Dumb Commericals...

I don't understand how companies can come up with the dumbest commercials. The basic rule in commerical making should be "If you mention your competitor's name more than your own, your commercial may be dumb."

The latest culprit? Hardee's. I'm driving home today and a radio ad comes on when a guy starts talking about how his kid just recently said his first word. His son's first word was "mama" (the baby says this in the background). The guy says how this is really cool...you know, his kid saying "mama."

Then the guy says that the second word his son ever said was "McDonald's." And the little baby in the background says "McDonald's" in quite possibly one of the most priceless voices. I mean, I'm thinking "wow, this is a great Mickey Dee's commercial" because they got a 2-year-old to say McDonald's!

So then the guy on the commercial goes into tell this whole story how they are out driving the other day and the kid says his third word ever: "papa" and then starts saying "papa, mcdonalds, papa, mcdonalds." You can bet your last dollar that if I was driving down the any street in America, and my kid (I don't have any kids...) said "Papa, McDonald's" I would drive to the nearest McDonald's and give my kid his first french fry...because he would've earned it fair and square.

What does our radio man say? "No way, son, if you want McDonald's, ask your mama, cuz daddy's go to Hardee's."

First of all, what an asshole. Can't even take his kid to McDonald's. Second, thanks for proving my point about dumb commercials. You said Hardee's once, and McDonald's like 20 times... Okay, aside from the point that I do not patronize either of those eating establishments, Hardee's is so much further down on the list now. Just because of that dumb commercial.

Movie: Donnie Darko. Very interesting view of the whole space-time realm debate. If you liked Butterfly Effect, you'll like this.

A view of Carly Fiorina's leadership

Slashdot today has a post of a TechnologyReview.com column by a former HP Labs employee. Michelle Delio made several interesting points about Ms. Fiorina's leadership (which are obviously hearsay).

I enjoyed her views on the importance of innovation at a company. The author's most interesting comment was how in the previous decade, innovation and invention is what drove the industry, and these days, coming out with fancy new colors is considered innovation. Is this a direct comment on iPod? Hmm...

Well, reading about all this mess really enforces my ultimate goal of wanting to be a CEO or Chief Technology Officer at a Fortune 500 company. And no, it's not entirely because of Carly's $45 million+ (total value) severance package. I think at $20 a share, HP is a good buy right now. They've struck bottom, haven't they?

What a big Whirl

I attended a performance of the Whirling Dervishes of Rumi last night. The Sufi music and the Turkish poetry was amazing. Even though I didn't understand any of it, it really was cool to see the reciter so enchanted with what he was saying.

The whirlers on the other hand...I didn't quite get that. About eight people with traditional clothing literally whirl around. Then they bow. Then whirl around some more. They bow again, then whirl around again. I mean, it wasn't really that exciting. And I probably should've eaten dinner before, because I expected the whole thing to last a little more than an hour, but the entire presentation was three hours.

All in all, the music and the poetry gets a 7.5 out of 10. The whirling? It may be culturally faux pas to say this, but I'll be generous because they did fly all the way from Turkey: 1.5 out of 10.

One of the most alarming things of the night was the door prize giveaway. The grand prize was an all expense trip to Turkey. The official rules? You had to fill out a form, and you couldn't be Turkish. So how do they determine your "Turkishness"? Your name. That's right ladies and gentlemen, some guy who pulls a sheet out of the hat, looks and sees if the name "looks" Turkish. Does that seem unfair to anyone else?

The Age of Wal-Mart

I saw the MSNBC special titled "The Age of Wal-Mart" the other night. It was an absolutely insightful look at how the company started and how it has changed so much after Sam Walton's death. Out of the two-hour special, they devoted a full 14.23 minutes to the negatives of Wal-Mart.

I was most amazed by the growth plans Wal-Mart has for China. There are about 4,000 Wal-Marts in the US, and the possibility exists to have that many in China as well.

Their computing systems are absolutely amazing. Their main computer system tracks every single item that is sold in every single Wal-Mart around the clock in near real-time. This helps them make random projections like "people buy more strawberry Pop Tarts in stormy weather." So there's a big storm coming your way, eh? You can bet that your local Wal-Mart just stocked the shelves with an extra supply of strawberry Pop Tarts. Their network of computers is the second largest in the world (the Pentagon has the biggest).

One interesting story about Sam Walton was once he was flying to a certain location, and they flew over a Wal-Mart. He noticed that the parking lot was empty, so he landed the plane and drove over to the store to ask why the parking lot was empty. The manager comforted him by telling him about an event going on at the local school. Sam replied, "I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't something wrong in the way we were doing things."

Say what you will about Wal-Mart, but that is one business plan that going to make hundreds of billions of dollars more before it starts slowing. (And that's just because they all hit a speed bump eventually).