Today's David Brooks article from the New York Times, while satirical and jabbing, speaks a potential truth that isn't being spoken or heard.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
David Brooks : The Big Test
"I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well. I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy....I worry that we’re operating far beyond our economic knowledge. Every time the administration releases an initiative, I read 20 different economists with 20 different opinions. I worry that we lack the political structures to regain fiscal control. Deficits are exploding, and the president clearly wants to restrain them. But there’s no evidence that Democrats and Republicans in Congress have the courage or the mutual trust required to share the blame when taxes have to rise and benefits have to be cut.....I have to go to the keyboard each morning hoping Barack Obama is going to prove me wrong."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/opinion/24brooks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
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The Smell of Ink
From the NYTimes: http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/shelf-life/
"Scanning the bookshelves of others is a favorite pastime, and sitting here canvassing my own makes me fully understand why Stout recently left his San Francisco house to move into a warehouse: he wanted to be surrounded by not just some but all of his books, to feel among the living. As one who has lugged an ever-increasing number of boxes of books from apartment to apartment, city to city, unable to part with nary a one, I feel the same way.
"Stout's presentation was so inspiring yet so bittersweet because his vocation seems entirely of an era that is passing us by. For centuries we've looked to libraries as historic evidence of cultured civilizations: will electronic texts fill that bill for future generations? While I'll admit that I'm intrigued by the Kindle, it will never replace the rows and stacks of books that crowd my house. And when I first settle into my comfy chair ready to read with that new device, I'll probably feel as if I had a phantom limb — I'll mourn the absence of my fingers slowly turning the pages."
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Technology and the Family Office
One Success - Services
Family Office Exchange
· Membership services include educational webinars, conference calls, and other advisory services for family members and family office employees.
· THE clearinghouse for discreet and confidential communication and networking services between family office executives.
· Operates a confidential list-serve system to which family members and executives can pose anonymous questions ranging from international security protection services to the best restaurant in Dubai.
(http://www.foxexchange.com/public/fox/welcome/index.asp)
The Status Quo – Software Installation
The common technological solution for family offices has been a general ledger, financial, tax, and/or investment reporting software solution. These systems are generally desktop or internal server based programs created to track and report data while offering limited cross-functional capabilities and even less in the way of strategic planning and communication.
Limited Ideas – Attempts at a Solution
· Rock IT - The Rockefeller family office built a proprietary system to integrate all of their reporting systems
o Reporting is top-notch
o Antiquated customer-use system – all inputs must be submitted by telephone to a Rock IT rep, who then inputs the information into the Rock IT system
o Price is extremely prohibitive, even for HNW clients
· Northern Rock - a well-regarded system at a respected price point
o System does not handle accounts with other custodians requiring all accounts to be housed at Northern Rock
§ HNW clients generally have many different accounts and alternative investments with many different custodians
· Fidelity Family Office Services – attempting to the be the “white knight” of the industry
o An attempt to consolidate all of the different Fidelity services and outside custodian accounts into one package
o After three arduous years and continuous delays, this has proved to be much more difficult than initially expected
o https://www.fidelityprime.com/aboutUs.html
The Challenge – Web 2.0
Web 2.0 will likely create the largest security concern for family offices outside the protection of financial information. Twitter updates, Facebook profiles, and Flikr photos contain mountains of personal information, email addresses, photos of the family’s private aircraft, and location references that could be the nightmare of HNW families. Many children in these families have easily learned the benefits of the amassed wealth they enjoy but very few see the downside of “connecting with friends.” The security concerns engendered by Web 2.0 cannot be underestimated.
· No one firm in the family office industry has over 4% market share in a market that is growing.
· The desire to build proprietary, internally-hosted or installed systems has been the innovation killer.
· Movement toward Cloud computing, collaboration, and Software as a Service (SaaS) is the direction the industry must turn. Integration of the current silos of information and adoption across custodians are major hurdles, but it can be done.
· Security and the protection of private and personal information is the major challenge
· Innovation of this kind could revolutionize the industry and eliminate the problems and limitations of the current, near-sighted technological solutions.
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
O-Town Shout-out: David Brooks
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/opinion/17brooks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
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Michael Lewis: Money(Basket)ball??
This could make me interested in the NBA:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all
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Monday, February 9, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
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Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Brooks: The Politics of Cohesion
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
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Friday, January 9, 2009
iPhone v. Segway
Watch this video. Is this a revolutionary technology or will it go the way of the Segway?
Now watch this video. You can guess on which side they landed.
(stolen from the ideas of Allen Kupetz)
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Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
It Has Dropped
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/arts/music/25kany.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
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See kids, Thanksgiving wishes DO come true!
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i3727898fb2739b048b1dc9309544e4d3
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Friday, November 21, 2008
Obama's first grade: A+ from Brooks
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/opinion/21brooks.html?th&emc=th
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"At the edge of apocalypse"
Speaking to a friend in the auto business last night, it is easy to UNDERESTIMATE the new reality should the Big 3 go bankrupt outside of Washington hand-holding. His suggestion was not outright bankruptcy, but a DC-managed "effective bankruptcy." There are many reasons:
The unions need busted but that takes political will - GM cannot do it, the government must force it. The loaded cost (all-in) for a senior assembly-line worker is near $72 per hour! GM's medical benefits cost per worker, per year are $15,000 - the average company's medical benefits cost is $7,000. This is simply unsustainable - the unions need to be busted and the government, the DEMOCRATIC government, must do it.
The economic realities of Big 3 Bankruptcy are unimaginable. If things stay as they are, 5,000 car dealerships will go out of business. If GM goes bankrupt, that number is at least 10,000. On top of that, GM has 250,000 employees who would have just lost their jobs. Add to this the number of suppliers that would collapse and the inevitable effects on Honda and Toyota and you now have the systemic collapse of the entire auto industry, even bringing the healthy manufacturers down.
All of this would result in 2.5 to 3 million people out of work in a matter of weeks. You now have, within 90 days, 2.5 to 3 million home foreclosures - this is now much bigger than currently imagined.
This friend went on to say:
"We've seen a housing crisis, a credit crisis, a banking crisis, and now a manufacturing crisis in a matter of months. This is unprecedented...there's usually been one factor to point to, but this is EVERYTHING. You being young, at your age, this taste will be with you for the rest of your lives - you will never forget this time.
And you are also witnessing a failure of leadership, of political will. No one is standing up and offering any kind of perspective, with any kind of fervor or direction-setting. Leadership is not reactionary and that is all we have right now."
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Big 3
Point: Rick Wagoner, CEO of GM
Counter-Point: Mitt Romney, the should-have-been candidate
Gonna have to agree with 'ole Mitt on this one...
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008
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