Packing Brains instead of UHauls

Anyone who has tried to hire a software engineer lately will tell you that the unemployment rate in that part of our economy is just as low as it always was.  It would fit my experience to say that the unemployment rate in the tech industry is around 5% - which is half the national average of 10% and a third of the often cited number of over 15% which counts the people who are underemployed or who have quit looking for work.

So people with the right skills do not have any problem finding a job right now.  And since averages are pretty straightforward, we know that for everyone who is experiencing 5% unemployment, there must be another person experiencing 25% unemployment, to make the average 15%.

When comparing the US to the Euro-zone, economists often cite worker mobility as the reason the US consistently outperforms.  The mobility the economists are talking about here is physical.  An American will move from Detroit to Dallas for a job before a European will move from Greece to Germany.  In China people are moving to the cities before they even have jobs - but that is another story. 

In a knowledge economy, the willingness or ability to relocate does not solve the problem.  Our workers need to repack their brains instead of UHauls in order to move from the 25% group to the 5% group.  In fact, the way the work follows the smart people around now, there is no need for the UHaul at all.  Just pack your brain with the right knowledge and the work will come to you.

We saw "Waiting For Superman" last night.  I will write more about that later.  The movie paints a big target on the teachers unions -- a fight I am very interested in following.  The teachers unions, and all of our unions, are in a perfect position to play a critical role in the packing of American brains to compete on a world stage.  In the area of education, the teachers unions have two layers because they have to decide if they want the teachers to get smarter, so the teachers can make all of the students smarter.  This is unbelievable leverage and one of the reasons so many people in the technology industry (from Bill Gates to George Lucas) are trying to figure out how to fix our education system.

If you are thinking about seeing the movie -- do.  My only complaint is that it is about half an hour too long.  If you want to think more about this subject, check out my review of Work Hard, Be Nice.

Pew Says Tech is less than 2% of Media Coverage

If you are interested in technology media coverage or new media, you should take half an hour and study the report just out from the Pew Research Center.  Here are the main points I took from reading it:

Echo-chamber: Technology coverage in mainstream media is less than 2% of the total.  This just shows how those of us in the industry spend all of our time talking at each other!  Twitter is more reflective of the tech biz with 51% about technology.  So anyone getting their news from Twitter is going to have the bias of a technology insider.  

Microsoft is in the back of the media bus:  Of companies featured in the media it was 15% to Apple, 11% to Google, and Microsoft comes in at 3%.  Jay Rosen and Dave Winer had an interesting take on it on Rebooting the News this week.  They proposed that Google and Apple are fighting on purpose just to suck all of the oxygen away from Microsoft and everyone else.  Whatever the reason, it is apparent to people on the inside and the real world that Microsoft is not making the news these days.

Keep it Simple:  If you want to get into the main stream media, keep your story simple.  The study has a stark example comparing policy coverage on texting while driving to policy coverage on net neutrality.  Texting got 12% and net neutrality got 2%.  If those of us in the industry cannot form a clear description of what net neutrality is:  how is anyone in the real world going to become interested?

No matter your take on the results, we are lucky to have a quality organization like Pew to do a study like this.

10 Reasons to Listen to This American Life 9/10/2010

Sorry to be tardy to the party, but I just today listened to the 9/10/2010 episode of This American Life, titled Right to Remain Silent.  Here are 10 reasons you should listen too.

1. If you have ever had a bad customer experience at an Apple store.
2. If you are looking for real life examples of the impact of the Patriot Act on average Americans.
3. If you are wondering if you can be arrested for posting a joke on Facebook (that you thought was private).
4. If you want to know if you should fear the police.
5. If you need some good examples on how performance measures induce the wrong behavior.
6. If you are wondering if there is anyone left that is trying to do the right thing.
7. If you think crime is really going up in NYC -- despite the "statistics".
8. If you think the decline in investigative reporting is important.
9. If you want to restore your faith in America (because WBEZ and Ira Glass were able to produce this show without fear of going to jail).
10. If you are looking for a reason to support public radio.

I could go on and on, just listen to it and let me know what you think.

One Button

I bought a new microwave over the summer and so far I have only used one of the buttons on the thing:  the Start button.  The software on this $120 machine is impressive.  I never read the manual, watched a tutorial, or anything.  If you push the Start button it sets the timer at 30 seconds and starts.  If you hold down the Start button it scrolls up in 30 second increments and starts after you release the button.  The thing has all kinds of other fancy functionality but I doubt I will ever use it.  An impressive design feat by GE, the maker of this particular machine.

I remember getting our first microwave oven in 1978.  At the time it was probably the only computer in our house.  It may in fact have been made by GE as well.  It was a bit complicated to run in that you had to enter the power setting with a particular sequence of keystrokes, and then enter the time setting with another specific sequence, and then push start.  It may have been possible without reading the manual, but read the manual we did.

The power setting, time setting, model was pretty consistent in all of the microwaves I owned for maybe 20 years.  Then the power part seemed to fade away, and then quick minute idea came on the scene sometime over the past 10 years. 

I bring this up because it is interesting that innovation in the microwave user interface sure seemed stalled for 20 years and then all of the sudden one big breakthrough.  I suppose part of the equation is the training of microwave users that happened along the way, but I bet the biggest part of the slowness in change was due to the focus of the engineers.  The turntable, lowering manufacturing cost, and other initiatives probably took priority.  With a little effort, the quick minute button could have been added in 1980.

The one button on my iPad also does a different thing in different contexts.  If the device is asleep, it turns it on.  If an application is open it closes it… quite elegant.  There is a big opportunity to invent technology that just works because someone spent the time to really think about how to make the one button work well.  Now if someone could only do that with my TV remote. 

My Track

I have been a boater for a long time.  Ever since the advent of navigation software in the early 90s I have been accumulating tracks.  Those dotted lines that follow my boat across the electronic chart.  I am closing in on twenty years of tracks and going back and looking at them would be fun.  I have upgraded and changed platforms to the extent that going back and mining those tracks is probably more work than I will ever do.  Maybe some long dark winter.

Now with GPS in my cars and phone, creating my personal track could be pretty fun.  When i think of the ultimate personal new years day review of the prior year, it would be cool to replay my track for the year on a globe.  I suspect it will be a few years until it is easy enough to do this.  For starters, right now I have no idea how to get my gps data out of my car.

If pressed to guess who will figure this out, I would say it will be Google.  Mash together an android phone and maps and presto.  Zoom right into street view and it would be just like reliving any part of my past.  Cool....  Yikes!  Some of this information could be sensitive.  Do I want to see my personal track badly enough to give that data to Google?

This brings up the best tweet I saw this week:  If you are notpaying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold” I think this is attributed to @lawrencebrown.  It is more accurate to say that your data is being sold. 

As we rush into using these cool new gizmos we are going to have to think more about this stuff.

American Jobs

Robert Scoble has a good post this week about keeping jobs in America.  He is absolutely right.  

Every single person in our country should be thinking about the balance of trade.  Each month we send away 40 billion dollars of our money.  This means we buy $40B more in goods from other countries than they buy from us.  This is not sustainable, and we all need to be thinking about it.

The trick of course is to create products in our country that can compete while paying a wage that can support the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed.

Thomas Friedman has a good piece on China vs the US in Jobs associated with climate change.  Here is a good quote:

So while America’s Republicans turned “climate change” into a four-letter word — J-O-K-E — China’s Communists also turned it into a four-letter word — J-O-B-S.

One of these days our elected leaders should probably stop crabbing at each other and get down to work.

Cool Car, Cool Idea

The new Tesla all electric sedan is not going to be out for over a year but that has not slowed down the Tesla PR machine.  Yesterday they did a joint announcement with Autodesk, the maker of Autocad computer aided design software about the new Model S going on display at Autodesk in San Francisco.  

This is a great example of using partnerships, in this case a vendor, to promote products.  Both Tesla Motors and Autodesk win and there is very little cost for either company.  Cool.

Follow the Money (budget) to the Money (revenue)

An interesting pattern is emerging in Tech Marketing.  The gap between the haves and the have nots is growing.  I don't mean the rich and poor citizens of our country, even though that gap is growing too, but the gap between the marketing ideas that get budget and the marketing ideas that do not.

The industry has been quantifying results for long enough now that senior decision makers are gaining confidence and cutting the budgets of marketing activities that cannot prove their value.  At the same time, new revenue is scarce and getting more valuable by the day, so those same budget cutters are increasing their spending on activities that work.

The days of doing the same thing as last year -- just because it was done last year (and the year before) -- are coming to a close.  The rotation is happening inside many large companies where one area is being starved of budget while another area is getting expanded resources.  I am sure there are examples of companies that are starving their entire marketing budget -- clearly not a strategy for survival.

All of this is about marketing ROI.  I don't mind bragging that my getting to the fourth paragraph of this post without actually invoking ROI, the most overused business term in the universe, is quite an achievement.  Want an eye roll in your meeting today -- start in about marketing ROI!  Anyone interested in restoring ROI to a position of usefulness in business dialog needs to campaign to tie ROI to the desired end result.  Discussion of ROI to intermediate results is a waste.  The desired result in marketing should be revenue, not impressions, page views, inquiries, leads, downloads or anything else that currently gets measured (because it is easier to measure).

If your idea can prove ROI to Revenue -- you will be in the big budget bucket.  ROI to intermediate metrics or no ROI at all -- the shrinking bucket. 

More Fuel for the Cloud

In the last 24 hours I have come across three stories in the media that give the cloud movement even more reason to be gaining momentum.  If you are following the cloud acceptance / cloud vs desktop story, you may want to check them out.

NPR On the Media - Laptop Searches at the Border:  The segment is towards the end, but the rest of the show is also worth listening to.  The story highlights the work of the ACLU in pursuit of the US Government for overly aggressive search and seizure of laptops at the borer.  This is a very good reason to use cloud services and not keep any data on your laptop.  I suspect the government is tracking activities on the cloud as well, so if you are up to no good -- you are probably no better off there.  But if you are a law abiding citizen worried about getting caught in the government's web -- the cloud is probably safer.

NY Times:  Microsoft + Russian Government against activists:  Unfortunately for Microsoft there is a very disturbing story on the front page of the NY Times today about how the Russian government is using Microsoft piracy claims to seize computers of people they don't like.  I suspect that if the Russian government wants to take your computer -- they are going to take your computer.  So again, the cloud would be a good place to put your data.  And for Microsoft -- any type of collaboration with the Russian government is likely to end badly (ouch!).

Dell Gets Blasted by the Haggler:  Again in today's NY Times the typical tale of woe.  Hard drive fails, sent back to Dell, lost again, lost again, in a Sisyphean tragedy we all know too well.  Same remedy, keep your data in the cloud and access it with multiple machines or devices or even someone else's machine.  Then you can still get your work done even while *insert vendor name here* is doing whatever they can to make your life miserable.

Maybe there is something to this cloud computing thing.

What I am Remembering About 9/11

Sometime in the 90s an unhappy rich guy in Saudi Arabia assembled his followers and said something like this:

We have few men and little money.

But we are smart and resourceful.

With careful planning and committment to our plan -- we will change the world.

And so he did.

He flew airplanes into the World Trade Center.

We responded just as he predicted.  We attacked Afghanistan and Iraq causing loss of life on a significant scale.  We spent enough of our credibility and money to seriously diminish our ability to influence the world for a long time to come.  

Meanwhile, we now realize that we are the pawn in the war Osama bin Laden was really fighting -- between moderate and extreme factions of Islam.  Say what you will about Osama bin Laden but it does appear that he is a smart guy who is committed his cause.  A formidable opponent even thought we spend more on defense than all of the other nations combined.

We should never forget 9/11.  For the innocent people we lost there.  And for the way were drawn in to a fight we did not understand, and had no hope of ever winning.  Time Magazine has a good piece on this today.  I hope we can follow through and withdraw.

Selling to the Enterprise is Hard Work

Selling is getting harder and this is causing a vicious cycle.  The harder it gets the more desperate salespeople get.  Desperate salespeople do unseemly things (lying to my gatekeeper is a minor offense compared to full on deception through the sales process).  Bad behavior by salespeople brings down any prospect's willingness to engage in any sales process -- making selling even harder.  And so on...  The deflationary trend in the economy only amplifies these problems.

Some companies get around this by eliminating salespeople all together.  Amazon and Google really don't have salespeople.  They have developed self service sales processes and have lowered their prices to a point where customers sell themselves.  I have a few posts on the topic of selling, here is a list.

Companies that sell complex products or services to big business clients (aka the enterprise), do not have the luxury automating and lowering the cost until the thing sells itself.  The most dramatic proof of this can be found in the sales and marketing budget of Salesforce.com.  I have a few posts about that as well, here is another list.  

What then do we do in an age where white papers and webinars and spam are well, just spam, and salespeople don't add value because any person with both the technical capability customers value and the social skills to be a salesperson increasingly chooses a technical career?   Here are two trends I have observed in the marketplace that may be the manifestation of this new reality:

Consolidation

Companies that know how to sell have a big advantage. Oracle is a company that knows how to sell.  Their sales practices are both legendary and ruthlessly efficient.  Sales and marketing at 20% of revenue may seem high, but only a fraction when compared to Salesforce.com's 50%+.  Think of it this way, when Salesforce.com spends a dollar on sales and marketing -- it gets $2 back.  When Oracle spends a dollar it gets $5 back.  Big difference.

It is this ability to sell to the enterprise that Oracle is counting on when it buys all of those companies.  Here is a blog post on SoftwareAdvice that has a great chart of the last 100 or so Oracle acquisitions.  There is no reason to think that Oracle is going to shy away from exploiting its unique ability to sell to the enterprise.  Gotta wonder of Oracle could fix Salesforce.com's cost of selling.  Hmmm.

More Dependence on Partners

Microsoft is a company that knows how to build partnerships.  In fact, running its channel partner program may be its core competency.  Microsoft partners know that Microsoft is committed to making them successful and both Microsoft and its partners invest side by side in the pursuit of new business.  Dell has recognized this and is working hard to build out a channel partner program as fast as possible.  If you sell to the enterprise, partners are critical.  

Consolidation + Partners = Opportunity

If companies that know how to sell to the enterprise acquire other companies, and companies that know how to sell to the enterprise rely heavily on channel partners, then the real work is going to happen when combining channel partner programs of merged or acquired companies.  We already see a great deal of this, and I suspect there will be more in the near future.  

The bottom line:  Highly valued high performance partners will benefit through this evolution.  Low performance partners will be redundant.  

The Changing Way I Use the Phone

I recently downgraded my cellular plan to less minutes per month.  This is the first time I have done this since I got my first mobile phone in 1989.  I suspect I am not alone.  After all why would Verizon be playing those silly "this message has not been heard; first unheard message..." games with voicemail -- just to boost minutes.  It is only a matter of time before we get the "Telephone is Dead" stories in the press.

Amazingly, I am spending more time on my office phone.  Not only that but the time I am spending on the office phone is of higher value than ever before.  Here is a list of the moving parts impacting all of this.

The Law:  Now that it is illegal to talk on the phone in the car without hands free -- and the quality of the hands free systems still do not make the grade -- I rarely talk on the phone in my car.  I don't have a Bentley and I have never found a hands free system that cancels out road noise.

Email:  Email is that other thing that the press likes to declare dead.  Email has been with us for long enough on smartphones -- that my team get's all of the short answers they need from me by email.  I don't email while driving, but in between meetings I check my email (never voicemail), so if something needs my attention it can usually find me within an hour or two.

Conference Calls:  Most of my phone time is spent on conference calls, and a good deal of those are augmented with shared desktops.  These calls are scheduled in advance by email, and prepared for.  They are much higher value than just plain phone calls.  Even before it was against the law, attending conference calls from the car was bad form.  The background noise, lost connections, and other distractions take away from the value everyone gets from the meeting.  Unless you are sitting in your hotel room with a great signal, attending conference calls on a mobile phone should not be done.  

Voicemail:  We have a new system that delivers my voicemails to my email inbox with a .wav file attached.  I get the caller ID info, so I can tell who called.  Most of the voicemails never get listened to.  The ones from people I know usually say:  "I will send you an email about this".  

The net for me:

• Mobile data up
• Mobile voice minutes down
• Office voice minutes up
• Voicemail minutes down

Never Lie to the Receptionist

I get about half a dozen telemarketing calls per day and I don't take any of them unless they slip by my amazing gatekeeper.  I suppose this is ironic because my firm is in the business of managing channel partner programs for technology companies -- work we do mostly over the phone!  Thousands of times per day our valiant front line team members depend on the kindness of the gatekeeper to patch them through to the decision maker.  Granted, most of the calls we make are to channel partners with established business partnerships with our clients, but ironic nonetheless.

The other day a slippery guy from New York got past Kim by saying I was expecting his call.  She checked with me first, and I did not recognize his name, but she and I agreed to let him through.  The first thing I asked him was how we met -- we hadn't.  I then asked how I could have been expecting his call -- there was no way I could have.  I then asked him if he had lied to Kim.  He said that he did in order to get past her.

Turns out he was an investment manager.  He wanted me to trust him with my investments.  I suspect he wanted me to do that shortly after I forgot that he lied to my gatekeeper.  As you can imagine, the call ended rather abruptly.

Never lie to the gatekeeper.  If you have something valuable to talk about sell it on its merits.  If not, don't call.

Craig Newmark is a Good Guy

The face of Craig Newmark, the founder of Craig's List, is posted on dartboards in many newspaper publishers offices, right next to the down and to the right revenue chart.  Very few newspaper publishers know what to do about the loss of classified advertising revenue.  What they know is that Craig's little company has an up and to the right revenue chart.  Somehow those publishers think that by blowing up Craig their problems will be solved.  

Every unhappy under-performing business needs someone to vilify.  It sure is easier than looking in the mirror to find the problem.

The newspapers efforts to paint Craig Newmark as a pornographer surely emphasize that delusional people have a hard time understanding the extent of their delusion.  We advertise on Craig's list for job postings.  Craig's list is much more effective, and we pay $75 for an add that used to cost us over $600 in the newspaper.  

I know that Craig Newmark is a good person and the service he provides works.  I cannot imagine this ploy accomplishing anything for the newspaper publishers.  If anything it will serve to remind us that it is dangerous to be associated with an industry in decline, particularly one without leadership or good ideas.   

Confidence in Effective Government Regulation

There are too relatvely boring stories in the NY Times today that when taken toghether tell a somewhat interesting tale.

Andrew Pollack's piece titled: Modified Salmon Is Safe, F.D.A. Says and Joe Nocera's take on net neutrality with the title: The Struggle for What We Already Have.

I wonder how many readers really think genetically altered salmion is safe enough to feed their kids.  I guess not many.  The FCC's ability to regulate the internet? -- just as shaky.   And the SEC doesn't do much to build the credibility of federal agencies.

It is a miracle the FAA keeps the planes in the sky.  I suppose the highly visible planes falling from the sky scenario is what makes the price of buying the FAA beyond the reach of the hired guns in Washington.  You can bet they are trying everything they can.

So I for one do not believe that the FDA knows any more about the long term effects of the altered salmon than they do about the long term effects of the growth hormones in our beef.  Best to eat as little of that stuff as possible.

Whether or not the FCC gets some regulations to enforce against Comcast -- I am pretty sure Comcast is going to be managing my network traffic however they want.

Here is another post I did a few weeks ago on net neutrality.

More on Buying American

Here are a few more thoughts on each individual taking responsibility for their share of the trade deficit.  There are three main parts of the trade deficit - exports (things we make that people in other countries buy), imports (things we buy that are made in other countries), and domestic consumption (things we both make and buy).  

Domestic consumption is what I did when I bought a Jeep.  I know there are parts in the Jeep that invariably are made in China, but let's not let get dragged down that rabbit hole just yet.  Domestic consumption is not as good as exporting something, but a lot better than importing something, so if we have to consume, let's consume the things we make.

The argument against domestic consumption for the sake of domestic consumption (or avoiding imports) is that it dulls our competitiveness.  If we all just buy products made in America, because they are made in America, our manufacturers will get soft and lose their edge.  This also happens when domestic consumption is boosted by tariffs or other protectionist measures.

So the main measure of the health of our industries is not the extent to which our products compete for the domestic market, but the extent to which our products compete abroad.  

What about the labor union part of my last post?  The labor unions are better positioned to make a difference in the trade deficit than any other group.  If the unions spend all of their energy holding onto the past -- including onto benefits earned in the past from companies that cannot possibly sustain them -- it will deal American manufacturing a double blow.  Once for holding us back and once for not moving us forward.

Conversely, if the labor unions used their relationships with the workforce and employers to invest more in building the workforce of tomorrow -- we could prevail.  Sure it takes less workers to load a ship with a crane instead of by hand -- but we can afford to pay the crane guy many times the amount a manual laborer would command.  Sure it takes less workers to build a car with robots, but the robot operators and repair people make many times what the old assembly workers got paid.

We could dominate the next century of manufacturing as long as we invest in the right places and the labor unions are the key.

In the end it all boils down to the trade deficit.  We are surviving now because we can finance our trade deficit ($50 Billion per month).  Every time we dig that hole deeper we get weaker, and less likely to be able to continue to finance it.  Let's make products that compete on the world market, and also buy them at home.

Our New Car

After driving my wife's last car into the ground we broke down and bought a new one this week.  Thinking that everyone in our country ought to make purchase decisions with the balance of trade in mind, we committed early to buying an American car.  

After driving all kinds, we settled on a Jeep Liberty.  It is an awesome car, just big enough but not too big.  Just tough enough but not too tough.  

There were a few revelations during the process:

The process at the car dealership (Bellevue Chrystler Jeep) was awesome.  Our salesperson, Joe Langhans took great care of us -- and once we decided to buy -- we were done in under 2 hours -- awesome.  Of course I was prepared for the worst -- but it did not even come close to happening.  I recommend Joe and his dealership highly.

I made a comment during the purchase process that Americans should buy American made cars and the reaction:  Republicans think like that but not Democrats.  Hmmm.  I had never thought about it that way before.  Today Rham Emanuel and our President are getting blasted for saying not very nice things about the UAW and its products.  Maybe a little leadership will bring the D's back to buying our cars.

Just a Picture

Once while getting a new Costco card I was joking around with the person taking my picture.  She said: "Stick out your tongue."  I did.  She took the picture. And we both thought we were pretty funny.  I walked back to the backdrop to take another one and she handed me my new card.  For years after that I had to explain to the Costco check out person how I came to have my tongue sticking out on the card.  It kept things pretty light hearted at the check out stand.

Each time I renew my passport I get more and more serious in the picture.  Getting into or out of a country is somewhat more serious than spending money at Costco, and accordingly requires a more serious photo.  I don't want to know how the friendly people from Homeland Security would respond if I was making a face in my passport photo.

Today I was getting a new card at my athletic club and the nice person in charge gave me the choice of a new picture, or to keep the old one.  The old one was pretty old -- I even had hair.  In fact it was one of my better photo ID pictures.  I was tempted, but in the end opted for a new picture of my more mature self and was mature enough to keep my tongue to myself.  

I have a nicely done, PR type head shot on this blog that was taken about five years ago.  I use it for all kinds of professional stuff and it works just fine.  It has about the right amount of hair, I have a blazer on but no tie -- versatile enough for just about any situation.  I use this picture to represent who I am on Linked In and can't think of a reason to change it.

I have monkeyed around on Facebook with a variety of pictures including one with my dog, one as a kid, and right now that funny looking guy from the old Egghead Software logo.  The addition of pictures to facebook, Linked-in, and now built into Outlook 2010, have changed electronic communication from its formerly faceless self.  

If you have not yet upgraded to Outlook 2010 or if you have, but not hooked up the picture thing, you should really think about it.  Having pictures of everyone who is going to be in a meeting -- right there in the invitation -- is a tremendous help to me as I visualize the meeting in advance.  When some people are attending by conference call -- having their picture in front of me helps me put their comments into context.

This seemingly small thing, the addition of a picture to an electronic communication is a significant and game changing thing.  Any picture is a big help to the humanizing of the communication.  Not knowing whether the communication context will be a Costco, a Homeland Security, a Linked-in, or a Facebook, drives most of us to present ourselves on the serious end of the scale.  No matter which picture you choose, it is a good idea to take a few minutes and think it through.  The face you present in electronic communications makes a big difference -- clearly not just a picture.

I am looking forward to the day when we make the leap to easily deployed live pictures -- aka video conferencing that works.  That will be a game changer too.

Lowering Sales Costs

SoftwareAdvice.com had a great post recently about Oracle's next acquisition.  I encourage you to click through to the piece if for no other reason than to look at the great chart of Oracle acquisitions from PeopleSoft to the present.  

Clearly Oracle knows it is an enterprise computing company.  Selling to the enterprise is difficult and expensive and no one knows how to sell to the enterprise like Oracle.  Detractors often claim that acquisitions are a waste of money, and the recently announced Intel/McAfee deal will certainly add fuel to that fire, but when talking about the enterprise -- the cost of selling and long sales cycles is enough to make sense of many deals.

Ironically, Glen Hodges, President of McAfee until 2006 explains the Intel/McAfee deal with the same lowering the cost of selling angle in this post in the NY Times.  He points out that Intel's excellent channel partner program is underutilized and that the $7.8B price tag for McAfee could make sense just by having more for Intel to push through its highly efficient sales channel.

Now back to one of my favorite rants -- Salesforce.com.  One of the potential acquisition targets for Oracle listed in the SoftwareAdvice.com post is Salesforce.com.  Even Larry Ellison is not that crazy.  True, Salesforce.com proves the point that selling to the enterprise is difficult by spending over 50% of revenue on sales and marketing and combining the Salesforce.com and Oracle sales teams would represent hundreds of millions of dollars of savings.  But Wall Street never seems to notice this fact about Salesforce.com and has priced the stock at 193 times earnings!  In March I thought investors had lost their minds when the P/E was 114!  The industry is still in the low 20s.

Lowering the cost of selling is as important now as ever.  And it is on its way to even more significance as the talk of a double dip surges. 

Waste Wipes Out Stimulus

David Brooks has a good post in the NY Times yesterday where he compares the strategies of the US (big stimulus) and Germany (small stimulus) and the outcome: US not recovering and Germany growing big time.  I would add one thing:  stimulus spent in a wasteful way doesn't do any good.  In fact it does harm because it increases the deficit and debt load.

Germany spent its money and energy stimulating the production of products other countries want like machine tools.  We spend our money and energy propping up failed banks and expanding benefits for the unemployed.  While the comparison of the size of the stimulus is one data point, how it is invested is the other.  

We all should be watching the trade deficit as the most important measure of our success.  It measures how successful we are as a country producing products and services that other countries value enough to buy.  Right now our trade deficit is increasing -- so whatever stimulus money is making it past the bankers is being spent to buy products made elsewhere.