The Frustrated CFO

Ten Reasons Why "CFO Techniques" Is a Must-Read for Small-Business CFOs

Reason #1.

"CFO Techniques" was NOT written from an academic perspective, such as of a typical university professor with a consulting-for-large-business on the side.

On the contrary, it WAS WRITTEN by your fellow CFO, who utilized her postgraduate degrees in the small-business trenches. During more than 20 years of this hands-on experience, with the last 18 in CFO and Controller positions, she was fortunate to gain exposure to all facets of financial management and organizational administration. Just like the most of you, she knows only too well what it means to wear many hats at the same time.

Reason #2.

Yet, the author did not loose a constructive touch of a theoretician. In writing the book, she employed her:

• in-depth knowledge of the fundamental principles that govern all areas of corporate accounting and finance,
• methodical approach to all tasks that compile ever-expanding scope of a CFO's responsibilities,
• and ability to dissect the cause and effect relationships of various concepts.

The result is the crystallization of the vast experience into a streamlined functional system, easily adaptable to various types of businesses and industries.

Reason #3.

"CFO Techniques" doesn't try to rehash official regulations, statistical information, bits of hot technology news, results of narrow studies, and such. The book's mission is to spotlight the most important areas of a CFO's or a controller's functionality:

Reason #4.

These professional cornerstones are broken down into crucial components described in bite-size, easily digestible chapters written in a fun and lithe language. The book presents the most complex financial and accounting concepts in comprehensive forms,  which can serve as introductory aids for those who just attained their first controllership appointment and as concise refreshers for seasoned professionals.

Reason #5.

It is an unfortunate truth that millions of small businesses struggle (and frequently fail) to survive not because they are neglected by owners and managers, but because these hard-working people simply have no clue what exactly is wrong with their companies, where are the weakest points, which areas require immediate improvements. Smaller enterprises suffer the most from the lack, even complete absence, of business intelligence and performance analytics. "CFO Techniques" is a part of the author's personal crusade to help small and mid-size businesses by providing them with survival tools (analytical, budgetary, procedural, etc.) that don't require expensive and complicated software.

Reason #6.

One of the most unique and valuable devices offered within the book is the proprietary  chart

INCOTERMS FOR ACCOUNTANTS.

Originally developed by Eclectic & Dynamic Controllership Consulting (E&D CC) specifically for businesses involved in buying and selling goods, it expands the definitions of standard Incoterms to include such accounting notions as title transfer rules and description of applicable source documents, thus accommodating needs of proper revenue, COGS, and inventory recognition.

 

Reason #7.

One of the main underlying themes of the book is the necessity for small-business CFO's and controllers to raise themselves above the bean-counting stereotype and become critical thinkers, indispensable members of the executive management team. "CFO Techniques" emphasizes this pressing demand throughout every section and accentuates the tasks that may facilitate such transformation.

Reason #8.

While shedding new light on the day-to-day routines and spinning conventional accounting and finance tasks as crucial and indispensable cogs in the business machine, the author's functional system gives equal rights to new categories of CFOs responsibilities, such as company-wide Information Technology Management, Risk Control, and Strategic Planning.

Reason #9.

The book takes a holistic approach to multi-faceted positions of CFOs and controllers and supplements specific structural guidelines and practical functional advices with discussions of more general topics applicable to any senior professional operating in private-business environment. Among others, it includes observations and suggestions on how to deal with people on different level of corporate hierarchy and what changes to expect in your future, even if at the moment you feel 100% secure.  

Reason #10.

Even if you don't learn anything new, or if you'll find the book not applicable to your specific professional niche, at the very least you can entertain yourself with the multitude of eclectic cultural references and business insights from the author's personal experience woven through the book's text.

Audit Season Woes

As a corporate controller, CFO, and consultant, I've been on auditees' side of the table for the past 20 years. Yet, I still remember the gratifying excitement of coming to a company as an auditor and testing the depth of my expert knowledge in an unfamiliar territory, quickly absorbing the business's specifics and immediately identifying the scope of testing. Well, Ok, I've been called a "show-off" and "know-it-all" many times, so forget me. Over the years, there were other public accounting professionals (not many, but some), who impressed me with their knowledge and sharpness, but it doesn't happen anymore.

I've been complaining about the decline of the quality of work across all jobs, from customer service representatives on the phone to the cardiologists in fancy hospitals, for years. But somehow I still get very frustrated when I encounter the same trend in my own profession. I cannot even explain why. After all, I am very conscious of the managerial accountants' limitations. The main reason for writing "CFO Techniques" was the desire to fill their knowledge gaps. Just a few weeks ago I wrote about The Unimaginable Abyss of Accounting Ignorance in the small-business environment. So, I should not be surprised when I am faced with the same situation while dealing with financial auditors. Nevertheless, it still gets me.

It's audit season, so in the past couple of weeks I've been helping my client (a young company) to go through their very first independent year-end examination of books and records. It's conducted by a small CPA firm hired before my consulting engagement commenced.

Under my guidance, the client's accountants did what I always advise to do in preparation for an audit (see Chapter 30, What Guarantees Fast and Painless Audit, in "CFO Techniques"), i.e. they loaded the appointed auditor in advance with statements and schedules of data required to make all testing decisions. He definitely had time to prepare well.

The client is an importer of raw materials. So, the revenue/cost recognition and cut-off tests are very important. Accordingly, the auditor gives a list of sales and purchases he wants to test. We provide all supporting documents to verify the propriety and accuracy of each transaction. After a little while the auditor knocks on my door with a bunch of papers in his hands. "How do I know," he asks timidly, "if these invoices have correct dates?"

Inside my head I scream, "Are you fucking kidding me?" But this is not about my frustration, this is about my client. So, I calmly explain that he needs to compare the recording dates with the source documents proving the product's ownership transfer as defined by Incoterms. I go further and demonstrate with one of the selected items: this sales order states CIF (cost, insurance, freight), which means that the customer owns the product as soon as it's loaded on the transport; hence, your source document is the Bill of Lading (BL) attached right here to the Commercial Invoice and the Packing List; the BL's date is the sale's date.

He soon comes back with another file and he is very apologetic, "I am sorry, could you explain this to me again? I never heard of those... terms... before. What did you call them?" I help him out, "Incoterms?"

Will somebody, please, explain to me, since when it's Ok for an auditor, who is responsible to lenders, investors, and other outside users to verify the correctness of books and records, to come to the client without the full knowledge required to perform his tasks? Why is he not even embarrassed to admit that? Why the hell in 2012 it did not occur to him to get his ass onto the world wide web, as soon as he heard the word "Incoterms" from me, and study them?

I guess, that would be too much to ask. Hey, he didn't even know what a "metric ton" was and asked me for the ton-to-pound conversion ratio instead of finding it by himself. He continued coming over, I continued providing him with definitions and rules. At some point he got so comfortable with this teacher-student setup, he even asked my advice on how to "test for prepaid expenses." Seriously? Did he forget that I was their from the client's side, essentially being audited?

And here I have to bring up my book again. There is Chapter 29 in "CFO Techniques" called Choose Your Auditors Wisely... Dear business owners, CEOs, CFOs, and controllers, please, read it if you want to avoid paying $25,000 - $100,000 (average range for small businesses) for low-quality accounting services.

Ten Reasons Why "CFO Techniques" Is a Must-Read for Entrepreneurs

Reason #1.

You are a part of a proud cohort of just a few millions of people who summoned their courage and said, "I will not work for the Man anymore! I will be my own boss!"

While your company is growing, it will need to keep its overhead lean. Meanwhile, you can use "CFO Techniques" as a surrogate for a seasoned executive that will provide you with clear guidelines for financial and administrative management.

Reason #2.

Don't let the title fool you. "CFO Techniques" is not a bean-counting manual. It's written with a view to achieving commercial success and places business considerations ahead of everything else.

Reason #3.

It will arm you with a flexible framework for structuring your business in a logical and sensible way.

Reason #4.

"CFO Techniques" is not an academic textbook either. It manages to shed new light on various aspects of finance and business in a fun and easy language. The book is organized into a bite-sized chapters sprinkled with familiar cultural references and illustrations from the author's professional life.

Reason #5.

Yet, it's packed with practical advice,

instructive suggestions, step-by-step guidelines,

checklists,

and visual examples.

Reason #6.

"CFO Techniques" will provide you with a comprehensive breakdown on acquisition of capital resources necessary to sustain and grow your business.

Reason #7.

An entire section of the book is devoted to assessment, reduction, and transfer of the internal and external risks your company may encounter in a normal course of business and in extraordinary circumstances.

Reason #8.

"CFO Techniques" will show you that one of the most critical determinants of whether your company will fail or prosper is the active attention to its performance. The book rejects the rigidity of the uniform approach to business intelligence and underscores the importance of selecting specific indicators that will have the most significant impact on your decision-making process.

Reason #9.

Anticipating your furture needs, the book describes the fundamental steps of strategic planning and basic techniques for explorting opportunities as well as diminishing external threats.

Reason #10.

And when you are looking to hire a CFO, a valuable member of your executive team, the book may serve you as a benchmark in evaluating the candidates' breadth of expertise and depth of knowledge.

"CFO Techniques" Technical Reviewer's Comment for Small Business CFOs

LinkedIn Groups

• Group: Small Business CFOs
• Discussion: How important is to have a Policy & Procedure for a small business?

"Marina Guzik references her recently published "CFO Techniques" book, and it truly is a terrific reference guide for savvy CFO's, containing valuable information about best practice considerations on a number of critical topics. She has done an outstanding job of writing an easy-to-read one-stop source of valuable tips on identifying and solidifying core business functions, and it was my pleasure to assist with its technical review. A must-read for those wishing to learn more about making their business the strongest it can financially be!"
Posted by Randy KRUG

CNN Breaking News: President Obama Is Elevating SBA to a Cabinet-Level Agency

In my book "CFO Techniques" I praised the U.S. Small Business Administration agency (SBA) for its role in supporting small businesses, particularly with their loan-backing program, and the amazing informational gold mine that is SBA.gov site - literally, the best resource out there. It's no surprise that when CNN's news flash quoted in the title of this post has arrived into my mailbox last week, it immediately caught my eye.

You've got to admire the skills of the public relation specialists in Washington (I wish my publisher's PR department was as masterful, or at least as industrious)! Look at the words selection: "elevate to a cabinet-level." Wow! Sounds like the president is going to take the "lowly peasant" (never mind facilitation of over $30 billion in loans per year and $570-million budget) and magically transport it to Mount Olympus to reside there with gods. And how democratic! The whole agency is being "elevated," as if all of its 2000 employees can be members of the cabinet. Some people may even think that this will empower the small businesses and their interests will become "special" - just like the ones of pharmaceutical giants, auto manufacturers, big oil, and mining conglomerates.

In reality, the only person who immediately benefits from this move is the SBA's Administrator, Karen Mills. She has become a member (already listed on www.whitehouse.gov/administration/) of Obama's cabinet and now will rub shoulders with the likes of Hillary Clinton and Janet Napolitano.

Whether Ms. Mills' accomplishments at SBA (or credits she takes for her subordinates' accomplishments) justify her new status could be a subject of an investigative journalism exercise. If it's White House's conclusion that she is the best candidate for providing the President with the advice on the only opportunity to save this country's economy, i.e. cultivation and support of the small-business environment, then be it.

I am more interested in the actions that will follow this first step in what being hailed as a program for raising "international competitiveness of American companies." You see, SBA is not meant to remain a cabinet-level agency for too long. In fact, it's not meant to stay a government agency at all. The intention is to "merge" SBA, along with the Export-Import Bank (ExIm), the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Trade and Development Agency, the Office of the Trade Representative, into the Department of Commerce (already a member of the Cabinet).

Whether they will continue calling this newly formed government Chimera the Department of Commerce or find it a new name (the way it happened with the Homeland Security), it is obvious that the already existing ministry will absorb all those other entities and, as it always happens, with the loss of independence, their functionality will be stunted.

Look, what happened when HMOs started swallowing far more flexible smaller health insurance providers and formed such giants as Aetna, CIGNA, Health Net, and United Health? Did it make anything better for members? Of course not, we all know this: the premiums went up and the coverage got worse.

Do consumers and businesses benefit from the crazy wave of bank mergers we have experienced in the past 25 years? Again, no. The services get worse and the fees get higher (plus, the process contributes to unemployment).

Any type of consolidation cannot be considered an improvement. It's done for a show - to demonstrated that something cardinal is done. The results? Who cares?

In case of SBA, this is really a shame, because they have made already and could've continued making a significant positive impact on the struggling entrepreneurial business sector. Now, their good initiatives will be drowned in public policies, fiscal regulations, national directives, and all that other country-wide crap. Their micro-level approach will be gone forever.

I find it incredibly ironic that the entity dedicated to help small businesses will be remodeled as a part of a large-scale program.

Unimaginable Abyss of Accounting Ignorance

We constantly read and hear about American students' low level of academic performance. They rank 23rd out of 57 nations participating in international testing. Researchers and public-policy makers have been trying to figure out the reasons for this abysmal show of intellectual power. The "education system" is usually blamed: different teaching methodologies, testing devices, and so on, and so forth.

In my opinion the problem has nothing to do with educational technicalities. It's has to do with obvious gradual degeneration of general public's intellectual abilities (blame it on the mobile devices' radiation, if you have to). Whatever the reason, fact remains: high-schoolers are doing worse and worse in all subjects.

The common sense should lead a logical person to a conclusion that the declining academic achievements translate into a reduction in college enrollments. If one cannot keep up in a secondary school, how can that person attempt to receive a quality post-secondary education, right? Wrong! Between 1989 and 1999 college enrollments increased only by 9%, but in the 10 years after that - by 38% (!!!), from 14.8 million to 20.4 million.

And, of course, it's not easy to get into Ivy League schools, which accept 10-20% of the applicants (well, my readers know my opinion about the quality of education there). Yet, more than 80% of colleges in this country accept every other applicant, and there are some with 100% acceptance rate. I mean, the colleges want money and they will lower their requirements to whatever levels in order to fill the seats in the lecture halls.

So, every year millions of young people who were not succeeding at the high school level enter post-secondary education system. Why do they do that instead of trying to start their own businesses, attempt creative pursuits, or go into honorable and well-paid blue collar trades, I have no clue, but it is what it is.

Now, those kids who had comparatively better grades, some artistic inclinations, and/or expect to utilize their parents connections in the future take pre-med, pre-law, finance, marketing, various arts and designs . Those who don't think, or don't need to think, about their survival head for liberal arts. So, who ends up taking accounting majors? Everyone else as long as they can count without using their fingers.

But accounting and taxation are not easy. To fully understand it one should possess propensity for conceptual thinking, analytical mind, ability to absorb high volumes of regulations, standards, codes. And I am just talking about basics. 30-35 years ago up to 50% of freshmen who signed up for accounting courses would drop out before the first midterm. Nowadays, they somehow struggle through and graduate. The best of them are snatched by the Big 4, the next tier by other large CPA firms and big-time corporations.

The rest end up in the small and midsize businesses and accounting firms. It's my plight to deal with them, exposing myself on daily basis to the devastating result of this natural selection process. In every company I observe the same thing: so much is wrong! The books of different corporations are co-mingled, revenues and costs recognized incorrectly, inventory is not valued properly, etc., etc. It's difficult for an entrepreneurial company to survive in the first place; the accounting incompetence drags them down even further.

Books are kept intuitively, as if rules and standards did not exist. The most shocking thing is that auditors look at all that and accept it. The main concerns appear to be that the bank balances are reconciled to the statements and the control accounts match with supporting schedules. The PRINCIPAL CORRECTNESS is irrelevant.

I give them the benefit of the doubt and let them explain themselves.

Me: Why doesn't your inventory in storage match with the warehouse's records?

Them: Because they don't account for the three lots that already been loaded on the trucks.

Me: Neither should you. That's inventory in-transit, not in storage.

Them (in complete seriousness): Oh, that's what "in-transit" mean.

And I have sad conversations like that practically every day. Pity the well-versed professional!

My book "CFO Techniques" can help these people to improve. Too bad my publishers are not doing match to deliver it into the potential readers' hands.

Am I Cursed?

Well, it's definitely feels like I am. Throughout my entire career, every time I start a new job or a long-term consulting project, no matter how exciting and successful the business seems, it takes me under 4 weeks (sometimes less than 2) to uncover hidden losses, cash flow deficiencies, operational problems, strategic mistakes, distortion of accounting principles and policy violations. There has not been a single exception to this rule.

Of course, I devoted my career to dealing with privately-held small and mid-size companies. Frequently their CEOs are entrepreneurs with limited understanding of corporate governance, let alone the makeups of quality accounting and finance functions. These companies develop in a haphazard manner and the staff is usually composed of people who are eager and hardworking, but not necessarily highly qualified. The conceptual thinking, I am always so keen on finding, is rarely present.

I've been studying my current client for exactly three weeks now. Oh boy! The company is a wholesaler, but the operating software they bought for a lot of money was created for manufacturers, and it's so rigid, it will require major re-programming to adapt it to their needs. The principle feature of this type of businesses - the lot-driven operations that require lot-specific data tracking and analysis, cannot be accommodated by the software and, therefore, needs to be performed at a great time-cost in Excel. The chart of accounts is completely screwed up and there is no hope to adjust it properly since they already started making entries. There is an endless duplication (and triplication, and quadruplication) of data in different files kept on their local drives by individual employees... And so on and so forth. They don't even have a backup system in place, let alone business intelligence.

But most remarkably, NOBODY (not the co-owners who buy and sell the product internationally for years now, not the logistics managers, not the internal accountants, nor independent auditors) understands the principles of Incoterms. As the result, the revenue, costs, and inventory recognition is royally fucked up. I restated their 9-months 2011 results to proper values and found... you got it - losses!

Sometimes, it makes me wonder, what would happen if I got a chance to dissect a huge belly of some public mammoth. Would the same rotten bullshit pour out of them? The fact that big-time public companies constantly underperform and require bailouts makes me kind of suspicious.

The truth is I don't believe that I am cursed. I think that the majority of companies manage for some time to ride on the wave of a particular product/service demand, or some market twist, or accidental economic development, or novel idea. Yet, they are drowning in small and large errors affecting every facet of their existence. And when the shit hits the fan in the form of financial or operational problems, their chances for survival are minimal because there is no quality back-office structure to sustain them. Moreover, frequently they don't even see it coming, because they operate blindly in the absence of informational support.

The problems may come to light before the downfall if a perfectionist like me appears on the horizon. Such a person may be either hired as a permanent employee, or come along as a part of a consulting team (an option frequently unaffordable for small and midsize companies). So, this client of mine got lucky - one way or another I will correct all their problems. Others out there... it's scary to think about them. Is it surprising that with this poor quality of back office, lack of informational reporting, and all the errors they commit along the way, the companies are going out of business left and right, and the economy has gone to shitters?

I do have a solution that can help many of the companies precariously hanging on the verge of extinction due to the deficiencies in their policies, procedures, controls, and reporting functions - an affordable and easily accessible electronic consulting solution that covers all these areas of expertise and puts a multitude of tools at the fingertips of executives and financial professionals. Let's hope that I will be able to attract investors to back my ideas and bring this revolutionary development to the millions of small and mid-size companies.

The Lopsided View of Corporate Taxation

In October 24th issue of New York Magazine, Andre Tartar's Intelligencer column featured a black-background Darth-Vader-sinister entry, disdainfully called The Freeloading Playbook (see the page's image to the left).  It presented four "tax-dodging" schemes employed by international corporations.  I have quite a few problems with the piece, but will focus on the misleading interpretations that I believe to be the most damaging to the education of general public on such important subjects as political economy and corporate taxation.

First of all, as far as an average reader is concerned, the implications are that the corporations are engaged in unpunished tax-evasion practices.  This is a gross distortion of truth.  We can argue for years about the nature of trickery, but the fact is that the Internal Revenue Code had deliberately created these loopholes to accommodate the international expansion of the US business, and the companies simply utilize the opportunities the tax laws allow them.  I assure you that there are other ways to reduce taxable income, including transfer-pricing of inter-company transactions (between the US parent and foreign subsidiary, or other way around).

Secondly, "freeloading" by definition means living off somebody's generosity.  Way to further confuse clueless Zucootti-Park affectionadoes!  Whose generosity we are talking about here?  Those who get the biggest chunks of the revenue derived from corporate taxation?  The military complex?  Government-subsidized industries like automaking and agriculture?  Chinese bankers (the interest on their loans to the US government must be paid)?  Welfare recipients?

Also, I am absolutely appalled by the fact that the companies that reinvest their earnings into their international value chains are thrown onto the same page with actual schemers who creatively avoid taxation (still legitimately, though) through M&A transactions and intellectual property licensing.  Notice how for "Double Irish," "Killer B," and "Deadly D" Mr. Tartar came up with singular examples - Google, IBM, and Eli Lilly respectively, while for earnings reinvestment he chummily states, "like, everyone." 

Yes, everyone, including  thousands of international  small businesses who set up foreign subsidiaries as their distribution arms to sell US products abroad.  (These structures are so common that I used one of them as a typical example in my book CFO Techniques- see the illustration below.)  So, they don't repatriate all of their money because they incur operational expenses overseas in the normal course of business.  That doesn't mean that they should be compared with the 500 super-rich companies.

     M. Guzik, "CFO Techniques," Apress, 12/02/2011; Figure 5-1.

What exactly Mr. Tartar and others like him would like to propose?  That establishing foreign subsidiaries for the sake of running more efficient businesses should be prohibited altogether by law, like it was in the Eastern bloc countries during the communist rule?  Or that we allow double-taxation?  Guess what?  Business super-powers will survive anyway, but the small businesses exposed to such treatment would cease to exist. 

And why nobody questions the incredible fact that in this supposed bastion of free-market economy we have practically the highest corporate taxes in the world  - up to 38% federal, plus up to 12% state?  So, in some localities there are companies who end up paying 50% of their income to the government.  We have over 6 million companies with less than 100 employees in this country, and they are suffocated by these rates.  Why don't we approach the taxation problem from that side? 

Those who have at least rudimentary understanding of commercial principles and really care about our economy should be arguing for the protection of small businesses every chance they get, instead of throwing around meaningless and confused statements like the ones in the "Intelligencer."       

Radiohead: A Case of Strategic Mismanagement

Speaking of Radiohead (I am referring to my last "Quote of the Week" post)... 

No, let me first say that I LOVE Radiohead.  They are one of my top 5.5 (it's complicated, ok?!) favorite bands.  I have been to their shows, with pit tickets, standing for over seven hours in line to be in the first row, in front of the stage with big Ed's shoes in my face, watching Jonny Greenwood perform his musical voodoo, observing Thom Yorke drooling all over the mike, while articulating "I salivate like with myxomatosis," as if he was actually afflicted.  I saw them perform "True Love Waits" for the first time ever.  Good times!

And even though I usually religiously adhere to my own rule of separating the Artist from the Man (otherwise you end up hating everything - people, including geniuses, are nasty creatures), I agreeably pay attention to some of Radiohead members' personal principles: anti-music-establishment, free distribution, less flying, and stuff like that.  At the same time, I am very objective.  I don't idolize anybody.  If something is stupid, I'll call it that, regardless of who did it.  Plus, this is a CFO's blog, so when it comes to executive decisions I am especially vigilant.

Soooooo, the latest incident involving Roseland Ballroom (NYC) concerts really irritated me as a blatant display of a gross strategic mismanagement.  Supposedly to make sure that real fans get them and not the scalpers, the release of tickets for September 28th and 29th concerts was held off until Monday, September 26th, 10 AM.  And what was the wonderfully unique channel of distribution?  The fucking Ticketmaster!!! 

How out of touch with reality these people and their support staff are???  Don't they know that the days of conventional scalping are long gone? Today, you can be sitting somewhere in Nebraska with your little reloading software, buy tickets and immediately start electronically scalping them as PDF attachments.  

I personally clicked "Find tickets" at 10:00 AM.  The fucking Ticketmaster advised that my waiting time was 5 minutes.  Nevertheless, in 3 minutes flat, I was informed that the tickets were not available anymore.  180 seconds - God bless the electronic age!  Obediently I went to the "resale" (read - scalping) TicketsNow site (owned by the fucking Ticketmaster) - the tickets were already listed with prices ranging from $650-$1,500 for GA.  The concerts turned out to be the exclusive events for people with money.  Most of them cared more about the status of attending than about the music.

Talking about a complete failure of a business action plan!  Is there anybody around Radiohead with a common sense to suggest a more intelligent strategy?  You want to deliver yourself to your true friends? You are a super-group.  Instead of going through Live Nation, you can rent your own venue and sell the tickets the old-fashion way: at the box office, with a limit of two tickets per person.  Your real fans will sleep on the street through the night for a chance to see you!  It's really not that complicated.  But I guess, like with everything, it's too much to ask for a logical reasoning nowadays.          

Essentially, a rock band is a small business - no different then, let's say an advertising agency.  The set up is the same - there is a core creative staff and a bunch of supporting functions around it: administration, financial management, legal services, etc.   My readers know how important small businesses are to me - I believe they need to be cultivated and nurtured as the only option for saving the world's economy.  But, again, I am very sensible about it.  It's not all businesses that need support - only the ones that are well organized and have smart leadership. 

Hey you music fans, don't get mad at me (I'm on your side), but it's possible that most rock bands, after riding the initial fandom wave, eventually end up sucking because they don't know how to run their business well.  There were only five really great songs on "In Rainbows" and this last album Radiohead finally squeezed out (I did say I was very objective) is really just so-so. 

From time to time Mr. Yorke says that it "didn't jive in the studio," and I keep worrying that, after 26 years together, they will go out of business.  I don't want that to happen, because I am sure many people, including me, would be happy to see them doing OK Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac stuff on stage for another 25 years, even if they don't write anything decent anymore.   But they really need to figure out a sound business model to be able to do that.  And, please guys, get some strategic management advice about that "tickets to real fans" program.  I promise you, this will make already eternally grateful fans happy.

 
Radiohead - 15 Step (Grammy 2009)

Quote of the Week: Occupy Wall Street

Intro to the quote:

Observing Occupy Wall Street protesters right there by Zuccotti park, my cynic mind could not help itself to see social, rather than political event.  Guys and gals hanging around, having a good time.  Many analysts from all over the world have been trying to understand if these people have any agenda, if their protesting have some sort of intelligent purpose.  And there is nothing... Just young people with nothing better to do being upset that they cannot become rich and famous overnight.  Very few of them have attained above average complex of general knowledge and they know nothing about work ethics.  In their poorly constructed bursts of words they bring up "disappearance of the middle class," but none of them understands that you are not born into middle class - you have to work for it, and maybe after 20 years of professional excellence you can claim your rightful place among its members.  The paper wealth of Wall Street phenomenon is a perversion, no question about that.   But securities balloons are not the only reasons middle class disappears in this country.  None of the protesters want to work real jobs to earn their daily bread, or start small businesses that would keep them physically and mentally busy 24/7.  Instead they want to magically transport themselves into the very places occupied by people with million-dollar bonuses they claim to despise.

And then there was that September 30th plot concocted by the protest organizers in order to get more people on location by announcing a Radiohead appearance?!  People who supposedly oppose the concept of misleading, blatantly lied to the general public!  What's up with that?  There could only be three possible explanations why these protesters did not run away in shame after the falsification was exposed - they are either blind, stupid, or really have nothing else to do.

Meanwhile, the electronics were polluted with the false news of Radiohead's "spontaneous concert", and exchanges among some people I know have produced some wonderful pearls (I know a few very smart people).  One of my funniest friends felt sorry for the "poor hippies crawling over each other's stomped bodies." 

But the first prize definitely goes to the following quote:

"It's the perfect cherry on top of their worship of spectacle rather than substance."

                                                                                Zach Caceras