Google story and some Internet ancient pieces

I enjoyed reading The Google Story, a book written by David Vise and Mark Malseed; it gave me new information and sent to on the internet to check some things out – of course, I used Google in the process. I cam across a website which stores old versions of websites, many of which we are now using in our day to day activity. I didn’t have enough patience to browse through all versions of some of these websites, like Yahoo or AltaVista, but it would be interesting to see how they evolves, what new services and products they cam up with and how they’ve responded to competition on the market.I realized once again something I had  guessed by myself in the past, that a bunch of visionary people have bet on the internet becoming what it has become and even more. I started using internet services sometime during highschool. I dind’t own a computer back then so all my activity was in internet cafes and was mostly about e-mailing- the internet had already started to be popular in the US by that time. Now around 70% of my activity is

internet-based, so it is hard for me to imagine how work would be without this amazing tool. Even in my everyday life I started to use internet more and more, going from e-mails, instant messaging, now linkedin and facebook, even twitter now and then. But as all these websites that are trying to capture the consumers’ attention  and growing in number, I start to wonder how many of them wil actually survive in this internet frenzy. Maybe as Google came in 1998 and brough light into a huge collection of websites, somebody will build a system to help users keep all their internet – related activity in one place. Some may argue that the firm owning that system would have acces to too

much information about individuals – which was one of the concerns over Google when it launched the Gmail service.I didn’t even realize how many new products and services Google had brought in the meantime. I have witnessed the launch of many of them but never put them together to realize how far the company had spread – among many others, now they are working on searching the human genome and working on digitazing entire libraries.
Going back to the old versions of websites – this one above is how Yahoo used to look like in 1996, when it was launched; also the first Google version in 1998 – its spartan layout hasn’t changed much in time.
I was wondering what was the first ever Romania website – I will try to find out and let you know.

Turning companies around- doesn’t it all start with people?

A lot of puzzling things happened while I kept silence on the blog, it’s almost a month now – the silence was a consequence of the “doing more with less” attitude, which prevented me from writing on this blog as much as I would have wanted.  Doing more with less is not a bad approach, as long as a company had been wasting resources before refreshing its strategy. It can be helpful for an individual too, as long as the individual feels there’s enough energy and time, at least one can learn their limits.

Should a company turnaround start with a personnel reshuffle? Picture from Stockexchange

But I was thinking about what should management do at times like this – I guess it’s during tough times that managers show their true value.  Turning around a company is not an easy thing, even for small companies – I get to see it live in several cases. People are key – as a business journalist, I’ve been trained (or trained myself in time) to skip statements like this one, and look for more than this general statement. But its holds an important truth, and I see how important it is every day.  The quality of people working for a company gives the quality of the people  company. At any given point, a company may be represented in front of its customers, or business partners, by any of its employees. If they fail to do their job properly, a customer/business partner is lost, and it may not seem much, but the small things make the big things.

 

I guess it is even harder for managers to change companies if they need to start by changing people’s mentalities and give them what I think lacks in many companies now: a sense of personal responsibility. A friend once told me that a good employee should be involved in the company they’re working for as if they own the company, and that will be seen even in the little things people do every day. Of course, the company needs to respect its employees too in order to get this sort of involvement, so I am worndering where is the problem: should companies try more in treating their employees with the sort of respect that would trigger the employees acting more responsabily, or should we all work on our personal (or betteryet, proffessional) responsibility issues?

Last week I was working on this management story – but I didn’t tackle the personnel side; I have started from the numerous cases of management reshuffle I have seen in Romania since the beginning of the year (and even in the last part of 2008) and from an increasing number of consultancy companies created to offer turnaround management services.  Here is the article in Business Review .   To go on with the personnel spin, I assume it should be easier nowadays to choose better people, at least for key positions, since the pool of candidates has grown and many of them would go for lower salaries and do a better job than those who were probably paid with much more than the quality of their work was worth.  Doing more with less may mean for some companies getting rid of those who waste the company’s time and money (this part I agree with) and try to divide their workload on the existing personnel (I only agree to this part as long as the workload doesn’t exceed the employee’s possibilities and as long as the extra work gets compensated by some extra benefit too). But doing your job right  should always be a constant, a reflection of who you are as a proffessional, and not a variable linked to what happens on the market or in your company. 
More to read on tunroaround management, on www.turnoaround.org.

So where is the money?

 

www.sxc.hu

A week ago I went to see my uncle; he’s in his 80s, and understands more of what happens today than many youngsters. He likes talking about economics from time to time. This time he has asked me a very good question related to the so-much discussed losses in all industries, from banking, car industry, and so on; I’ve been asking it myself but not in such simple terms: So where is the money? Indeed, where has money gone? I know that usually when someone looses, somebody else gains. Take for example the FX trading. When somebody gains, someone else looses. 
I have the feeling that before the wake of this crisis, much money was simply created out of thin air – take the derivative contracts, the re-packaged loans, and now what’s lost has greater impact simply because it was included in the real economy. Usually, at times of crisis money re-distributes. I believe it might be happening, but if it does, it stays within the same social layer more or less.  
I was curious to see what does google yield when searching “where is the money”. There’s a website about money missing from the US Treasury, you can check it out here.   Interesting, and scary at the same time. Companies, governments, people everywhere are talking about such large sums – all lost, such high amounts about which I’ve never heard when  profits were made.  Or maybe nobody bothered to put them toghether when all was rosy. I wish I’ve seen news in the past of US investment banks toghether posting X billion of dollars in profits for a quarter. Anyway,  today’s loss numbers on display everywhere in the media are so high (while investments are so low, I’ve started reporting about investments I would have never included in the issue a year ago) that it has crossed my mind that at some point we might as well start simplifying everything, go back to basics, even give up on money. It might sound absurd, but I think nothing’s impossible once we’ve started the trip downhill.
UPDATE: Wired published a story on how Wall Street went down – it’s about big numbers and a mathematical formula, enjoy reading it here.

Local media shift to online, digital versions starts inhouse

I found out I will be among the first journalists in Romania to experience  the printed media move to online, digital editions at first hand -  our publisher Business Media Group decided to move online its publications Business Review (the magazine I write for), BusinessWeek and Biz. However, the decision covers a limited period, until better times. There were no staff changes and nothing was altered in the magazines’ editorial policies. We’ll still be doing the same things every week, but at the end of each week the entire issue of the magazine get published on an online platform, as digitized page-by-page browsable documents; stories will also be published on the magazine’s site, as usual, as far as I understand. I don’t know yet all the technical details, but it is the first major such shift in Romania since the financial crisis has started to affect advertising sales – which has been more obvious since the beginning of this year.    
I’ve found several other examples of   migrations from print to online publishing – either websites or publishing platform in the foreign media, some even dating back in 2007, and more of these happening last year. I am curious to see what impact will this have on the market, if other media outlets in Romania might consider doing it and the outcome of this recent decision. I am still a fan of printed press, but I am open enough to technology to acknowledge the advantages an online, digital publishing platform brings. 
While we will be only online, and even after we will get back to printing, you can find Business Review content here: our website,  follow us on Twitter – here, or if you have a LinkedIn account, you can join our Business Review Group here.  As soon as the next issue gets published in the digital browsable format, I’ll upcdate this post with the needed information.  Meanwhile, I am looking forward to your feedback on the above and I will post updates with other publications which have migrated exclusively online.

UPDATE: The first digital issue of Business Review can be entirely read here.

Law firms redundancies – what could an unemployed lawyer do for a living?

Nothing really puzzled me during last week, which partially explains why I haven’t picked up anything new to write about. It has also something to do with high volumes of work. But tonight I saw a series of headlines involving major law firms. I know this word has been spreading around the local market as well, that law firms will start making redundacies, there was even rumour that some have already laid off people, but in the end I found no proof of this. Also, stories cover some cases of salary or revenue freeze within law firms, and as far as I see, it happens or is about to happen in many top international law firms elsewhere in the world.  Now just a quick snapshot of the headlines in my Netvibes account, from The Lawyer and ffrom Legal Week: DLA Piper: 140 more jobs to go, Slaughters bites the bullet with new fee structures, Simmons waves goodbye to Portuguese offices, Clifford Chance moves layoffs forward, Freshfields cuts associate pay bands, White & Case freezes City pay as profits fall, McDermott set to make redundancies in London, Lovells to cut up to 94 jobs in staffing review, Linklaters set to make job cuts in Stockholm. It is not surprising to see this happening, as many of the areas these law firms have been covering in the last few years, which were their growth areas, are now either dead or in the freeze. I just wonder what will happen to these lawyers which will flood the market. Who will hire them on the short term? What could a lawyer do for a living if for a short term they are unable to find anythinh in another law firm? If you have ideas, or know about people in such cases, let me  knwo, I am really curious. 
I understand from my sources that it is not yet the case of redundancies in law firms yet, but I bet juniors are feeling cold shivers, and that at the end of the month the numbers don’t line up as nicely as they did last year.

‘Snow day’ costs 1 bln British pounds, media says

Taking a snow day just got a new meaning, or just got a meaning – UK workers have stayed at home today after the biggest snowfall that hit the country in the last 18 years. Companies have calculated the snow fall could cost as much as 1 billion British pounds in loss for the companies whose workers have taken the ’snow day”. I saw some footage – it didn’t seem like much. There were commentators saying the municipalities should have done more: “Many businesses criticised local authorities for not being prepared enough. “You have to ask why other countries can cope with these sort of conditions but we can’t,” said Mr Alambritis, quote by FT in a story. So they have problems pretty similar to ours, at least at this chapter.
For further reading and some footage, follow this link - a story in the Guardian.

Alleged Karl Marx quote spreads on Internet, TVR runs it

An allegedly fake Karl Marx quote has been circulating around the internet these days. I say allegedly because I haven’t read the Das Kapital book, where the quote has been attributed, to be 100% sure it doesn’t belong there. But most of the sources I’ve asked or searched pointed to the direction it was not a real Karl Marx quote. The quote in English goes something like this:  ”Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized and State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.” 
At first, it strikes. “Wow, that’s like what is happening on the market in many countries now!” many have tought. But it sounds too good to be truly what Karl Marx said in the 1860s. I also found several reasons for which the quote is a scam, I’ll let you read them here.   

The alleged Karl Marx quote has reached many inboxes lately, but commentators doubt its veracity

If you want to read the original book, Das Kapital, you can find an online version here.  And after you read it entirely, let us know if you found that quote or not!
But it doesn’t strike to find such internet scams with a potential to become so called virals, because times are bad and people get fooled easily. It strikes to see who got fooled. As you can see in the picture in this posts, the journalists working for TVR, the Romanian State Television, haven’t checked their facts so well, because their run this alleged Karl Marx quote in their News broadcast on February 1, and have presented it as a true Marx saying.  Without being able to say for sure a piece of info is correct, journalists shouldn’t run that info – and I have the feeling that  nobody in TVR has actually read the book to search for the quote the day they run the story, so they just took it for granted, and if it’s fake, they’ve just spread the word about a nicely crafted joke to more or less the entire Romania.

Media: is printed press on its death bed?

I’ve been thinking whether it is possible for the printed press to be really on its death bed. Several commentators – both international and Romania – have recently suggested this financial crisis would lead to the death of the printed press as we know it. They say it would have come to this, eventually, but the financial trouble has sped the process. I am one of the fans of printed press, I might be one of the few left, but there’s a total different experience when one reads a printed version and when it reads it online. I do use a lot of online sources, but there’s this need to read it on paper. A similar feeling with film cameras when digital ones have take over. I still have a film camera and if I had time to process the films, I would use them. Maybe the previous sentence says a lot about printed newspapers as well. When online content follows you to you inbox and it’s just one click away, it’s easier to go online than to wait for the printed version. Perhaps only several magazines still have their faithful readers in print.
In this recent interview published in The Guardian, here, Clay Shirky talks about what’s to expect from the media sector in 2009. To quote him, “2009 is going to be a bloodbath.” And that’s not all. Other striking comments follow, and what’s worse is that I think he might be right, if one looks at where things are heading. “But will the New York Times still exist on paper? Of course, because people will hit the print button.” At first, it just seems sad. But it’s not a bad idea after all to have everything in digital format and print whatever is of interest. Even books. I understand the economical reasons of going online and I am preparing for this shift, but I would rather not experience it. I am also looking forward to seeing the shift in Romania as well. 
Another recent article about the death of printed media was published by The New Yorker, here. And a third one in the Economist. 

UPDATE: I should also mention this website, newspaperdeathwatch.com,      which should give you more ideas on the decline of newspapers and the rebirth of journalism. 

UPDATE 2: One of the reactions to the media trouble: -Chris Freiberg from Indiana came up with the Buy a Newspaper Day idea. As long as people continue buying the printed versions, publishers might keep them, if they are not too financially squeezed, I would say. Freiberg has created an Facebook event and a website for this project. “So for one day, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009, please make it a point to pick up your local newspaper (reading it online doesn’t count),” says Freiberg on this website. Let’s see what will be the outcome. 

Obama delivers inspirational, preaching inaugural speech

I am amazed to see how much people need to have faith in something or in somebody. Take Obama, whose inauguration speech I’ve just listened to. He was like a preacher in a church. His speech was inspirational, and he didn’t look at his papers, not even once – I don’t know if he had any. I saw people in the audience crying, I almost couldn’t believe it – people need so much to believe that he will shape their future to the better. I hope he will be up to the expectations, because everybody expects so much of Obama. It is true, a man who knows how to inspire the people he runs has more chances of success, be him the president of the US or a CEO of a private company. I wish I saw more of these charismatic leaders. 
 Now I am looking forward to reading all the interpretations of Obama’s speech which will surely be published soon. While it may be too soon to find an online version of Obama’s speech, here is the speech; I also found a database of previous presidential speeches here. Later on, it would be interesting to see the difference in approach by Bush in his previous speech and by Obama – of course, reality changes taken into account.

No bonuses for bailed out companies’ CEOs!

I agree with the French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde who said the country would bailout its banks provided they cut directors’ bonuses. The US, UK should have asked the same, and each government should do it if they plan to give money private companies – or to public companies. Those who run the banks, in this case, or the companies, if we look at a broader picture, and who have come to the situation where they need recapitalization or some other type of financing from their government, they should not be awarded bonuses. Firstly, because since they are in this situation, they show they don’t deserve a bonus. One would argue that the crisis was so deep that even well managed companies were affected and managers might not have such a big fault. But I would say that since one fills the manager seat, the person should take responsibility for anything that happens with the company while they’re at the helm, be it their fault or not.  Secondly, when in such bad times, everybody should lower the financial expectations, from top positions to lower ones, in order to cut costs and keep the company running. Otherwise, if the company falls, there will be no salary at all. That’s common sense. But it seems it is not for everybody. I remember having read about the high bonuses the executives of the US investment banks or about their expensive holidays when their companies where on the brink of disaster. 
Using state money to boost shareholders’ revenues – in case of private companies – is another example of what companies shouldn’t do, according to French president Nicholas Sarkozy. And I agree with him too – although I don’t agree with everything he said about how state should step into the economy when in crisis. Sarkozy said bailed out banks (it was the case of banks there)  shouldn’t pay dividends this year, and it seems fair. The profit (if  the case) was [partially made because the state stepped in. An argument against this view would be that the company uses the money as if it were any other loan, and then does what it wants with the profits, as long as it pays back the loan. If the state takes a stake in the company, then the state has a say in this. If it doesn’t, it’s again about common sense and about how the company understands to do business. So far, there’s no example of state aid in Romania for a company to survive the tough times ahead, but when it will be, I will look at manager bonuses and shareholder returns.
There’s a nice story on CEO bonuses in recession here, in Forbes.