It Started Out Just Having Fun...

That's how my music career started out: The Black guy in the middle asked me to come sing with them for an Air Force competition on base. Frankly, I liked to dance back then and never really considered myself singing...I was seventeen then, 1962. This picture is taken at that competition on Mountain Home, AFB Idaho.

I don't remember the names, except one-the guy's name in the middle is A/2c Faulkner. It was really fun, which later changed my life for the better for the most part.

I add this picture here, because I am later asked to join a performing group in Boise, Idaho as a business. We do well and our sound catches on in Boise. It was a new R&B sound. That's me with the 1963 on my pant leg.

You start out with something you like doing and wham! It's a fun, engaging business.

Remember, take your vitamins, and really get enough sleep or you'll burn out and never get where you're supposed to go.

P.S. No band-no back up-just having fun harmonizing with our voices-I was asked to sing baritone then. I later was asked in HAIR to sing tenor.


Thanks,

Lyle K'ang

...when we were young

Filled with hope-we created and inspired. The road was long, winding and gave us what we came for!!

Left to right: Mark (lead guitar), Buddy Georgia (drummer), Brian Bodine (bass), & Lyle K'ang (vocals).

Lyle K'ang

China: Overtakes & Owns America

China is posed to overtake the American economy by being more American than America. Clearly, this is disguised as a friendly merger, but what lies at the heart is planning. The article I refer to, is the fact that China is buying American energy companies.

America plans out as far as 15 to 20 years. China plans 50 to 100 year strategic maneuvers. It is now exercising it's plan.

The article states that we Americans are worried about our supply of oil but it is not the American people that cry out, it is those monsters that need a growing supply chain to feed its appetite. Rightfully, we cry about the high stink'in prices. The Corporations are not American any more than China's gain is for its people (though reports show that human rights issues are changing for the positive).

Though these corporations have incorporated in the U.S., their interest lie with their lusting, greed-driven shareholders. Collectively, none of them give a damn about the America you and I care about. The drive to produce oil by drilling, mergers, providing services; including military-commandos-soldiers of fortunes to guard the oil interests while our own government spins a tale about how such-n-such is a bad dictator or some similar story, is getting very old. By now WE THE PEOPLE should have already seen the obvious.

All the pipelines that have already been built from up North-near the Russian border, through Afghanistan and more coming elsewhere, is a testament for greed.

So, why shouldn't China buy up any American MNC (doing global) business-this is the strategy, the vision, finally THE tactical move to control and own the World....Slow, methodical, & patient cultivation of American trust is planned by the China strategy.

We now have our own 'turn-coat' Senators saying Bush wants this and we should do it-blah, blah, blah. Guess what you ignorant political ideologs, you are now China's prisoners...and NOT a shot has been fired on either side----oh, I take that back; China downed our spy craft-gave it back to us in pieces.

Am I unpatriotic, a traitor; NO! Maybe more grounded or realistic, because people like me dare to proclaim the inevitable - that the Communist Nation might just be the winner?! Is business - any way you can get it or does it carry consequences about ethical imbalance?

You decide-How about that!


Lyle Kekahi K'ang, MBA/IM
http://silomanagement.com/

...What Is Really Obscene

This article is not placed here to show you the politicos, politics about the subject and title, but to show you, that as a business, there are obviously many major failed points to recall.

Senior Management has failed because they themselves are not in compliance, first, with Governance policy and their responsibilities to care about divisions which include its people and welfare.

Spending caps are obviously, 'over the top' and those perpetrators through audit, should be fined, sued, jailed, and fired. In this case, this business is totally out of compliance, operating against all governance policies, rules of engagement, monopoly/oligopoly creation, stealing, human trafficking, murder, and a thousand other international business violations.

If one were to step back for a moment...the business, vocally purports to be an organization led by a great CEO, and a higher guidance system. Upon closer examination, we find that this is not true because, those claims do not financially equate to a sound business base. It has a large global business ethics problem, and hence, the statement; "Surely no God could be obscene enough to create this." ...and now the business article.


What Is Really Obscene
Recently remarks by Sen. Durbin about torture at Guantanamo and by Rep. Conyers referring to the Downing Street Memos have both been called obscene. These subjects are minor in comparison to what is really obscene.

It is really obscene when the worldwide expenditures for armaments in 2004 exceeded $1 trillion. The United States spent almost half of that amount, or almost 3% of global GDP. This does not include over $200 billion the US spent to fight terrorism.

In Western Europe and South America military expenditures fell. They increased in South Asia, Northern Africa and North America.

In the pursuit of DWD's (Dream Weapons of Destruction) USA has a current commitment of over $1.5 trillion. The Pentagon opposes many of these programs. They are created or kept in place by the politicians and civilians in the DOD.

These are obscene in any realistic aspect of life. The Merchants of Death have gained control of the world. The largest supplier is the USA. We sell more destroying, killing material than the rest of the world combined. Our government supports this. It crosses the aisles to all political parties.
We elected them and keep them in office.

What Eisenhower warned about the rising power of the Military Industrial Establishment has become far greater than he ever envisioned. Constant warnings from concerned people all over the world have come to naught. When retiring as Chancellor of the Lincoln Academy, I sounded this tocsin. Afterwards Gen. Westmoreland was decorated.

What is obscene is when you consider the good such amounts could do for worldwide poverty, free trade, health, shelter, education, ecological solutions, population problems, infra structures-just to mention a few concerns. Not even thinking about the rest of the world we are constantly facing what a minority of politicians and lobbyists feel is needed in America. Surely there are better ways to spend out treasure.

I am not even mentioning the countless thousands killed or seriously wounded as a result of these expenditures.

Surely no God could be obscene enough to create this.

The above is taken from Michael's Butler blog site.

He is the author and his material is copyrighted.
Author: Michael Butler, Monday, June 20, 2005 (c) 2005, Michael Butler
Michael Butler's Blog

CRM

I choose this article as a good way to understand complexity:

Before Implementing CRM Software, Redesign Your Workflow--All of It!

Hey, remember the long-running "CRM theater" show that almost broke the all-time rerun record? The one where a company runs out and buys software, then decides to do CRM? What a tear-jerker.

Finally, we got sick of seeing it. So they rewrote the script. I'm sure you've seen the remake. Where the savvy company decides to "do CRM right," so executives reengineer their sales, marketing and customer service processes first, then buy the software? It was supposed to have a happy ending. But it fell flat. Ever wonder why they couldn't write a happy ending to that script?

Lots of companies were left wondering. But this second set of bad endings shouldn't have come as such a big surprise.

Here's the deal. CRM doesn't involve just marketing, sales and service. It involves the whole business. Yup. Manufacturing, procurement, logistics, warehousing, accounting, billing, even HR sometimes. CRM is an organization-wide belief that affects business process across all functions, not just in the front office. Heck, if all you change is front-office stuff, you become a poster company for Freud's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome. If the back office doesn't change, the customer experiences the same stuff, just with front office make-up applied. Trying to mask customer-insensitive operations by dressing up sales, marketing and customer service is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Hear the roar out there? Those are howls of protest from frustrated companies and consultants alike, who think CRM is already too complex, too expensive and too time consuming--without involving the back office. My CRM motto? "Go big or go home." If you're not going to do what CRM takes, why risk less time and money when you're likely to get nothing back?

Want an example of thinking big--and reaping big? Take Ed Phillips & Sons--a relatively small wine and spirits distributor in relatively rural Wisconsin. Several years ago, management took a step toward CRM software, then wisely retreated. Very forward-thinking for the time. Didn't see how adopting CRM software would provide any customer benefits. Hey, what's so great about recording in CRM software that this retailer or that ice-fishes? Everyone does up there. That's when I received a call.

Before long, we had validated strategies and were combing through business processes for the entire operation, back office and front office. Looking at front office and back office together revealed many ways to add value to customers--such as increasing order accuracy; having field sales know warehouse inventory levels; giving sales time to discuss and plan orders with retailers, instead of reserving every second available for writing up and submitting orders; clearing up billing problems on the spot; sharing information and visuals about upcoming deals and promotions; projecting needs based on historical shelf turns; and on and on.

Know what? Not one of these benefits could be delivered by reengineering front office business processes alone. Nor, for that matter, could they be delivered using front-office, CRM software alone.

What type of ending did this CRM episode have? A very, very happy one. Not only did the Phillips crew deliver more wine and spirits to retailers, but also it delivered more value.

Yes, the implementation was complex--and got a little messy. Thankfully, local consulting firm Wipfli did yeoman work in melding a new, Great Plains back office system that talks to a specially configured Siebel 6 system that's augmented by bar code scanners hooked to HP iPaqs, which run custom software that feeds orders to Siebel, which uploads orders to Great Plains at every store--with Great Plains updating Siebel clients overnight with accounting and shipping data. And there's no high-speed access in the field; 56K modems do the job just fine by day, while everyone high-speed syncs from home or office at night.

Simple, quick, easy and budget-priced? Hell no. Pretty complex, actually. But know what? Business is complex. And when you simplify business to keep CRM simple--and quick, easy and low-cost--you don't get the benefits. So why do it?
When you think about CRM, think, "Go big or go home."
___________________________________________
Author Dick Lee is founder and principal of High-Yield Methods, a Twin Cities-based consulting firm specializing in helping clients achieve customer-centricity through CRM and proper alignment of process and technology. Lee is the developer of the Visual Workflow approach to business process improvement. You may reach him at dlee@h-ym.com.

Divisive Divide Within The Company

…the continuance and inaction of higher management, not dealing with issues, volunteered up from experienced lower echelon managers, which are real issues, only creates a more divisive divide within the company, which actually strengthens a person or group needing reprimand.

It's POLITICS as usual...and in this case, there's more to it, than just politics.

Let us now turn disharmony, disgruntleness, feelings of 'what a junk company this is', from the other employees affected into real lost dollars, from employee dissatisfaction-production decreases, and a thousand other personal, and mental 'goings-on' in someone's head.

This doesn't take a genius, it equals=costs to the company.

This, when examined closer is a mathematical equation created by turning intangibles into a tangible figure-that again, management can 'chew their cud on', if and only if, they want to gain back the money they burn.

What are we trying to convey?

Willful neglect and reluctance to automate databases to processes, is an absurdity. There are many companies operating in the U.S. that feel that they don't have a problem with their local internet and how they process orders and deliver orders to customers and vendors.

These wonder-minds, will never know how they can actually save dollars. If only at least, they would go into this in stages. But, wishing and hoping, only frustrates.

...more foolishness

Scenario:

An individual (employee) time sheet.
20 minutes for a VP to look over time sheets?
20-25 minutes for the individual to make corrections...

COMPANY: COSTS TO DO BUSINESS-INCREASE
Why and how does a company get to this point?

Let's examine the process: No Where To Go-No Where To Hide.


Obvious Conclusions: What is it? A $1,000 dollar bill here plus other costs which mount up to the TOTAL dollar amount, wasted!
Just to throw it away because a lack of application software or knowledge, that it pays to use your IT Infrastructure to it's fullest?

Give me a hint, folks...why?
Why...Would companies run their businesses this way?

Drop me a line...or sign on and reply to this post.

P.S. By the way-this is a true story. In fact, every thing posted here on this blog, are from real case studies for your knowledge.

NEW WAYS-BEGETS DRAGGING FEET SYNDROME

It is absolutely true...

Astonishing as it sounds, there are those that continue to hold firm to old, dead processes: like burning money, while the other hand is trying to keep it.

You cannot show 'em, nor do they want to know. You cannot explain it, because they do not want to listen.

They are too busy trying to get more profits. Hell, what is fixed costs, anyway? Arn't they knowing enough to know that fixed costs can become variable costs, simply because we introduce a new and more efficient process. The secret, that it saves money through revamping, should be a no brainer, but unfortunately, it is a hard subject for others to wrap their brain around.

I am referring to low bidders and how they get jobs. Low bidders; nothing wrong with that-right?

The problem I see, from my point of view, is that, if you low bid, then profits are minimized and you (business owner), will have to rely on other avenues of accounts receivables to promote cash flows. Fine, if you got it-but remember, it is taking away from one process to fund another.

Would it not be better, to have both or all other processes efficient, thus, contributing to the whole?
If we can cut costs at every level, we not only improve our existance, but the business' cash flow, isn't that a theoretical dream we all want to share in, or is the practice common?

You tell me!

You tell me-what's wrong with that?!