by PAUL ALLEN

So the other day, I’m watching TV (I’m in advertising, so I’m obliged to do so). And who do I see presenting me with the opportunity to own the Awesome Augur? You guessed it — the one and only Billy Mays — America’s most famous pitchman. There he is, booming confidently, telling me that the Awesome Augur is going to make my gardening, roto-tilling, new plantings and weed-maintenance easier than I ever thought possible.

Fantastic stuff — if you’re inclined to the “gardening way” of life. Me — I’m not interested in, nor do I undertake, any of these dirt-laden activities. Accordingly, I’m not interested in how I might make any of these endeavors easier at any price.

But what did interest me was that there he was, Billy Mays — larger than life.

Except that he’s dead. Continue Reading

by JARVIS CROMWELL

Back in 2007 we quoted renowned free-marketeer Milton Friedman on the pages of this blog as follows:

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business,” Friedman wrote back in 1970, and that is to “engage in activities designed to increase profits.”

Friedman’s viewpoint ultimately became the guiding principal of an era: profitable self-interest would be viewed as the only reliable endgame by most businesses.

The costs were higher than anyone imagined.

We read today that there is increasing consensus that there will be a 15-25% drop in the standard of living around the world (more in some especially beleaguered regions) as a result of the current crisis. Wow. And some corners are now arguing that 2008 was to capitalism what 1989 was to communism. Is this the demise of free market capitalism as we know it? Or is there a way out of this place?

The optimistic view is that our current sorry state of affairs will herald a new era of free market capitalism that fellow trustmeister Dr. Sri Raghavan and I have termed “Trust Metric capitalism.” The idea is that management teams must demand that their organizations better measure what truly matters for the long-term health of the system. To achieve that, organizations will need to look at metrics beyond short-term profit — the kind that measure the underlying health and vitality of their organization, transactions and markets. The pessimistic view is that leaders will hunker down in a tough market, continue with an agenda that is both short-term oriented and bubble-prone, and generally fail to lead us into sustainable profit and growth.

Over a year ago the futurist Andrew Zolli wrote a piece in where he declared that the oblivious capitalist’s days are numbered. In this case Zolli cast his eye to the future and concluded that a host of global forces will force a remake of the playbook for business success. Business will profit by driving a wider social agenda and “the clinical, value-neutral capitalism of old” will fall by the wayside.

Let’s face it, whichever way you slice it companies have much work to do. That work includes reducing costs and preparing financially for a long winter. But beyond the very real financial constraints, this is a time of customer scarcity and increasing fear. Building trust must now become a central means through which companies will drive customer sales, loyalty and retention, employee engagement, productivity and, ultimately, long-term shareholder value. It is an essential metric to the survival of capitalism as we know it. Warren Buffett compared trust and confidence to the air we breath. We take it for granted until it’s gone.

What do you think? Are the days numbered for the oblivious capitalist — or will leadership rise to the challenge and institute a new set of performance measures to bring us back from the brink? Which companies get it, which don’t? We would like to know your views.

Back in the year 2000 – shortly before 9/11, way before the invasion of Iraq, and way-way before the collapse of the global credit system – a serious debate raged. The central question was a profound one.

“Which economy are we in?”
Good question. What’s everyone think?

The year 2000 was the backside of the dot.com bubble, still bloated and ready to burst. Money flowed, valuations were generous, VC-backed investments were the rage, technology was everything, more people had more than they had ever had before. Which, I guess, meant people had lots of free time to think about exactly which economy they were enjoying so much.

Pundits said we were in the midst of the Internet economy, the technology economy, the Silicon-Valley economy, the dot.com economy, the wired economy – and the big kahuna of them all – the new economy. My personal favorite is the new economy – because it made so little sense, as if the all too human drivers of economic sustainability took a permanent vacation. Plus, the moment you anoint a new economy, it starts becoming an old economy. And as we are painfully learning today, sometimes an old economy can become barely an economy at all.

“So, again, what economy is this today ?
My answer is the same as it was in 2000. This is the Performance Economy.
Continue Reading