Greenspan speaks of FUD and his new book

The Maestro Speaks - Portfolio.com -- Last year, just around now, Gloria and I had the pleasure of hearing Alan Greenspan, now dubbed "The Maestro," speak at our annual conference in Atlanta. He was gracious, urbane, entertaining, and had a huge hole in the sole of his shoe, best we could figure. We inferred that he was tight with a dollar, and felt good about his stewardship.

At the link is a recent account of another talk of his, speaking to markets, patterns, and FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). It's more sensational and alarmist than what we heard last year, and--and I'm not attempting to detract from his message--he's also coming out with a book next week.

Next week, the former Fed chairman will publish his first book since he handed the reins to Ben Bernanke in 2006. Called The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, it will chronicle his 19-year tenure as the nation's top economic policymaker.

the airplane and the ironing board: a fable

Gloria's asked me to frame a fable for you, something along the lines of David and Goliath, or the movie It's a Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart trumps the evil rich banker Mr. Potter, or perhaps even the story of the grasshopper and the ant, or the tortoise and the hare. It's about the airplane, and the ironing board.

The airplane buzzed regally above the town. It gazed upon the teeming masses below, at the ballpark and the fairgrounds, and knew they could not resist its sleek beauty, its shiny expensive wings, its irresistible message flouted by a trendy tail banner that told the people all it thought they ought to know, about the medicalmart. They didn't need to lift a finger; the airplane and the golden beings who hired it would take care of everything for them. Everything. From the cradle to the grave. And all they had to do was trust them, and forego the vote.

Down below, the little ironing board with the four petitions spread across it's single wing just pressed on; it let the people walk up to it, and touch it, and in a way it looked people in the eye and told them all they needed to know to make an intelligent decision for themselves. It spoke to the homely values of self-sufficiency and independence. It let people read the fine print, about the general fund, before they signed. It told them how difficult it was to get 46,000 good signatures in order to force a vote, and how easy it was not to vote, how easy it was to surrender and to sacrifice their birthright, for the promise of the shiny plane way up in the sky.

The moral of this story is most people look straight ahead when pressed, and have more sense than to be walking around gawking up at the clouds, especially when there might be pigeons present.

DAM: back from the future

Nead Brand Partners :: Nead in the News -- David Allen Moss (DAM) is now in the for-profit sector, which means the region will begin winning again for the first time in years. David has good instincts. Click through for a synopsis of the formation of the new team and a teaser as to their plans for the guy back from the FUTURE.

historic, art deco building available for third-wave business & owner

art deco historic Jednota office building for lease -- Our friend Dennis just let us know that he is ready to lease out his office building on East 55th at Broadway. This is an incredibly attractive property for someone who wants to live luxuriantly above his or her business -- Dennis and Georgia did for years with their medical electronics company. Now, they're in a renovated loft down the street. This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity in an unbelievable property. Near I-490, Broadway, Hyacinth Lofts, & I-77, and a short hop to two airports.

they're doin' it in Knoxville, too

Free Press : Is Tennessee Ready for AT&T to Enter Cable Market? Here's an intelligent piece from The Knoxville News Sentinel about AT&T trying to pull off the same full-court-press offensive in Tennessee that it is in Ohio, regarding delivery of cable services.

There are so few positives and so many negatives to the legislation that I cannot really see why it's still alive and kicking, unless the money's talking just too, too loud to our elected and appointed employees.

The AT$T cable-delivery behemoths we've seen--across from the car barns off Pearl Road and up and down poor Clifton Boulevard--seem to be especially vulnerable to all sorts of disruption. They're hastily contrived and cheaply installed. I think they ought to be put below grade, first of all, for security purposes, then second, for shielding, and then third, for appearance.

The nasty evidence we see of AT$T's late-stage attempt at entry into the cable market, when they're losing telephone market share to VOIP providers, is sort of sad. They've been outflanked and now are lumbering around trying to respond with the quickest-but-not-the-best maneuver to gain a toehold--the technology seems not to be too well thought through, the design is barely sustainable. They are desparate. They want to stay alive, they want to stay in the game, they want to do it on our backs. We've found these past few years, with VOIP telephone delivery, that they've overcharged us for years. They've taken our discretionary savings dollars to themselves and back to Wall Street.

We don't owe them anything. And they don't really owe us customers anything, either, besides whatever service we contract to pay for. Remember that their first duty is to the shareholders, not the customers. And they're not good neighbors.

The 100 Smartest Companies of 2007

The 100 Smartest Companies of 2007 -- there's an interesting methodology used in the valuations here, and it's along the lines of what we've been trying to get our heads around with this new "knowledge economy" of the Third Wave. Basically, it goes Market Value/Market Capitalization minus Financial Value/Shareholder Equity equals Knowledge Value, and this Knowledge Value, divided by the number of Employees, equals the Knowledge Value per Employee. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, realistic or whacked--what's interesting is that we're starting to talk about it.

The only name I notice here that has local ties is that of Developers Diversified Realty, at number 73/100.

You have a click-through on the eWeek article that requires registration with eWeek before you get the link to the Baseline rankings. If you have trouble, let me know and we'll see if we can do a work-around.

Cingular/AT&T Wireless and Sprint/Nextel are blocking FreeConferenceCall numbers

FreeConferenceCall Blog Site > Home ( DNN 4.3.6 ): Here's a revolting development of phone carriers throwing their weight around. We have used FreeConferenceCall for about two years now, and their services have multiplied exponentially in that time. This seems to be a case of the vestiges of the Second Wave trying to hold their ground and maintain their entrenched interests as the Third Wave proceeds to engulf them. Don't miss the video here that will make everything more understandable. In a defensive move, FreeConference call has started an email campaign and a blog:

Last week, some of our Cingular and Sprint customers began calling into customer service with issues surrounding their connections to our service. After speaking with Cingular’s customer service group, our customers were given numerous, and unfounded, reasons for the call blockage. Reasons cited included fraud, international forwarding, fee disputes and, to our astonishment, that we were blocking our own FreeConferenceCall numbers. We cannot corroborate or justify any of these reasons. FreeConferenceCall would never knowingly impede our customers from using our services. For now, we can tell you that a Cingular spokesperson has gone on record and stated that their terms of service gives them the right to block any number they wish and also said that AT&T’s wireless service is "between one person and another person, not between one person and many." Cingular and Sprint have chosen to block service to our shared customers regardless of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules and regulations. Neither carrier has ever directly complained, filed suit or even contacted FreeConferenceCall. The upshot is that carriers are basically telling you that a cell phone is not intended for use on conference calls of any type. As a total commitment to our customers, we have quickly ramped up to help them deal with this issue. If you are experiencing connectivity problems, please call us directly at 877-482-5838. We promise to give you unparalleled technical support and will treat every customer with immediate, personalized attention...
...Thanks to the grassroots efforts of our customers, partners and the blogosphere, the current phone blocking situation has quickly become a turbo-charged topic rife with controversy. On one hand, we have the telecom giants – in fairness to these companies, they have laid the infrastructure and given us the 5 9’s of phone reliability that we continue to leverage. On the other hand, you have those companies that disrupt and drive change in an antiquated industry that is 100 years old and in dire need of a face lift. However, it appears that larger forces are at work than simply a debate between two sides of the telecom fence. We are facing issues that will likely define how we handle our business, our customers and our communications in the future...