For U.S. retailers, Halloween kicks off the end-of-year holiday spending spree (time to panic: it’s only 54 shopping days until Christmas). Even though Halloween didn’t become a commercial holiday until the early 1900’s, it is now the fifth most profitable holiday for US retailers behind Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. Various reports show…
On July 4 1776, the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. The declaration announced that the thirteen American colonies no longer considered themselves as part of the British Empire but rather a new nation of independent sovereign states — the United States of America. This in itself is well-known: however, here are some factoids…
Early in my management career, the HR department sent out a single-question survey which asked how satisfied we were with our jobs on a scale of 0 (very unsatisfied) to 4 (highly satisfied). To my surprise, my group had the lowest average score (2.6) in the company. The HR VP predicted a mass exodus and told…
This weekend’s Wall Street Journal contained an article by former Chrysler and General Motors executive Bob Lutz called “Life Lessons from a Car Guy.” Lutz believes that different kinds of organizations require different kinds of leaders. A loosely-connected conglomerate like General Electric requires a leader with vision and portfolio management skills; investing/divesting lines of business,…
For the last 10 years, U.S. News & World Report has published an annual ranking of the top American hospitals in 16 specialties and 20+ metro areas. In the 2010 survey, only 152 of the 4,852 hospitals evaluated performed well enough to rank in any specialty. Of those 152, fourteen of them were given ‘honor role’…
After hours of pre-game hype before Super Bowl 2011, I began to wonder “how super is the Super Bowl?” Compared to other sporting events’ championships, it has gained almost mythic proportions – today is known as “Super Bowl Sunday” and by some estimates trails only Thanksgiving as an American food holiday. I don’t hear that kind…
WordPress.com provides a wide variety of statistics that help you understand the health of your blog. Like most metrics, the WP statistics are one part useful and one part entertainment. To reinforce both of these attributes, earlier this month WP sent an email with their take on my blog. I’ve borrowed from their email but…
Lake Superior State University released its 36th annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness”. The list is based on more than 1,000 submissions on their Web site. The winners (losers?) include the Sarah Palin-coined word “refudiate” and the popular online terms “viral” and “fail.” LSSU’s complete list…
A year after blogging that Halloween metrics can be scary, there is some good news from the National Retail Federation. The NRF reports that American consumers will spend an average of $66.28 on Halloween in 2010, up from last year’s $56.31 and about the same as 2007 and 2008. Even though Halloween didn’t become a commercial…
After many years as a performance management enthusiast, I sometimes forget how much confusion there still is around the topic. Since I’m a big believer that standardized language helps reduce confusion, I’ve decided to summarize some of my deeply held beliefs on performance management: An objective describes what you want to accomplish. For example, ‘win…