Mad at Mgmt

One of the best commercials I have ever seen was filmed in Wisconsin, and is now being shown nationwide. To me, it perfectly captures this moment in our country. What is great is that, while the message is not claiming great wisdom, it delivers it in great clumps. Full Story 

The graphic arts have experienced a long-term spate of hard times. This is not only because of cyclical economic recessions, which can cause declines in advertising and business activity in general. Certainly, the Great Recession of 2008-2010 qualified on that score. But we also are suffering from longer-term trends that affect the industry: a reduction in the use of paper, books, newspapers, and other publications; substitution of electronics for other business services, such as tickets, contracts, and warranties; and changes in the use of paper in packaging and labels. Full Story 

This is a story about my landlord. Well, not my landlord. My client’s. You see, I was appointed to help a company in receivership one autumn. Receivership is a procedure similar to Chapter 11 that makes company assets available to the secured lenders for sale or disposal in order to pay off the debt. Full Story 

No, this is not a travel piece. It’s about Madison, Wis., and the Florida is a person, not a place. He is Richard Florida, economist of sorts (he calls himself “one of the world’s leading public intellectuals on economic competitiveness”). He is famous for his thesis that exciting cities make for prosperous cities precisely because excitement is what people want in their workplace and entrepreneurs want for their start-ups. Full Story