Category: Business

The MBA Menace….

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Yuko Shimizu on Harvey Mintzburg’s new book: Managers not MBA’s

Congratulations! You have a sparkling new degree, highly prized in this world. You have learned a great many things about business. You have invested two years of your life, not to mention lost wages and a small fortune in tuition, in this impressive undertaking. As a result, you are fully qualified to go out and become a menace to society.
Granted, this isn’t fully the fault of your school. Nothing personal, but full-time MBA programs by their nature attract many of the wrong people–too impatient and analytical, with little experience in management itself. These may be fine traits for students, but they can be tragically ill-suited for managers.
Conventional MBA programs then compound the error by giving the wrong impression of management: that managers are important people disconnected from the daily work of making products and producing services; that managing is largely about decision making through analysis; that managers pronounce deliberate strategies for everyone else to implement; and worst of all, that by sitting still in a classroom for a couple of years, you are now ready to manage anything.

Bio 2004

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Bio 2004 is underway in San Francisco. Wisconsin, like many other states/government bodies, has a pavilion.
The exhibitor list is here. This list, with numerous government bodies illustrates the great temptation that states provide narrowly focused tax incentives, as discussed here recently.
In the end, these conferences can suffer from “increasing returns“, because the Kansas Biosciences Association, among many others are exhibiting (in the Kansas Pavilion), so too must the Illinois Farm Bureau, and many, many others.

Madison Airport “Leaking Passengers”

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I’ve written a bit about Madison’s air service. Marv Balousek writes today about Madison “leaking” passengers to Milwaukee and Chicago. Leaking means passengers driving to other airports in an effort to obain lower fares. Airport Director Brad Livingston cited one example, Orlando:
115,142 people flew to Orlando, Fla., last year from the Dane County Airport’s market area, just 59,024 or 51.3 percent flew from the Madison airport. Orlando was the airport’s most popular destination.
This is not a big surprise. Visit to travelocity.com and search a number of city pairs from Madison to Orlando, Austin, San Francisco, Boise, Denver and other major markets.
In some cases, fares are attractive from Madison, others they are not. (Madison to Minneapolis is a great example): on June 2, 2004 a typical business roundtrip (fly up at 7:00a.m. and return around 6:00p.m.> Northwest has a nonstop fare of $403 plus taxes and fees. Interestingly, on the same day, Southwest flies from Dallas to Houston (a similar distance) for a roundtrip fare of $197.20 (planning ahead will save money).
There are a couple of reasons for this discrepency: Northwest has no competition on Madison-Minneapolis flights; while Southwest does from Dallas to Houston. There’s also a philosophical difference between Northwest’s business approach (charge the highest prices possible) and Southwest’s (let’s grow traffic by charging low, friendly fares).
Finally, the only time major airlines reduce fares and increase frequency is when they are faced with low fare competition.
Southwest is the only game changer for Madison…

Allen-Edmonds Stays in America

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Aaron Nathans writes about Port Washington’s Allen Edmonds Shoe Company, and their ongoing efforts to continue making shoes, competitively, in Wisconsin (rather than China):

The rumble, hum and clack of the Allen-Edmonds shoe factory went quiet in late December. Many of the machines that helped workers pack insoles, trim the leather and buff the finished men’s dress shoes were gone by New Year’s Day.
But John Stollenwerk, the president of the company, was not preparing to send his operations overseas. Instead, Mr. Stollenwerk gambled on staying put and reconfiguring his factory floor, which reopened on Jan. 5, with a new manufacturing method that could increase production and cut down on mistakes. The moves required an investment of $1 million, or 1.1 percent of the company’s 2003 sales.
Mr. Stollenwerk is resisting a tide that has decimated the American shoe manufacturing industry: About 98.5 percent of shoes sold in the United States are now made abroad, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, which is based in Arlington, Va.

Wired 40

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From Wired: They are masters of innovation, technology, and strategic vision: 40 companies driving the global economy.

Old-school business types found some solace in the bust – at least the upstarts got their comeuppance. Hardly! With the economy finally perking up, newcomers are running the show: Three of the top five companies in this year’s Wired 40, our annual list of enterprises leading the charge toward a connected global economy, were founded in the past decade. One-third are less than 20 years old.
This year’s list reflects the churn we’ve come to expect in the tech economy. Only nine selections appeared on the original list back in 1998. Still, the criteria for inclusion remain unchanged. These 40 leaders have demonstrated an uncommon mastery of technology, innovation, globalism, networked communication, and strategic vision – skills essential to thriving in the information age.

Futurist Doug Randall on Abrupt Climate Change

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Randall, co-auther (along with Peter Schwartz) of Abrupt Climate Change [PDF] is interviewed by World Changing Blog:

Their scenaric findings — that the gradual global warming we’re experiencing could plausibly trigger an abrupt climate snap, and that its effects would be massive, perhaps catastrophic, and of direct relevance to the national security of the United States — we’re picked up by media around the world, gathering a snowball of controversy and hype along the way. Their scenarios, freely available on the Web, were termed a “secret Pentagon report,” and their descriptions of possible climate catastrophe taken as bald prediction.
But underneath the hype was a reasoned attempt to judge the seriousness of the threat posed by climate instability. That’s something all of us hoping to change the world have to take into account. So we asked Doug about the implications of that report (now that the dust has settled), the movie The Day After Tomorrow, and how to think about the future of climate change.

2003 Wisconsin Political Lobbying

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Katherine Skiba summarizes state political lobbying spending (data is from the Wisconsin Ethics Board). I was surprised at Wisconsin’s top spender(s):

More on Corporate Culture and Leadership: Herb Kelleher

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Herb Kelleher on the survival of an airline; a recent talk to Southwest’s Senior Leaders:

In a wide ranging discourse on the current state of affairs in the airline industry, Herb?s talk was packed with historical truths and current observations based on over 35 years of industry experience. Here is a synopsis of his remarks.

  • As an airline executive, his prime goal and proudest accomplishment has been job security for the People of Southwest.
  • Nothing is as injurious to one?s quality of life as a layoff or furlough.
  • In spite of being in one of the worst businesses in the history of business, Southwest has prospered because of its People.

Corporate Culture & Travel

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I’ve written before about Madison’s air travel challenges and opportunities.
I continue to believe that only the arrival of Southwest will truly change Madison’s air transportation opportunities. The “Southwest Effect” is just what Madison needs: the average fare decreases and the number of passengers dramatically increases when Southwest enters a market.
I recently phoned Gary Kelly, Southwest’s CFO to encourage them to fly to Madison. Southwest gets major points for having a real person answering the phone and playing good music while the call is being routed around the company.