Steve Fossett is aloft, again in the Global Flyer. This time, flying farther. Follow the flight here.
Category: Entrepreneurs
Small Dairyman Shakes Up Milk Industry
The milk fight, which is being watched in the industry from coast to coast, started because Mr. Hettinga runs a rare hybrid operation. Most dairy businesses either only produce milk, or only process it. He does both. As a result, he falls into a protected class that isn’t bound by an arcane system of Depression-era federal rules. Under it, milk processors selling into specific geographical areas, which cover most of the country, must all pay into that area’s pool for subsidizing milk prices. But so-called producer-distributors have always been exempt.
Reshaping Broadcast TV Revenue
JPMorgan Chase analyst Spencer Wang says the earliest signs of this fundamental value shift is the sharp contrast between the languishing stock price of traditional media companies (representing an estimated loss of $31 billion in collective market capitalization) and the meteoric rise of so-called new-media stocks (reflecting an aggregate $69 billion gain in market cap).
More directly, evolving new business models are gradually redefining the value of content in the digital age: what distributors and consumers are willing to pay, what it costs to produce and how much revenue and profit is generated as compared to traditional ways of doing business.
Man Behind the 747 Tells His Story
Sutter, white-haired and soon to be 85 but still razor-sharp, has finally told his life’s story, and that of the 747, in a book with aviation writer Jay Spenser.
“747: Creating the World’s First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation,” won’t hit book stores until May. But last week I received an advance copy from the publisher, Smithsonian Books.
via enplaned.
The World’s Oldest CEO?
Jack Weil, founder and CEO of Denver-based Rockmount Ranch Wear, turns up for work every morning just as he has done since 1946. At 104 years old, he’s not planning to go anywhere else because “what else am I supposed to do all day?”.
Convert Customers into Evangelists
Marketing is not a do-it-to-the-customer, one-way process. The highest aim of marketing is to create products and stories about them that empower customers to sell for you. Don’t simply create loyal customers. Create customers who are enraptured with your product and sell for you. Turn customers on so they will turn others into customers.
Think of eBay conclaves where loyal users tell eBay CEO Meg Whitman how to run the company and what acquisitions to make. Hark back to 1984 and the launch of Apple’s Macintosh computer. Think of all those Mac users who tried to convert you to their form of technology.
Marketing Tips for New Entrepreneurs
Today you absolutely need a quality presence on the Internet, and that needs to be crisp, clean and informative. Consumers need answers to questions quickly, and, online, it’s just like the telephone. People have the same high expectations in dealing with your business. They need to get answers to their questions quickly. They need to know what products or services you offer, how to find them and what differentiates you from your competition.
The Fall of the Traditional Wedding Album
Here’s an indicator of when a product crosses the rubicon of word-of-mouth phenomenon to mass-market adoption: the iPod as an accessory in the $80 billion wedding industry.
Constant Innovation
The book’s central question is: How can companies innovate continuously? He writes: “Evolution requires us to continually refresh our competitive advantage, sometimes in dribs and drabs, sometimes in major cataclysms, but always with some part of our business portfolio at risk and in play. To innovate forever, in other words, is not an aspiration; it is a design specification. It is not a strategy; it is a requirement.”
Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution Author Geoffrey A. Moore
Thinking Different – US Foreign Investment More Productive?
Dan Drezner writes:
Given the fact that foreigners currently have a net claim on $2.5 trillion in U.S. assets, one would expect the U.S. to be paying out a lot more in interest, dividends, and profits to foreigners than Americans would receive from their investments.
The weird thing is that, so far, this hasn’t been true. Last year the U.S. earned $36 billion more on their foreign investments than foreigners earned in the United States. The question is, why?
It turns out Americans both (seem to) make riskier investments and earn a higher return on investment. One extreme view (not Dan’s) suggests the following: