On Saturday, April 26, I watched a TV program hosted by Tim Russert. He and the commentators were reflecting on the broader implications of how an off-the-record comment by Senator Obama at a San Francisco speech could achieve worldwide exposure in a relatively short time. Their conclusion is that, at this time and irreversibly going forward, “everything is on the record.” I would add one other phrase as well: “Everything that is on the record is likely to stay on the record permanently.”

The combination of cell phone cameras, the ability to upload digital images to web sites, and the broad reach of user-generated content on sites like YouTube and Facebook mean that all of us have the potential to live our entire lives out in the open, not unlike the lead character played by Jim Carrey in “The Truman Show” a few years back. Scott McNealy, the Chairman of Sun Microsystems, made the comment almost a decade ago that, with the Internet, there is no privacy and all of us need to get over it. He’s right. (more…)

On April 6, I had an opportunity to speak on The CEO Show with Robert Reiss. I shared some ideas for how small to medium-sized businesses can improve their customer communications and take advantage of valuable marketing opportunities. I also reflected on some strategies I used as CEO, and discussed how Pitney Bowes is working to evolve, adapt to change, and enhance the “customer experience” through innovation.

I enjoyed this interview very much. Please click below to listen to the recording.

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At Pitney Bowes, we have done a lot of thinking about how to innovate successfully. As a result, we have challenged conventional wisdom about how innovation actually occurs. There are two traditional views about innovation with which I am familiar:

• One is the idea that institutions have large research and development budgets, begin a number of projects, have many failures, and funnel down to a handful of successes. The “funnel” metaphor is used to describe this idea.
• The second is the idea that organizations either invest in entrepreneurial companies, or create entrepreneurial “skunkworks” which operate outside the company’s annual budgeting processes and produce innovation. This was a popular theory, supported by the IBM PC launch in the early 1980’s.

Both views are flawed, because they oversimplify how innovation really happens. I got the best insight on innovation from my 15-year-old daughter, who is not only a serious musician, playing the harp, flute, and piano, but an avid student of popular music history. She read and gave me a copy of Bill Wyman’s Rolling with the Stones. Wyman was one of the founding members of the Rolling Stones. (more…)

In the April 9 Wall Street Journal, there is a front-page story about the impact of sub-prime lending on ordinary citizens. Featured in the story is a 74-year-old self-employed tailor who put her entire $55,000 life savings into a high-interest-rate notes issued by a Philadelphia lender called American Business Financial Services. When the firm went bankrupt, she and others lost their entire life savings. The blog entitled The Importance of Being Financially Literate reinforces the fact that Americans lack financial knowledge even in the most basic savings and investment decisions.

While the story is a tragedy, it brings to mind the urgency of focusing on teaching all Americans financial literacy. The National Urban League and its affiliates have specific financial literacy programs, specifically focused on first-time home buyers. Operation HOPE, headed by the very impressive John Bryant, is specifically focused on broad-based financial literacy. These are great programs, and they provide individuals with good nuts-and-bolts tools. Other notable mentions on behalf of the National Urban League in partnership with Honda amid the turbulent economic climate include their offering of personal financial management classes. The acclaimed “Know Your Money Program” seeks to provide economic empowerment and financial literacy to those individuals in communities seeking to change the attitudes about money and money-management. The program is highlighted in this Honda Blog post. (more…)

On Monday, April 7, I was in New York City, and the subject of Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing became part of several conversations. The depth of the discussion was clearly driven by the outcome of the plan that failed to gain popularity amongst the democrats who ultimately refused to put the bill to a vote on the floor of the state assembly, as highlighted in an article published by the New York Times. I believe that any discussion about infrastructure finance usually is explicitly more complex than publicized with regards to whether or not the public versus the users should be taxed for infrastructure-related capital projects. However, just below the surface of any discussion about raising taxes, fees, tolls, or implementing congestion pricing is a lack of trust about whether the money raised by the government will be spent for infrastructure improvement or absorbed into general revenues. (more…)

Anyone who has read my past blogs knows that I have commented that too many health care reform advocates focus too much on universal health insurance coverage, and insufficiently on improving health, the supply of health care professionals, and the quality of health care. While many proponents of universal health care pay lip service to the value of prevention, those who advocate universal health care clearly want to address the visible and important issue of affordable coverage independently of, and prior to, the issues I have identified.

Unfortunately, they have it backwards. To solve the universality and affordability problem, the others have to be addressed. A compelling story appeared on the front page of the national edition of the April 5 New York Times, entitled “Universal Coverage Strains Massachusetts Care: Influx of Patients and Shortage of Doctors Create Long Waits.” (more…)