UPS & Innovation

UPS of “What Can Brown Do For You?” fame was started in Seattle in 1907 and has never looked back. They deliver more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the world (Wiki). They are truly an innovative company. For instance, through operations research, they discovered that it is much for efficient for their delivery trucks to avoid making left turns. Simple, but insightful. Throughout the years, they have experimented with more efficient ways to make delivers. For instance, in NYC they have used electric trucks. In 2008, UPS started hiring bike delivery people in Vancouver, Washington; Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Antelope, Eugene, and Medford, Oregon (Wiki.)

Lately, actually since last month (October 2011), I have been seeing golf cart-type vehicles running around Padre Island Texas where we live. The Island Community recently made it lawful to drive golf-cart type vehicles on the Island’s secondary roads. So what does UPS do? They are now making deliveries on Padre Island using a gas-powered, open vehicle (see picture to right). A delivery was made today (11/30/11) to our complex, and I took the opportunity to talk to the driver, a young lady. She really likes the new cart delivery vehicle over driving a truck as it is much more maneuverable and easier to park.. She also enjoys being “outside” in the warm winter Texas sun (it’s 70 today.)

So what and how do the logistics work? UPS has, with the Island’s blessing, positioned a POD in two strategic places on the Island. Regular trucks in the dead of the night bring the next day’s deliveries to the PODs, where the carts are also stored over night. The drivers also hand carry gas for the carts and make certain they are filled and serviceable. What a way to save on fuel, have more efficient delivery of packages, and be kinder on the environment. UPS has been responsive to changes in local regulations and taken competitive advantage of the evolving laws for vehicles and in so doing changed their business model for Island delivery. Now that’s being entrepreneurial! Hank (A picture of one of their PODs is below.)

Is Thanksgiving an endangered holiday?

Who is to blame for rushing the holiday shopping season; the retailer or the consumer, and why? 

Stores opened on Thanksgiving Day this year, which meant that people gave up family time to work and shop.   My son drove back to Bloomington to report to work at 12 a.m., so we had our dinner early and said goodbye.  “The mall was packed” when he arrived, “people were everywhere, we couldn’t even move around in our store”.  I asked if they sold a lot and he replied “not really”.

According to Fox News a record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites during the four-day holiday weekend starting on Thursday, the Thanksgiving Day holiday, up from 212 million last year, according to early estimates by the National Retail Federation released on Sunday. Americans spent more, too: The average holiday shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, up from $365.34 a year ago.

Sales on Black Friday were up 7%.  Retailers were open for business much earlier and longer than last year.  Analysts are wondering if the early rush to the holiday season will result in shoppers spending more for Christmas overall, or if they will instead finish their Christmas shopping sooner.   With extended store hours, payroll and energy costs will increase.  At the end of the season, how will profits fare?  Retail hours have always been difficult to endure during the holiday season, but this year is going to be brutal.  I wonder how employee moral will be affected.  My son worked until 8 a.m. after reporting to work late Thanksgiving night, went home to sleep and reported back to work Friday afternoon.  I admire his dedication, but I wouldn’t have expected that much sacrifice from my employees and their families.   Maybe if I had gotten a great deal on an HDTV I’d feel differently.  Beth Carroll

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/287611/3/So-what-happened-to-Thanksgiving

Marketing Touchpoints Evolving Under Social Media Influx

Above map from here:

In marketing of old there was a concept named “Touchpoint” which like many subjects, once academics get hot for it takes on many meanings, all argued and debated about without adding any clarity or substance. In its simplest form, a Touchpoint is any interaction between a company and “customers,” where customers may be past, current, or potential future buyers. Also in the past, these interactions were very much managed by marketing. In its simplest form in the past, marketers were involved in “Push” marketing, where the attributes of a company’s product and/or services where positioned in media commonly frequented by customers (as defined above) to entice them to engage in or continue a brand experience. For instance, guys are the heavy half of beer drinkers, and guys watch lots of football and NASCAR, so beer makers support such sports (if indeed NASCAR is a sport) through product placement and ads throughout. Budweiser for instance, is a perennial winner of Super Bowl ads. Touchpoint management was an integral and extremely important function of marketing. Note “WAS.”

Enter Social Media such as blogs, forums, Facebook and Twitter. Try as they might, marketers found they have lost the handle of who sees what when and how about a company’s brand. Yes, companies have “specialists’ in these areas, attempting to “control” what is said by whom about their brands, but the social movement is very much uninhibited and rails against any form of “guidance,” regardless of the source. Thus, companies have evolved from marketing being in charge of touchpoints, to everyone in the company being responsible.

But herein lies another larger problem: Who in the company is accountable for touchpoint management? In the military, responsibility is never assigned without associated accountability. Think of it in terms of who gets paid for great customer management? See the conundrum? Hank

Vets As Entrepreneurs: Lavish Laines Winery

There is a small startup winery in Livermore, CA named Lavish Laines Winery per the above from their web site. So far, ho hum, right? But there’s lots more to the story. Started in 2008 by a young veteran Marine, 25 year-old Josh Laine, Lavish Laines has 42 vets working the startup vineyard. The digs housing the new venture have gone from a rusty bus, to a APL shipping container, to a barn where it currently conducts business.  Plus, Josh didn’t come from a long line of wine-sniffers, but learned while doing using YouTube for guidance. His girl friend was the inspiration behind his starting the business. Lots of lessons here for would-be entrepreneurs.

While some reviews have panned their products, wine reviewers are snobs as we all know and are to be discounted as such. After all, they speak in a language that mere mortals can’t understand So why in this blog? I’m a vet, and like to see vets prosper, especially starting businesses. Here’s a young vet  who has jumped with both feet into a very competitive environment. Suggest you consider giving them a taste. Their phone # is 925-321-0373.  Here’s the link to their FB page. And here’s a link to more info about them. Watch the video below also. Hank

Have A Happy Friday: & A Lucrative Black Friday Also

Have A Happy Thanksgiving

The Cost of Expired Patents

September 2010.

Matthew Craig/The Wall Street Journal

Raymond E. Stauffer was shopping at a New Jersey mall when he noticed something peculiar about the bow ties on display at Brooks Brothers: They were labeled with old patent numbers.

Mr. Stauffer, who calls himself a “sharp-dressed man,” also happens to be a patent lawyer. He sued Brooks Brothers Inc. in federal court, claiming it broke the law by marking its adjustable bow ties with patents that expired in the 1950s. He figured the retailer would have to pay a nominal amount for violating a law that bars companies from marking products with erroneous patent numbers.

A federal appellate court ruling breathed new life into his case by upholding his right to sue—and could pave the way for hundreds of similar suits against major companies to move forward. The law on false patent markings is similar to whistle-blower laws. Anyone can file a claim on behalf of the government, and plaintiffs must split any fine award evenly with it.

Marking a tube of toothpaste or paper cup with a patent that is out of date or doesn’t exist has been against the law for years. It is considered anticompetitive. Until late last year, the most a violator had to worry about was paying a $500 penalty for misleading the public.   But in December, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that defendants could be held responsible for up to $500 per offense.

Lawyers for product manufacturers now fear clients are liable for up to $500 for every tube of mascara or box of garbage bags marked with an expired patent—an error that turns out to be quite common. Patents have a life span of 17 or 20 years. To keep them valid, companies must pay maintenance fees every four years. Once they expire, the holder is expected to remove the numbers from products.  In recent months, would-be plaintiffs have been fanning out across retail stores and the Internet searching for expired patent numbers on everything from toothpaste to toilet plungers.

The people behind the suits say they see themselves as consumer advocates, helping to protect legitimate inventors from giant corporations who are pretending to have patents to keep competitors from stepping on their turf.

How do you see it?

See whole article here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467004575463843289453872.html

Follow-up article July/2011 here:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304793504576429671634982218.html

Social Media Info for Entrepreneurs

There is a company named HubSpot that provides, on a regular basis. web analytics and data that should be in every entrepreneur’s toolbox. Below is one such presentation. Go full screen to read it as I crunched it down to fit our blog’s real estate.

BTW, it is an embedded PowerPoint presentation. You might ask “how did Hank do that?” I converted the HubSpot-supplied PPT using iSpring Free, then cut the object code out of the iSpring code to embed the resultant SWF (flash) file, which I separately uploaded to our Thinkbeta.com server. Lots easier than it sounds. Hank

The Entrepreneurial Marketing of Juices

Have you taken a gander at the array of juices in your supermarket lately? The selection has gone way way beyond just orange juice, to every kind imaginable with most purporting to do something great for your health and body. I recently purchased a bottle (square no less)  of “Naked.” All Natural 100%Juice No Sugar Added Orange Mango (with other natural flavors) providing Vitamins A&C naturally. The name “Naked Juice”, refers to their composition of no artificial flavors, added sugar, or preservatives according to wiki. Wiki provides the following background on the founding of what has become a global brand:

The Naked Juice Company was created in Santa Monica, California in 1983 by Jimmy Rosenberg. He began on a small scale, producing the fruit drinks at his home and selling them under the “Naked Juice” name in-person on the beaches in Santa Monica. As a result of this initial popularity, the juice drinks were first made available commercially via a local grocery store which agreed to carry the products. Distribution soon expanded to a wider range of stores in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, followed shortly thereafter by growth into the San Diego region.

Students of entrepreneurship should really really study Naked Juice, how they market their product line, hit sustainability hard, and in general differentiate what is otherwise a ho-hum product. BTW, they are now owned by Pepsi. The Naked Commercial below was not authorized by Naked Juice Hank

Have A Happy Friday: Cleats for our Hunter 27 Sailboat

Well, at least the project made me happy. Seems the majority of sailboats are delivered without cleats in the midships area where it is very convenient to tie up using spring lines. So I designed, fabricated, installed and am using a rig that is bolted to the toe rail of our Hunter 27. I found the two 10″ cleats in a junk shop north of Corpus Christi, Texas in a boat town named Northport. Paid $15 for the pair which new would run $30 each or so, and the old salt running the place threw in the treated 2X2  upon which I mounted them. The SS hardware was about another $25 or so. I finished the wood with teak oil.  (Since taking these pictures, I have moved the rig inboard to keep from dragging pier-pilings with them.) Hank