News of the near death of the Kodak Corporation filled the news late last week and somehow slowly pushed aside competing thoughts in my brain like college football, NFL football, college basketball, the Iowa Caucus, the New Hampshire primary and a broken water pipe in my kitchen.  

On Sunday as I drove the bi-ways of central Virginia and North Carolina making my way back home my mind wondered to the past when my family wouldn’t think of having a get together or make a trip without the purchase several of those bright yellow boxes of Kodak film for our cameras. 

Kodak and its bright film boxes was an American icon that could be found in every drugstore and gift store in this country and in every foreign country we visited around the world.  So, what went wrong with this innovative, creative and shining example of American know how?

Kodak’s situation is not the first time in my life I have witnessed a situation where a company forgets what got it to the top and stopped looking at what is important to their customers or listening to the market as it trends to new technologies.  But this time, the management of Kodak is also guilty of generational management traits that sealed its doom. 

In most organizations today you will find Baby Boomers in the leadership positions. In Kodak like many other companies Boomers are/were the directors, the managers, the CEOs, COOs, and CFOs. 

Boomers as a group brought their competitive spirit and sense of commitment and hard work to companies, giving rise to the term, “workaholic.”  Boomers are proud of what they do for a living and they define themselves by it. 

One of the problems with Boomers is that they have lagged behind the Millennials and Generation X in the adoption of the most recent innovations like smartphones and social networking.  On the other hand, data from the last couple of years show that the Boomers are finally rapidly beginning to accept the new technologies.  All of this means that, when it comes to technology, Baby Boomers are in a period of transition.

For Boomers, their comfort zone is face-to-face, or person-to-person communication is the way things get done in the business world.  Although Baby Boomers are gradually adopting smartphones and other high-tech gizmos, they do not brandish them as fashion accessories or use them to demonstrate how cool they are.

On the contrary, many Boomers are intimidated by hi-tech communication, finding it overly complicated and difficult to learn. Others see hi-tech gadgets as toys that young people use to waste huge amounts of time. Again, this is one feature of Boomers that may change over the next several years as they increasingly adopt the technologies that everyone else uses. However, it’s unlikely that they will come to see technology use as part of their identity in the way that younger generations do.

And Baby Boomers generally expect everyone they do business with to take the same approach as they do.

While phone calls and emails might be more efficient, they don’t offer the personal touch that Boomers’ crave. Boomers are much more likely to want to meet or go to lunch to discuss business than younger generations. They view face time as “real” work time and other kinds of interactions as peripheral. They are gradually adapting to new forms of communication like social networking and texting, but don’t yet feel like those kinds of exchanges are appropriate for business or sales communication.

Even though the 1950s and 60s are now more than 40 years past, Baby Boomers have never really let go of them. They remember their youth fondly on every occasion.  As directors and managers, Boomers as a group are not the best listeners and are even worse mentors. 

As a group, Boomers are great worker bees but may have been so focused on their own journey that perhaps they didn’t see the changes in technology that Generation X and the Millennials have embraced and led to changes in the marketplace.

Here are a couple of examples of companies that were so busy they lost sight of the destination that I remember and come to mind.

Smith Corona Typewriters – using “liquid Paper” trumped by word processors:

When I was in high school our business teacher, Ms Ringland, convinced me that I should take typing as it would be a great help to me in college and then later as I entered the business world.  Well, I never won a speed contest but I did fall in love with my Smith Corona Selectric.

Smith Corona is/was a typewriter and calculator company. They were once the largest manufacturer of typewriters in our country.  The company experienced rapid sales declines in typewriters during the mid-1980s due to the introduction of word processing machines and then the rapid acceptance and the resulting demand for personal home computers.  When laptop computer price points became affordable, the typewriter business was over.   Smith Corona missed the signals from a younger and hungry group of consumers and kept doing what they do best, built typewriters for a shrinking demand.

 Sony Betamax – a better product can be beat by availability:

In May of 1975, an innovative Japanese company unveiled the world’s first home video cassette recorder. With a TV monitor at their sides, executives of Sony Corp. popped a small cassette into the new VCR and launched a revolution.

The world of personal entertainment was never the same. With that single invention, Sony changed the way we watch TV, the way we look at movies, the way we schedule our evening hours. Even the name that Sony gave to its device, “Betamax,” with its first and second syllables suggesting something both old and new – soon was the generic term for video recorder. I owned one.  I used it to film my children when they were young.  My Betamax is now in stored away deep back in the hall closet.

Today the Beta format has disappeared into history. Once again, management got caught up in generational management traits and didn’t keep their eye on the ball as consumers, especially younger generations, migrated to the VHS format.

It is easy to imagine a different scenario. Beta had at least four solid advantages compared with VHS: The picture is sharper, the mechanism can switch quickly from one mode to another, the cassettes are small, and the hi-fi sound tracks didn’t cause any problems for high-speed duplication.

What Sony failed to recognize that many consumers, especially younger buyers, buy such items as VCRs on impulse. They stroll through stores looking for one thing and end up buying something else. Competing VHS manufacturers knew that principle well, and made sure that VHS recorders were sold in many different types of stores, not just electronic stores.

Kodak – sharing became more important than film quality:

The Kodak Company was started by George Eastman in 1880 in Rochester, New York and was founded on incredible technical innovation that met a huge consumer need.  By 1884 Kodak had become a household Eastman believed was successful because it was a user-friendly product that would be “as convenient as the pencil”.

Throughout its history Kodak thrived on innovating.  They were consistent advertisers, developing memorable emotional pitches that drove their market share to near monopoly status. Kodak’s first marketing campaign used the slogan; “You press the button, and we do the rest”.  Kodak became so dominate that by 1976 they sold 90% of the film and 85% of the cameras in America.  They were able to leverage their expertise into new categories like videotape and memory cards.

And while they may have been a little late to the party, it wasn’t as if they ignored the digital revolution. Just six years ago, forty percent of all digital cameras sold in the U.S. were a Kodak.  But what Kodak missed is that the market is being driven by younger generations that care less about the quality of their pictures (which is where Kodak placed all their emphases) and more about being able to quickly share their experience digitally with their circle of friends.

And now, they stand on the brink of bankruptcy.  It is hard to figure out exactly what happened but once again it seems that Kodak management got caught up in generational management traits were too busy listening to what people said and not actually understanding what they really wanted.

Remember, Kodak built their business on preserving memories.  While most people have albums and keep their treasured pictures for the long term, in this millennium photography is really more about sharing moments.

What Kodak missed is while they engineered more elaborate cameras and systems designed to improve the image quality, the market was running the other way fast.  Kodak’s lack of strategic creativity led it to misinterpret the type of industry that it was operating in which was later devastated with a fundamental shift towards the digital age.

But the danger signals were there much earlier.  Back in 1984, when firstly the Japanese firm Fuji Photo Film Co. encroached on Kodak’s market share as customers switched to their products after launching a 400-speed color film that was 20% cheaper than Kodak’s. Kodak’s response was that “they didn’t believe the American public would buy another film”.

But this final death march started with millennials and Gen Xers and has spread to all ages of folks who are happy to take a quick shot with their camera or smart phone that is of questionable quality and then hit share button, uploading it immediately to Facebook, Photobucket or Twitter so our friends can see what we’re up to now.

The board of directors for Eastman Kodak is made up of matures and baby boomers with only a single member being a Gen X.  The management team along with the board of directors are hard working (workaholic) folks but as a group their strength is not to mentor the younger generations or listen to new emerging ideas. 

So now Kodak has been admitted to the hospice house for dying businesses and we are on the death watch. The company has lost money 12 of the last 15 quarters.  Kodak is struggling to avoid bankruptcy protection. Its stock is worth less than a dollar and its employees are worried about jobs.

Kodak is one of those companies I pulled for.  It made the memories of our country and my family.  I for one am sad to see that the lessons of business have still not been learned and that the people running the companies, the baby boomers, haven’t figured out the new order of emerging technology and the younger generation’s direction that is driving purchases.

If you are 30, or older and a Gen Xer you have probably had enough of listening to the Millennial Generation and “i” Generation whine about how tough it is to grow up today.

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. Uphill…. Barefoot… BOTH ways…yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3′s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

6) We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it!

7) There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”. OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror… not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent…. you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’… Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what’s the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

12) And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside… you were doing chores!

And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!

See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1970’s or early 80’s or any time before!

Regards,

Your Gen X Friend

 AKA “The Over 30 Crowd”

www.timmoorespeaks.com

I had a lot of time to explore the history of mile markers and found out, like a lot of things, that they are a “hand down” from the Romans.  They were originally stone obelisks – made from granite, marble, or whatever local stone was available – and later concrete posts. In ancient times they were widely used by Roman Empire road builders and were an important part of any Roman road network: the distance travelled back then per day was only a few miles in some cases.

The funny thing about mile markers is that they can, in a weird way, make people go a lot faster than they might travel if they couldn’t measure the distance they were moving each minute.  Sunday driving home from Florida this theory was on display as travelers were driving faster and faster. One can measure that if you are averaging 60 miles an hour you are going a mile a minute.  But at 90 miles an hour you are averaging about 1.5 miles every minute. All this is great and in a way makes you want to drive faster and faster until you realize that being pulled over by that state policeman and sitting on the side of the road is not only going to delay your arrival but also cost you a few “Andrew Jacksons”. 

I am not even going to explore the 20 or more wrecks I saw that really changed some family’s journey.  So once again going a little slower is actually faster…funny how that works, isn’t it? 

It reminded me of one of my old favorite driving songs:

Speedball Tucker by:  Jim Croce

One day I looked into my rear view mirror
And a-comin’ up from behind
There was a Georgia State policeman
And a hundred dollar fine
Well he looked me in the eye as he was writin’ me up
And said, “Driver, you’ve been flyin’!”
“And ninety five was the route you were on, it was not the speed limit sign.”

Listen to the whole song, Just Click Here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEo06UdN9vI

If you are having trouble getting together a plan and setting those goals for you or your company, contact me.  We have a great system that helps you cover all the bases and get some realistic plans in place that moves everything forward.

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Thanksgiving in America:

Almost 400 years ago, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast which is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. This harvest meal has become a symbol of cooperation and interaction between English colonists and Native Americans.

Though many competing claims exist, the most familiar story of the first Thanksgiving took place in Plymouth Colony, in present-day Massachusetts, in 1621. More than 200 years later, President Abraham Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November as a national day of thanksgiving.

Historians have also recorded other ceremonies of thanks among European settlers in North America, including British colonists in Berkeley Plantation, Virginia.  Whether at Plymouth, Berkeley Plantation, or throughout the Americas, celebrations of thanks have held great meaning and importance over time.

As our country grew, days of thanksgiving were celebrated throughout the colonies after fall harvests. All thirteen colonies did not, however, celebrate Thanksgiving at the same time until October 1777. George Washington was the first president to declare the holiday, in 1789.

President Abraham Lincoln, looking for ways to unite the nation gave his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863, declaring the last Thursday in November a day of thanksgiving.

In 1939, 1940, and 1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt, seeking to lengthen the Christmas shopping season, proclaimed Thanksgiving the third Thursday in November. Controversy followed, and Congress passed a joint resolution in 1941 decreeing that Thanksgiving should fall on the fourth Thursday of November, where it remains.

For years my friends and I have had a friendly argument each holiday season about whose momma makes the best dressing and all the other special foods we eat at Thanksgiving.

So, what foods topped the table at the first harvest feast? Historians aren’t completely certain about the full bounty, however, the only two items that historians know for sure were on the menu are venison and wild fowl.  Our modern Thanksgiving repast is centered around the turkey, but that certainly wasn’t the case at the Pilgrim’s feasts. Their meals included many different meats. Vegetable dishes, one of the main components of our modern celebration, didn’t really play a large part in the feast.

The pilgrims probably didn’t have pies or anything sweet at the harvest feast. They had brought some sugar with them on the Mayflower but by the time of the feast, the supply had dwindled. Also, they didn’t have an oven so pies and cakes and breads were not possible at all. The food that was eaten at the harvest feast would have seemed fatty by 2010′s standards.

What Does Your Family Eat?

In my family there are special requests by our children each year for certain items to be on the Thanksgiving menu.  Our two adult kids always have something they ask my wife for to ensure that the day will be special.

So what makes the day’s meal special in our country?  In a survey conducted by the National Turkey Federation, nearly 88 percent of Americans said they eat turkey at Thanksgiving. The average weight of turkeys purchased for Thanksgiving is 15 pounds.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pumpkin pie ever baked weighed 2,020 pounds and measured just over 12 feet long. It was baked on October 8, 2005 by the New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers in Ohio, and included 900 pounds of pumpkin, 62 gallons of evaporated milk, 155 dozen eggs, 300 pounds of sugar, 3.5 pounds of salt, 7 pounds of cinnamon, 2 pounds of pumpkin spice and 250 pounds of crust.

The cranberry is one of only three fruits—the others are the blueberry and the Concord grape—that are entirely native to North American soil, according to the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers’ Association.

No matter what you eat on Thanksgiving; enjoy the time you have with family and friends.  That is truly what makes the Holiday special.  And remember to count your blessings, one-by-one, and you will appreciate all that makes this holiday and country special.

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“In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”

Mark Twain

Here is a BIG Salute to the most special Veteran I know; U.S. Air Force Sergeant Retired – Jack (my dad) Moore! A huge thank you for keeping it real and making sure we were safe all those years in this crazy world.

Tim Moore