Monthly Archives: March 2009

Beware Obama bumper stickers!

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Someone accidentally sent this to me by email yesterday..

A LETTER FROM THE BOSS…..

As the VP of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President, and that our taxes, and government fees will increase in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%.

Since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off six of our employees instead. This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn’t know how to choose who would have to go.

So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lot and found six ‘Obama’ bumper stickers on our employees’ cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can’t think of a more fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change; I gave it to them.
I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable?

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Super smart blog from Clay Shirky on why the newspaper industry (which I’ve worked in, briefly at EMAP through the early 90s recession, before leaving to help set up a current affairs magazine Red Pepper) doesn’t get the internet.

Ah, it’s all about advertising. Now the secondary effect of the big recession is causing huge job cuts in the newspaper industry. Who knows what the future holds, but I like Clay’s emphasis on the value of experimentation. What I would say is that fortunately and in hindsight logically I did my experimentation while times were good, so I can take a good job now and enjoy it. It’s tough to start experimenting when times are bad.

What the newspaper industry kind of did was experiment while times were good too, but in a defensive way. Those newspapers that tried more positive work though when times were good, the fruits of which are probably in the heads of staff who’ve not had a voice until now, stand the best chance to reap the benefits I would have thought.