did customers' become authors in the intended brand story? What the company did to gauge this systematically was to periodically measure and evaluate its efforts, issuing surveys related to trends in buyer behavior, attitudes aboutHP's reputation value, and the emotional levels between the customer and the brand. Fiorina and Winkler held a positive outlook on the progress of the new HP's brand strategy, although as of 2004 Wall Street remained unimpressed. Trudging on, the CEO remains poised to continue looking to the customer and proportionally relating the HP value proposition.

The more important measure--really--is the daily conversation surrounding the purchase of a computer. HP may not have achieved Mac-status as far as being hip, however it is definitely relevant. The conversations I hear almost always have HP as a purchase option. It's a general fact that most folks caught up in the Windows parade have difficulty considering alternatives with proprietary Unix-based operating systems, like Apple. When Windows is the arena, HP is the brand which overwhelming get the "first look" when it comes to home- and small business computing. My uncle recently asked my advice on a new computer purchase. I told him Mac, laptop. He bought an HP desktop center. Why? To him, it's the company that is reliably innovative, affordable, compatible with his prior experience, and is a performance package which will enable him--as an "average" user--to create advanced content (edited video, photo collections) in a family-friendly way. That purchase was strongly influenced by brand story, a uniquely positioned experience.

HP is prevalent in store displays, print media (+HP campaign, the computer is personal again), and in the minds of consumers. I think that the brand meaning of the new HP has become sticky. And that's success.

REF: Deshpande, Rohit. "Hewlett-Packard (A)". Harvard Business School (2006): 16.

Which Way Goes the Trail?

What is it about trails that is so enthralling? Especially the trails that aren't trails at all?

Is it the question mark of the destination, the dream of an end? Is it the channeled focus of a place to go? A direction to head?

Maybe a trail is a journey which beckons, an experience provided us by others before us or the lack thereof. Maybe it's just suspension of other matters. An escape from certain cancer.

Whatever it is about trails though, I want to make one. I want to follow some. I want to share all. Trails.

When a Soldier Makes it Home

Below is a concert performance of "When a Soldier Makes it Home" by Arlo Guthrie. This song should encourage you to show compassion for those who have served. I have seen people I know come back from overseas very changed. Talk to someone in uniform, talk to someone you know who has been in our nation's military. That is the saving grace YOU can contribute. There is no need to discuss war or world politics. Just talk.

"When a Soldier Makes it Home" by Arlo Guthrie

Addicted to Education

Now that the end of my MBA program is in sight, I'm thinking about what may be next--in terms of my next degree!

I am very interested in continuing studies, branching into areas other than my previous experience. I have some ideas. Any suggestions?

Excited for America

The morning following the 2008 Presidential Election, I am excited. A rough'n'tumble campaign season has essentially come to a close, God bless us! In my opinion, the Republican and Democratic parties both brought out the worst in many of us over the past year--and also the best in others. It is a sad thing to see the ridiculously shallow mud-slinging that occurs in national politics, although from my business experience I understand that most of that is a marketing campaign directed at cognitive misers.

Being 24 years old myself, one of the best experiences of the past year was once again realizing how much I don't know about how the world "works". Taxes, healthcare, education, social reform--what a headache! Like anything in modern times I've accepted that there is no right answer to such issues, only a best strategy for forward progress. With Senator Barack Obama as the projected President-Elect, he will be our leader for the next 4 years of America's progress.

I hold a deep respect for Senator John McCain and see his electoral loss as an emotional event that many voters will question. John McCain's long career of public service may not be capped with the presidency, however he made his best run at it and he can look back with pride.

Barack Obama's trail to the White House has followed an interesting and ultimately unprecedented course. Tears of Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, and probably the 106-yr. old woman from Atlanta--Ann Nixon Cooper--tell a certain story. There is another story. It's a story of a new America and new leadership. We are such a young nation it is hard to embrace the idea of big change. Some will argue that we are going against the vision of our Founding Fathers. The truth though, is that while all great men, this country's founders lived in a different time. We have unbelievably advanced and complex challenges to face today. We do not need to buck our beloved stone-faced national figures of importance or credibility. We just need to contemporize their aims.

All things promised or preached during the last year's campaigning will not be realized in only 4 years, if at all--that much is obvious. Distractions such as national economic swing, earth-moving hurricanes, and global conflict will always arise and redirect focus. The timeless American takeaway of turbulence is that we need to come together. It's time to move forward.