Filed under: Industry, Programming, American Idol

The winter of 2008 will be an interesting one for TV. With so many current shows at or near the end of their seasonal run, due to the staring contest known as the writers’ strike, the schedule is going to look a bit different. Not only will it be filled with more reality shows, but it will also contain some untested scripted programs that have been waiting for the mid-season to air.

Nevertheless, not all is doom and gloom come the new year. There will be many favorites returning to the airwaves, even though they may have shortened seasons. For instance, shows like Medium, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Lost, Monk, Psych, and, yes, even According to Jim, will be returning to the schedule. Then there is the anticipated return of Jericho and, of course, another season of show-killer American Idol, which may not have any competition at all this year.

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Continue reading TV Squad presents the 2008 winter schedule

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I love writing rhymes, but I take no credit for this one. Business Week’s Marc Miller, as edited by Deborah Stead did a terrific job encompassing Business2007 in this witty, slightly irreverent rhyme.

Many Happier Returns
2007, Christmastime:

The season may seem, well, sub-prime.
It’s hard to keep up calm composures
Totting up last week’s foreclosures,
Nor do sunken CDOs
Inspire hearty ho-ho-hos.
Add to those a plunging buck:
How long will it be out of luck?
But for a nanosec, what say
We stow the doom and gloom away
And summon superior times, not worse,
With this, a modest yuletide verse,
A yuletide verse that for a change’ll
Not be penned by Roger Angell:
Many happier returns
To Merrill, Citi, and Bear Stearns.
To Ford, a hybrid SUV
That gets 100 mpg.
To Apple, after iPhone/iPod,
One more smash to form a tripod.
For 3M, at least a mockup
Of some goo that sends your stock up.
Amazon: We pray the wind’ll
Fill your sails as you launch Kindle,
And let’s hope those inkjets might
Make Eastman Kodak’s picture bright.
Might the 787
Rocket Boeing’s stock to heaven,
And, in going still more global,
Please get greener, ExxonMobil.
Motorola, time has flown;
Might you get past the 3G phone,
And might the cash flow stay as free
At IBM and P&G.
Biofood, please be Viagra,
Lifting profits at ConAgra.
Post-misguided market hype,
May eBay soon bounce back from Skype.
Might Walt Disney’s wish be granted,
That its grosses stay Enchanted.
Anyway, of this we’re certain:
Nothing will harm Halliburton.
On a human scale, a thankee
To Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke;
Keeping rates so calibrated
Isn’t easy, as you’ve said.
Let a rum and Coke be sent
To new Coke honcho Muhtar Kent,
While Howard Schultz, we hope that Starbucks
Still pulls in the coffee-bar bucks.
Richard Branson, further glory
Spreading Virgin territory
(Hope you’re not in for a shock
Should you acquire Northern Rock).
Google’s looking pretty fit;
We hope it stays so, Eric Schmidt,
But if you find you’ve to rough it,
Rough it à la Warren Buffett.
Let more Hockneys be bestowed
On Eli Broad (it rhymes with “road”),
While for Jeff Zucker, this we’d like,
A quick end to the writers’ strike.
Martha Stewart, season’s greeting;
How’s that linzer torte you’re eating?
Share a piece with Jerry Yang,
Who’s talking shop with Dennis Hwang,
But don’t give one to Roger Ailes,
You’ll tip the fair-and-balanced scales.
Here’s a hope not too much work’ll
Spoil the season for Ron Burkle,
Nor will hours on the phone
Keep Christmastime from John Malone.
Lastly, heartfully expressed:
Rupert Murdoch, take a rest.
For us working stiffs, well, peace,
And no more U.S. debt increase,
A White Home race that’s not just ads
Or faux debates or hanging chads.
For readers, Web or otherwise,
A font that doesn’t strain your eyes,
And no more news of Britney Spears
For 10, no, make that 50, years.
For well-behaving girls and boys,
A sleigh of not-from-China toys.
Might hooked-on-Facebook teens find smiles
In umptymillion Facebook files.
Us fortysomethings hope we gaze
On ever-swelling IRAs,
And may well-heeled retirees
Survive those 401(k) fees.

Have a happy, celebrate,
And see you in 2008.

Have you written any good (or otherwise) rhymes lately? Share them—please!

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ITN - Money News
Jobs prospects in 2008 ‘worst in decade’. Home prices drop a second time. FTSE closes at 6476.9. Bankruptcies to hit record high. Airport strike talks remain deadlocked. Sales

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The latest hints and tips for managing your money including the news on property banking, credit cards and superannuation.

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I love Google Alerts, they help me find stuff I’d never find on my own making it easy for us non-surfing, lazy folks. That’s how I happened to see the post on CEO Jim Estill’s blog. You need to read it (it doesn’t take that long) for the rest of my post to make sense.

Following Jim’s lead, block out at least an hour a week (more is better) to stop being busy—no email, no texting, no phone, no surfing, no ipod, no Television, no nothing—and just let your mind roam. Don’t push it, let it mull. Advocate subjects, but don’t force them if your mind wants to go elsewhere.

It will take some practice and don’t be surprised if you hear your mental mulling gears creaking in their effort to turn, but persevere. The results will be well worth the effort.

And if you’re working to increase innovation in your company you’ll find integrating an uncharted hour into your corporate culture will go a long way to making that happen.

Busy is not conducive to creative thinking!

Consider which gives the highest ROI then print it and tape it on your monitor, the mirror’s in the restrooms and wherever else you choose.

Then DO it.

When do you do your most creative thinking?

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The old adage “praise in public and criticize in private” should be the guiding light for bosses looking to provide a year-end wrap-up of how the company (or any organization) did along with a rallying cry for the coming year.I’d like to share a superb example of this in the form of an email sent by the CEO of a small company with which I work that’s coming off a bit of a rocky year. Only the names (company and people) were changed for confidentiality.

From: Chuck Lorkin
Date: December 28, 2007 11:23:08 AM PST
To: All@QuikTap.com
Subject: What to expect in 2008

Hello Team QuikTap,

I’m very proud of the effort you have all put in to ensure us moving forward during the past year. Every area of the company has experienced major improvements, but what stands out most are the accomplishments of the product development team (especially Jim with help from Geoff & Roger) in launching QuikTap Query Version 5. Through their work we’ve become one of the top three vendors in our market in look & feel and we are #1 in ease-of-use coupled with breadth of functionality and transaction processing power.

Several of you are asking how QuikTap will do in the worsening general economic climate. We’re well positioned due to several factors, most of them resulting from our strategic decision to build the business without significant outside investment:

- QuikTap has a very low cost base and higher productivity per dollar than comparable software firms. Part of this is due to making our operations very efficient during our lean years of low sales.

- QuikTap’s products are positioned to have high functionality at a relatively low price – we are more affordable than our competitors. In an environment where corporations are spending less on IT, they will be more inclined to buy software that delivers 80% of the functionality at 20% of the cost.

- QuikTap has a more efficient marketing infrastructure than our competitors. Each dollar used on marketing has a significantly higher return. According to our calculations, we have an advantage to our competitors of a factor of 10.

During this quarter we’ve augmented the sales team by hiring a Sales Manager (Sharon) and a new rep (Jerry). As a result, we anticipate 2008 to be a much stronger year in sales – both have previous experience with product marketing and sales of information capture products. Another noteworthy point, from a sales perspective, is that QuikTap is the best branded company in its field on the Internet. Craig has done exceptional work with on the web marketing, thinking innovatively and getting us to a first page position for all important search terms and with respect to social networking. This is bringing in leads and creates relationships that were previously outside our reach.

We also have an inchoate business development effort led by Tom who is collaborating with retailers and software vendors to increase our visibility and create partnerships.

Support response times are lower and greater satisfaction from customers is making it significantly easier for the sales team to interact with customers. The people in support keep on churning out solutions for our customers, in effect creating the basis for the company to leverage upon.

In 2008 I expect that the platform we have built during the past 18 months will begin to generate significant revenues. Having good marketing and sales teams, commencing business development and having good products to leverage in the market will move us into a leading position in our industry.

I’m grateful that I’ve the chance to work with the team we have now and look forward to QuikTap growing by leaps and bounds in 2008.

Chuck

How do you wrap up the year in your organization?

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Filed under: Industry, Programming, Web, Celebrities

Here’s what’s happening on other blogs via the interweb.

• The WGA plans to picket all of the other shows when Letterman and Ferguson return on January 2.
• Speaking of the strike, Spike Feresten returns on January 12.
• CNN’s Bill Schneider and his funky hats.
• Jamie Lynn Spears got $1 million for selling her baby news to OK mag.
• Best Week Ever picks the best daytime Television moments of 2007.
• I Love Lucy … in color!
• Buck Rogers meets Duck Dodgers.

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Filed under: Industry, Programming, WGA Strike

And then there were none.

David Letterman has struck a deal with the Writers Guild of America, and both his show and The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson (both produced by Letterman’s Worldwide Pants) will return next Wednesday, January 2. The other shows are coming back on that day too, but a key difference is that Letterman’s show will be coming back with his writers, thanks to this deal hammered out by Rob Burnett and others. Both sides have been trying to come to an agreement for the past couple of weeks, and it actually looked like things might have fallen through last week.

Continue reading Letterman makes deal with WGA - BREAKING NEWS

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Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Daytime

A few days ago I happened to catch an episode of the NBC soap opera Days of our Lives that my wife was watching. Hey, don’t look at me that way! My wife is a fan of the show. Oh, sure, I used to watch it during the Shane/Kimberly/ Patch/Kayla/Frankie/Jennifer heydays of the late 80’s, but it doesn’t do anything for me now. Really, I’m serious!

Anyway, the scene I walked in on was one between Chelsea Brady and Nick Fallon (I got those names from my wife, I swear!). It seemed that Chelsea was depressed about one thing or another and Nick had the solution to cheer her up. They went to a nearby computer, where Nick began to pull up pictures, on the Wallgreens photo site, of the couple during happier times. When Chelsea asked how he did this (because she’s obviously technically non-savvy) Nick responded that he just uploaded the pictures to the Walgreens.com and, I believe, he added some end tagline like ‘It’s just so simple.’

Holy. Freakin. Crap.

Continue reading Things I Hate About TV: Extremely blatant product placement

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Filed under: Industry, Programming, Ratings

Here are the weekly cable ratings, by number of viewers.

It’s funny, when I was typing this out, I had a strong sense of deja vu. I had to keep on checking to see if this was the ratings from a month ago or the ratings for this week, but it is indeed correct. Monday Night RAW and SpongeBob often make the list, but shows like SportsCenter, The Santa Clause 2, I Love New York 2, and Tila Tequila threw me for a loop for a second there.

1. Monday Night Football (ESPN)

Continue reading Nielsen cable ratings for the week ending December 23

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The Challenge

Kay’s finally settling into her role as entrepreneur. She’s enjoyed hearing success stories from others, learning new tips and techniques and gaining advice from this great group of business bloggers at b5. Her days are full and she rarely has time to sift through the volumes of content on the internet. So, she asks you: if she only read one post ever on b5’s Business Channel, what would it be?

Congratulations, Kay! You came through this holiday season with flying colors and your KidChef products are still selling like crazy. By mail and email, each day brings glowing letters from parents and children about how much they like them and how they never thought cooking together could be this much fun.

Your children love telling all their friends about them and your daughter even insisted on wearing hers to school on show and tell day. Even your husband is impressed at how fast your business is growing and how well you’re handling it.

You weren’t sure at the beginning that you could do it, but now you know that you can make KidChef into a real business selling across the country and maybe even internationally. Who knows, maybe even a spot on the Food Channel. The possibilities are dazzling and you can’t wait to make them all happen.

And that’s why, beyond all the great advice, how-to’s and information available to you I want you to read 1st Surefire Way to Sink Your Start-Up over at Small Business Boomers. (Yes, I know you’re not a Boomer, but read it anyway:)

You see, Kay, you’re facing one of the most dangerous things that can happen to an entrepreneur—run away success. This kind of success often gives rise to, as it’s called in Silicon Valley, founder ego—the underlying belief that since you were smart enough to think of the idea and take it this far you’re smarter than your advisors and employees. Not a good way to move forward.

So, read Jim’s wise words and feel free to give me a call at 866.265.7267 if you’d like to discuss it further.

Have you every succumbed to founder ego? Or worked for/with someone who did?

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