Get this. The APTA wants donations to help promote scholarships in the industry.
The American Public Transportation Foundation
Please “champion” the effort to ensure the future of our industry!
Dear Colleague:
We face a critical shortage of skilled and seasoned employees as thousands of workers from the “Baby boom” generation near retirement. We need to provide incentives to attract the best of the best of our emerging talent. Your 2009 Champion gift will help achieve that goal, which in turn will helpus plan for a healthy, vibrant workforce. As you know, The American Public Transportation Foundation provides scholarships for young professionals pursuing careers in public transportation. Your support will make our industry stand out from all the others. Our goal this month is to raise $5000.
….and yet when it comes to making our public transportation system stronger, they have been lacking in leadership. Industry leaders are no closer to improving the transportation system then they were years ago.
Here is a sampling of what I recommended to the industry at a keynote to APTA’s executives.
US public transportation needs four factors to achieve 10+ % ridership:
1. Universal payment system. (You should be able to use your card in NYC, San Francisco and Atlanta and your own community as a universal pass.) This little switch would enable users to keep only one card in their pocket and most likely try another service around the country.
2. Connectivity of community public transportation systems with other communities (County roads, bridges and infrastructures, link to the next infrastructure. The same is necessary in order to increase ridership. Currently the systems do not connect.) Currently you can’t travel from Seattle to San Diego or Atlanta to Boston without jumping to an Amtrak or another service. It’s like building a bridge only half way and then stopping in the middle of the gorge.
3. Singular transportation guides throughout the system. (There needs to be one universal travel guide so that like airline travel, no one needs to relearn how to use a system.) I know I personally dread trying to figure out the maps in each city. Airlines have one system and so should the public transportation sector.
4. Transportation authorities need to be established. (Today, road and mass transit are at odds over how to use funding. With a transit authority the objective of the organization is to serve the public transportation needs in the best manner possible.) Right now the road and highway industry is 10x more powerful than all the other services so when it comes to funding. They get 90% of the pie even if it’s not the best use of the money to move people in that region. 5. Lastly, the future of public transportation will never improve until the industry moves from viewing that there are two types of users to three. Currently there exists the lingo that there are people with CHOICE and those Without Choice. With choice means they can use alternative forms of transportation, however, if gas goes up $1 per gallon, they might move into the Without Choice category. Obviously these users have only one method to get to work, shopping, visiting the doctor, etc. The group I suggested the industry see in the future is the group with MEANS. These are the people who earn $1 million per year and use the NYC Metro to get to work in the morning. These are the people with political clout and financial capital who would insure that NYC never closes the metro system.
What this means to the industry is “density” must be defined differently. They may get 50 people on the train in a low-income neighborhood and 17 people from the high-income community. The difference is the high-income travelers will make sure that there is a system at all for two reasons. They will be aware of the product AND it’s self serving. Their kids use it every day. (For those that don’t know, the industry looks for density of population to determine service development.)
Courtesy of Vincent Callebaut Architecture in Paris are renditions of future living communities to be potentially built in Dubai. These “Lilypad” cities rise and fall with the tides. Interesting considering that experts estimate that water levels will sink coastal land.
The cities will be self sufficient, generate their own power from sun, water and wind while producing zero emissions. Each city will house 50,000 people, have gardens, walkways, and streets. Water will be caught in central lakes and then filtered.
Estimated completion date…..at least 90 years from now. If global warming does raise water levels we may see them sooner than we expect.
Here’s a great pictorial definition of Social Networking.
I post this because in it’s simplest form. This scenario works when everyone is somehow connected to someone. For example, a decision maker from a company called me asking that I present to 800 people. After some discussion, the two of us found that we had a connection to each other. The speaker who she hired last year is someone that I was working on a book with. What a coincidence.
On the flip side I have a problem with some of these social networking sites. They require work. I remember, not too long ago when I just had to keep track of my Facebook site. Now I have linkedin, ecademy, and more….it tires me to even write them all.
Each networking site offers the next best way to do business. Each one tries to make me open up my database to show connectivity. I have over 11,000 names in the database, and I bet, just like you, I don’t want to intrude on my friends and colleagues.
Besides, how many social networking sites are worth their time. Facebook connects me with a specific group of people and some social sites I’ve developed, such as a ning site for my NYU students (200+ members at this point).
Given that social networking is only a few years old, what will happen when we’ve accepted to be a part of twenty such networks? How can one manage all this and a have a life, too?
I personally believe that the entire model must change and will change for two reasons. One, there’s going to be an overkill point where too many social networks end up diluting the effectiveness of the entire group to a point where the time is not worth the effort. Second, people will start to be resentful of the endless solicitations: asking for input, to purchase services, to be connected. (I’ve not been able to turn off my FastPitchNetworking.com solicitations even though I don’t want to remove my name from the site….eventually I may have to.)
In the end, I like social networking in that the process links like-minded people with like-minded people. If you like doing needlepoint with one hand tied behind your back and only on Thursdays, great. There are others like you. Just remember, there’s only so much, in today’s technology, where being social is digital. Don’t forget to unplug and socialize with your friends down the street in person. Or, hop on a plane to visit one of your friends. Social networking is just a part of the “social” side that humans need.
In the post-internet boom, the world witnessed a transformation of working arrangements. Foreign employees of firms such as IBM were laid off only to find themselves returning back to their home counties to live once again. When business volume increased, employees who were still working knew that they had a friend who used to be in the business who now lived overseas. Given the cost of living difference, the past employee said, I’ll do the work in my home country and charge you a different rate. Due to the connective digital lines under the ocean, the work could be easily completed.
We’re now seeing a similar condition, only the employees who are either being asked to work from home or are being laid off live down the street. Just picture a similar scenario happening all over again, however slightly differently. Firms such as Nissan Motors are asking employees to work from home because their physical building is too costly to operate. With advancements in video, audio and virtual private networks, the same individual no longer will have a tangible office to return to. They are now part of the virtual workforce.
Those laid off will face a similar scenario to the post-internet boom. “Carol has been laid off and already knows our business. No need to re-hire her. Let’s see if she will do this job as a part-time, outsourced employee?” With the rise in unemployment rates and the likelihood that many people will be out of work for a long stretch of time, employees like Carol might jump at the chance to earn income once again, even as a part-timer home-based employee, forever changing working relationships and conditions.
The outsourced and virtual company is no more than a decade away. Add some holographic meeting space, and we’re going to see this type of dispersed work structure as more common, because of the recession…depression.
As the global recession spreads, so, too, will more decision makers move employees from physical offices into virtual work-at-home offices. The trend will mimic that of the post-internet boom in the early 2000′s.
A friend of mine sent this video to me. I thought is was both well done and interesting. I don’t believe everything the actor says, but many of the points he addresses are well said.
Watch the video with three thoughts in mind.
The /actor/presenter is in character making the entire point even stronger. Had he been wearing a suit or holding a beer what perceptions might you have had about the message? (When you’re presenting, are you this believable?)
The information delivered displays that the author has done some research or is aware of history.
The author does not only have beliefs but also offers solutions. It is this information that gets people thinking.
There is a call to action. One so simple that it’s hard to ignore yet most will not take action. This is the challenge all leaders have: to convert ideas to action. Sometimes asking for more will generate more activity than making a task so simple it will be ignored.
In many countries the will of the people is the reason that government acts out of fear of protest or accountability.
July 15, 2008
TODAY IN MANUFACTURING.NET “GM ANNOUNCES MAJOR SHAKEUP — Automaker will lay off salaried workers, cut truck production, suspend its dividend and borrow $2 billion to $3 billion to weather a severe downturn in the U.S. market.”
That was last year, and what I had to say about it then–see below – written July 2008–is even more relevant today.
To me, while Honda and Toyota appear to be selling cars, GM, Chrysler and Ford continually make announcements about restructuring, slow sales volume, economic challenges. In all these reports I fail to see anyone taking responsibility for being globally blind.
Or should I say American Blind. Blind to the truth that while the Detroit Three were ramping up large truck sales the rest of the world sees a much different picture. China and India with over 2+ billion people are on the verge of the transportation age where individuals could purchase cars as a middle class. Gas in all countries except the US, even prior to the rise in fuel costs, was significantly higher than the US. And while Americans were doing well, there should be a transition in the next decade to smaller vehicles just because those having children will be empty nesters along with a very large senior population. Mind you small is relative as American most likely will opt for a “larger” smaller vehicle.
All these signs, as powerful as they are to everyone today, should have been seen by those in management of the automakers.
Toyota saw the writing on the wall when they, over 10 years ago, committed to producing fuel efficient cars. Toyota, understood this as they announced one of the cheapest cars on the planet realizing that even though India and China are growing, the vast majority of the people who live on this planet still don’t own cars AND that the cars they will be able to afford will be smaller. TATA, an Indian firm, has been working on the introduction of a $2000 vehicle to target this market along with other developing markets.
Think Africa, think Malaysia, think Pakistan….
Even the poorest WORKING Americans earn more than 90% of the world’s population. I’ve heard numbers that if you earn over $20,000 US you are in the top 3% of the world so now picture car purchases in the near future.
The point to all this is that we’ve been a global world for a long time, not just in recent years. The ability to see beyond the four walls of the US should be on the minds of everyone who is Paid to Think™ in the US. Thinking about how in the near future, the inter-connectivity will exacerbate economic decisions. That those who still believe that by sticking one’s head in the ground or those who’s perceptions of others with different color skin and different beliefs are beneath themselves, so much so that their ignorance or lack of vision, will ultimately cause create bad decisions and eventually create other Big Threes.
There is a land of opportunity, just don’t be blind to the global possibilities.
My wife, Lorrie, just shared with me a story that I think is not only humorous but valuable.
When our sons shower, they leave the bathroom as if a hurricane’s ocean waves had hit the floor. Today, Lorrie asked both boys, “What happens in here when you guys take a shower that causes the floor to get so wet?”
“Well…I have to walk across the floor to get my towel, ” one replied.
She then pointed to a towel hook right next to the curtain and said, “That’s what this hook is for: to hang your towel when you’re showering.”
The other brother asks, “Why didn’t anyone tell us?”
Just imagine Lorrie’s thoughts as she hears this statement. There are TWO towel hooks near the shower, one on the left side and one on the right. Both are so close to the shower that you ASSUME one can’t miss them.
Although the function of the hooks were seemingly obvious to us, since we came up with the ideas and installed the hooks, they were “invisible” to our sons.
And there’s no difference in business. Just because you gave someone Microsoft Access, a CRM program or WORD, does it mean they know how to use the tool or even notice that the tool is available to them. If you conjecture that software programs are by nature more complicated, then think of the little things you’ve done to make the world easier, and they, too, are not used– such as the salt near the door, the form for recording a process. Just because you’ve built it does not mean they even know it exists.
So next time you see “water on the floor,” take the time to find out what’s happening before you pass judgment.
I hate to say it, but in a given day I see more bad things happen than good things. For example, a sheet metal manufacturer that received my call because of a referral, who definitely has the facilities to do the work, just told me that my order, which he’s had in his hands for 5 days, has not been written up or placed in the system yet.
“We’ve just been busy working on a backlog of business.”
DON”T TELL ME THIS!!!
This guy worked hard to get the business. He spent time on the phone reviewing the project, worked up a quote, then reworked the quote to meet specific metal-cutting needs, then didn’t put the order in.
He could have easily said, “We have your order and we have a two-week production schedule. Does that work for you?” Or, “Your order did not specify a date you needed the order; is there a date you required the product?”
Give me something that sounds like the order is in house. In the computer or not, I now feel like our order is taking second fiddle, and yet I have no rush for the order. One week, two or three is fine with me.
Given the lack of urgency he’s displayed about my business, I won’t refer other business to this vendor. I might tell two or three others about my experience and caution them about how their project won’t be completed in a timely manner.
I’ve said this many times. “Firms lose more business out their back door than their front door.”
And all this is solvable. Paper, email or verbal orders are input within 24 hours of processing with an email confirmation of the delivery date. If no date is specified, manufacturing scheduling software that takes into consideration time and materials as well as other projects in house AND profitability creates a manufacturing date.
Any costs associated with installing a new methodology could probably be paid for with an extra order or two from a happy customer or a referral from a happy customer…which I am not!
In the post-internet boom, the world witnessed a transformation of working arrangements. Foreign employees of firms such as IBM were laid off only to find themselves returning back to their home counties to live once again. When business volume increased, employees who were still working knew that they had a friend who used to be in the business who now lived overseas. Given the cost of living difference, the past employee said, I’ll do the work in my home country and charge you a different rate. Due to the connective digital lines under the ocean, the work could be easily completed.
To me, while Honda and Toyota appear to be selling cars, GM, Chrysler and Ford continually make announcements about restructuring, slow sales volume, economic challenges. In all these reports I fail to see anyone taking responsibility for being globally blind.
My wife, Lorrie, just shared with me a story that I think is not only humorous but valuable.