How many Postmen want their kids to be Postmen?
Sorting office - Jobs worth striking for!
I absolutely hope the answer to the title question is none or at least not many. However the way the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) is carrying on you’d think that working in a sorting office is a job worth aspiring to. Don’t get me wrong (yeah this is the bit where I say some unpalatable things) because being a postman or working in a sorting office is not a bad thing in itself.
People’s situations vary and of course there are many reasons why someone would be working there, but one thing I can say is that I look down upon anyone who works there and doesn’t aspire for more. Either for themself or their family. Themself because if you’re not working there to better yourself then I really hope you’re doing it to elevate your family. Note that I used the word elevate, by which I mean those workers shouldn’t just be looking to feed their families. There’s more to life than food. Really there is.
Anyway, the gist of the strike if you don’t know or are working in a sorting office (in which case you don’t know) is that the Royal Mail wants to modernise. In 2007 they rolled out a four phase plan to help achieve that modernisation, which the CWU agreed to. I’m not sure why they couldn’t have five phases as it’s common knowledge that all good plans either run for five years or have five phases!
Fast forward to 2009 and they have surprisingly implemented three of those phases save for the last one which calls for rolling out a ‘walk sequencing machine, a device which organises letters into the order the postmen and women will deliver them the next morning.’ A pretty neat idea which to my untrained ear says ‘lower costs, efficiency, speed’ and all the good things that any decent business and it’s customers should hope for. Of course it probably means many jobs in the sorting office will be lost, but hey who wants to haggle over menial jobs being lost? Oh……. the CWU?
The situation would be really funny to me if people’s skilled jobs didn’t rely on the Royal Mail. Losing professional jobs is one thing. But sorters *%?!! This really takes the biscuit. The CWU wants to save menial jobs even though surely the modernisation will result in skilled jobs being created. Granted there’ll be fewer than the lost ones, but hey who really wants their kids to grow up to be Post Men?
A truly hazardous profession.
Michael Jackson: The picture that says it all
I stumbled onto this picture of Michael Jackson on Ledisi's blog the other day. For me it conveys a lot of what we outsiders saw in him.
- The boy dressed in his Peter Pan fantasy outfit. Seemingly shutting out reality.
- The boy we knew, who now has a freaky, whitened face. Still recognisably him.
- The sad look on his boyhood face.
- The half-smile, half-sad adult face.
I'm posting this as it captures the essence of what I try to say on this blog. Whatever you do, business, music, politics and most importantly in life, pay attention to the reality of the situation. Too often we think and dream of something and when it's time to do it, reality bites us in the ass.
I believe Michael Jackson was Stunted by Reality. What does the picture say to you?
BP’s oil a shot in the arm for our addicted economies
So BP found has made a ‘giant’ new oil discovery in it’s Gulf of Mexico fields. Good timing for those oil and fuel prices that were starting to go up again, huh?
Well, I for one am not holding my breath for a stabilisation at the current prices of fuel. However, I really hoped that things were going to continue down the same road with reserves of oil and gas dwindling, and our consumption of said fuels holding steady. Humanity has made great strides in making greener flights, cars and consumer electronics. Whilst we’re not nearly enough there, innovation and technological progress in that area is the best way forward in lowering our dependence on oil.
Necessity is the mother of invention and I believe the continued progress we’ve been making could be stunted if yet more oil is found in ‘giant’ quantities. I’m not naive enough to think we could ever be 100% free from our oil habit, but Iike any alcoholic, I’d rather we knew we could do without it.
In all, I’d like to see oil prices come down as a result of low demand and not higher supply.
iLike didn’t believe the hype
Nic Brisbourne the London based venture capitalist yesterday blogged about the lessons of iLike's low valuation. The gist of the article was that iLike, a business based around a Facebook app that allows users to share and interact around music, had been sold for the relatively low figure of $20 million. Nic says;
It seems to me there are two big takeaways here.
1. It is important to build value as well as traffic
Ultimately the true measure of value is net cash flow and it seems that despite being profitable there simply wasn't much scale to iLike's business in revenue terms. I would speculate that is partly because not all their 50m users were very active (it is telling they always quote total registered users not active users) and partly because the inventory they do have doesn't monetise that well. Widgets on social networks suffer from the double whammy of limited real estate in an environment where ads perform poorly.
It is worth noting here, as David Pakman of partner at VC firm Venrock points out, that traffic is often a good lead indicator of value, just not always
.
2. Dependence is a weakness
The other big problem for iLike seems to have been that 70-80% of its traffic came from Facebook, making them vulnerable to changes in FB's terms of service or if FB decided to launch their own music service. So iLike was dependent for its future on the good will of Facebook, and If there is even a small chance that iLike could have its ioxygen (sic) cut off nobody is going to risk paying too much for the company. This problem is all the more acute when the company you are dependent on hasn't sorted out its own business model and is somewhat unpredictable
These are very valid points for any web-based business to take on board. Nevertheless I'm just not sure they apply in the case of iLike and I commented to that end. (Updated: Nic has commented below with more insight and futher clarifying the background information. Be sure to read that.)
I'm guessing, but I think iLike's founders and investors probably knew the value of the company they were building. That they cashed out a slightly profitable company at $20 million, with other bidders on hand seems to suggest that they got what they were looking for and where not unhappy with the price. It would have been easy for them to move along thinking they'd grow and/or get more down the line.
This however, is a lesson to the tech media, analysts and all those who build copy cat businesses. Hype does not equate to a high valuation. It seems iLike (quite rightly) didn't believe the hype.
let the bankers get their money
Cut the bankers some slack. Greed is good.
I’ve just been reading about George Osborne (the opposition Conservative's Shadow Chancellor) statements about how bankers' large pay awards were "unacceptable" for any bank backed by state guarantees. I was stumped once again because I’ve heard this before from him, the press and the Man On The Street.
The Conservatives are making some mistakes on their journey to government. They'll get there despite themselves and because of Labour's ineptitude. However, this banker's pay issue is not going to be responsible for the Conservatives attracting voters and as such they should just stop taking vote-buying stances like these. The public is disillusioned by the banking sector, amongst other things, but thems the times we live in. All of a sudden the Man On The Street is not talking about Osama Bin-Laden, Kandahar and the Tora-Bora mountains, but about quantitative easing and the stimulus package. This doesn’t mean the Man On The Street is adequately informed as I’m about to point out.
For me to believe that the self-appointed party of business is sincere in not wanting the banks to issue big bonuses is quite hard. Why? Because we have to look at what a bonus is in the first instance for us to think about whether or not the practise is a good idea. By definition a bonus is a reward for greater than expected performance. Success, in other words. Anyone who owns a business should be glad if they have to pay out a bonus. Simply put it means that things are going well and that the people responsible are being rewarded for helping to bring about that success. By extension large bonuses are probably a result of big success. I hear that HSBC delivered almost £200,000 in net earnings per head in their investment banking arm the other week. That was just for one quarter by the way. Stunning.
The only issue we should be arguing about is how bonuses are structured. Fred Wilson on AVC.com touched on it some time ago, though I didn't agree with all his points. Among the contentious issues I'm against that he pointed out are;
- Guaranteed bonuses - This, I believe, was a big part of banking remuneration practise prior to the crisis. Guaranteed bonuses are not in anyone's interest other than the person receiving them. No company has any business guaranteeing a bonus, though I understand the thinking behind it.
- Contractual obligations - "all bonuses should, at the end of the day, be subject to board and compensation committee approval (even if the goals that trigger the bonuses have been met). The board has a fiduciary responsibility to look after the stockholders first and foremost. If paying the bonuses (even if they have been earned) puts the company in trouble, then there needs to be a mechanism for the board to avoid paying them. Compensation committee and board approval does that." Where the compensation committee has approved remuneration they should not however, backtrack as happened with RBS and their former CEO.
Having taken into account the above two scenarios I believe bankers (and any other worker) must be given whatever bonuses their success dictates. If that bonus is large and based on a percentage of the business they've brought in, so be it. The bonus just has to be measurable and the business they've bought in, traceable.
Mr Osborne thinking that large bonuses are a bad thing is just something I can’t buy into. Maybe his, the Man On The Street and the press’ sentiments are driven by the prevailing economic crisis, but I think that it’s misguided and an over-reaction. On the contrary, some of these troubled banks like Northern Rock and Lloyds could do with attracting as much top talent as they can to get them out of the messes they’re in. How do you think they can do that?
Of course the Man On The Street is also a voter (probably a former Labour one at that) and thus Mr Osborne wants to be on his side. But hey, I believe voters are a stupid bunch anyway. Mr Osborne doesn’t need to placate them by giving them the bankers’ heads when he may just need those same bankers if he gets to government.
Major Lazer – the birth of electro dancehall
So I'm reading this Guardian article about pop artists' nominations for worlds best artist, period. And Mike D from the Beastie Boys mentions Major Lazer before eventually nominating a different band. Now I was intrigued enough to find out about this Major Lazer dude and set about following the links trail, as one does.
The story behind Major Lazer is an interesting one about him being a "Jamaican commando who lost his arm in the secret Zombie War of 1984." All very imaginative, but in effect he is the creation of Diplo and Switch, two producers who met whilst working on M.I.A's Paper Planes album and discovered that they both had a love for Jamaican Dancehall. They then went out to Jamaica and tried to convince Dancehall artists to feature on their tracks. Unsuccesfully at first, though in the end they managed to get Vybz Kartel, Mr. Lexx, Baby Cham, Wayne Marshall and even Elephant Man.
The beats they were pushing were a mix of Dancehall, House, Electro and I can say being a fan of all three, I love the results. They've kept the bassy drums of Dancehall and infused some electro riffs and samples that manage to be distinctive and yet not detract from the Dancehall elements.
Of course Dancehall has been here before with Jungle which in the end turned out to be shortlived though I liked that when it was around. What can I say, anyone who knows me knows I love bass. Bass guitar, drum & bass, that Jack White bassy riff. Anything! However I feel that this could be a new genre we're witnessing.
Like any new genre it still needs other artists, especially up and coming ones, to be inspired enough by it to go down the same route.
Major Lazer, I salute you.
Major Lazer (Feat. Prince Zimboo & M.I.A.) - \"Baby (Switch RMX)\" MP3 via Stereogum
