Business, Culture, Writing, and Other Stuff
I'm a technical writer. Have been for more than 15 years. I have used FrameMaker since it was at version 2 and was owned by company called Frame. I have owned RoboHELP Since the early days of Blue Sky Software who used to spam my work fax with "specials". Both Blue Sky and Frame eventually [...]
Businesses fail. Since when do only certain companies get the bailout option (see Future Uncertain for Fannie, Freddie)? Over the past year, homeowners have increasingly defaulted on mortgages, which has led to billions of dollars in losses for the pair of government-sponsored enterprises. That trend has also been one of the leading culprits in the [...]
Fox 4 here in DFW is reporting how Macy's is trying to market to Hispanics with a T-shirt that the report claims is offensive to Hispanics. The T-shirt reads, "Brown is the New White". I've seen my share of T-shirts, everything from ironic to pornographic. In fact, I noticed in Target the other day, they [...]
Yahoo has spoken out about their Chinese connection and it makes the stomach turn. Yahoo executives feel "horrible" about political arrests of Internet users in China but believe it's better to operate in that market and cooperate with authorities than not be there at all, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang said Wednesday. This position is the [...]
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It's supposed to be about remembering the man who articulated the struggle of black people so well during the Civil Rights Movement. Like so many important issues of today, King's legacy has been twisted and transformed into something negative. Racism has turned the corner and is no longer [...]
Being an ex-banker who used to work for an excessively customer-focused bank, I felt like the survey reported in this article was an obvious waste of time and money. Banks must provide customers with convenience, value and service in order to strengthen customer loyalty and stimulate growth, according to a new report from Deloitte's Banking [...]
Eventually, everything gets reduced to a formula of some kind, including art and writing. The formulas generally come from marketing professionals who see dollar signs from mass producing whatever the popular trend is of the day. I'm afraid blogging is coming down to this. The latest buzz in the business world is for businesses to [...]
It's been a couple of weeks since word started spreading about Wal-Mart's new "War Room" made of political veterans to combat negative media attention. Wal-Mart has become a political target and the release of the new fake-u-mentory, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices, with its endorsement by Ted Kennedy and the increasing anti-Wal-Mart rhetoric [...]
Small businesses have a culture. Sometimes that culture is chaos. I consistently argue that any business culture should be a deliberate construction of the owners and managers. A culture will exist regardless if it is a deliberate construction or the product of a vacuum. The latter is the problem and small businesses that do not [...]
Unrest by Parkway Drive