One Sec Tech

Cited: Fortune Magazine

Continued from “How Steve Jobs Transformed American Business Part 1“

Jobs had come up with an idea for strategy of building company-owned retail stores and it was derailed at the time as it risky cash during. He was convinced people would convert to Apple if he could speak to them directly and not just the faithful Macintosh users that included artists and students, but everybody. Today, company-owned retail stores are integral to Apple’s success.

For those paying attention after Jobs’ return, the CEO was telegraphing Apple’s trajectory. “I would rather compete with Sony (SNE) than compete in another product category with Microsoft,” he told Time in early 2002. “We’re the only company that owns the whole widget — the hardware, the software, and the operating system. We can take full responsibility for the user experience. We can do things that the other guy can’t do.”

“He did this with a nervous board,” says Bill Campbell, a former Apple executive who went on to become chairman of Intuit (INTU) and an Apple board member. “He knew that this is what customers wanted.” What’s striking looking back is how little there was to sell in the original Apple stores. Jobs knew how he’d fill them.

Jobs made it his business to know everything about Apple. “He’s involved in details you wouldn’t think a CEO would be involved in,” says Ken Segall, a former Chiat/Day creative director who has worked with Apple on and off for years. Jobs commissioned the iconic “Think different” campaign, says Segall, well before any of Apple’s new products were introduced — or even described to the ad team. “He’d say, ‘The third word in the fourth paragraph isn’t right. You might want to think about that one.’ “

The rare pairing of micromanagement with big-picture vision is a Jobs hallmark. Early in his return to Apple, he recognized that gorgeous design was a differentiator for Apple in a computer industry gripped by the successful blandness of Dell, Microsoft, and Intel (INTC, Fortune 500).

“I cannot count the number of clients who have marched in and said, ‘Give me the next iPod,’ ” writes Tim Brown, CEO of product-design consultant Ideo, in his new book “Change by Design.” “But it’s probably close to the number of designers I’ve heard respond — under their breath — ‘Give me the next Steve Jobs.’”

Jobs also has a knack for pouncing at the right moment. The music industry had failed repeatedly to develop its own digital-music sales site before Apple came along with iTunes, which was by then prepared to become a store for buying music.

Jobs cleverly made his pact with the record labels when iTunes worked only on Macs, which in 2002 had a personal-computing market share in the low single digits. Apple’s humble position — before iTunes became compatible with Windows, expanding its potential market share to nearly all PCs — was a virtue. This made iTunes an experiment rather than a destructive paradigm shift.

“I don’t understand how Apple could ruin the record business in one year on Mac,” said Doug Morris, the head of Universal Music, according to “Appetite for Self-Destruction,” a new book about the record industry’s ills by Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper. “Why shouldn’t we try this?” Writes Knopper: “By the time Steve Jobs came around, he was the last resort. He was merely smart enough to know it. He played tough, but not any tougher than any lawyer for a major label who had negotiated an artist contract in recent decades.”

A key Jobs business tool is his mastery of the message. He rehearses over and over every line he and others utter in public about Apple, which authorizes only a small number of executives to speak publicly on a given topic.

Key to the Jobs approach is careful consideration of what he and Apple say — and don’t say. Harvard professor David Yoffie estimated that in the months between announcing and selling the first iPhone in 2007, Apple received $400 million in free advertising by not making any public statements, thereby whipping the media into a frenzy.

Jobs himself is careful to avoid overexposure, preferring to speak only when he has products to promote. He didn’t disclose his 2004 cancer surgery until after it occurred, and then only in an employee e-mail that was strategically released to news outlets. Similarly, he told the world of his recent leave in another employee missive, with no additional comment from him or anyone else at Apple.

Nobody in Jobs’ sphere speaks without the permission of the company’s media relations team, which reports directly to Jobs. Apple declined to make Jobs available for an interview for this article. It did bless the participation of some people in Apple’s orbit to speak about him, while nixing requests for others. The secrecy has rankled corporate governance experts, who insist the health of such an indispensable CEO warrants greater disclosure.

Jobs was initially mum as well about a stock options backdating scandal that embroiled the company’s former finance chief and general counsel. In an eventual SEC filing, Apple said Jobs was aware that the company had adjusted option grant dates so that the grants were more profitable for employees. Jobs apologized for the backdating, calling the episode “completely out of character for Apple.”

Jobs manages the money, the message, the deals, the design, and more. Consider the case fairly made that the long-ago enfant terrible of the computer industry has built up impressive business chops and that his company is peerless. But if nothing else, his recent illness is a reminder that Steve Jobs is mortal. When he’s gone, how long will his company thrive without him?

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Apple’s future.

This past September, when Steve Jobs made his triumphant return to the public eye, he thanked precisely one Apple executive by name: Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer.

At an event to introduce a new line of iPods, Jobs first informed a crowd of journalists, analysts, and Apple developers that he now possessed the liver of a “twentysomething liver donor who had died in a car crash.” Then he thanked Cook and the rest of the management team for “ably” running Apple in his absence. Cook, in turn, led a standing ovation for Jobs, his arms raised over his head from the front row of a San Francisco auditorium.

With Jobs back at work, the conversation has been postponed as to whether Cook, or anyone else, is prepared to fill Jobs’ shoes. “At Apple the hierarchy is determined by who Steve calls,” says a former Apple executive. “There’s a lot of value in ‘Steve said.’”

Larry Ellison, a CEO known to dislike the topic of succession, says of his friend, “He’s irreplaceable. He’s built a fabulous brand. He’s got a wealth of products. Whenever he leaves, I hope he retires in good health and he’s sailing off in his yacht in the Mediterranean. But they’re going to miss him terribly, because it’s a consumer products company. The product cycle is so fast.”

There are signs that Jobs has inculcated the troops enough to last awhile without him. “The organization has been thoroughly trained to think like Steve,” says someone with contacts among the Apple executive team. “That’s why the six months went so smoothly. People could envision, ‘This is what Steve would do.’”

Jobs, in fact, inspires far beyond Apple. Larry Page and Sergey Brin recently told The New Yorker that Jobs is their hero. When Jeff Bezos released Amazon.com’s smooth, shiny Kindle 2, the Jobs envy was obvious. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who co-founded Netscape, says he often evokes Jobs in his advice to entrepreneurs. He says, “The threshold for the release of the first product should be, ‘What would Steve Jobs do?’”

Steve Jobs will probably let us know when he’s done good and ready given his habit of secrecy, surprise and his braids. He is already created $150 billion in shareholder wealth, transformed movies, telecom, music and computer industry as well as influencing everything to do with retailer design. What else is there for him to do?

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My Take: Well, for 54-year-old man who is about to turn 55, I think he has done a hell of lot. If I was able to ask him a question it would be, Do you think your life has been worthwhile? Then I would probably ask him to lend me some money.

The article is right however, many artists and designers use Apple or Macintosh computers to do their work especially in the movie and fashion industry. You will find that many designers create their T shirt designs on a Mac. Designers all over world create designs for limited edition T shirts, shoes, pants and more on a Mac just as animation producers and movie editors do.

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Cited: fiber2fashion.com

Eurostop, a leading supplier of retail management and EPOS systems to the fashion, footwear, apparel and lifestyle sectors has announced that Leading Labels, the out of town fashion retailers has invested in Eurostop’s e-rmis retail system. The company has also implemented Eurostop’s e-pos in all its stores to track sales at the register the, recording data at its head office. Since implementing the new system, Leading Labels claims that since implementing the new system it has improved management of stock flow in all its 23 stores resulting in more accurate and up to the minute sales data.

According to Mike Thornthwaite, Financial Director at Leading Labels; “It is critical for us that we have the right stock at the right place at the right time. Since implementing Eurostop’s system we have much better management of stock across our stores. We now have details from all our stores on one system which means that we have a complete picture.

“We are very pleased with the Eurostop system – it has definitely moved our business on significantly. We have traded well over what has been a difficult six months for the retail sector. Eurostop’s software has enabled us to maintain our margins and we are now looking for ways to develop the system and get even more out of it.”

Unlike many store groups with a centralized warehouse and stock system, stock is mainly delivered directly to Leading Labels’ stores. Using Eurostop’s systems the company is able to manage stock replenishments with the sales data. The team can also advise the buyers on hot sellers - and stock that is slow to move. The buyers make extensive use of the reports on colours and sizes – the data is used to identify popular items and make adjustments to deliveries as boxes are made up for each store.

Eurostop’s solution has enabled the company to handle till sales on behalf of some of its concessions. In terms of sales and stock replenishment this provides a much more accurate, up to the minute picture for both the concession and Leading Labels.

“Success for any retailer centers on the ability to adjust quickly to meet customer demand. With accurate, daily sales data, a business can make informed decisions about stock movements and cash flow. For companies like Leading Labels with many different brands and outlets, managing stock flow through and profit margins on lines is critical to the business. Eurostop’s systems have been designed to assist large retailers like Leading Labels manage, collect and analyze daily sales data – helping them to be agile in today’s turbulent times,” said sales and marketing manager at Eurostop, Phillip Moylan.

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My Take: It is good that businesses are still improving all over world. It means that maybe the recession is ending and business offices will now be able to afford their custom office furniture. Seriously, it does mean that offices will be a little for them office products that help keep your business running.

It might also indicate that more people will have jobs. I know there are some people wouldn’t mind installing custom wood entry doors on a regular basis as long as they had a job. Of course, anybody can hang up front entry door but it is a job and many people need one.

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Other Resources

Cited: fiber2fashion.com

Levi Strauss & Co., has begun utilizing i2 to design and deploy processes and tools to improve service levels to their U.S. retail customers. Levi Strauss is one of the world’s largest apparel manufacturers that have sales in more than 110 countries around the world.

The tools, which include a vendor managed inventory (VMI) functionality, are designed to more accurately replenish products on the retail floor at the SKU level, providing consumers with a better shopping experience and enhancing sales opportunities for retailers. In addition, Levi Strauss & Co. is leveraging associated outsourced managed services from i2 to improve its inventory management.

“We are pleased to partner with Levi Strauss & Co. and help them achieve their business goals, leveraging our managed services and retail solutions to support VMI with its channel partners,” said Gurdip Singh, i2 vice president, Retail and Consumer Industries. “Our goal is to continually monitor results and make recommendations that will allow LS&Co. to improve its service to its retail customers while minimizing inventory investment.”

Throughout its more than 20-year history of innovation and value delivery, i2 has dedicated itself to building successful customer partnerships. As a full-service supply chain company, i2 is uniquely positioned to help its clients achieve world-class business results through a combination of consulting, technology, and managed services. i2 solutions are pervasive in a wide cross-section of industries.

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At the end of October it was also announced that Levi Strauss & Co. and Goodwill announced A Care Tag for Our Planet, a new initiative that aims to put billions of pounds of unwanted clothing to good use instead of into landfill. Beginning in January 2010, the Levi’s brand will be the first major retailer to include messaging on product care tags that encourages people to donate unwanted clothing.

“As a company built on values, we have long worked to promote sustainability in how we make our products and run our operations,” said John Anderson, president and chief executive officer of Levi Strauss & Co. “This initiative uses our global voice to empower hundreds of millions of consumers around the world to join us by providing simple and actionable ways to help care for our planet.”

“A Care Tag for Our Planet is Goodwill’s first partnership of its kind designed to increase the life cycle of clothing and textiles to address the approximately 23.8 billion pounds that end up in U.S. landfills each year,” said Goodwill Industries International CEO and President Jim Gibbons. “As the ‘Original Recycler,’ 166 community-based Goodwills in the United States and Canada collectively divert more than 1.5 billion pounds of clothing and textiles every year from landfill by recovering the value in people’s unwanted material goods. In addition to funding community-based services, these landfill diversion programs create job-training opportunities for more than 1.5 million people a year.”

“We’re launching with the Levi’s brand as a founding partner because it’s an iconic brand with the ability to make an immediate impact with consumers,” said Goodwill of San Francisco CEO and President Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez. “Our collective goal is to extend the idea of Care Tags beyond washing, drying and ironing—to encouraging consumers to donate these clothes when no longer needed. By doing so, millions of pounds will be diverted from landfill and thousands of lives will be transformed by the power of work in the Bay Area and across the country.”

The new care tags will be available in Levi’s retail and wholesale operations the U.S. beginning in January 2010 and the regional and global tags will appear in clothes in Fall 2010. The Levi’s brand and Goodwill will also spread the word to consumers through online viral campaigns and in retail store communications.

This partnership was reached through shared values held by each organization: Levi Strauss & Co.’s goal to reduce the environmental impact of its products and Goodwill’s commitment to help communities recycle usable items while helping those in need. The initiative was conceived by BBDO West, Goodwill of San Francisco’s pro bono agency, which came up with the unique idea to use care tags to communicate this message.

Levi Strauss & Co. has been a leader in environmental issues over 20 years and they were the first to establish requirements for suppliers, guidelines on water quality and restrictions on the substances used in their jeans. The company took their 501 jeans and conducted a study from the very beginning of the manufacturing process to completion to help determine if greater environmental improvements could be made. The main finding that the study came up with was that the greatest opportunity to help climate change and water impact is after apparent jeans and taken home by consumers. This is one of the reasons that Levi’s is trying to convince consumers to wash less, in cold water and line dry when possible as well as to donate used closing to keep it out of landfills. Doing each of these together can help reduce the climate impact from washing and drying jeans by more than 50%.

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My Take: I am not sure what to say about the i2 except people love Levi’s and the more they can get the more they will love them. However, I think the idea of encouraging people to donate their jeans is fantastic thing. I am sure that there are a lot of ripped skinny jeans out there that somebody would love to get rid of. Someone probably has some lowrise jeans there willing to part with as well.

It might be a good idea to do the same thing with cool T shirts! I know many people do not want to get rid of their funny tees, but when you do not need them anymore or you have too many it is time to get rid of some. No matter what, donating clothes is a good thing. Can you imagine someone was about to start a new job that needs lined work pants and can’t afford them? However, if somebody happened to donate a pair that person might be able to afford them. Carhartt makes a fantastic pair and they are expensive.

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Related Resources

Cited: fiber2fashion.com

To help streamline operations, bolster competitive advantage and enhance customer service western-wear giant Sheplers recently deployed the Epicor Retail Store Point-of-Sale (POS) solution, which was announced by Epicor Software Corporation.

Since 1899, Sheplers and western-wear have been synonymous. As the world’s leading purveyor of apparel and accessories for a country/western lifestyle, Sheplers offers a broad selection of leading-brand apparel and boots for men, women and children, as well as home decor items. Widely known for its outstanding customer service, Sheplers provides a unique and convenient shopping experience through its 20 stores throughout the United States, online 24/7 at Sheplers.com, and via its award-winning catalog, which was recently rated one of the top ten catalogs for customer satisfaction in the US.

After conducting a thorough assessment of the top five POS suppliers, the Sheplers team unanimously selected Epicor as its POS partner. Looking to improve the accuracy and speed of transactions, reduce manual intervention, accept debit cards and run promotions via customer receipts, Sheplers will rely on Epicor’s solution to support a range of retail transactions, processes and workflow.

“Epicor got it right,” said Jim Ritter, executive vice president and CFO, Sheplers. “We were impressed with the solution’s overall functionality and with the organization’s credibility, stability and proven track record with its sizeable install base.”

Epicor Retail Store POS is an industry-leading .NET-based solution that handles all in-store related functions including returns, tendering, promotions, price lookups, gift cards, merchandise credits, credit and debit card handling, local in-store order and layaway, customer information, cash management, electronic journal, reporting, task management and manager’s dashboard. The feature-rich system boasts real-time central lookup features and a highly flexible configuration to meet unique business requirements.

In addition to implementing its best-of-breed POS solution, Epicor is also providing best-in-class customer service via its professional services team. As the first line of support for Sheplers employees, Epicor’s retail technology experts provide help desk functionality to keep all POS systems and transactions running smoothly, ensuring Sheplers’ customers experience the outstanding service they’ve grown accustomed to expect.

“For more than 100 years, Sheplers has been a trusted source of popular western-wear brands and fashions to consumers across the country,” said David Henning, executive vice president and general manager for Epicor Retail. “We’re pleased to be their POS technology partner, helping them maintain their competitive position in the market by strengthening their retail operations through leading-edge software, hardware and services.”

To become more profitable, productive and competitive many retailers around the world use Epicor Retail solutions. With leverage proven Microsoft.net technology, Epicor’s solutions improve business operations as well as meet today’s varied shopper’s expectations and service. Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, and Ann Taylor to Zales and Zumiez are only a few of the regional change to multichannel global brands that receive the comprehensive retail management solutions of Epicor.

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My Take: Maybe if more retailers use this program and make a bigger profit they can lower their prices. I think not. When businesses start making money they have a tendency to continue making money. Then again, if businesses are making money maybe that is a good sign that the recession is ending.

Worrying about money is not what people want to do. They would rather sit back and relax on the weekend. Guys with take out their frustration by watching a football game and the ladies would lounge in a tub with candles for aromatherapy. To be safe, they would need to use a warmer, which is electronic, on the other side of the room.

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Other Resources

Cited: Law.com

Everybody has now heard about the infamous motorized La-Z-Boy whose owner or driver became the first person to be arrested for driving under the influence in an easy chair. After his arrest, the police department put it on eBay to sell and it was going for over $40,000. Unfortunately, La-Z-Boy (the company) did not like the idea of being associated with a drunk driver. They put a stop to the auction real fast.

Well, now we know more, thanks to reports from Wired and Sphere, among other sources. Walter Wobig, the police chief in Proctor, Minn., whose department had seized the notorious chair and put it up for auction, told Wired, “I talked to this guy Rand Tucker from La-Z-Boy who asked if we could take ‘La-Z-Boy’ out of the listing and out of the whole thing and to respect the La-Z-Boy trademark.”

Rand Tucker would be R. Rand Tucker, assistant secretary and corporate counsel of La-Z-Boy Incorporated. Chief Wobig said his conversation with Tucker was cordial and the lawyer agreed the auction could go forward provided the La-Z-Boy name was not used.

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Turns out the motorized chair was not even a La-Z-Boy in the first place. A company spokesperson told Wired, “The La-Z-Boy chair and name is one of our most valuable assets and this is a trademark infringement.” As a matter of fact, Wobig said he used the trade name in his eBay auction only because the media had used it in reporting on the case. “The chief even ran the listing by his attorney beforehand, but the guy didn’t pick up on the legal landmine,” Wired says.

Meanwhile, the Proctor police department has relisted the motorized chair on eBay, this time as DWI Chair, Motorized Chair, and Racing Chair. It would appear that now that everyone knows this is a knock-off and not an actual La-Z-Boy, the chair’s value has diminished. The bidding this time around has so far yet to break $10,000.

Going … Going … the DWI Chair is Gone!

The city of Proctor, Minn., is $11,000 richer today but $30,000 poorer than it would have been had it not been for the intervention of the lawyers for La-Z-Boy Corp. The city was finally able to conclude its eBay auction of the now world-famous, pimped-out motorized recliner it seized after arresting the recliner’s driver for operating under the influence.

The auction end on November 6 at 8:15 PM Eastern. The chair officially went to the winning bid of $10,099.99. So far, nobody knows who the new driver is who purchased, however they will have to go to Proctor to get the chair since the bid did not include shipping. Let’s hope the new owner will not repeat the events of the previous owner.

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My Take: I think this is the most ingenious thing anybody has ever created. It just shows you how lazy people really are. I mean, how lazy can you be if you do not want to get out of your easy chair to get a beer?

When will people learn that drinking and driving, even in an easy chair, does not mix. I keep hearing about these devices are going to be put into cars that prevent people from driving if their breath contains a certain level of alcohol, but that does not prevent people with older cars from driving drunk. Too many people die because of drunk drivers.

On a lighter note, this is easy chair and drunk driver have insurance? I wonder if you get charged with not having license plates or insurance?

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Cited: Forbes

On November 7, the House of Representatives passed the health care reform bill by a vote of 220-215 that includes the government run insurance plan aimed at expanding coverage for 36 million people. The question we need to ask now is the kind of debate will there be in the wake of this House vote.

The lone Republican voting in favor was Louisiana Rep. Joseph Cao. The measure is expected to cost $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years, but to be fully offset by increasing taxes on the wealthy, cost savings in Medicare and other provisions.

It is a historic vote–never before has the chamber passed such sweeping health care legislation–but not the historic vote that would send the bill to President Obama for his signature. The Senate must still vote on its own version of health care reform. If that passes, the two chambers would have to sort out their differences, producing a final bill to be voted on. That whole process could take months.

In the coming weeks, a crucial debate surrounds health care reform: Will the process resemble that of the economic stimulus bill, a $787 billion measure passed in February with no Republican support? Or will it more closely resemble the push to pass climate change legislation, another overhaul effort (estimated price tag: $864 billion over 10 years) the House passed in June with just eight Republican votes, and which has an uncertain fate in the Senate?

These three very different legislative efforts, all priorities of the Obama administration, are more similar than it might appear. On their own, each of the measures cost more than the entire $455 billion federal deficit for fiscal year 2008, a record until Uncle Sam went $1.4 trillion in the red during FY2009.

Their effectiveness is also questionable. It’s not clear whether health care reform will actually curb rising health care costs; in fact, it’s largely paid for by raising taxes. The stimulus bill seems to have contributed to overall economic output, but the 10.2% national unemployment rate shows that it’s not having the fully desired effect. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), climate change legislation could dampen families’ purchasing power an average of $455 each year between 2012 and 2050. What that means is uncertain, but it doesn’t sound promising.

If health care reform passes, Democrats will tout it, like the stimulus bill, as a major accomplishment. But if it throws a wrench in the health insurance industry, or if the unemployment rate continues to rise, Republicans will be able to cite during the 2010 and 2012 elections two examples of Democratic boondoggles. And like climate change legislation, health care reform would overhaul a major sector of the economy. Success would be transformative for the economy; failure, disastrous.

Nonetheless, it’s a gamble Democrats are willing to take. The House’s health care reform bill would mandate that most U.S. citizens have health insurance and expand Medicaid. It would set up exchanges so that people who don’t have employer-based insurance could get subsidized insurance from the government. While the House’s plan would dramatically expand coverage, it would still leave about 18 million Americans uninsured, according to the CBO.

Heading into Saturday’s vote, the biggest problem for Democrats was rounding up party members who were concerned that government subsidies would pay for abortions and that illegal immigrants might be eligible for insurance through the exchanges. However, another divisive issue remains: cost.

The CBO says the House bill, though fully paid for, would reduce the federal deficit by $109 billion during the next decade. That’s peanuts for Uncle Sam–the deficit for last year alone was about 13 times that amount. CBO Director Doug Elmendorf says the bill would create “slight” budget reductions in the following decade, with a caveat: “Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty.”

Now, all eyes turn to the Senate, where Democrat leaders are combining two competing bills. Senators are considering levying taxes of as much as 40% on “gold-plated” insurance plans, which typically have low costs and high premiums to pay for their version of reform. The action in the House Saturday may give health care overhaul some momentum in the Senate.

Meanwhile, expect the lobbying efforts to heat up. Although the AARP, American Medical Association, and the AFL-CIO are among the powerful groups that supported the House bill, its opponents included organizations just as influential, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and America’s Health Insurance Plans.

It gets trickier in the Senate: Unions, which often have negotiated for their members to have some of those gold-plated plans, don’t like the idea of taxing them. And if Congress doesn’t prevent a previously scheduled reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates for physicians (at a cost of cost $210 billion), the AMA could drop its support altogether.

After the president visited Capitol Hill for some pre-vote arm-twisting on 7 November he said, “Now’s the time to finish the job.” Now the White House will get more involved with process. And the president these words many times before the final vote.

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My Take: I think they should put this health care bill to a public vote! I for one would vote no on any reduction in Medicare benefits. One of the things that Pres. Obama is planning on reducing to help pay for everybody else’s healthcare. People who use Medicare as it is don’t get much!

It’s not like Medicare recipients need the use of a Destin City Florida plastic surgeon like many rich people do. However, some of them may need a Tallahassee hair loss surgeon but they usually say, “Oh well,” and go on about their business.

However, Medicare recipients do need medical equipment that sometimes is not covered. If Pres. Obama succeeds in cutting Medicare, someone who has Alzheimer’s and needs Aricept may not get it. The same goes with someone with a heart condition that needs Celebrex. Both of these drugs are expensive and people on Medicare cannot afford them by themselves. Even if someone on Medicare needing something as simple as bladder scanning to diagnose a bladder problem may not be able to get it if they reduce Medicare coverage.

Yes, I am very opinionated on this subject. I am disabled and I have Medicare. Some things that everybody can afford because they have medical coverage, such as specific eyewear, hearing aids and dental care, are barely or not covered at all by Medicare and they went to reduce the coverage of Medicare.

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Related Resources

Cited: Fortune Small Business

Many businesses do not have the time or manpower to wade through security-camera footage on a daily basis. Because of this inventory losses are on the rise and the culprits are usually the cashiers giving themselves and friends and old-fashioned five-finger discount. It is estimated that $15 billion was stolen by employees from realtors in the last year, at least according to University of Fort criminologist Richard Hollinger. He conducts annual surveys of the top stores in the country. This figure indicates that 25% more in inventory was lost than what is lost to shoplifters. However, there is hope on the horizon to retailers across the country.

In almost all of these cases, closed-circuit-TV monitoring systems failed to spot the crime. “The problem is, you have hours and hours of video to go through,” says Hollinger. In recessionary times few companies have the staff to review all that footage.

So Agilence, a small firm in Camden, N.J., is stepping in with a solution: patented software that scans for likely theft moments and a team of “loss prevention” experts to review the results for you. By synchronizing raw security-camera footage with point-of-sale data, the software takes a still image associated with every item scanned at a checkout stand.

The market is crowded: Plenty of companies, including Vfinity and StopLift, sell advanced video surveillance technology. But few offer point-of-sale synchronization, and fewer still include human video analysts in the price of a subscription, which starts at $300 per month.

Rather than having to scan hours of video, Agilence’s investigators can quickly review thousands of still images on a computer screen, click on any that appear suspect and call up the full video of the transactions.

The Agilence analysts report likely cases of fraud — which employers can then see for themselves — and note areas in which intervention or improved training might help. “A retailer would have to hire 10 employees to do what we do for them,” says Pedro Ramos, vice president of operations at Agilence.

In particular, Ramos says, Agilence is seeing an increase in conspiracies between cashiers and customers, known as “sweet-hearting.” The employee may bag an item after voiding a transaction, or simply press the price check button on the register and allow his friend to walk past the checkout station as if a sale had been made.

Hollinger and other experts say Agilence is onto something big. The next step is to automate the process and identify common scam patterns. “We’re starting to see the computers getting smarter,” Hollinger says. “They soon may be smart enough to send a text message to alert a manager who’s actually in the store and can do something about it.”

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My Take: Well, I guess the employees that have sticky fingers better start watching what they are doing not to mention the shoplifters. My concern would be employee harassment. Some employees just might be contacting in NY Long Island harassment lawyer. When you measure jobs because of theft, you usually do not get any severance pay. And if you are accused and there is no evidence, you should get an NYC severance pay lawyer to get what is coming to you.

The ones I worry about are the kids. There are so many kids that use the five finger discount to get things at their parents cannot afford or will not buy for them. That means that parents are going to have to get a Pittsburgh family lawyer that can handle a theft case. Then again, the way kids are big on technology today they just might take your way around it. However, these are usually caught eventually and they will still need an Allegheny PA family attorney.

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Divorce and Joint Custody

A Union County New Jersey divorce attorney will explain that a decision by the court that the parents will share custody of a child is called joint custody. There are two types of custody, physical and legal. Joint physical custody is where one parent gets custody with the other having visitation and can be based on reasonable time with each parent either specifically spelled out or based on stated guidelines and shared payment of costs of raising the child. Joint legal custody means that both parents can make decisions for the child, including medical treatment and, where possible, they should consult the other.

Ottawa Criminal Lawyer for a Weapons Charge

A weapons related charge or offence is very serious. In Ottawa, the Ottawa police, OPP and RCMP consider assault with a weapon and dangerous and careless storage of a firearm as serious examples of weapons cases. These offenses are serious because they are considered potentially dangerous to the public. Finding Ottawa criminal lawyers who can defend weapons charges is a very important step to take. A criminal lawyer can explain to you how to best approach the charge, if there are any defenses to the allegations and if there are any ways to keep you out of jail.

Cited: New Jersey Law Journal

New Jersey’s leading litigators and teachers in the field of personal injury law, Kenneth Javerbaum and Gerald Baker, are joining forces to practice together in four counties in a firm that will have 22-lawyers working in various offices. Baker and his two partners will be joining the 19-lawyer Javerbaum Wurgaft Hicks Kahn Wikstrom & Sinins that will give the Springfield firm its first substantial presence in Houston County.

Baker says the takeover of his Hoboken firm, Baker, Pedersen & Robbins, gives him and partners Jorden “Nick” Pedersen, Jr. and Bennett Robbins an opportunity to expand their practices throughout the state and frees him of responsibility for management and marketing.

Baker says personal injury firms of one, two or three lawyers often are hard pressed to find time for law, the business of law and coping with best practices. Joining a larger operation is the right solution for his firm, he says.

“I didn’t want to market or manage a firm anymore,” says Baker, 66. He is already getting used to the luxury. He joked on November 6 that when he and his new colleagues started to discuss the timing of their announcement, his contribution was, “You decide.”

Baker says he approached Javerbaum informally at a State Bar Association meeting earlier this year and spent the past few months working out the details with Javerbaum Wurgaft’s managing partner, Eric Kahn.

The melding of the two operations, though, will take about a year “as we make sure our practices and personalities blend with each other,” Baker says. That shouldn’t be hard, he says, because “we’re all personal injury lawyers.”

Besides having firms with a record of winning multi-million awards, Baker and Javerbaum, 67, are longtime leaders of the plaintiff’s personal injury bar. Since 1985, Javerbaum has been on the board of governors of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America-New Jersey. Baker is one of the state’s busiest legal lecturers — at the Institute of Continuing Legal Education and other forums — on trends in personal injury law, particularly automobile negligence.

Baker has also represented survivors and heirs of passengers in major airline disasters, and being part of a large firm will improve his chances of competing for such work with large New York firms that dominate the field, he says,

Pedersen has a specialty handling personal injury matters for employees protected by federal statutes, longshoreman, seamen, railroad workers and defense contract workers. Robbins is the Hudson County trustee of the state Bar Association.

“The strength of Nick Pedersen is that he does things that few people do — Longshore and Harborworkers Compensation Act claims, admiralty law cases — things like that,” Javerbaum says. “Ben Robbins is a very experienced trial lawyer. We can give him anything to try,”

Having lawyers with longtime presence in the county will be a special boon, Javerbaum and Kahn say. Baker’s father Nathan started the firm in 1926 and Pedersen’s father was a tax official in the county for many years.

“We have a lot of depth now,” Javerbaum says.

Baker and his colleagues will also work at the Newark office, which Javerbaum Wurgaft acquired in 2007 when three lawyers from 35-year-old Sinins & Bross joined the firm. The office in Springfield will remain the largest Javerbaum Wurgaft center and there will be two lawyers in Freehold, headed by another lateral hire, Paul Newell, a well-known personal injury practitioner in Monmouth County.

“Personal injury firms are unique,” Javerbaum says. “The business model in most firms is keeping time records by the hour, expecting associates to work a certain number of hours a year, having all of your costs paid up front and all that is totally at odds with the way a personal injury firm works. Ironically, in personal injury practice, the better business is the more money you are laying out.”

According to Javerbaum, there are no plans at this time for growth of the firm but they are willing to seize any opportunities to get new attorneys. A practice depends on referrals so it is important for a firm to be of good size and have lawyers that are interested in marketing and professional activities. Javerbaum also estimated that 50-60% of the firm’s revenue comes from referrals from other attorneys.

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My Take: Wow, 22 lawyers all under the same roof that sounds more like a convention. I suppose that’s great for New Jersey but what about the rest of the country. What if I need a personal injury attorney Denver CO? Or a NYC slip and fall accident attorney?

I suppose I could just pick up the Yellow Pages to find a Denver criminal lawyer or a Brooklyn nursing home abuse lawyer. I suppose is saying is true that you can find a lawyer anywhere. What does it say about our country? Why do we need so many lawyers? You would think there would be more doctors and lawyers.

No matter, one thing is definitely positive, all lawyers need litigation support services in LA, Denver, New York or wherever. That means that is a New York, Denver, Portland, LA California court reporting service available to each lawyer in every state.

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Negligent Care

When we visit our doctor for a routine check-up or book an appointment with a specialist, we expect a degree of professionalism typically sought and achieved in the medical field. We expect to be treated with the standard of care generally required of doctors, nurses, dentists and other medical practitioners. However, sometimes the people we trust to make our health better and heal our medical conditions fail to provide quality care and negligently put us in harm’s way. If you think you have been the recipient of negligent care, to a Washington DC medical malpractice lawyer to find out for sure.

Cited: CNNMoney.com

There is good news for the real estate market; the number of mortgage borrowers who own more than their homes are worth is declining. There are now less people underwater with their mortgages, which is further evidence that the real estate free-fall may be slowing down.

Just 21% of all single-family homeowners owe more on their mortgage balances than their homes are worth, according to a third quarter residential real estate report from Zillow.com. That is down from 23% at the end of the second quarter.

That is good news because it should help reduce the number of homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure. Being underwater is one of the two factors that lead to foreclosure, the other being, of course, not having enough income to make the monthly payments.

“The decline in the percentage of homeowners with negative equity is a positive sign and is directly attributable to the stabilization of home values from the second quarter to the third,” said Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries.

But there’s a second, less-positive factor that contributed to the reduction in underwater borrowers: foreclosures. So many people have already lost their homes that the ranks of those underwater are slowly dwindling. And that highlights one of the most serious concerns that housing markets currently face. “Foreclosure rates,” said Humphries, “are ramping up again.”

Upswing

There are 1.2-1.5 million seriously delinquent mortgages sitting out there like ticking time-bombs. These loans are at least 90 days late, and, historically, few borrowers who fall that far behind manage to start repaying.

Aggravating the foreclosure problem is the substantial numbers of option ARM loans that will reset over the next few months. These are loans with balances that have steadily increased because borrowers were permitted to make minimum monthly payments that did not even cover interest.

The resets will require borrowers to start paying down principal, and many will simply not be able to afford to do that. Also resetting over the next several months will be many interest-only loans, which will also require borrowers to make much larger payments.

For those who are still having mortgage problems . . . With the way the economy is, chances are you are behind on your mortgage payments. Most likely, you are being bombarded with offers to modify your existing Arizona loan, short sell your property or lead you through bankruptcy. There is a solution to foreclosures and help for your Louisville Kentucky mortgage. For Kentucky and Indiana homes, there is a company that specializes in low purchase mortgages and Kentucky mortgage refinancing.

Another fear-factor for Humphries is that continued economic malaise will slow the housing market recovery. Recent macro-economic reports have been inconsistent. Good news came early in November, with the gross domestic product, growing at annualized rate of 3.5% during the third quarter.

A couple days later, however, the Labor Department reported the unemployment rate jumped to 10.2% in October. It’s an understatement to say that losing a job can make it very difficult to pay off a mortgage.

Ghost hunting

Increased foreclosures also add to already long inventories. The National Association of Realtors reported there are 3.63 million homes on the market, a nearly eight-month supply at the current rates of sales. That’s a two or three month oversupply, compared with a normal market.

But official inventory statistics may be undercounting; there is also the so-called “shadow inventory.” For one, there are bank repossessions that have not been put back on the market. The banks have either fallen behind on processing these properties or they are reluctant to put REOs up for sale because the market is already overloaded.

The second element of the shadow inventory is that some individual owners would like to sell their homes but do not want to compete with foreclosures, which usually sell at a discount to market values. In many cities, foreclosures and short sales constitute the bulk of the market.

The housing market recovery will be affected by “how quickly these foreclosures transition back onto the marketplace,” said Humphries.

Nationally, 21.4% of all sales were REOs, the industry term for bank-owned properties. High as that rate is, that pales in comparison with some of the worst-hit metro areas. In Merced Calif., for example, 74.2% of all single-family home sales were of foreclosed properties; in nearby Stockton, the rate was 68.7%; and El Centro, down near the Mexican border, the rate was 68.1%.

There is one thing that could put a damper on home prices for many months to come and that is if REO sales do not increase at a blistering rate to keep up with the new inventory coming into the market. However, there is good news in many areas at least that foreclosures are selling quickly.

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My Take: I did not know that a mortgage could drown. The way some of these financing and real estate people use language to describe bad situations can be hilarious. Take for example people who have Nyack riverfront homes that realize their mortgage is drowning. First thing I would tell them is move away from the river.

I know the situation is not funny for many people. But really, you need to make light of all situations are bad just to be able to get through them sometimes. Laughter is always the best medicine. That means that even people with Piermont real estate who may be having problems need to look at the brighter side of the situation.

When this recession began, I was wondering where I was going to get the pay my mortgage. However, I managed squeeze pinch pennies by keeping my eye on November 2009. The reason I kept my eye on that date is because that was when the last payment would be paid. Of course, my mortgage was on a mobile home and not a house, which meant that my payment was lower. But it was still difficult at times and I made it!

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Handcrafted Antique Finish

The country décor antique finish has a very old, gracefully aged appearance with worm holes, cracks, a bit of crackle and heavy wear spots often revealing another color underneath the top coat of finish. Antique finish tends to darken lighter colors and is topped with a coat of flat varnish. This finish will not have a high gloss appearance unless you have us add additional layers of varnish. If you like a stained look rather than any paint colors then you want the finish, which is the “Antique Stain”. This finish has the stain appearance because it is stained but then the finish is antiqued to give it an aged appearance. Chandelier lighting will easily show off this antiqued finish.

Cited: CNNMoney

Charlotte Street was an apocalyptic nightmare version of urban life. It is now received the greatest real estate makeover in history. New York City’s South Bronx, at one time, was the center of urban disaster. Not anymore! The cars and boats that sit in driveways in front of single-family homes along the strip are evidence of just that.

Weed-choked, junk-filled lots flanked the three-block stretch. Burned out tenement buildings punctuated the sky, and abandoned cars littered the landscape.

The street, like much of the rest of New York City’s South Bronx, had fallen to epic lows by the late 1970s. The area had disgorged nearly two-thirds of its population as living conditions declined and arson fires raged. Some landlords, unable to find tenants, torched their properties for insurance money. Other blazes were set by junkies, while still more were set by residents of public housing trying to get moved into nicer apartments.

“Charlotte Street was burning,” says Genevieve Brooks, a former resident. “Every day, I’d see the fires and smell the smoke. I slept with my shoes by my bed at night because you never knew if your building was next.”

Just three miles away, at Yankee Stadium, is where Howard Cosell uttered his famous line: “There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning.”

No longer. In the three decades since Cosell introduced the world to the plight of the Bronx during the 1977 World Series, Charlotte Street has morphed into a haven of single-family ranch houses accented by backyards flourishing with fruit trees and flowers. Boats sit in driveways and above-ground swimming pools are common. It’s a slice of suburbia in one the country’s most urban — and poor — counties.

What happened to the Charlotte Street that President Carter called “the worst slum in America?” Or the Charlotte Street that President Reagan visited during a 1980 campaign swing? The one he compared — unfavorably — with London after the Blitz.

One of the greatest real estate turnarounds ever.

“Charlotte Street is thought of as quite a success story, particularly considering its context: It rose, phoenix-like, out of the ashes,” says Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Urban Studies.

Baby steps

One of the primary catalysts was Brooks, who had moved to Charlotte Street from South Carolina in the 1960s, when the neighborhood was racially mixed and thriving. But as the 1970s dawned, she watched the deterioration take hold.

When she asked her landlord about maintaining her building, he dismissed her. “He told me I should move to Queens, or Park Avenue,” she remembers. “I could have left. But I was single at the time, no children, so I didn’t have as much to lose.”

Instead, she knocked on neighbors’ doors and asked if they noticed the change. When they said “yes,” she formed a tenants association. Then she helped form a block association to lobby the city to pick up trash and abandoned cars, and to crack down on crime.

“We went down to the cellars and bagged tons of garbage, brought it upstairs and got Sanitation to pick it up,” she remembered. “The kids were excited about sweeping the streets. I would give them money for snacks. They would ask, ‘Miss Brooks can we sweep the street today?’”

Bigger strides

By 1974, tired of the small scale efforts, a host of neighborhood volunteers formed a group they called the Mid-Bronx Desperadoes to lobby for improvements throughout the community.

“There was a tremendous amount of community action,” says former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer. “That was the secret ingredient. The community refused to give up. They needed allies. They needed people who took the decline of the South Bronx as personally as they did.”

One of those people was urban planner Ed Logue, who was hired in 1978 to run a city agency called the South Bronx Development Office. The city was trying to erase the shame of its worst slums, and to do that Logue knew he would need the assistance of local organizations. The Desperadoes, headed by Brooks, were ready to step into the breach.

Brook’s and Logue’s vision was to go to the rotted core — Charlotte Street — and work outward. But most everyone advised them to rebuild starting from the healthy fringes. They wanted single-family homes; critics wanted density and multi-family dwellings, saying it would promote a lively, safe neighborhood and attract merchants.

“The conventional wisdom was that no one would invest their life savings in such a devastated area,” says Julie Sandorf, who worked with the MBD and is now president of the Charles H. Revson Foundation, a New York City-based charity.

Brooks, though, knew most of the families in the area were African Americans from the South, Caribbean blacks and Puerto Ricans, and she was convinced that the long home-owning traditions of these groups would help make a community of single-family homes work.

So, she and Logue focused on convincing the Local Initiatives Support Corp., a newly launched nonprofit that had a $10 million grant from the Ford Foundation to assist burgeoning neighborhood revivals.

“There was so much devastation in the Charlotte Street area, it needed a big infusion of dollars,” Brooks remembers. “We were in the financial disaster stage.”

Convincing skeptics

LISC was indeed interested in assisting in the South Bronx, but the foundation had its doubts about the plan. “People at LISC were skeptical about the notion of doing single-family homes in the South Bronx,” says CEO Michael Rubinger. “It was thought to be a crazy idea.”

But Logue and Brooks dazzled then-director Anita Miller with a vision of white picket fences. She agreed take a gamble and put up the $125,000 the groups needed to purchase two model homes.

Those first three-bedroom, two-bath ranch homes were manufactured in Pennsylvania and trucked over the George Washington Bridge one night in 1983. Sandorf and her husband were on site waiting for the trucks. The first people they saw was a rough looking street gang — whom Logue had hired to secure the grounds.

Still, Sandorf says, her husband was a little spooked. “He kept asking, ‘Where are all the lights?’ I had to tell him all those buildings are abandoned. There are no lights.” The homes were priced at about $50,000, and they sold like hot cakes. “We got more than 600 applications from potential buyers in the first three weeks,” says Sandorf.

Within three years, 92 homes would be built on the street and the area re-christened Charlotte Gardens. About 90% of the buyers were from the Bronx, according to Sandorf; many were low-income.

Homeownership was made possible by discounting the houses: Each property sold for between $50,000 and $59,000 even though it cost an average of $110,000 to build. The difference was funded through federal dollars, but the City of New York and various foundations also helped subsidize buyers.

“The houses in Charlotte Gardens were very deeply subsidized,” says former borough president Ferrer. “But it wasn’t just city money: That provided a stimulus for financial institutions who were reluctant to lend. We told the banks they had to get involved, they had to get up here and lend. Some admitted they had to eat crow: They never expected the complex to succeed.”

Shining example

But succeed it did. Original buyers invested and stayed; fewer than a dozen homes out of the 92 have ever been sold. Plus, while the rest of the country is being wracked by foreclosures, Charlotte Gardens has lost just one home to the plague.

“The selling of Charlotte Gardens is the extreme opposite story of what happened in the recent real estate debacle,” Sandorf says. “It is a shining example of how to do it right. House buyers were carefully selected and vetted. They were subjected to strict credit checks and homeownership counseling.”

Property values, too, have soared. Homes that originally went for $50,000 now sell for ten times that — when one is available. Currently, there is only one for-sale sign on all of Charlotte Street. The owners, who are original, have retired and are moving to Florida. They listed the property for $459,000 — which is still inexpensive by New York standards. Just across the river, in Manhattan, buyers pay that for a studio apartment.

“Sales are so rare that finding comparables to make an accurate appraisal is very hard,” says Tina Gordon, the Century 21 real estate agent for the property.

“We didn’t know what we were doing when we started, but we did know we had to do this ourselves,” says Genevieve Brooks.

Several years ago Genevieve Brooks and her husband retired and moved back to South Carolina weren’t they have family. They were one of the few that sold their home. Tuesday, they still return to visit friends in Charlotte Gardens often

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My Take: When are they going to start more programs like this? There are so many different neighborhoods around the country in various cities that could use a makeover like this. It would also give low income families the chance to own their own home at a reduced price.

Maybe they could start in Virginia by hiring Alexandria Virginia cleaning services to come in and clean old homes. They could start in Washington DC and get the president’s attention by getting some Washington DC residential cleaning done. But, I doubt that even in Maryland that just getting Maryland house cleaning services will be enough. Even Bethesda home cleaning services wouldn’t be enough for some of the rundown real estate in this country.

Many did you start tearing down rundown houses and rebuilding and not just in New York. There are people across this country who would love to own their own home but can’t because they don’t have the money.

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