Come to Houston, if you can

There's a great job waiting for you here in Houston, if you can afford the move.

As houses linger on the market and prices continue to fall in many U.S. cities, some recruiters in Houston are wringing their hands.

[Carole] Hackett understands better than most because she moved last year from particularly hard-hit Cleveland. It took about six months to sell her house there.

"My intuition is that the housing market crisis in the United States is greatly affecting labor mobility," said Barton Smith, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston. "But we may not get a handle on that until the 2010 Census comes out."

One reason Smith suspects something is afoot is that word is getting out that Houston is a job creation machine, yet some openings are going begging.

"In this stage of the countercyclical economy, you would expect mass migration to Houston," said Smith. But the city hasn't been flooded by out-of-state license plates, and one explanation is negative equity -- people owe more on a house back home than it's worth so they're stuck unless they're willing to eat a big loss.

I don't know what you can do about that, beyond hoping the economy and the housing market get better soon. I can't say I've noticed any political pressure from unexpected sources on this, but I'm sure it'll build if it's not already. Any good anecdotes out there to add to this?

Times are tough if you work for tips

Yet another story in the Chron about the effect of the bad economy and higher prices on ordinary Americans.

Amid a tottering economy, rising inflation, increasing unemployment and a housing market meltdown, waiters, beauticians and pet groomers report that customers are growing tightfisted.

It is hard to determine just how much people are cutting back on tipping, but the stakes are huge.

The restaurant industry in the U.S. employs 13.1 million people, making it the nation's third-largest employer, behind the federal government and the health-care industry, according to the National Restaurant Association, a trade organization.

Many others work for carwashes, nail salons, taxi companies and in other jobs in which tips play a role in their wages.

The slowdown in tips is another blow for increasingly squeezed service workers who often don't have much of a cushion to fall back on when times get tough. Some restaurants have closed in recent months or have begun scaling back and laying off employees.

[...]

On a typical Saturday night, Brian Best once earned as much as $200 in tips as a server at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. at Universal CityWalk in Hollywood. Since the fall, Best's tip take has slid to about $120 on a weekend night.

"People just don't have the money. They will go out to eat, but won't tip as much," Best said.

He now receives 10 percent to 15 percent of what his customers spend at the eatery, down from 15 percent to 20 percent before the economy's nose dive.

"I am hanging out a lot less at clubs and bars. I don't have the money," Best said.

Remember the "Trickle-Down Effect"? It would seem to be at play here. I just hope we all can hold on till January 21, because we're not going to get any help before then.

The nurse's union

I missed this story from last week about the new nurses' union in town, but having been reminded of it, I thought it was worth pointing out.

It's only been a few days since the California Nurses Association won its first victory in Texas by organizing 275 registered nurses at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center Hospital, but it's already setting its sights on the future.

While the union's initial order of business is to move toward getting a contract for its newest members, it's also using the momentum to sign up other nurses who work for health care facilities in Houston and around Texas.

"It's simply big," said Ed Bruno, organizing coordinator for the union's National Nurses Organizing Committee in Tampa, Fla. "Texas warrants attention on its own."

And, he said, the union is finding that many nurses are interested in its message of improving nurse-patient ratios, adding whistle-blower protections and providing a voice at work.

The nationwide union that represents 80,000 registered nurses is relishing its win at the Tenet Healthcare-owned hospital. The victory also is sending some shock waves through the health care community.

Houston employment lawyer Michael Muskat, who represents companies in employment disputes, speculated that the California Nurses Association is likely eyeing other Tenet-owned hospitals in Houston.

Besides Cy-Fair, Tenet owns two others: Houston Northwest Medical Center and Park Plaza Hospital.

The campaign probably wasn't just centered on nurse-to-patient staffing ratios but had something to do with less-than-ideal communications between management and staff, said Muskat.

As Racy Mind puts it, "How many times before in the history of the labor movement has a union organizing effort been largely not about more money for the worker, but about working conditions and the safety of someone other than the worker?" I'm sure pay issues will come up as well, but that's a provocative thought. Best of luck to the CNA in its efforts to recruit more members, and for its future lobbying efforts on these same issues before the Lege in 2009.

Pizza dot com

I'm fascinated by this.

Fourteen years ago, Chris Clark shelled out 20 bucks to register the domain name "pizza.com." This afternoon, he sold it for $2.6 million.

"It's crazy, it's just crazy," he said somewhat giddily yesterday morning from his home in North Potomac. By then, a week's worth of anonymous bidding at an online auction site had pushed the price to today's high. The auction closed at 2 p.m. today.

"That amount of money is significant," said Clark, 43, who recently launched a software company. "It will make a significant difference in my life, for sure."

With more than 150 million domain names already listed with registry firms, coming up with unused -- and uncomplicated -- Web addresses is close to impossible. That's led to an active secondary sales market, where domain owners try reselling their Web names to big corporate spenders.

Most domains resell for about $2,000, domain traders say. But the premium names -- the generic ones that cover an entire industry and end in the all-important ".com" -- can draw millions.

Business.com sold for $7.5 million in 1999, and so did diamond.com seven years later, according to an industry trade magazine. In 2006, a Russian alcohol exporter bought vodka.com for $3 million, while sex.com sold for about $12 million in cash and stock. Last month, fund.com sold for $10 million.

The best generic names -- those like books.com (owned by Barnes & Noble) and pets.com (PetSmart) -- were snapped up long ago during the early 1990s, back when the World Wide Web was still relatively shiny and new.

Such names are popular because they naturally draw Web traffic. An Illinois T-shirt company, for example, recently paid $225,000 to buy tees.com after executives learned that the site was getting 17,000 hits a month -- mostly by people who typed in the address out of curiosity.

The idea of typing in a random domain name "out of curiosity", in this day and age of spyware and viruses, just boggles my mind. Way back in 1998, when I was putting together a little web page of information for people who'd be coming in from out of state to attend our wedding, I went looking for the URL of DoubleTree Hotels, with whom we'd reserved a block of rooms. While on a break at work, I entered www.doubletree.com in IE on my computer. That took me to a nasty hardcore porn site. This was back before corporate filtering was ubiquitous, so I got quite an eyeful; thankfully, this was also before the malware epidemic, so that was all I got. The lesson I learned, and it's one I strictly adhere to today, is to always use a search engine when I don't know the address offhand. It's served me very well.

(In case you're curious, by the way, the correct URL was www.doubletreehotels.com. I don't know if the other version is still a porn site, and I have no intention of trying to find out.)

The other thing that struck me: Seventeen thousand hits a month? That's maybe a third of my traffic. Is that really worth almost a quarter million bucks? Clearly, I need to rethink my no-advertising policy. Thanks to Kevin Drum for the link.

Paper, no plastic

Good for Whole Foods.

Natural and organic grocer Whole Foods Market announced [Tuesday] it will stop using disposable plastic grocery bags at supermarket checkouts and encourage reusable bags instead.

The decision affects all of the company's 270 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods said its goal is to be plastic bag-free by Earth Day on April 22.

"Central to Whole Foods Market's core values is caring for our communities and the environment, and this includes adopting wise environmental practices," said A.C. Gallo, co-president and chief operating officer for Whole Foods Market.

Cities and countries are increasingly restricting single-use plastic shopping bags because they don't break down in landfills and can clog waterways, endanger wildlife and litter roadsides, Gallo said.

He estimated that the move by Whole Foods will keep 100 million new plastic grocery bags out of the environment between Earth Day and the end of this year alone.

Before taking the step, Whole Foods tested doing away with disposable plastic bags in San Francisco, Toronto and Austin and saw positive customer response, Gallo said.

The grocery company will continue to offer 100-percent recycled paper grocery bags.

Every little bit helps, and this is more than a little bit. Between this and plastic bag recycling, I think grocery stores can make a big difference if they want to. May others follow Whole Foods' lead. John has more.

Wanna buy an armoire?

Are you in the market for an armoire? If so, you're in luck, as there's apparently quite a glut of the out there, thus allowing for some real deals. Swamplot has the scoop.

A suggestion for the Hannah Montana problem

The Wall Street Journal had a story on Friday about a lawsuit by Ticketmaster against a ticket scalper.

IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ticketmaster earlier this year filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against RMG Technologies Inc., a small Pittsburgh-based company that runs TicketBrokerTools.com. According to papers filed with the lawsuit, RMG rents to scalpers software that can inundate Ticketmaster's computers with thousands of requests for seats, "in effect allowing them to cut in line," according to Joe Freeman, a Ticketmaster vice president.

Last month, Ticketmaster filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that would prohibit RMG from selling such software; Judge Audrey B. Collins is expected to rule on the motion this month.

[...]

The Internet era has brought speed and convenience to all sorts of consumer transactions. For concertgoers, however, it has also led to ever-faster sellouts for hot events. Ticketmaster deploys technology that is supposed to stop brokers from gaining access to large numbers of seats via online sales. But it says brokers' software circumvents the company's protections.

That has placed large numbers of seats in the hands of brokers who use eBay Inc.'s StubHub, Craigslist and other online venues to resell the tickets at a big mark up.

One situation roiling consumers involves the 54-concert "Best of Both Worlds" tour in which singer-actress Miley Cyrus is performing sets as herself and as her fictional alter ego, Hannah Montana. Parents and children have found finding tickets for the shows difficult and expensive. The issue is drawing the attention of government officials. On Thursday -- in a rare Internet-age example of authorities enforcing antiscalping laws -- the attorneys general of Missouri and Arkansas filed lawsuits against people accused of illegally reselling Hannah Montana tickets.

According to StubHub, tickets for "Best of Both Worlds" are currently selling for an average $237, making them pricier than seats for the Police ($209), Justin Timberlake ($182) and Beyoncé ($212). The highest face value for a ticket on the Hannah Montana tour: $63.

Salon's Farhad Manjoo has a suggestion for how to deal with this:

There is a simple way Ticketmaster and entertainers could address this problem -- they could just raise prices. As Silicon Alley points out, if people are willing to pay $200 to watch Miley Cyrus, "Hannah Montana"'s 14-year-old star, why are her concert promoters selling tickets for just $60?

But that solution defeats the scalpers only by adopting their ways -- and the fans would still be stuck with expensive tickets. I propose a better way: Make people take a quiz to get tickets to their favorite acts. I'm serious.

Here's what I mean. When you select "Hannah Montana" on the Ticketmaster site, the system would ask you three or four multiple-choice questions about the show. Only if you get them right will it let you in to buy tickets. It's like a CAPTCHA, but instead of separating robots from humans, it separates true fans from scalpers and occasional enthusiasts.

Ticketmaster could draw its questions from a long list in order to keep the scalpers from learning all of them. To be sure, the scalpers might still find ways to get around the measure -- they could, for instance, hire a "Hannah Montana" expert. Still, it would trip them up, especially if Ticketmaster imposes the plan across all acts. Are the scalpers going to hire Bruce Springsteen expert, a Justin Timberlake expert, and a Genesis expert, too?

One commenter thinks Google and Wikipedia would defeat that scheme. I think the point is that a rotating set of questions would slow down the scalpers, which in turn would give more real customers a chance to buy. The auction idea proposed here has promise, but I think there's an easier way to go. Why not set prices on a sliding scale, where the first (say) 10% of tickets sold go at some multiple of "face value", the next 10% go for a smaller multiple, and on down to actual face value? This defeats the advantage for being first in line, which is what the scalpers use to leverage their market. And clearly, there are plenty of people willing to pay those prices for hot acts like Hannah Montana, so there shouldn't be any danger of those tickets going unsold; you can also build in a time factor for each price drop if need be. The main disadvantage to this is that people won't like it at first, but if it means greater availability, it'll eventually get accepted. At the very least, you'd think TicketMaster and the performers themselves would love the idea since the extra revenue would go to them instead of to third parties.

That's my suggestion, anyway. Feel free to tell me why it's as stupid or defeatable as all the other failed approaches have been so far.

The haunted house business

The Houston Press had a great story last year about the business of haunted houses in Houston. Now that the season is in full swing, the Chron has a similar piece.

If there's one thing that spooks Jim Fetterly, it's the cost associated with advertising Scream World, an attraction open only six weeks a year.

The three "haunted" buildings, maze and make-believe cemetery have drawn 30,000 customers a year since opening in 2001 off Beltway 8 in northwest Houston.

And though revenue totaled $618,000 last year, advertising costs ate up almost a fourth of that.

Fetterly said a challenge is that his competition outspends him on advertising.

Among the ideas of Terry Hemeyer, adjunct professor of management at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management: "First off, people need to look at where they're located. Your signage is an excellent form of advertising. So check that first and make sure you've maximized it."

Fetterly said he is considering signs.

"We're looking at getting a nice, lighted sign, but right now we're refinancing the business," he said. "It's definitely something we know we need to work on."

I wonder if any other industry spends that high a percentage of its revenue on advertising. With such a short season to make money, that's gotta be a pretty risky proposition.

This story sort of answers a question I had with the Press article: What do these guys do during the offseason?

"Once the season ends, we take off a few weeks, but come January we're in here tearing down the sets and thinking of new vignettes," Fetterly said. "We may keep 80 percent for the next year, or only 20 percent. It all depends on what's coming out in animatronics and what we think we'll need."

[...]

Fetterly said he spends between $30,000 and $40,000 on new props each year. The business owns about $250,000 in props and equipment, he said.

"We consider our props diversions. They make you look somewhere else, so then our actors can pop out," Fetterly said.

This year, ticket prices for Scream World rose $2, to $22 for the five attractions.

To offset the increase, Fetterly offers promotions such as Student ID Night and Family Night. He also rents his parking lot to a storage company during the off-season.

I guess that helps some. I just know that putting all my eggs into a six-week basket would scare me more than any animatronic prop or made-up actor.

The return of the DeLorean

I'll spare you all the tedious "Back to the Future" jokes and simply note that the DeLorean will be back in 2008, and what's more they'll be manufactured locally.

We sat down with James Espey, veep of the DeLorean Motor Company, one of a large corporate contingent in Detroit on Saturday for the Woodward Dream Cruise. They were there to cater to the large number of DeLorean enthusiasts in town to cruise their classic flux-capacitor-carrying time machines. The burning question we had was whether the AP story was correct in hinting that DMC would again be building DeLoreans. His response was absolutely clear:

"Job one will begin the third quarter of this year, with delivery by Q1 of 2008. We're aiming for $57,500 as the sale price."

And yes, we're also told it will look like a DeLorean -- square nose, gull-wings and all. This time, instead of attempting to mass produce the cars, the DeLorean folks will be building them by hand at their assembly plant in the li'l town of Humble, Texas. No word yet on issues regarding EPA testing or production numbers (we didn't think to ask), but the Detroit News is claiming it'll be one or two a month.

Pretty cool. There's pictures to ooh and aah over if you're excited by this. Link via Gizmodo and O-Dub.

Now here's a question, since I brought up the movie. If "Back to the Future" were a 2005 release instead of a 1985 release, what kind of car do you think Doc Brown would have put the time machine in to give it the requisite coolness factor? DeLoreans would have been in pretty short supply, so what would have stood in for them? Leave your substitutions in the comments.

A new Costco coming

This ought to be interesting.

Costco will open a new store in the Greenway Plaza area next year in a 24-acre retail and apartment development planned on Richmond at Weslayan.

Trammell Crow Co. said Thursday that the warehouse club operator and an LA Fitness health club will anchor the project, which will break ground this year on the former site of the Houston Independent School District administration building.

The retailers will be stacked, with Costco taking 164,000 square feet on the first floor and the fitness club occupying 45,000 square feet on the second level.

The two-story project, which will be called Greenway Commons, will have 256,700 square feet altogether, including two pad sites and another two-story building with 39,000 square feet.

Parking for Costco shoppers will be served by a surface lot and the first floor of a planned four-story garage. LA Fitness customers will park on the garage's top floor and on a portion of Costco's roof.

I wonder how much parking it will have compared to its more standard locations, like the one on I-10 and Bunker Hill. Is this kind of location a departure for them, or a variation that they've done before somewhere else?

One thing that intrigues me about this is that the new Costco will be potentially very close to a couple of Universities line light rail stations. For obvious reasons, one doesn't normally think of big box retailers catering to rail passengers. But you have to think that with thousands of people zipping by every day on the train, it would be in Costco's interest to try to entice some of them to hop off and come in for something. Convenience foods - good for lunch at your desk, or a quick and easy dinner at home - come to mind as a possibility, though I'm sure the folks at Costco can think of plenty more, if they care to. It'll be worth looking for, if the rail line does eventually go that way. Houstonist has more.

"He pulled a Mackey"

It almost makes me feel sorry for John Mackey to see people use his name to describe other CEOs acting as sock puppets. Not quite, but almost. Thanks to Tom for the link.

Mackey apologizes, but doesn't quite get it

In the "It was bound to happen sooner or later" department, renegade CEO blogger/sock puppet John Mackey has apologized for his actions. Sort of.

John Mackey, chief executive and co-founder of Whole Foods Market, apologised on Tuesday for anonymously posting comments about the natural and organic food retailer and its main rival on an internet message board.

"I sincerely apologise to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards," Mr Mackey said in a statement on the company's website. "I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me."

The statement came as the retailer confirmed that the Securities and Exchange Commission was conducting an inquiry into Mr Mackey's comments on a Yahoo message board, in which he discussed both Whole Foods and its smaller rival Wild Oats Markets.

[...]

Mr Mackey's tone was a change from his initial more defiant response, when he suggested that the FTC's lawyers had deliberately sought to embarrass him over the postings.

He also argued that he participated in the online forum "because I had fun doing it" and that the views expressed had never been meant to represent those of the company. He also said he had never revealed proprietary information on his company's operations that had not previously been made public.

The problem that I have with this is that he doesn't really acknowledge what it is he's apologizing for. It's not a completely vacant apology - he isn't blaming anybody else (the "I'm sorry if my words were misinterpreted" dodge) for what he did - but "error in judgment" covers an awfully wide range without admitting to anything specific. How can I know that his judgment has improved if I can't tell what he thinks he had judged incorrectly?

What I'm looking for is a simple admission that praising oneself and disparaging others while pretending to be somebody else - in short, being a sock puppet - is wrong. You'd think that would be a small enough thing, but obviously not everybody gets it. I'm not a Whole Foods stockholder, so John Mackey doesn't owe me anything, but if I were, I wouldn't be satisfied with this. It just feels to me like there's no assurance that he really understands what he did was wrong.

I may not hold stock in Whole Foods, but a fellow named James Stewart does, and though he's more generous to Mackey than I am, he too sees the problem with Mackey's apology.

I use the word "misbehave" with some deliberation. Mr. Mackey has staunchly defended his right to assume a fictitious identity and say whatever he wants in cyberspace. I'm not disputing that, and I'll leave it to regulators to decide if any laws were broken.

The evident thrill of assuming a false identity, online or otherwise, eludes me. But I'm not so naive as to pretend it isn't there. Think of all the literature in which masquerade balls figure prominently. No one suggests that dressing up, donning masks and assuming another identity is wrong. On the contrary, it's fun. The problem is when a false identity and the accompanying lack of accountability leads to unacceptable behavior, sometimes with tragic consequences.

With the advent of the Internet, assuming fictitious identities has become rampant and the online alter ego even has a warm and fuzzy name: sock puppet.

Still, the premise of Mr. Mackey's comments -- that he was a nonpaid fan of Whole Foods and critic of Wild Oats -- was false, even if the sentiments themselves were genuine. (They weren't, at least not all the time. Mr. Mackey has said he sometimes played "devil's advocate," saying things he didn't believe.) No one would have given his views much credence if he'd used his real name and title. More to the point, if he had used his real name, he most likely wouldn't have said these things.

No, he wouldn't have, and that's the problem with sock puppetry. It's creating the impression that there really does exist some unconnected third party who agrees with you and will stand up for you. It's "the lurkers support me in email" taken to the next dishonest step. It's astroturfing on a smaller, more personal scale. However you slice it, it's wrong, and it should be acknowledged by John Mackey as such. I really don't think that's so much to ask.

Sock puppets and the people who love them

I just can't get enough of this, can I? The NY Times writes about Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and his sock puppet tendencies. There's not a whole lot new, but I found this segment to be amusing:

In November, New Republic magazine suspended its culture critic Lee Siegel after it determined that he had been energetically defending himself in the discussion forums of his New Republic blog, under the name "sprezzatura" (Italian for "making the difficult look easy").

In an interview, Mr. Siegel said that it is only human to engage with critics, particularly in a medium like the Web that encourages self-expression. He still defends his actions, saying that he was having fun, playfully praising himself while combating some critics whom he saw as fierce and puerile. He thinks that much of the inflection of his online writing got lost on the computer screen.

"As for Mackey boosting his company and putting down his rivals, entrepreneurs will be entrepreneurs, and technology is an amplification of human nature, not a cure for it," Mr. Siegel said.

Looks like someone didn't learn his lesson while he was in time-out. I suppose it's good to know that there's a person out there the media can call on when they need a quote in defense of praising oneself while pretending to be somebody else. I'm not sure why they'd ever need such a quote - some things just don't deserve to be defended - but Siegel (and, no doubt, his alter ego) are standing by the phone just in case.

OK, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on Siegel. As Atrios notes, even sock puppets can have second acts. You can draw your own conclusions about that. Thanks to Dwight for the link.

Mackey draws SEC's attention

Apparently, a CEO posting information on message boards under a pseudonym that may affect the stock price of his company or that of a rival company that his firm hopes to acquire is something that regulators frown on. Who knew?

Recent revelations about the conduct of Whole Foods chief executive John Mackey on an Internet message board are raising a question once unthinkable: Has the founder of the organic food grocery damaged his ability to lead the company?

Antitrust expert Darren Bush, a University of Houston professor, said Mackey is now his "own worst enemy," and that his Internet message board comments under the name of "rahodeb" could undercut the proposed $565 million takeover of rival grocer Wild Oats Markets Inc."CEOs of public companies should not post on message boards, through aliases or otherwise," said John R. Fahy, a securities law expert with Whitaker Chalk of Fort Worth and a former SEC enforcement attorney. "Beyond the business concerns, there are a host of securities law issues" involving disclosure of information.

Yes, I believe I said that.

Late Friday, The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, said that the Securities and Exchange Commission has started an informal inquiry into Mackey's conduct, asking for more information to determine whether any laws were violated. Whole Foods spokeswoman Kate Lowery said the company had not been contacted by the SEC.

An inquiry would likely center on the timing of Mackey's financial comments on the message board, and whether they contradicted what the company previously said or were overly optimistic about the company's performance.

The full Mackey is here, in case you have way too much free time on your hands (as apparently Mackey himself did - more on that in a sec). I'm guessing the SEC (and the FTC, with whom Mackey has been battling over Whole Foods' proposed takeover of rival Wild Oats) will find plenty of grist for their mill.

This tidbit is rather astonishing to me:

Last week, the FTC filed a longer version of its initial complaint, accusing Mackey of trying to eliminate Wild Oats store by store and eventually deciding to buy the company.

In a footnote to the document, the FTC revealed that Mackey sometimes used the name rahodeb on Internet message boards. The information was provided to the FTC by Whole Foods as part of a request for documents relating to the proposed acquisition.

The documents, released Tuesday, led to revelations that Mackey spent eight years participating in the Yahoo finance message boards, posting more than a 1,300 comments over eight years, sometimes as many as 17 times a day.

Emphasis mine. Remember how when Internet access became the norm at workplaces there were so many handwringing articles about how much time employees were sure to be wasting online, and how companies needed to have stringent policies in place about misuse of corporate assets and whatnot? One wonders if anyone at Whole Foods ever bothered to monitor Mackey's Internet usage, because it sure seems to me that he was spending a hell of a lot of time as "rahodeb" when he should have been CEO-ing. (I'm not unique in making this observation.) How much trouble might have been avoided if someone at Whole Foods had told Mackey to quit screwing around and get back to work? They wouldn't have even had to know what he was doing, just that he was doing a lot of it.

Anyways. I suspect we're a long way from hearing the end of this. Virginia DeBolt has more.

When CEOs blog badly

Remember John Mackey of Whole Foods, the renegade CEO blogger? Turns out he's been a presence on the Internet for awhile, and some of it is coming back to bite him.

Whole Foods Market Chief Executive Officer John Mackey criticized Wild Oats Markets in anonymous messages on the Internet in the years before his company agreed to take over the smaller rival.

The comments were posted at online financial chat boards hosted by Yahoo under the user name "rahodeb" from 1999 to mid-2006, Mackey said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement.

One posting, from January 2005, questioned why anyone would buy shares of Wild Oats at their price then of about $8 each, The Wall Street Journal reported. "Would Whole Foods buy (Wild Oats)? Almost surely not at current prices," rahodeb wrote. "What would they gain? (Their) locations are too small."

Rahodeb said Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats' management "clearly doesn't know what it is doing." The company, he wrote, "has no value and no future."

Wild Oats "has lost their way and no longer has a sense of mission or even a well thought out theory of the business," rahodeb wrote in a post on Yahoo's Whole Foods message board dated March 28, 2006. "They are floundering around hoping to find a viable strategy that may stop their erosion."

Rahodeb, an anagram of Deborah, the name of Mackey's wife, even defended Mackey's haircut when another user poked fun at a photo in the annual report, the Journal reported. "I like Mackey's haircut," rahodeb said. "I think he looks cute!"

[...]

For an executive to use a pseudonym to praise his company and stock "isn't per se unlawful, but it's dicey," Harvey Pitt, a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, told The Wall Street Journal.

Told of the Mackey posts, "It's clear that he is trying to influence people's views and the stock price, and if anything is inaccurate or selectively disclosed he would indeed be violating the law.

"At a minimum, it's bizarre and ill-advised, even if it isn't illegal," Pitt told the Journal.

It's called being a sock puppet, and it's never pretty. I mean, look. It's still possible to be anonymous on the Internet, but the more you're out there making self-serving statements, especially ones that are harmful to others, the more likely that someone is going to be motivated enough to try and put a real name to whatever handle you're using. And if you're an insider of some kind, posting stuff that only an insider could know, I guarantee that someone will figure out who you are. It's really not that hard.

But honestly, someone in a position of prominence should never make public statements under any name other than his or her own. Either speak officially or listen to your lawyers and shut the hell up. All other ways eventually end in sorrow. As I'm sure John Mackey will now realize.

When CEOs blog

This is interesting.

The rest of the world got a glimpse into the personality of John Mackey, Whole Foods Market Inc.'s chief executive, last week and learned what Austin has known for a long time: He is anything but subtle.

In a blog posting on the Whole Foods Web site, the full force of Mackey's personality was laid bare as he attacked the Federal Trade Commission for trying to stop his company from buying rival Wild Oats Markets Inc.

For openers, Mackey accused the FTC of acting in "a biased, adversarial and arrogant manner" and of using "bullying" and "unethical" tactics.

Mackey, an outspoken, competitive Libertarian who despises government interference with business, is in the middle of a court battle with the FTC over the biggest purchase in his company's history.

At a July 31 federal court hearing, a judge will decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction to stall the merger while the lawsuit goes forward.

[...]

[M]any antitrust experts, Whole Foods shareholders and analysts are wondering whether Mackey has gone too far, possibly damaging his company's chance to buy Wild Oats.

His 14,000-word blog included a letter he sent to the Whole Foods board of directors outlining reasons to buy Wild Oats, including a comment that it would "forever" eliminate the threat of a rival supermarket chain buying Wild Oats to compete against Whole Foods, and attacks against the FTC, calling it "arrogant."

[...]

"I've been writing about business for over 20 years, and something like this is pretty unprecedented in my experience," said Sam Fromartz, the author of "Organic Inc." "Corporations generally don't sock it to the government."

Erik Kulick, a Pittsburgh-based attorney and self-described Whole Foods fan who has owned stock for five years, said he thought Mackey never should have been allowed to publicly post his comments.

Mackey "seems to be a good businessperson, but I think he went off the rail a little bit regarding this FTC hearing," Kulick said. "The repercussions are potentially serious."

Darren Bush, a University of Houston law school professor and antitrust expert, said the comments might not hurt Whole Foods' case because recent history has shown it is rare for a federal judge to challenge a proposed merger.

But it definitely won't help, he said.

If Mackey's comments conflict with statements he provides during depositions in the lawsuit, that will be damaging, Bush said. The FTC will pore over the blog with a "fine-tooth comb," he said.

"One does not want more ammunition pointed at you," Bush said. "Why don't you just hand them a gun and say, 'Take a few shots at me'?"

[...]

Mackey has promised more blogs in the coming weeks.

"His attorneys are drinking a lot of Maalox, or the natural foods equivalent," Fromartz joked. "Lawyers hate this. They just want to play by the game, by the rules, and he is not playing by the rules."

As we know, listening to one's attorney is frequently good advice. The blog post in question is here. We'll see if this turns out to be wise or stupid.

Jerk!

My first reaction upon reading this article about jerks in the workplace is how fortunate I've been in my professional life. I've never had a bad boss, going all the way back to my student days. There's not a one I can think of that I wouldn't work for again. Heck, I've never even had a problem with a grandboss or a great-grandboss. Yes, I know how lucky that makes me.

Reading through the Q&A with Workplace Jerk expert Robert Sutton, I was struck by the following:

Q: First, let's define who we're talking about. You define work jerks as people who pick on those beneath them and leave others feeling belittled and sapped of energy. What are some other signs?

A: To me, the main sign of someone who's a certified jerk is someone who leaves a trail of people feeling demeaned and de-energized. It tends to be more often associated with power dynamics -- they kiss-up to those above them and kick down those beneath them. About a third of the time, bullying is peer on peer.

Is it just me, or does that "main sign" describe a nontrivial number of people that one unfortunately tends to encounter in various Internet fora, including some blog comment threads (not this one, I hope). Call them what you will - jerks, bullies, trolls, and so on - but it's the same thing in a different venue. And the effect is just as enervating and poisonous. I've personally experienced the death of more than one mailing list due to this phenomenon. And the answer for that situation is the same as what Sutton proposes for the workplace: Having a powerful culture is very important, one where being a jerk brings consequences. Easier said than done, but a little work done up front to allow for a means of dishing out those consequences can go a long way.

So. Are you a jerk? Take the quiz and find out. More here and on Sutton's blog.

Wal-Mart versus the knitters

Fascinating article about the decision by Wal-Mart in Seguin to close its fabric department, and the outraged reaction that has drawn from the local sewing and knitting aficionados who have no other place nearby to go to get their supplies. I think this encapsulates the issue:

In places like Seguin, a South Texas town of about 25,000 and a shopping hub for surrounding communities, Wal-Mart is the only game in town for fabric, seam binding, dress patterns, lace and other sewing supplies.

Independent stores closed down when they couldn't compete with Wal-Mart, and if Wal-Mart follows suit, shoppers would be forced to drive 30 to 60 miles to San Antonio or other towns for sewing needs.

[...]

Critics say cutting fabric departments in urban areas might be good business, but in rural areas, sewing, quilting and knitting remain part of everyday life.

"For a lot of people, it's their hobby. It's what Wal-Mart is just taking away from them," said Ursula Alexander, a 15-year-old Seguin High School freshman who uses Wal-Mart supplies to design purses, sew curtains or help make theater costumes.

She's working on her own letter to Wal-Mart.

Many, like quilter Janet Welsch, believe, "If they've come in and run out the locals, they have a moral obligation to continue serving."

[...]

Some see a silver-lining in Wal-Mart's departure from the fabric biz.

"In an open market, if Wal-Mart exits, then somebody else ought to be able to come in and take care of it," said Mark Alpert, marketing professor at the University of Texas' McCombs School of Business.

"In a way, there's an irony here. The same people who criticize Wal-Mart for driving out small business are now saying, 'Darn it, now you've got to keep providing this stuff.' It's actually an opportunity for small business."

Strictly speaking it is, though of course it's never that easy. Whoever might want to start up a small fabric retail business to replace what Wal-Mart takes away (assuming they do in fact do this) will face startup costs that might be daunting. They'll have to advertise, they'll have to deal with suppliers who may not want to do business with a small fry, and they'll face the nontrivial risk of failure. Maybe there is someone willing to take this risk - if I had to bet, I'd put my money on one of the ringleaders of the protest movement - and maybe they'll be able to do it in time to prevent most of their potential market from finding acceptable alternatives, like the drive to San Antonio or the Internet, and maybe there isn't. Theoretically, Professor Alpert is correct, it should be an opportunity. In practice, maybe it is and maybe it isn't.

The reason Wal-Mart was able to put whatever little guys existed beforehand out of business is what makes this venture much riskier for anybody else. Wal-Mart can afford tiny margins because of their volume. They can also afford for a fabric department to be a relative dog, performance-wise, because it's an infinitesimal piece of their overall revenue stream. A fabric department may not even need to be profitable for them to justify its existence, if the folks who come there to shop for those items stick around to make other purchases as well. Needless to say, a small business doesn't have this kind of luxury.

None of this, of course, requires Wal-Mart to take any particular action. You can talk about "moral obligations", but if they think they'll maximize shareholder value by dumping fabrics, that's as far as that discussion will go. The fabric fans have done what they can to make their voices heard, and I hope that one way or another they get a positive resolution.

The TXU deal

Here's the deal.

The proposed $32 billion buyout of Dallas power giant TXU will halt construction of all but three planned Texas coal plants, cut power prices for North Texas customers by 10 percent and put the company on a more environmentally friendly footing.

In a conference call this morning, TXU's management outlined the planned takeover led by private equity investors Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group.

Shareholders will receive $69.25 per share for TXU from the group, which will then split the company into three divisions: one that will own and operate TXU's power delivery system, another to run the company's power plants, and a third business to sell power directly to residential and commercial customers.

The investor group will assume about $13 billion in debt.

A key component to the deal, which was approved by TXU's board of directors Sunday night, was the support of environmental groups that were putting up fierce opposition to the company's plans for 11 new coal plants.

The national group Environmental Defense agreed to settle its federal lawsuit against TXU regarding one of the new plants in exchange for an aggressive environmental pledge from KKR and Texas Pacific Group. The Natural Resources Defense Council also agreed to support the deal.

"To call this a watershed in the fight against climate change is accurate," said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. "In this case, where you have a Texas company agreeing to reduce its carbon levels from current levels back to 1990 levels tells us the utility sector sees we're moving into a carbon constrained world."

Sounds awfully good, but you know how that can go. Anything that has Tom Pauken and Glenn Smith both raising concerns (different ones, of course) is something that will require close monitoring. Sen. Troy Fraser, who as we know was not a big TXU fan, is also concerned.

I don't have much to say about this, so I'll link instead:

McBlogger is suspicious.

The Observer has some background, and Vince has some details.

RG Ratcliffe wonders if the deal means more nukes - he asked members of the Environmental Defense Fund about that and has a podcast of their responses.

Inside the Texas Capitol revisits his cap and trade pondering from last week.

And finally, the Burka/Kilday Hart tandem have these three posts that look at the deal from various angles.

Selling magazines

Have you ever had your door knocked by a kid selling magazine subscriptions as part of a contest? I have, and I'd never given it much thought beyond the vague guilt I felt for sending them away empty-handed. After reading this story on Angry Bear, what I feel now for them is pity. Read it for yourself and see why.

UPDATE: Much more from Easter Lemming.

Northcross moratorium broken

Last month, the developer that's building a controversial WalMart in Austin said it would suspend activity on the site for 60 days so it could gather more input from the neighborhood, presumably including the vocal opponents of their project. On Thursday those opponents alleged that the developer reneged on its promise.

Neighbors of Northcross Mall say the company that owns the mall, Lincoln Properties, has violated the spirit of an agreement reached by the company and the City of Austin. Members of Responsible Growth for Northcross say they believed the company had promised to stop all development activities associated with plans for a new Wal Mart at the mall for at least 60 days. Jason Meeker with the neighborhood group says they learned this week that there has been communication between the city's permits office and Lincloln Properties about the building permit for the site.

"Why is there development activity continuing? There were apparently some legal qualifiers that allowed for some activity to continue," said Meeker.

The document announcing the agreement on December 14th shows that Lincoln Properties actually did not pledge to stop all development activities. Instead, the company agreed not to apply for a structural demolition permit, and so far has apparently kept that pledge.

Nonetheless, Meeker says, the company has not lived up to its commitment to meet with neighbors to discuss the project. "We've had no contact, as a group, with Lincoln Properties," he said, noting that more than 20 days have passed since the December 14th notice. "Our hope was that this entire time frame would be used to gather input. We're talking about not just our organization, but thousands of residents around the Northcross development area."

The original Austin Business Journal story said the following:

In a letter to City Council Member Mike Martinez, Wal-Mart committed to a 60-day self-imposed moratorium on development of the site and filing permit applications with the city.

On its site, RG4N claims Austin City Council intended to hold Lincoln Properties to its pledge. I'd say there's been a communications breakdown somewhere along the line. I've got a press release from RG4N beneath the fold, so click on for more.

Press release from Responsible Growth for Northcross:

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 4, 2007 ‹ Lincoln Property Company is actively moving forward with its plans to build a 220,000 sq. ft. Wal-Mart Supercenter at Northcross Mall, despite making an agreement with the City of Austin on December 14, 2006 to suspend activities at the Wal-Mart site for 60 days.

Although the agreement was publicly announced by the City of Austin to have Lincoln stop development in order to gather input from neighborhood residents, Responsible Growth for Northcross has learned that the City and Lincoln Property Company have continued the building permit process.

A City Council statement on Dec. 14, 2006 states: "In an email to Council Member Leffingwell today, Lincoln ­ Northcross Ltd. has committed to a 60 day self-imposed suspension on the filing of the structural demolition permit with the City that would be necessary to move the project forward. The suspension will allow for greater input from neighborhood residents."

³On Dec. 19, 2006, Lincoln filed an update on its original building permit. On approximately Dec. 28, the City of Austin responded with comments to the permit application. The process is still underway despite commitments from Lincoln and the City Council that the project would be put on hold to allow for neighborhood concerns to be addressed,² says Hope Morrison, vice president of Responsible Growth for Northcross.

Responsible Growth for Northcross calls upon Lincoln Property Company to honor its commitment to the citizens of Austin to stop development for 60 days. Furthermore, Responsible Growth for Northcross asks Lincoln Property Company to publicly explain why it broke its word. Responsible Growth for Northcross also calls upon the City of Austin to reset the clock and require a true 60 days suspension of development activity.

Breaking the 60 day suspension pledge shows that Lincoln's so-called commitment to the City Council is nothing more than a charade intended to cool the political heat and divert public attention. In addition, continuing the development process before Austin city staff could even begin the negotiations between Lincoln and the representatives of the thousands of stakeholders in the neighborhoods is a slap in the face to the City Council, city staff, the citizens of Austin, and all the neighborhoods surrounding Northcross Mall. This shows Lincoln Property Company is not operating in good faith with the city or the public.

On Jan. 3, 2007, Austin city staff convened a meeting with Responsible Growth for Northcross and other representatives from neighborhoods surrounding Northcross Mall to begin the process of facilitating negotiations between neighborhood stakeholders and Lincoln Property Company.
Responsible Growth for Northcross publicly thanks the City of Austin for its attempt to foster negotiation, but asks for Lincoln Property Company to be held to its commitments immediately.

About Responsible Growth for Northcross: Responsible Growth for Northcross is a group of citizens from the Allandale, Brentwood, Crestview, North Shoal Creek, Rosedale and Wooten neighborhoods that are fighting to stop development of the 220,000 sq. ft. 24-Hour Wal-Mart Supercenter at Northcross Mall. Responsible Growth for Northcross is working to develop a mutually beneficial, growth-oriented solution for Northcross Mall that serves the character and needs of the surrounding neighborhoods while also ensuring a successful endeavor for Lincoln Property Company and all concerned.

A century of Blue Bell

Happy New Year, everybody! The arrival of 2007 brings with it the 100th anniversary of the Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham. It started out making butter, but has been known for its ice cream for decades. And their marketing of that ice cream is almost as famous.

Blue Bell's success, in part, has been built on selling itself as an old-timey, country company.

That marketing strategy took hold in 1969 when Blue Bell hired Houston advertising agent Lyle Metzdorf. Metzdorf, who died in 2002, used Washington County settings and local residents to represent the down-home nature of the company and its ice cream.

Here's a Chron story from 2003 on Metzdorf. His ads were definitely memorable. The tag line "We eat all we can, and we sell the rest" is brilliant.

From Jan. 1 to April 30, Blue Bell customers will get a chance to name their own flavors based on themes from states where the ice cream is sold. Blue Bell will then create flavors to fit each name, and winners will be honored at the Brenham headquarters.

Blue Bell already has developed a special flavor to mark 2007. Century Sundae is Homemade Vanilla ice cream with swirls of caramel, chocolate, whipped topping and maraschino cherries.

Ooh, that sounds good. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

The case for extended warranties

Recently, Kos wrote about what a bad deal extended warranties are for just about all products. I confess, when I was young and stupid, I bought a few extended warranties. Never used them, of course - I doubt I could have found the paperwork even if I'd had cause to make a claim, given the state of my housekeeping back in my bachelor days. I know better know, and if I didn't Tiffany would kick my butt if I ever tried to spend money in such a dumb fashion again.

As is so often the case, however, this rule has its exceptions. Dwight explains the circumstances that made an extended warranty one of the best purchasing decisions ever for him. Check it out.

New rules in Austin, but no effect on Northcross

Late last week, the Austin City Council approved new rules for big-box store development, but did not apply them to the Northcross Mall site.

The rules will require the city to notify more neighbors of proposed large stores and have a public review process for those projects.

[...]

More than 100 neighbors protested outside of City Hall midday Thursday, asking the council to void Lincoln's site plan for the mall, which the city approved in August.

Council members didn't do that Thursday, perhaps to avoid getting sued by the retail giant. Instead, a few council members applied public pressure, urging Lincoln to change its vision into a mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly project.

"If they want to be a good community partner and develop other properties in Austin, they should try to do a better project," Council Member Brewster McCracken said.

"This can be a win-win" if Lincoln listens to neighbors, Council Member Jennifer Kim said. "I hope Lincoln understands that the neighborhood has a right to self-determination."

McCracken said he wants to soon propose an hours-of-operation ordinance that could prevent Wal-Mart from operating its Northcross store 24 hours a day. He and other council members questioned traffic numbers Lincoln submitted to the city, saying actual traffic counts done at other Austin Wal-Marts were twice as big.

Wal-Mart and Lincoln said this week that they'll suspend their plans (and not apply for permits) for 60 days to gather neighbors' input.

[...]

Right now, big stores proposed for land already zoned for such retail don't go through a public review process. That's why the Northcross Wal-Mart never had a public airing.

The new rules will require a public hearing and a special permit, called a conditional-use permit, for any planned store bigger than 100,000 square feet.

Another change is that the city will have to notify neighborhood associations within a one-mile radius of any planned huge store, instead of the current rule advising those within 300 feet.

I think the new rules make more sense. It's a shame that they won't have any effect on the Northcross site, but at least it's a start.

More on the Council action and the neighborhood reaction is here and here. I have the following statement from Responsible Growth for Northcross:

Responsible Growth for Northcross (RG4N) is dismayed that the Austin City Council did not revoke or suspend Lincoln Property Company’s illegally approved site plan.

This inaction ignores the mounting evidence indicating that Lincoln may have grossly understated the traffic impact of the development, that the city was deficient in notification of citizens, and that the city had no authority to approve the site plan as an administrative site plan without a public hearing. Furthermore, the Council is disregarding the voices of more than 3,600 petitioners (and hundreds more that contacted the Council individually) demanding action.

We appreciate the Council's commitment to hold Lincoln Property Company to no action whatsoever on the Northcross project for 60 days. We also appreciate the Council's commitment to prohibit 24-hour operation at Northcross as is currently planned.

RG4N is prepared to aggressively pursue all necessary measures to save our neighborhoods and to provide a better vision for redevelopment at Northcross Mall. Our goal is a meaningful partnership with Lincoln Property Company to develop a new site plan that ensures quality of life in our neighborhoods.

If you're thinking that sounds like a lawsuit is looming in the future, you're right:

Who would the city rather get sued by - its citizens and neighborhood associations, or Wal-Mart? That's shaping up as the unpleasant choice for City Council in the heated battle over Lincoln Property Co.'s plans to bring a gargantuan Wal-Mart Supercenter to the site of Northcross Mall. The surrounding neighborhoods, collectively organized as Responsible Growth for Northcross (RG4N), have asked council to revoke the project's entire site plan; council members say they would love nothing better, as Lincoln Property's Seventies-style mall redevelopment scheme is wholly out of sync with the city's new-era urban planning efforts. But city managers and city legal seem terrified of getting slapped with a lawsuit by the billions-deep retail behemoth; they've sternly warned council that it has no legal grounds to revoke the site plan - approved Aug. 8 through an administrative process that allowed for no city input or public hearing.

[...]

Among those irritated by city management's public assertions that there's "nothing the city can do" is Council Member Brewster McCracken. "It's a very unfortunate attitude," he said. "It's not how we do it Downtown." McCracken has been particularly critical of Lincoln Property's scheme, which willfully ignores the progressive urban-planning intentions he shepherded in as city policy in May of 2005, officially adopted as the city's new Design Standards and Mixed-Use ordinance in August. "Just because something complies [with zoning code], that doesn't mean it's not a bad idea, from an infrastructure or urban-planning perspective," McCracken pointed out. Conveying a sense of civic betrayal, he noted that Wal-Mart agent Richard Suttle sat on the task force that crafted the new design standards - which he then turned around and helped his client to outrun.

[...]

McCracken pointed out a strange limit to the council's powers: they've been told they have no authority to revoke the site plan unless the city gets sued by someone over it. "It's unfortunate we have to force our constituents to sue us in order to act in their interests," he said with obvious frustration. "But unless we get sued, we don't have authority." As he sees it, doing what's safe from a legal perspective is different from doing what's right. "Part of our job is to provide leadership. If we see something going on that's wrong, the public rightfully expects us to do something about it."

There's always the chance that negotiations among all the interested parties can bring about a solution that everyone can live with. That's inevitably a better way to go than the courts, but it's easier said than done. Stay tuned.

Northcross Wal-Mart on hold, sort of

Shortly after I posted this about the proposed Wal-Mart at the Northcross Mall in Austin, I received this link in my email.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is suspending action on a proposed store at Northcross Mall for 60 days.

Embroiled in opposition among neighborhood residents, Austin city officials announced that Wal-Mart Stores will gather more input from neighborhood residents. Northcross Mall's new owner Lincoln Property Co. was to redevelop part of the mall as part of the project.

A coalition of concerned citizens called Responsible Growth for Northcross formed to oppose the project and has voiced its concern to city officials in recent weeks.

In a letter to City Council Member Mike Martinez, Wal-Mart committed to a 60-day self-imposed moratorium on development of the site and filing permit applications with the city.

Martinez and other members of the council praised the decision, calling it a first step toward working together with community stakeholders.

"The mayor and council members worked together on this deal, and I want the residents of those neighborhoods to know that we hear their concerns loud and clear," Martinez says.

That sounds good, but to be sure, I gave Hope Morrison a call to ask her about it. And thanks to her, now I also have the following statement regarding this action from the Responsible Growth for Norcross folks:

Responsible Growth for Northcross is glad that City Council members have tried to respond to our concerns. However, the Wal-Mart letter makes it clear that what is being proposed would have no effect on the Northcross Mall owner, Lincoln Property, which is responsible for the site plan. The supposed deal brokered by Council members in no way slows or stops progress on the Northcross Mall project, which is slated to begin on January 8.

Wal-Mart’s letter is a deliberate attempt to fool and manipulate the Council and the public, since Wal-Mart is not the property owner nor responsible for the site plan. Moreover, we have heard that Wal-Mart filed for a permit related to Northcross just today, despite the assurances in its letter that it would not undertake such action.

The City Council has the right and the duty to void the illegal site plan. Once the illegal site plan is voided, we will be glad to engage in a public development process with the city and Lincoln Property Company about the Northcross development.

Among other things, the site plan is illegal because it was approved by city staff administratively rather than going through a public hearing with the Zoning and Platting Commission (ZPC). Such a public hearing was required because the site plan includes a garden center which is not authorized under the current GR zoning. It would be up to the ZPC to decide whether a site plan was acceptable -- after public notice and a hearing.

We believe any action regarding the Northcross development should occur in a public context, not through private deal-making between the City and one of the tenants of the proposed development. RG4N calls upon the City to void the illegal site plan on Thursday during the public forum of the City Council meeting, and put all matters affecting this site into a very public process.

So there you have it. I'll look for new developments after tomorrow's Council meeting.

Wal-Mart brouhaha in Austin

I usually limit my neighborhood stuff to Houston, but my buddy (and occasional guest blogger) Matt asked me to post something about this story concerning a Wal-Mart planned for Northcross Mall, so here it is. And it's a pretty interesting story, too:

Lincoln Property Group wants to redevelop part of Northcross Mall into a 217,000-square-foot, 24-hour Wal-Mart. Residents from six neighborhoods have come together to oppose it.

The case coincides with proposed new rules that could forever change Austin's big-box debate. The rules, which the City Council will vote on later this month, would require a public hearing and a special permit for any proposed store bigger than 100,000 square feet. The city would also have to notify more residents than it currently does of planned big-box projects.

The rules could affect national chains such as Home Depot Inc., Costco Wholesale Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., whose stores average more than 100,000 square feet, according to the national retail research group the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. (An average supermarket is 44,000 square feet.)

"Our goal is not to ban big boxes," said Susan Moffat, a board member of Liveable City, an Austin nonprofit that has pushed for the rules. "We just want to make sure the stores are wisely placed and give the community a chance to assess their impact."

Critics say the rules would unfairly drag all big stores through the wringer that is Austin's public review process.

"If some people want to keep certain retailers out of Austin, for social reasons or other reasons, there are better ways to address that than through zoning," said Chris Ellis, a principal at Endeavor Real Estate Group.

Right now, plans for big-box stores on land already zoned for big stores don't go through a public review. City staff members approve or deny the plans privately and only notify neighbors within 300 feet of the project. Only rezoning requests require a public hearing. The proposed Northcross Wal-Mart, for example, never got a public airing because the land didn't need to be rezoned.

The 300-feet rule is outdated, Moffat said, because big-box projects market to regions, not neighborhoods, and their effects on things such as traffic and local businesses can extend well beyond a few blocks.

The new rules would require the city to notify all neighborhood associations within a one-mile radius of any big-box plan. The developer would also have to post a 4-by-8-foot sign on the land, listing contact information and describing the project.

Northcross Mall neighbors say that extra notification is needed; they learned about Wal-Mart's plan through the rumor mill.

"We feel like this has been sprung on us," said Hope Morrison of Responsible Growth for Northcross, the group of neighborhoods fighting the project. "It's in (the developer's) interest to work with us and gather our input up front, because they're going to depend on surrounding neighborhoods to shop at their store and make it profitable."

Big-box developers would also have to apply for a special permit, called a conditional-use permit, under the proposed rules. The permit, which is already required for projects such as some bars and car dealerships, requires a public hearing and approval from a city board.

"It allows for a public discussion about the costs and benefits of a project," said Chris Riley, a member of the planning commission, which recommended the new big-box rules in an 8-0 vote. "The community can make its expectations known, and a developer can show its willingness to meet neighborhood interests."

I think the neighborhood has a pretty good case for changing the city's rules on permits for situations like this. Certainly, the 300-foot rule strikes me as being too narrow, and there ought to be some public input on large development like this, especially when it's done in an established, densely populated area. It may well be that if the developer were to pay a little attention to the neighborhoods' concerns, they can address them in a fashion that will allow the project to go forward without further objections.

Here's a view of the area, which spells out one reason why the locals don't care for this project as it is currently defined. The neighborhood groups involved are banded together as Responsible Growth for Norcross, and they've got a rally planned for tomorrow (Thursday), December 14, to let Austin's mayor and city council know how they feel about this. The details for that are:

• Come at 12 noon to City Hall (map)


• Bring your yard sign or we have some for you


• Park in the FREE parking garage below City Hall


• Meet us outside in the plaza on the south side


• At 6:00 P.M. the council will discuss the Northcross issue.


• Register now at one of the City Hall kiosks to show support or to reserve a speaking spot.

They're on the agenda for Council tomorrow, so they'll at least get to speak. Here's their contact info if you want to get involved.

(Full disclosure: Hope Morrison, who's quoted in the story on behalf of Responsible Growth for Norcross, is an acquaintance of mine. She has also done a guest-blogging stint on this site. She did not contact me about this, however; only Matt did.)

Who's building your house?

When I was growing up in New York, the guy who owned the Syms men's clothing franchise was their main advertising pitchman. His catch phrase (which is still the company's motto, apparently) was that "An educated consumer is our best customer." Here in Texas, an educated consumer is exactly what the homebuilding industry does not want.

Used to be, diligent consumers would check out complaints against builders at the attorney general's office, look for major lawsuits at the courthouse, and investigate credentials.

But now that's getting harder to do because the Texas Attorney General's Office stopped processing all consumer complaints three years ago, and there are fewer homeowner lawsuits at the courthouse because of binding arbitration clauses in contracts.

And, a new state-mandated credential - a registration with the Texas Residential Construction Commission - doesn't carry as much weight as some consumers may think, consumer advocates say.

[...]

If the [Attorny General's] office thinks it can help consumers, it will, but if it deems another agency may be more helpful or that the consumer needs legal representation, it refers the complainant out.

So consumers investigating a builder may request all complaints filed with the attorney general's office and information on any actions taken against someone. But if the complaint was farmed out, it could be difficult to learn how the complaint was resolved or if it was justified.

Consumers should note that the attorney general's office keeps count of complaints going back several years, but physical records are kept for just two years.

Consumers also used to be told to go to the courthouse to check for any major lawsuits against a builder.

But, that's getting harder because most builders have mandatory arbitration clauses in their contracts, restraining homeowners from suing, said Janet Ahmad, a San Antonio-based consumer advocate who heads HomeOwners for Better Building.

There are few homeowner lawsuits because many builders, with the exception of KB, require binding arbitration, she said.

[...]

[T]rying to learn the outcome of an arbitration is difficult.

That's because arbitrations, by their nature, are secretive and their results tend to be sealed when they are filed with the court.

Plus, even though the Texas Residential Construction Commission allows companies and consumers to report arbitration awards to the agency within 30 days of filing it in court, the commission has received only eight filings in its three-year existence.

Ahmad said that may be because some cases take considerable time to resolve and some companies probably just do not want the information to be public.

And on and on. Remember that in order to be allowed to file a lawsuit against a builder, where the outcome is public record, you first have to go through the aforementioned TRCC, one of whose members is the right-hand man of zillionaire homebuilder Bob Perry. Hey, the game may be rigged, but it's the only game in town, you know?

Google and UTube

Everybody knows about the Google/YouTube merger. Did you know about the unintended consequences that had on YouTube's homophonic predecessor UTube?

[L]ike a lot of folks -- millions of them, in fact -- you might have accidentally gone to UTube.com, the site for the Ohio machine company (specializing in used tube mills, pipe mills and rollforming machines) that has suddenly vaulted ahead of Whirlpool to become the sixth most popular manufacturing site on the Web, according to Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation owner Ralph Girkins.

"We're not a Whirlpool or a G.M. We couldn't even keep the site up this week," said Girkins, who finally got the homepage of his 18-person company back online as of Friday morning (October 13) after major outages since the YouTube deal was announced. This unintentional traffic spike has been going on for awhile, but the billion-dollar buyout sent things through the roof (see "May We Suggest GooTube? Google Buys YouTube In $1.6 Billion Deal").

In August, the last month he kept count, Girkins said UTube got 68 million hits and by September the numbers were so far off the charts for his specialty site -- whose domain he has owned since the late 1980s, before the commercial World Wide Web even launched, he notes with pride -- that he stopped counting. "Before YouTube came around, the traffic was very low, but since they've been around we've just been trying to maintain it and this week it got impossible," he said.

Girkins said he'd consider selling the domain name and starting fresh, but so far no one from Google or YouTube has officially approached him with an offer, though plenty of calls have come in from third parties offering to take the domain off his hands for $1 million or more. "We'd consider selling it," he said, "But it would be a substantial amount. Definitely more than $1 million."

CNet reported there was an offering for his domain, sort of.

On Monday, Girkins told Reuters that an intermediary who said he was acting on behalf of YouTube had offered $1 million to buy the Internet address. Girkins said turned down the offer and was holding out for $2.5 million to $3 million.

A YouTube representative said it had not made an offer and had no plans to do so.

On Thursday, Girkins said he had received about 20 phone calls from people who offered to sell his site for him. He has not been in contact with Google or YouTube, he said.

I think somone may eventually buy him out. If there's that much misdirected traffic, it'd be in Google's interests to do so.

NPR's Marketplace has a chat with Girkins. At least he's up and running again. I hope his provider was able to cut him a break on the bandwidth charges.

(I can't believe Dwight didn't spot this one.)

Do you love your BlackBerry too much?

Via John comes this story of new frontiers in employer-employee relations.

Keeping employees on electronic leashes such as laptops, BlackBerries and other devices that keep them constantly connected to the office could soon lead to lawsuits by those who grow addicted to the technology, a U.S. academic warns.

In a follow-up to an earlier paper on employees' tech addictions, Gayle Porter, associate professor of management at the Rutgers University School of Business in Camden, N.J., has written a paper that states workers whose personal lives suffer as a result of tech addictions could turn their sights on their employers.

"These people that can't keep it within any reasonable parameters and have these problems in their lives, at some point may say: 'My life is not all that great. How did this happen? Who can I blame for this?' " Porter, who co-authored the study with two other academics, said in an interview last week. "And they're going to say, 'The company.' "

I like John's answer better. Be that as it may, all I can say is that this story gave me and my boss a good laugh.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry wireless device - jokingly dubbed the "CrackBerry" by some - is well known for what some describe as its addictive properties.

In most major North American and European cities, businesspeople can be seen gazing nose-down into their BlackBerry screens.

Porter says she isn't picking on RIM or the BlackBerry in particular, but notes that terms like "CrackBerry" show that "there is, however lightheartedly, some acknowledgment that many people have kind of gotten out of control with using these devices."

Next they'll tell me that the Internet can be addictive, too. Oh, wait...

Feeding the spammers

Dwight points to a story about the latest spam craze and asks the obvious question: "Who are the idiots that buy stocks touted to them in spammed email?"

Spam messages that tout stocks and shares can have real effects on the markets, a study suggests.

E-mails typically promote penny shares in the hope of convincing people to buy into a company to raise its price.

People who respond to the "pump and dump" scam can lose 8% of their investment in two days.

Conversely, the spammers who buy low-priced stock before sending the e-mails, typically see a return of between 4.9% and 6% when they sell.

The study recently published on the Social Science Research Network say their conclusions prove the hypothesis that spammers "buy low and spam high".

I really wish I better understood the mentality of people who fall for this sort of thing. The only way spam can be a profitable business model is if there's a pool of people who respond to them regularly. I hope some day to meet one of these people so I can ask them about their experience and maybe understand it all a little better.

Who's at work today?

So. Anybody else at work today?

With the July Fourth holiday falling on Tuesday this year, Monday will be an orphan workday for many people who can't take the day off.

Although other national holidays are usually moved to the nearest Monday, Independence Day is always observed on July 4. And while some companies are giving their employees an extra day off Monday, many other people who do have to work might not be as productive as usual.

Some may be a little out of sorts, knowing they're stuck on the job while friends or relatives are at backyard barbecues. But workplace experts say that it might not entirely be their fault that they're less productive - a lot of tasks require collaboration and many co-workers, customers and other business associates won't be there.

No one is projecting that Monday's lowered productivity will have an impact on the national economy. And one labor researcher says employers shouldn't worry that workers might decide to make it a habit of having lazy Mondays.

"By and far, the American work ethic and the productivity consciousness still leads the world, so the fact that we have a day that may not be as productive as every other Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, I think that that's not so daunting," said Paul Sanchez, a director of research at Mercer Human Resource Consulting.

A smart boss would have planned in advance and given as many workers as possible a day at the beach, according to Brendan Bannister, a business professor at Northeastern University. He said days like Monday are a chance for supervisors to give up a little productivity in return for a little good will. The day off means less burnout and can "engender feelings of loyalty and commitment," he said.

I'll be at work today, though I may leave early. I fully expect my office to be a dead zone. I've got a fair number of customers in Europe and Asia, where July 4 is just another date, so I'll want to make sure they're taken care of. After that, there probably won't be much to do.

What about you?

Where are they now - Ryan Pitylak

UPDATE: As this post is no longer accurate, and is apparently causing Ryan some harm, I have removed it.

Once again with a la carte cable

Once again, the concept of a la carte pricing for cable television is in the news (see here and here for background). Pretty much everything you need to know about the debate is in the following paragraphs.

In a preemptive move in this regard, Time Warner and other cable companies recently introduced a "family friendly" tier of 16 G-rated channels.

The tier contained no sports or movie networks, nor such offerings as History Channel or Cartoon Network, because there's no guarantee those channels won't cross the G-rated line. (Indeed, Cartoon Network offers adult programming during late-night hours.)

Cable companies also claim that they have made it possible for digital subscribers to set parental controls and have spent millions in advertising that capability. Still, fewer than 4 percent of their customers make use of it.

[Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin] Martin said he has "legitimate concerns" about the "family friendly" tiers that were offered. He has the backing of the Parents Television Council and other conservative groups.

"We believe the family tier is a product that's designed to fail," said Dan Isett, PTC's director of corporate and government affairs. "It does nothing to solve the problem, which is that families are not free to decide for themselves what constitutes a family tier."

Whether or not the Time-Warner family-friendly offering is designed to fail is irrelevant. From where I sit, it's highly unlikely that any such package would be successful. That's because whatever the TWCs of the world put in or left out, some vocal group would complain about it. Sports channels? They glorify gambling by showing all that poker. Cartoon channels? Three words: "Beavis and Butthead". Or "South Park". Or "Adult Swim". You get the picture. The History Channel? All Nazis, all the time. And on and on.

Which is a point in favor of the arguments put forward by the Parents Television Council. Let us make the choice, they say, and don't make us pay for anything we don't want.

Seems reasonable until you ask why cable providers are being forced by government intervention to modify their businesses in a way that they say will be unprofitable. Whatever happened to the free market? If the demand for family-friendly-only programming were truly there, what's to stop a Pat Robertson or a Rupert Murdoch from starting up a satellite company that would offer those services to PTCers? Why patronize Time Warner at all if they're not giving you what you want? If that's more damaging to their bottom line than the a la carte option that they're fighting, either they'll change their ways or a competitor will step in and take that market away from them. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

Of course, future technology - near future, mind you - may obviate all of this.

"I don't think it's necessary to push a la carte because in various ways it's going to happen as we see many more ways of distributing video," says Michael Rogers.

Rogers, former head of the Washington Post Company's new media division and currently a columnist on MSNBC.com, believes the proliferation of platforms - cell phones, iTunes and especially the Internet - has already made a la carte a nonissue.

But Time Warner's McMillan thinks the same issues will linger because of the cable industry's business structure.

"The next step is something called 'switch digital,' " he says of a plan that joins television and the Internet. "But even then I don't think we're going to be able to set aside the contracts we've got with all of our suppliers and say (to the consumer), 'You're going to be able to buy this a la carte.' You would have to renegotiate all those contracts.

"And if I own Speed Channel (an auto racing network), what do you think I'm going to ask for that programming on an a la carte basis versus a broadcast basis as part of a tier? They're going to ask for more money. The reason: They're going to be taking a bigger risk because that channel won't be grouped with other channels. (The smaller channels) believe, and I concur, this would hurt their ability to draw advertising."

It's just a matter of time before any content you want will be available for a price via Internet download. We're almost there already. Once that happens, who needs a cable or satellite plan at all? I rather think that this debate is going to fade away before it gets fully resolved.

And while all this may be bad news for niche channels under the current structure, who's to say they won't re-emerge as lower-cost online programmers? There's already some entertaining stuff out there. That old adage about closing doors and opening windows applies here. I'm not ready to weep for anyone just yet.

(For what it's worth, the brother-in-law of one of my best friends is a producer of that last site. Just in case anyone asks.)

Nine-eighty

I was fascinated by the following in this LM Sixel column about Mayor White encouraging local businesses to offer more flexible work schedules as a way of reducing traffic at peak hours.

Direct Energy Texas, for example, had to deal with the stigma attached to signing up for a "nine-80" shift (10 days of work crammed into nine workdays) or working from home.

Only 10 percent of the 220 employees who worked in what the company had identified as eligible jobs signed up for the program when it was launched, recalled Phil Tonge, Direct Energy's president.

"People were very worried," he said.

But Tonge knew employees wanted a compressed workweek or to telecommute because of their responses to a 2004 survey. They were frustrated with the time they spent in traffic getting to and from work, and with White's mobility campaign to Get Houston Moving, it was a perfect opportunity to put the two ideas together, he said.

So Tonge held a series of meetings to encourage employees to sign up. He emphasized it had his full support, and he put pressure on managers to sign on to the idea.

To make telecommuting easier, the company bought laptops for some workers and provided them for departments to share.

As a result, 65 percent of its eligible employees in Texas are participating, and the company is looking for ways to include more job classifications in its program.

I've been on a 9/80 schedule for about a decade now. I love it, and I've loved it from the get-go. Having that Friday off to get stuff done - heck, just having that extra day in the weekend every other week - is wonderful. I dread the idea of ever having to go back to a "normal" workweek. As such, I'm at a loss to understand why so many Direct Energy employees would have resisted this. Nine-eighty acceptance was darned near universal when we adopted it where I work.

Harold Reddish, president of S&B Infrastructure, wasn't thinking a lot about compressed workweeks last summer. But the head of the engineering company soon found himself pondering schedules based on four 10-hour days, among others, because its petrochemical business was booming.

"We needed a lot of people fast," Reddish said. "We had trouble finding them."

Many applicants wanted to work four 10-hour days and have Fridays off, he said. They also wanted to decide which hours to work between 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Don't know if they still do, but USAA had this schedule back when I was a summer employee in the late 80s. It too was great, though there were two hitches to their implementation of it. One, if the week contained a holiday, you had to work on Friday. I believe the only exception was Thanksgiving, but since I was there from May to August, I couldn't swear to it. Two, as an hourly employee they subtracted a half hour each day for lunch, so I only got paid for 38 hours each week. I was making $5 an hour, so I looked at it as trading $10 a week for a three-day weekend almost every week. Needless to say, that was a trade I was happy to make.

HSAs in the real world: Not well liked yet

Given the amount of feedback to Ellen's recent guest post on HSAs, I thought I'd link to this piece on how employer-offered HSAs are mostly being shunned by workers.

"It's got a lot of the right design features, but the HSA model creates some substantial barriers to companies embracing them in a meaningful way," said Gary Laugharn, regional client leader in Houston for Hewitt Associates.

Among the greatest drawbacks, he and others say, are workers' aversion to high-deductible health insurance policies, which by law must be coupled with the savings accounts.

Employers are "dabbling, they're all looking" at HSAs, he said. "But the jury is still out."

Brett Haugh, a principal at Houston-based Employee Benefit Solutions, noted that in a local employer survey conducted by the consulting firm last year, only eight of the 137 respondents said they were offering their workers health savings accounts.

In Houston, interest in HSAs is beginning to emerge, but is still very small, Haugh said. "Employees just don't gravitate toward HSA plans."

[...]

[S]ome say getting people to shop around for health care as they would for a television has a major problem: the lack of available, objective information about the cost and quality of health care providers, facilities and procedures.

"Until we have transparency in pricing, until a person knows, for example, what an appendectomy is going to cost at St. Luke's as opposed to Memorial Hermann, it is hard to promote consumerism," Haugh said.

Jim Wilhite, director of compensation and benefits at Baker Hughes, said the oil services giant began offering HSAs to employees for the first time this year, and that 70 of its 12,900 employees signed up.

But company officials didn't "push" the plan because of the lack of good information about health care for consumers.

"A lot of this depends on the medical community providing better information," Wilhite said. "We're not trying to drive people to this yet until we have better information to make available to our employees."

Yeah, well, good luck with that. Tiffany and I both have HSAs through work, which we use simply to supplement our existing low-deductible policies. Basically, we use that to pay for non-covered services like vision care and chiropractic visits with pre-tax dollars. I'm way too risk averse to go with an HSA/high-deductible plan. As long as I've got a viable alternative, that's a choice I won't make.

More support for a la carte cable pricing

A la carte pricing for cable channels, which I've blogged about before, just got another push.

Most cable TV subscribers would save money if allowed to pay for only the channels they want, a Federal Communications Commission study said Thursday, reversing the agency's earlier finding that consumers wouldn't benefit.

The analysis by FCC staff provides new support for consumer groups and conservatives pushing for a pick-and-choose pricing system to replace the bundled services offered by the cable industry. Cable companies fear that would diminish their wide distribution.

The study gives added ammunition to lawmakers and regulators who see "a la carte" as a way to clean up raunchy television by giving parents more control over the channels their children watch.

"I am pleased that the commission has concluded that 'a la carte' offering could reduce consumers' cable bills by as much as 13 percent," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who plans to introduce a bill next week to create and promote use of "a la carte."

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said if a la carte won't cost consumers more, "I will support an effort to take such an approach, subject to discussions with providers on the downside of such a process."

This is just a guess on my part, but I suspect that the pricing models that cable companies will present for a la carte will only make it a really good deal for people who want a small number of channels. Above a certain number, you'll be better off with a standard basic tier package. There's no real incentive for them to do otherwise, especially now that much of their marketing is geared towards getting you to buy a cable/Internet/phone sevice package.

I also think that most people will wind up preferring the simplicity of a bundled service. As I said before, it's not like there are no options to keep the kiddies from tuning into whatever shows or channels you find objectionable. If all you really object to is MTV, for example, what's going to be easier - enabling the parental lock for that channel, or ordering every other channel but MTV? Even just calling the cable company to say "Switch me from your basic package to an a la carte plan that includes all the channels I currently get except for MTV" will take more time and effort and will probably cost more money, too. Who wants that? I guess it's somewhat a question of how easy the cable companies make it to pick and choose the channels you want. What do you think the odds of that will be?

I could be wrong. Maybe this idea will put downward pressure on cable prices. Maybe the concept will bring enough new business to the AOLTimeWarners of the world to make it worth their while to come up with a really attractive price structure for a la carte usage. I doubt it, but I guess we'll see.

Snapper and Wal-Mart

Fascinating article about Snapper lawnmowers, and the reasons why they pulled their products from the shelves at Wal-Mart. Definitely worth the read. Link via RC3.