The Ex-File

     I have a digital Rolodex file that I have been keeping since I got in the IT business. It has the contact information for every company or individual that I have done business with for the last 16 years.

     Recently I had the opportunity to review the entire file of which there are over 200 entries. The majority of companies are long out of business. Companies like Comp USA and Leading Edge are gone.

    I could not find a single person that was still with the same company. Some of these people have been added less than a year ago.

    In the United States people change jobs at an alarming rate.Businesses show no loyalty towards employees by having massive layoffs if the company has a bad quarter. As a result, employees will work for a competitor if the price is right.Companies will terminate an older employee in favor of a younger one who will work for less money. 

     All the tacit knowledge possessed by these employees walks out the door on a regular basis.

     It remains to be seen how adversely this brain drain will affect American companies as a large segment of the population reaches retirement age. Will corporate America implement Knowledge Management systems to try and keep some of this tacit knowledge before it is lost forever? How effective will this be?

Going Postal

     The U.S. Postal Service is contemplating closing 3600 local Post Offices in response to a rising deficit.

      Email is much cheaper and faster than "snail mail" and is used universally in business and personal communication so it is not a big shock to anyone to see this happen.

      To be fair, the Post Office implemented the latest technologies for letter sorting and delivery and emphasized bulk mail delivery over which it has a monopoly. They have even developed a very useful website. These factors may have prevented this from happening already.

     It makes one wonder if the Post Office will be an enterprise that will be put out of business because of a new technology or can the Post Office come up with a plan to insure it's survival?

Two heads are better than one.

   Twenty years ago as a computer science student I wrote a report on an operating system called Medusa.
 
    Medusa was one of the first distributed operating systems, the first real forerunner to cloud computing.

    It was able to harness the computing power of many separate computers to form a larger "supercomputer" which was capable of performing large computations.

     Now imagine doing this with humans. With modern technology we have ways to collaborate and share knowledge that was unavailable a decade ago.

     Soon the standard communication device will be the web enabled smartphone and the standard cell phone will become a relic. People will have instant access to e-mail and news and weather reports. Mobile applications will help us navigate the modern world (figuratively and literally).

      Imagine having the combined thinking power of millions of people connected together to serve a single purpose.   
    

  

David Mac Neil for President

I recently purchased a set of car mats for my Chevrolet Tahoe. I bought them from Weather Tech. They were well made, reasonably priced and fit like the proverbial glove.

 I was so pleased with them I purchased a set for my wife's Mercury Mariner.

The company is owned by David Mac Neil. On his website he writes about his thoughts on offshore outsourcing and general business and economic realities.

http://www.weathertech.com/UserFiles/file/What%20Matters%20to%20You%20New%20American%20Factory.pdf 

Unintended consequences

In offshore outsourcing it is interesting to note that all anyone seems to be concerned with is saving money. The big selling point is that their balance sheet will look better for the next quarter. There is no consideration what the loss of thousnads of American jobs does to the nation's economy as a whole.

     Private sector activity is the force that drives the economy. Having entire industries being shipped overseas is having a devestating effect on the American economy.

     The trade deficit widens and the dollar becomes weak. There are not enough tax revenues paid by businesses and employees to sustain the national infrastructure. The govenment continues to borrow money and we are currently in crisis mode as congress argues whether or not to raise the debt ceiling.

     Trying to save ten dollars an hour by shipping a job overseas will result in one fewer consumer of American goods that can contribute to the economic cycle and one more person dependent on an already strained government assistance network.

     Companies should focus on long term efficiencies instead of short term solutions.

     American companies should once again take a leadership role in the world's marketplace and show that profitability can be attained through a long term strategy of developing technological advantages and not through the short term means of finding a source of cheap labor.