As a part of what I’m reacting to in the Watertown Times editorial last week (note that I’m not necessarily weeping and rending my garments over the election outcome – I don’t know enough about Owens to have an opinion yet), let me toss this out. In the LA Times today, there was an op-ed which – to a large extent I agree with. the author complains about the political idiocy that’s ruling California today:

The ineffective response to the current financial crisis reflects trends that have been hurting California public education for years. To win votes, political leaders mandated long prison sentences that forced us to stop building schools and start building prisons. This has made us dumber but no safer. Leaders pandered by promising tax cuts no matter what and did not worry about how to provide basic services without that money. Those tax cuts did not make us richer; they’ve made us poorer. To remain in office, they carved out legislative districts that ensured we would have few competitive races and leaders with no ability or incentive to compromise. Rather than strengthening the parties, it pushed both parties to the fringes and weakened them.

When the economy was good, our leaders failed to make hard choices and then faced disasters like the energy crisis. When the economy turned bad, they made no choices until the economy was worse.

In response to failures of leadership, voters came up with one cure after another that was worse than the disease — whether it has been over-reliance on initiatives driven by special interests, or term limits that remove qualified people from office, or any of the other ways we have come up with to avoid representative democracy.

So what’s not to like?

He goes on:

My story is not unique. It is the story of California’s rise from the 1960s to the 1990s. Millions of people stayed here and succeeded because of their California education. We benefited from the foresight of an earlier generation that recognized it had a duty to pay it forward.

That was the bargain California made with us when it established the California Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960. By making California the state where every qualified and committed person can receive a low-cost and high-quality education, all of us benefit. Attracting and retaining the leaders of the future helps the state grow bigger and stronger. Economists found that for every dollar the state invests in a CSU student, it receives $4.41 in return.

So as someone who has lived the California dream, there is nothing more painful to me than to see this dream dying. It is being starved to death by a public that thinks any government service — even public education — is not worth paying for. And by political leaders who do not lead but instead give in to our worst, shortsighted instincts.

But there’s a problem…let me give some examples.

CSU LA, one local campus of the California State University – the author was a Trustee of the statewide institution – has 119 employees who make over $100K in annual salary – plus 40% burden, I’d guess. The campus President makes $389,679.

Take a look at the job descriptions and salaries below (I’ve deleted the names, but all this information is available courtesy of the Sacramento Bee). And there’s the rub.

I don’t mind a whit supporting the cost of building out a university system that could be available to everyone in California (side issue: does everyone really have to go to college?). I think that ladder of opportunity is vital to our success as a state and as a nation.

But when the ladder-builders are getting this fat, lots of people are going to look at their demands for better ladders and wonder whether those ladders are really worth funding.

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So as I’ve been trying to do a “Big Business Social Media” deck, the news is full of a study that seems to show that small business doesn’t use social media very much and doesn’t much like what it uses.

I’m shocked, just shocked (not really). Actually, it kind of confirms what I’ve been seeing in talking to small business owners out in the wild.

Here’s the lede (sorry, the study doesn’t seem to be available; I’m just piecing together clips about it from press releases and blog posts):

Sites like Facebook and Twitter have taken off among individuals for personal use. But what about the use of social networking at small businesses?

A survey commissioned by Citibank and conducted by GfK Roper found that some small businesses see little reason to hop onto the social-network bandwagon.

Based on interviews in late August with 500 executives running businesses with fewer than 100 employees, the survey said that 76 percent of them found sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to be of little help in finding new business leads. Further, 86 percent of those questioned have not used social-networking sites to look for business advice or information.

(from cNET)

Here are the numbers:

Now you can’t tell from this how many are using social media and not finding it helpful (we can assume it’s more than 25%). but there’s another study – one done by contacting social-media savvy businesses which are part of MerchantCircle – and it found that while 53% of the respondents were using social media, only 22% found Facebook profiles to be an effective marketing technique. The hard truth is that not many small businesses today are drinking the social media Kool-Aid, and those that are aren’t seeing the results they hope for. Why?

Well, the core reason is that social media marketing is wildly labor-intensive. The Citibank executive quoted explains it pretty well:

“What this survey indicates to us is small businesses are very, very focused on running their business and on generating sales and managing their cash flow and doing the things that are really important, especially in these economic times,” Veltre said. “I don’t think quite yet the social media piece of it has proven to be as significant.”

Here’s my earlier take on the subject, in a response to Chris Brogan:

[Brogan is] just mistaken about the capability and priority of small businesses. Look, for me or for Chris – who are online 17 or 18 hours a day (I’m in front of the monitor for 9 or 10, but have my Blackberry with me the rest of the time) these are great suggestions. If you’re a new-media consultant, they are terrific.

But the for locksmith down the street from me, these are 180 degrees wrong. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to do these things – to sit in front of the computer long enough to meaningfully blog, Tweet, listen and promote – while he’s also fixing locks and cutting keys. It’s not that he’s not capable or smart enough to – of course he is. But his day’s activities don’t involve sitting in front of a screen, and if he did, he’d be neglecting the things he needs to do to actually make money.

Or to make it simpler, a slide from my presentation:

Does that mean no small business today has build its customer base using social media – of course not. But what it does mean is that small businesses need to be thoughtful about how they spend their dollar’s worth of attention. And it’s critical that those of us who are trying to guide small businesses make it clear that there’s lots more to small business marketing using social media than Facebook and Twitter.
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So since I’m still getting emails asking how I’m doing after last week, let me take a moment and tell everyone.

Shortest version: pretty much fine. Thursday and Friday were hard; I’ve got to say that I am in awe of the emotional strength of people who deal with stuff like this every day. I doubt that I could. But the tips that I got from the professionals on managing my recovery were all extremely useful.

Saturday I went to the racetrack with my motorcycle. On one hand, I was distracted enough to get black-flagged and moved down to the beginner group, where I pretty much just rode around. On the other hand, I managed to transfer a fair amount of my stress onto the pavement:

Yeah, that’s pretty much how I’d been feelling…but here’s what made a difference.

First, I got a lot of attaboys. In On Combat, Grossman talks about the fact that many officers and solders who go through hyperstressful events walk out and don’t get those. No one shot at me, nothing blew up, I took no meaningful risks – but I got a lot of warm feedback, and it made a difference. Friday morning I was furious with myself for not, somehow, doing better and changing the outcome and making that guy one of the 4 or 5 percent who survive traumatic arrest. Hearing, over and over, from people who’d BT and DT that I’d done the right things, and that there was no simple magic “McGuffin” that I’d forgotten or didn’t know to do showed me how irrational that response really was. And once the logical underpinnings of the bad feelings were kicked away, the sheer emotional support made a huge difference.

That’s a lesson, people. When you see a EMT, or a police officer, or a soldier, all those dumb-a** “thank you for your service” remarks that we’re all a little embarrassed to say – well, say them. That man or woman you’re saying them to has or will go through some things that make what I went through look like Pla-Dough time at preschool.

Second, I talked about it. Ad nauseam. I blogged it, and Facebooked it and talked it into the ground with TG. I processed and processed it and at some point became kinds desensitized to it. I’m sorry I subjected everyone to that, and appreciate the patience.

Third, I tried to learn from it. there are some concrete things that I took away as I’ve played it out that I know I’d have done differently, and while I hope like heck that there is never, ever a next time, if there is I have a few new cards in the deck. Specifically, I should have mobilized some of the other bystanders immediately, instead of waiting – I should have had one or two people helping me; I should have cut away the whole side air bag and had better access to the victim; I should have gloved up before I went into the car, rather than halfway through the process; and if I can find a c-collar that folds flat enough to carry in the back pouch of my Aerostich, I just might get one. I’m not at all sure I would have used it in the situation Thursday – the injury was just too traumatic for me to really do much at all. But on a lesser but similar injury it could be useful.

Finally, I’m going to keep working on my skills, and am building a library of classes I want to take.

There’s always more to do.
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The special election congressional race for New York’s 23rd District has gathered a lot of attention; with the liberal Republican (a New England stereotype) withdrawing in the face of a widely-supported Conservative candidate.

I have no dog in this fight; I don’t live there and can’t speak to the qualities of the candidates (Iowahawk made his judgement based on wheel wells and secondarily, ideology). I have a mild predisposition to seeing Democrats win, but that has been badly eroded over the last decade.

So why am I writing about this, you ask?

Because a local editorial encapsulated what has me so furious at our political classes that I do think we simply need to turn our statehouses over and shake them very hard.

Here’s quote, from the editorial in the ‘Watertown Daily Times‘:

The Democratic candidate has demonstrated a willingness to listen to people about ways in which he could help the district as their representative in Washington. Mr. Owens has remained focused on the economy and job creation throughout his campaign. At the same time, he has shown an understanding of the military, a keen desire to help dairy farmers, an ability to work with labor unions and an eagerness to learn more about the vast, 11-county district that he hopes to represent.

Mr. Owens seems to approach politics and challenges with an open mind, a generous spirit and a can-do attitude. He has conducted a dignified campaign in comparison to Doug Hoffman.

Mr. Hoffman is running as an ideologue. If he carries out his pledges on earmarks, taxation, labor law reform and other inflexible positions, Northern New York will suffer. This rural district depends on the federal government for an investment in Fort Drum and its soldiers, environmental protection of our international waterway and the Adirondack Park, and the livelihood of all our dairy farmers across the district, among other support. Our representative cannot be locked into rigid promises and policies that would jeopardize these critical sectors of our economy.

For a member of Congress, there may be a time to promote reform in Washington, but there is also a time to work within a system that best serves the people you represent.

(emphasis added)

As I read this, in other words – “yeah, there are fatal problems with the overall system, but as long as we get ours, we’re OK with that.“

And if that doesn’t make you feel like hoisting the jolly roger and sharpening your cutlass, I’m not sure what will.

At the Press Club event where I felt I was too harsh on the LA Times guy, what I said was:

“Are you really saying that the LA Times offers quality journalism? Really? I don’t agree, and have evidence. Because if the LA Times was a good newspaper over the last 20 years, how is it – exactly – that they were so silent as Los Angeles and California managed to become so f***ed up?“

The attitude it the Watertown Daily Times? – that’s exactly how.

If we’re going to get out of this, we need to kick that attitude to the curb, and quickly.
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So I’m home with most of a bottle of Bonny Doon Mourvedre in me.

It’s been a day that I’ll be digesting for a while.

I had meetings up in LA, so rode my motorcycle up for a morning meeting and a lunch. Meetings were great, and I was heading home from Beverly Hills after lunch, riding west on Olympic Blvd. when traffic stopped just past Century City.

I filtered through traffic to the front, where there was a pretty horrific two-vehicle accident. One was an Escalade or other big GM SUV with a smashed front end. The other was a Nissan Altima smashed on the passenger door.

There was no one in the SUV, but several people standing around the Altima; I rode up and asked if everyone was OK. A bystander said “No.”

So I parked, pulled off my gloves and helmet and went to the driver’s door where a woman was crying but seemed OK. Her passenger was sitting still.

I went around to the passenger window, and cut away the side airbag. The passenger was still in his seat, his head to the side in a way that made me pause. I grabbed the back of his head and chin to hold his head steady, and he gasped twice, then was silent. The driver was tugging on his shoulder, calling his name and I pushed her away and told her to sit back and be still.

I held his head with my left hand and felt for a pulse in his throat with my right and got nothing. Wrist, nothing. hand on his chest, nothing.

I took a breath and told myself I was just anxious and tried again. Nothing. hand on his chest, no rise or fall. Eyes half open and rolled back, a line of spittle from the corner of his mouth. I checked my watch, opened my pocket and took out the gloves and CPR shield and opened them and put them on the car roof.

The smashed door wouldn’t open, and I couldn’t get myself far enough into the window to reach him. My motorcycle suit shielded me from the broken glass in the door, but I couldn’t get to him.

I turned to a bystander and asked if they would come hold him while I went in the driver’s door. They came over to help and as we were trying to position ourselves to make the transition, the firetruck pulled up.

I love first responders, but it sure seemed to me that they were taking a long time to get out of the truck, pulling on jackets and picking up gear. I started screaming. “No pulse! No respiration! No pulse! Hustle!” and one fireman heard me and jogged to the car. He opened the driver’s door quickly checked the driver, pulled her from the car, and moved into the driver’s area.

He checked for a pulse and suddenly got much more focused. He turned and yelled for a c-collar, then when no one responded immediately, yelled louder. Someone came over and handed him one and we velcroed it around the passenger’s still neck. I helped lower him as the firemen took him and pulled him out to lay him on the ground.

I had nothing to do to help him, so I walked around the car to the driver, who standing crying while watching them get a respirator bag and defibrillator equipment ready. I pulled her away and sat her down, facing away from the car and the scene on the sidewalk.

“What’s your name, miss?”

She told me.

“What’s your friend’s name?”

She told me. Her boyfriend. He hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt.

I did a 30-second assessment, and other than an airbag burn on her forehead, mild pain in her stomach, and tears she seemed OK. I checked her nails and they pinked up, so if she had internal bleeding, I was guessing it wasn’t urgent enough to interrupt the work on the sidewalk.

We sat and I asked if she needed to call anyone. She gave me her father’s cell number, and I called him, told him his daughter had been in an accident, was upset, but seemed OK. I gave her the phone and she melted down into a torrent of Spanish too fast and too teary for me to follow. She handed me back the phone and said her dad would be right there.

I looked up and saw one fireman doing chest compressions while the others stood by.

Finally, another ambulance showed up and two new EMT came over to help her. I told then what I knew and stepped back. They turned her to get better access to her back and – dammit – faced her back toward her boyfriend, his clothes spread open while another fireman gave him chest compressions and one worked the bag.

I knelt between them, facing her, watching her cry as she talked to the kindly firefighter who was asking her about her pain.

A police officer came up and took her wallet, pulling out her ID and starting to write on his clipboard. He looked at me and I told him I’d stay there, blocking her view, until they lifted him or her onto a gurney. He patted my shoulder and said it was a good idea.

Suddenly I had nothing to do, and all I could do was replay the first moments in my mind. I kept seeing his half-open eyes and hearing his gasps. I kept playing it over and over, trying to think of what I could have done differently. I could have moved the driver and started CPR sooner. I could have put someone in the back seat to hold his head, pulled myself halfway through the window and given him CPR as he sat. A million implausible possibilities.

I held her hand.

And then her dad was there, pushing through the police and firefighters to his daughter’s side, and they were moving her onto a backboard and tying her down with strips of gauze.

As I stepped away, they were still doing chest compressions, but the lack of intensity in the crowd of yellow turnout coats standing around the prone figure told me the news wasn’t good.

I walked back to the car and took my stuff off the roof. The unused CPR shield and nitrile gloves. My helmet and motorcycle gloves. I’d thrown my earplugs onto the ground, and left them there.

My gear went onto my bike, and I walked over to the police officer who was writing on his clipboard. “Do you need me for anything? I didn’t see the accident, just tried to gave aid.” “No,” he said. “Thank you for helping.”

‘Tried to give aid’ sounded exactly right. I didn’t feel like I’d done much, or done the right thing. I kept cycling through possibilities. There must have been something else to do. I tried this, I tried that, all in my imagination.

Put my helmet on and started my bike and rode away; the loud Ducati exhaust sounding somehow offensive as it echoed off the parked ambulances and fire trucks.

I kept thinking about the razor’s edge of now; one moment they were in their car talking and laughing together, and then suddenly on the other side of the now they were apart forever.

I was two blocks away when I started crying inside my helmet. My fingers on the brake lever remembered the touch of his still, warm, skin. while the sound of the bike drowned out the sounds of his last breath. I stopped at the closest Starbucks and called for help.
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As I was coming back from my bone-liquefying cold (defined as one that leaves you draped over the sofa like a boneless chicken), I got a last-minute request to stand in for Andrew Nystrom of the LA Times on a LA Press Club panel discussing trends in the news industry in the face of all this customer-generated content.

They just sent over some pictures….

Here’s the lineup. From the right, Mickey Kaus of Slate, Erin Broadley of Village Voice newspapers, Thomas Kelley of Yahoo, me, Jill Stewart of the LA Weekly.

Here’s Jill laughing at my ineffable smugness (I’m putting this picture here to try and train myself not to ever, ever use that facial expression in public again).

I had three basic points, which I’ll cover here briefly:

One. Mainstream media as we know it is toast.

…the rest is over at my work blog, Charmed Particles.

Once again, it’s time for ‘Operation Valour-IT’ in which Soldiers’ Angels works to raise money for laptops and other technology to assist the recovery of wounded soldiers. This blog has supported Valour-IT every year, and this year will do so with a much greater intensity…shocking, I know. We have once again joined Blackfive’s Team Army, and encourage bloggers reading this to sign on and support the project as well, and each of you reading this site to donate whatever you can.

I’m in for $100 – who will come along with me?

I’ve heard Chuck Ziegenfuss speak about this, and seen how overcome with emotion he is when he tries to explain what it meant to him – wounded, with injured hands that kept him from dialing a phone or typing on a computer keyboard – when he got his voice-operated laptop. Here’s the backstory:

Project Valour-IT began when Captain Charles "Chuck" Ziegenfuss was wounded by an IED while serving as commander of a tank company in Iraq in June 2005.

During his deployment he kept a blog (an online personal diary, opinion forum, or news analysis site-called a milblog or military weblog when written by a servicemember or about military subjects). Captivating writing, insightful stories of his experiences, and his self-deprecating humor won him many loyal readers. After he was wounded, his wife continued his blog, keeping his readers informed of his condition.

As he began to recover, CPT Ziegenfuss wanted to return to writing his blog, but serious hand injuries hampered his typing. When a loyal and generous reader gave him a copy of the Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred software, other readers began to realize how important such software could be to CPT Ziegenfuss' fellow wounded soldiers and started cast about for a way to get it to them.

A fellow blogger (blog author) who writes under the pseudonym FbL contacted Captain Ziegenfuss and the two realized they shared a vision of providing laptops with voice-controlled software to wounded soldiers whose injuries prevented them from operating a standard computer. FbL contacted Soldiers Angels, who offered to help develop the project, and Project Valour-IT was born.

In sharing their thoughts, CPT Ziegenfuss (now a Major) and FbL found that memories of their respective fathers were a motivating factor in their work with the project. Both continue their association with this project in memory of the great men in their lives whose fine examples taught them lasting lessons of courage and generosity.

In the years since its founding in 2005, the project has acted to meet emerging needs and its mission of supporting the severely wounded has expanded.  In addition to voice-controlled laptops, Valour-IT now helps provide active and whole-body video games such as Wii Sports, which is used to great effect in physical therapy,  and personal GPS systems that help compensate for short-term memory loss and organizational/spatial challenges common in those with brain injuries.

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So it’s been a long time since I’ve worked with Spirit of America. Recent personal events have – let’s say rekindled – my interest in doing what I can in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the reality is that SoA has settled in to steadily meet the needs of local civilians and of our military who are trying desperately to build positive relationships with them.

I just noticed something that I liked a lot in my inbox – a challenge grant, from someone who’s given SoA $10K, to raise another $10K and help buy solar powered radios for villagers in the Helmland, where Micheal Yon most recently was with the Two Rifles, and where the US Marines are working so hard today.

$18.00 buys a radio, or lunch for 2 at Burger King. Which is more important?
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Here’s a report from Citicorp on income inequality and the likely long-term economic patterns that may result from it.

The latest Survey of Consumer Finances, for 2004, has been released by the Federal Reserve. It shows the rich continue to account for a disproportionately large share of income and wealth in the US economy: the richest 10% of Americans account for 43% of income, and 57% of net worth. The net worth to income ratio for the richest 10% of Americans increased from 7.4x in 2001, to 8.4x in the 2004 survey. The rich are in great shape, financially.

We think this income and wealth inequality (plutonomy) helps explain many of the conundrums that vex equity investors, such as why high oil prices haven’t seriously dented growth, or why “global imbalances” are growing along with the equity bull market. Implication1: Worry less about these conundrums.

We think the rich are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. Implication2: we like companies that sell to or service the rich -luxury goods, private banks etc. Favored names include LVMH and Richemont.

I’m always suspicious of “it’s different now” analysis like this. But I also think that suspicious, or not, you have to take these views seriously.

There are, in our opinion, two issues for equity investors to consider. Firstly, if we are right, that plutonomy is to blame for many of the apparent conundrums that exist around the world, such as negative savings, current account deficits, no consumer recession despite high oil prices or weak consumer sentiment, then so long as the rich continue to get richer, the likelihood of these conundrums resolving themselves through traditionally disruptive means (currency collapses, consumer recessions etc) looks low. The first consequence for equity investors who worry about these issues, is that the risk premia they ascribe to equities to reflect these conundrums/worries, may be too high.

I’ve talked about this stuff a lot – and the fear at root has always been that we’ll wind up with a vastly wealthy transnational monied class, and a large group of interchangeable workers – which may be great for much of the world, but will put the US well into Neil Stevenson’s model where “once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would call prosperity” America falls apart.
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I was shocked this morning to find that Bloomberg has purchased Business Week magazine. Not shocked that they had bought it – it makes good sense and allows Bloomberg to leverage their reporting and data into a consumer market – but shocked that a brand like Business Week, one of the major magazines in America, would sell for only five million dollars.

If you want to think about how fast and far the media marketplace has shifted, think about that.
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