Letter: Not a better mousetrap

Letter: Not a better mousetrap:

"In regard to your editorial (“Closed primary means low turnout,” The Daily Astorian, May 25) you correctly point out that there are a number of reasons for low voter participation in the primaries. Your solution is to allow the independent voters to participate in the partisan political process. Unfortunately, this defeats the purpose of primary elections.

They were originally set up to allow party members full participation in their party’s selection as opposed to the decisions of a few powerful men in a smoke-filled room. This has generally been successful. Yes, it does exclude the uncommitted independent, but then this was also true under the old system. Should Oregon institute open primaries, I will not vote in them, since they no longer serve the purpose for which they were intended."

C'mon.. most of the folks who are "independents" are not consumers or fans of the political industry. They don't vote because they don't care. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing can be legitimately argued, but a mediocre product, with a terrible customer experience, will not attract grow it's market. even with huge infusions of cash.

The Morning News :: Opinion Page

The Morning News :: Opinion Page:

"Election day will come, and it won't matter how many people rallied in the park.

Springdale saw 5,000 people in the park in April. Another large rally for immigrants' rights took place in May. Then a couple of months passed. Thursday, Republican party nominee for governor Asa Hutchinson came to Springdale to announce how he'd curb illegal immigration."

Tougher laws in Arkansas won't slow immigration to the United States but could divert it to other states. That's victory enough for many. My problem is this: There is no way to be tough on immigrants who arrived today and not be tough on immigrants who arrived years ago.

The people who arrived years ago broke our laws too. However, we showed little interest in enforcing our laws until this election year. Even the most ardent anti-immigration forces acknowledge that. It's a sore point with them.

As long as the election system is based on the niche market that votes, it doesn't supply a very sustainable incentive structure for finding the best solution for the most people.

And it's NOT the politicians fault. What would you do in the same position. If you don't get elected, it doesn't matter what you believe.

International IDEA | Electoral System Design

International IDEA | Electoral System Design:

"The choice of electoral system is one of the most important institutional decisions for any democracy. Electoral systems define and structure the rules of the political game; they help determine who is elected, how a campaign is fought, the role of political parties, and most importantly, who governs. "

It's the rules that create the strategies that win. Within our rules and history. MVC has been the best strategy to win.

International IDEA | Voter Turnout

International IDEA | Voter Turnout

And here's a place to find international stats, that are not about winning elections, but about using participation rates to say something about the political industry.

NOW with Bill Moyers. Politics & Economy. Election 2004 — America Votes | PBS

NOW with Bill Moyers. Politics & Economy. Election 2004 — America Votes | PBS

A great resource for why people do or don't vote. But still it concentrates only on the cost of voting. Not the benefit that is received.

According to NOW, America participation in elections has rarely reached 50% in the US.

SpringerLink - Article

SpringerLink - Article:

"

Like other administrative reforms designed to make voting easier, postal voting has the potential to increase turnout. However, the expanded pool of voters will be limited most likely to those already inclined to vote but find it inconvenient to go to the polling place. This conclusion is consistent with the growing body of research that suggests that relaxing administrative requirements is not likely to be the panacea for low turnout among the disenfranchised."

You can lower the cost of playing to almost zero, but if the product still stinks, nobody is going to play.

Pasadena Star-News - Draw California voters back to the polls

Pasadena Star-News - Draw California voters back to the polls:

"IN the recent election, voters were asked to cast ballots in a statewide primary election. Less than a third of registered voters cast ballots.

This was one of the lowest turnout gubernatorial primary elections in California's history.

Why were most voters no-shows?

It is hard to know what was driving such miserably low levels of voter participation. But a few hypotheses are floating around that merit research in coming months.

First, low voter participation in statewide primaries is not a new phenomenon. In fact, as I've written recently, since California's experiment with the 'blanket primary,' voter interest in statewide primaries has dropped considerably.

In 1998, when the state used the blanket primary in a gubernatorial primary, 42.5percent of registered voters participated. But in the 1994 and 2002 primaries, with more restrictive participation rules like those used in the recent primary, voter participation was 35 percent or less.

So one important explanation for low voter turnout in our recent primary is how participation is restricted for primary-election voters. If voters can't cast meaningful ballots, they don't turn out to vote.

Second, for many registered voters in the state, given the rules restricting which primary they could cast ballots in, there was little on the ballot to drive them to the polls. Republicans (making up around a third of registered voters statewide) had few choices to make on the ballot. So, after the final tallies are completed, we'll likely find that participation by registered Republicans was slight.

Third, registered Democrats (and the 'decline-to-state' votes who could cast ballots in the Democratic primary if they wanted) had important choices to make in a number of statewide races. But in general, unless they were political junkies, it was impossible for them to figure out which Democratic candidate might be best suited for a particular statewide seat, as there are few differences between most Democratic candidates in California.

Further, the campaigns that Democrats ran didn't help. Even though many millions were spent in the Democratic contests on candidate advertising, little of it was informative. Instead of informative campaign communications, the advertising blitz was mainly mudslinging. It's also worth noting that a lot of the campaign money was spent on uninformative mailers and those idiotic recorded telephone messages that turn voters off."

So how much does this sound like a "blame the customer" excuse of a failed marketing campaign?

It's hard to acquire customers, when your product is sub optimal and your process is broken. It's very hard to grow a market, when customer acquisition costs go through the roof to try to make up for a bad customer experience.

FedSmith.com News Articles: Readers Identify Issues, Preferences for Upcoming Elections

FedSmith.com News Articles: Readers Identify Issues, Preferences for Upcoming Elections

Here's the outlook for the folks who actually do the work of government. FedSmith is an information website for federal employees.

The Smoky Mountain News

The Smoky Mountain News

One of the best descriptions i've ever read of life on the ground for state legislators. It's no wonder it's so hard to get it right!

Lebanon Daily News - Update from the 48th District campaign trail

Lebanon Daily News - Update from the 48th District campaign trail:

"Out on the campaign trail, there has been a significant change to Folmer’s staff. Joe Sterns, a political consultant for West Lawn Graphics, has taken over as Folmer’s press secretary and spokesman, replacing Laurel Lynn Petolicchio of Mt. Gretna.

Petolicchio and husband Louis are close friends of Folmer and with him founded the Constitutional Organization of Lebanon political-action committee last year. Folmer said the couple played a key role in convincing him to run, and then in organizing his campaign.

It was a mutual decision for Laurel Lynn Petolicchio to step aside.

“They are dear friends of mine, and they have a life to get back to,” Folmer said.

Sterns began working for Folmer during the primary. Although just 31, he brings a wealth of political experience to the campaign.

He worked four years for the state House Republican Caucus as a speech writer and was campaign spokesman for Pat Toomey during his unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Arlen Specter in 2004. He is a director on the board of the Schuylkill County Young Republicans and a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Young Republicans. He also currently serves as the vice chairman of grass-roots coordination for Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania.

While Petolicchio was no political novice on the local level, Sterns said his experience in handling a major campaign should help Folmer, whose political experience is limited.

“It is important to have somebody with experience in dealing with the media these days,” he said. “You need a full-time professional to help a candidate manage his time.”"

So a relatively unknown mounts a grass roots campaign and scores a stunning upset..And then fires the manager who got him there and hires a "Professional".

When will people learn that professionals can do the wrong thing for years, and call it experience?

Professionals trained in 20th century forms, are usually exactly the wrong folks to lead a 21st century enterprise.

The Norman Transcript - Illegal aliens, family values featured on campaign trail

The Norman Transcript - Illegal aliens, family values featured on campaign trail:

"For Republicans, the goal is be as conservative as possible — think Ronald Reagan. “Republican themes will hit on immigration, tax cuts and Christian values,” said Don Hoover, a campaign consultant. “They will play as far to the right as possible.”

For Democrats, the goal is outreach and the middle ground — a replay of Bill Clinton. “Democrats want to talk about investing in the future and, to a lesser degree, bipartisanship,” he said.

The goal, Hoover said, is to get the undecided voter to pay attention. And those voters are only about half-listening. “Right now the undecided voter isn’t too focused on the campaign — yet. But, slowly, they are beginning to pay attention.”

To turn those heads, candidates will need money — lots and lots of money. “It takes resources to campaign,” he said. “Especially on a statewide level.”"

"Independent voters" are more accurately thought of as non consumers of the poltical product. Getting their "attention" is non trivail because the product is sub standard. It's a normal business problem in the GME.

Cantwell's lead over McGavick nearly gone

Cantwell's lead over McGavick nearly gone: "Dwindling voter support for U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell's re-election bid has put her in a statistical toss-up with her Republican opponent, according to a new poll announced Wednesday.

Rasmussen Reports, an independent national polling firm, said a survey of 500 likely Washington voters June 13 showed the Democratic incumbent leading challenger Mike McGavick 44 percent to 40 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points."


So if the general picture is correct that politics has about a 20% penetration of the market. Then 50% of 20% is 10%.. so Senator Cnatwell's future is in the hands of 10% of eligible voters.

Politics is a tough business.

Internet-Based Software Helps Political Candidates to Get Out the Vote and Cut Campaign Costs by 80 Percent

Internet-Based Software Helps Political Candidates to Get Out the Vote and Cut Campaign Costs by 80 Percent: "According to Voter Lists co-founder Donald Quaid, 'GOTVoters Online levels the political playing field. Even independent candidates on limited budgets can use it to get elected. Our advanced filtering of voter information enables political campaigns to target voters based on their specific concerns and interests. This is considerably more effective than targeting all voters on all issues. In a primary, a candidate can focus on just the 20% of voters who always turn out, saving money and more efficiently utilizing their time."


Go for the most valued customer. Based on this story the stable customer base for politics is about 20% of the potential market.

You would think that 80% of the population would qualify as underserved market that could possibly be a site for explosive growth.

Internet-Based Software Helps Political Candidates to Get Out the Vote and Cut Campaign Costs by 80 Percent

Internet-Based Software Helps Political Candidates to Get Out the Vote and Cut Campaign Costs by 80 Percent: "Voter Lists LLC announced a new Internet-based service today called GOTVoters Online(TM) that helps political candidates to Get Out The Vote (GOTV) on Election Day. GOTVoters Online(TM) cleverly combines state-supplied registered voter records with Internet-based software developed by Voter Lists LLC.

Brunswick, ME (PRWEB via PR Web Direct) June 22, 2006 -- Voter Lists LLC announced a new Internet-based service today called GOTVoters Online(TM) that helps political candidates to Get Out The Vote (GOTV) on Election Day. GOTVoters Online(TM) cleverly combines state-supplied registered voter records with Internet-based software developed by Voter Lists LLC.

Public voter data and our GOTV Internet software make it even more critical for voters to vote often. Political campaigns are evolving to target only those who vote regularly and to safely ignore those who do not vote. Only the interests of frequent voters, not those of the general population, will be represented by elected officials.
GOTVoters Online(TM) allows political campaigns to manage voter information online. Campaign managers can filter voters by gender, ethnicity, age, and other criteria and assign them to campaign volunteers, who gather voter opinions on key issues. Candidates then use the data to get only their supporters to the polls on Election Day.

Online at http://www.voter-lists.com, the new service cuts political campaign costs by allowing political campaign workers to use their own computers, Internet connections, and phones. GOTVoters Online(TM) eliminates the need for large campaign offices with dozens of phones and computers. GOTVoters Online(TM) works with any computer through any Internet browser.

GOTVoters Online(TM) targets candidates with 5,000 to 200,000 voters. Those mid-sized political campaigns have never before had access to advanced Internet-based technology. Typical costs, which include both the Internet-based software and many states' voter lists, are about $1,600 for a small mayoral campaign with 5,000 voters or $5,500 for a large judicial campaign with 200,000 voters."


And the marketplace will supply the technology to get to most valuable customers, better, faster, cheaper.

RIC - News and Events

RIC - News and Events:

"Cranston Mayor Steven Laffey is in a virtual tie with U. S. Senator Lincoln Chafee for the party’s nomination for Senate in the September Republican primary, according to a new statewide survey of 256 likely Republican primary voters conducted by the Bureau of Government Research and Services at Rhode Island College. If the September primary for the U.S. Senate election were held today, 39 percent of voters would support Chafee while 38 percent would back Laffey, if half of those voting in the primary are Republicans and the other half unaffiliated voters. One in four likely primary voters say they are undecided.

Among men, Laffey leads Chafee by 44 to 34 percent, while Chafee’s lead among women is only 37 to 35 percent. Regionally, Chafee appears to be strongest in Providence (73 to 27 percent), western Rhode Island (43 to 21 percent), and in the East Bay (44 to 33 percent). Laffey is strongest in Blackstone Valley (50 to 40 percent), Newport County (46 to 23 percent), and in the Providence suburbs south of the city (39 to 31 percent). Among age groupings, Chafee is strongest with voters older than 64 (49 to 37 percent), while Laffey’s greatest strength comes from voters 39 or younger (55 to 33).

According to the survey, the key to the primary outcome will be the number of unaffiliated and Republican voters coming out on election day. "


In a protected low growth market, you have to focus on your most valued customer. Every smart business knows that.

Multinational Corporation Out - GIE In

IBM chief calls for end to colonial companies:

When the Chairman of IBM, invests $6billion in India, then announces that IBM is not a multi national corporation, but a global intetgrated enterprise, something is going on. It might just be spin, but it could be something a lot more important.
From yesterdays, FT.com,

"Sam Palmisano, head of IBM, on Monday called on multinationals to evolve into a new type of corporation if they are to avoid an anti-globalisation backlash that leads to the election of governments hostile to the interests of big business."

He says traditional multi-national companies were designed to deal with the “protection and nationalism” that held sway in the 20th century. The modern company, Mr Palmisano writes, is a “globally integrated enterprise”, which spreads its strategies, production capacity and management around the world in order to be close to markets and customers.

“The globally integrated enterprise is an inherently better and more profitable way to organise business activities – and it can deliver enormous economic benefits to both developed and developing nations,” he writes.

In the GME the most valuable commodity is time. The most dysfunctional aspect of the multi national "colonial corporation" is that it's not built for speed, but for risk management. Perhaps the GIE (global intergretated enterprise) can solve that problem for business. And has implications for the rest of us.

The issues raised have been articulated at least 15 years ago. In 1991 Robert Reich, in The Work of Nations said

In the United States and probably in Canada as well, there is the supposition that national competitiveness is tantamount to the profitability or world market share of the nation’s major corporations. That is no longer the case. Corporations head quartered in whatever nation are rapidly going global and employing large numbers of non-nationals, often to do complicated work. To the extent that a corporation is profitable or enjoys a large world market share, the citizens of that nation may or may not benefit. Perhaps some of them will benefit by having larger dividends, but they may not be getting the best jobs or the most important experience. The “us” is the nation’s people and their intellectual capacities.

If Mr. Palmisan is correct, maybe the implications for the welfare of national populations of GIE's are more promising than within the context of Multinationals.
According to him, the model is no longer, keep the high paying jobs here, and the low paying jobs there, but rather level the playing field. Jobs are located where they create the most value, the customer defines the value created, and the challenge is to deliver value at a profit.

In the GME, the only valuable commodity is time

FT.com / World - US workers challenge value of being overworked:

And now the workers, and their lawyers confirm it.

by Patti Waldmeir in Washington
Published: June 8 2006 18:29 | Last updated: June 8 2006 22:49

"Increasingly, US workers are banding together to demand payment for all the hours they work, including unpaid overtime, work done during meals and time spent walking around on the job. Collective lawsuits involving wages and hours are growing exponentially, according to a recent study by the law firm Seyfarth Shaw, which found that mass litigation over pay and working hours outnumbered any other kind of workplace class action last year, including gender and other job discrimination lawsuits."

“Certainly this kind of suit is not as glitzy or sexy as some other kind of claims,” he says, but adds that entrepreneurial plaintiffs’ attorneys have discovered that such suits can be very lucrative. Many legal experts say plaintiffs’ attorneys are driving the rise in litigation, because they can earn large settlement fees.

But worker advocates disagree, saying that as employers try to cut labour costs, they are increasingly violating the law, while state and federal agencies charged with enforcing it are not doing so aggressively. “There’s been a decline in enforcement actions by the public agencies . . . and the private bar has stepped in and taken over the responsibility of enforcing the laws,” says Cathy Ruckelshaus of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers.

“....We want people to be eager beavers, so it goes against the grain to say ‘work to rule’: but if he doesn’t sue you, somebody else might!” says Mr McCormick. The same is true of the secretary who answers phone calls on her lunch break, or reads a book while waiting for dictation.

Every day, the rules of the game change. The incentives for independent contractors working by project, rather than by hours has just increased.

Supply Chains in the GME

From the FT.. Mastering Risk - Coping with complexity and chaos:

"Achieving supply chain resilience
Because even the best-managed supply chains will hit unexpected turbulence or be affected by events that are impossible to forecast, it is critical that resilience be built into them. Resilience implies the ability of a system to return to its original or desired state after being disturbed. Resilient processes are flexible and agile and are able to change quickly. Supply chain resilience also requires at those critical points that can be adversely affected by changes in the rate of flow.Supply chain resilience depends on rapid access to information about changed conditions. Through collaborative working with partners, this information can be converted into supply chain intelligence. Because networks have become more complex, they will rapidly descend into chaos unless they can be connected through shared information and knowledge. The aim is to create a supply chain community where there is a greater visibility of upstream and downstream risk and a shared commitment to mitigate and manage those risks.Ultimately, it may be necessary for companies to re-engineer their supply chains not, as in the past, with cost minimisation in mind but to maximise their flexibility and agility. Today's changed conditions are forcing companies to question past decisions on sourcing, outsourcing and the pursuit of Clean solutions. Responsiveness and resilience must be the twin goals of supply chain design and management."

In the rush to cut costs, the risks are often overlooked. In the GME, risk management has to be an essential part of logistic excellence. It has to be faster AND better. Better means safer.

Google-Mart in the Print Industry

Dr. Joe Webb is one of the few in the print industry that seems to consistently get it right.

I spent 30 years on the ground in that industry before going into education and consulting. It's a great context to watch the play of GME forces.

Printing always been one of the largest manufacturing industries in the US. Yet, it has always been organized in a small units - average size, at least until recently, of about 20 people per location. As other industries are now trying to grow models of networked production, the print industry historically has always thrived with a connective tissue of job brokering, dynamic specialization, and local customer focused small enterprises.

The industry is now moving from a customized manufacturing system held together by managing client risk through trust built on reputation and customer loyalty. But risk has been mitigated by constant improvements in technology. Once the value added of risk management is taken away, margins have eroded. Add to this the crisis in advertising, information management, and marketing, and it really gets interesting.

Another factor is that print might be an industry that partially shielded from global outsourcing because of the time requirements and the need to deliver physical product.

Reading Dr. Joe's updates with fact based research and at the same time watching the common wisdom move to and fro is a great learning experience. It's a perfect place to see the GME wave hitting the ground and how small manufacturing business units are responding to it.

From PrintForecast Perspective Archives

It was recently announced that data base provider Harte- Hanks purchased a digital printing business, PrintSmart, located in Southeastern Massachusetts. For all of the talk about printers getting into the data base business, this is a data base business getting into printing.....

And after a discussion of the benfits of outsourcing, he gives the following advice to printing companies, his primary audience.

This brings out the most important and unrenewable management resource: time. Time cannot be replaced. Outsourcing implementation tasks creates time for corporate management because they can apply their managerial time elsewhere, and access expertise in implementation that they could not acquire personally or would have to hire at great cost.

Printing companies have significant opportunities to lift burdens and create time for their clients. Knowing how their clients use print, or would use print if they could, and what other information distribution methods they need to tie into, has been hard for many printers to understand. It's essential to focus not on getting ink onto paper, but on translating client ideas into actions. It will be quite interesting to see how (or if) Harte-Hanks expands their services in this way. It will be also interesting to see how many printers also view this as a core strategy for their own businesses. There are hurdles: clients typically do not think of their printers in this way.

Which printers will hear this clear and good adivce?

My own instinct is that most won't or can't. Only a few printers have the culture to recognize that a potentially huge source of value creation might come from knowing their customers - not in the sense of "owning" the relationship - but the granular knowledge of their customers' business problems and systems. Printers' problem is not having the time or capabilty to leverage that asset.

The most likely mix is that some printing companies will get it, while others will build on network partnerships, and many will do neither. Most printers' core skill is printing stuff. There are many other centers of expertise that will face the customer to create value and print will continue to be hidden from view in the middle of the value chain.

This is not bad news for any particular printer.

In fact, those that concentrate on dynamic specialization ( as described in The Only Sustainable Edge and www.edgeperspectives.com ) have the opportunity to do better than ever.

Even the big companies can get it right.

Andrew Ward, FT May 30.":

"One evening last October, an empty freight trailer was stolen from a truck park in Stockholm, Sweden, and driven north towards the border with Finland. Within two days, the vehicle was in Vyborg, Russia, more than 1,000 miles away.
...By the time the theft was reported, the trailer was in Russia. But TIP was able to use the tracking device to guide Russian police to the freight yard where the vehicle was parked. Within hours, the trailer was recovered and the thieves arrested.
... TIP is the European trailer-leasing business of General Electric. Many of its vehicles, including the one in Stockholm, are fitted with a satellite tracking system, developed by GE's equipment services division.

GE continues to change and seems to be getting it right. In addition to heavily investing in "green" initiatives, Jeff Immelt is changing the corporate culture. The basic insights of the GME seem to be consistent with his decisions.

More from Mr. Ward's article..
GE's lead in such a promising but unproved market is a symbol of how the group has become more innovative and daring since Jeff Immelt replaced Jack Welch as chief executive nearly five years ago. During Mr Welch's 20-year reign, GE was famous for its laser-like focus on growth and ruthless intolerance of failing managers. The approach made GE one of the most disciplined and reliable performers in corporate America. But critics believe it also spread a fear of failure that stifled risk-taking.

Mr Immelt has sought to inject a more adventurous spirit by increasing investment in research and development and linking management bonuses to innovation. Shortly after taking charge, he challenged senior executives to generate three new business ideas a year, each with the potential to deliver at least $100m (£54m) in annual revenues. VeriWise, developed entirely by GE scientists at the group's main R&D centre in Niskayuna, New York, provides some of the clearest evidence to date that Mr Immelt's cultural revolution is bearing fruit.

"It is an example of the imagination breakthroughs happening across GE," says Thomas Konditi, president of asset intelligence for GE Equipment Services. "In the past, going into a new technology such as this would have been seen as risky. People would have said, 'Let's not take too big a swing.' But we have proved that we can be a leader rather than a follower in innovation and we can move fast."

They had the customer relationship, gave their top people an incentive to think about what the customer needed, invented a solution that played to GE's core strength both in technology and relationships, and implemented a solution that increases transparency,accountability and takes friction out of a logistic chain.