Author Archives: Jon Lowder

They Just Couldn’t Pronounce Pfafftown

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Wal-Mart has decided not to build a supercenter on the corner of Reynolda Road and Shattalon Road here in the western part of Winston-Salem. 

I think it’s a good call for many reasons, not the least of which is that it would have made getting to my daughter’s soccer field an absolute nightmare on Saturdays.  I know that’s a very selfish reason, but that’s me.

Could it have also been that the suercenter would have been right down the street from Pfafftown, if not in Pfafftown itself, and the execs in Arkansas just couldn’t figure out how to pronounce it? Prize goes to the reader that can spell Pfafftown phonetically.

Small Town Living?

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When Celeste and I decided to move to Winston-Salem we felt that we were moving to "small town America." We liked the idea of escaping from the craziness of the DC area, yet still having the amenities we’re used to available to us, namely malls, movies and good schools.

But did we really move to small town America?  Actually no.  I just took a look at the ranking of US Metropolitan Areas from the 2000 Survey, and found that the Triad (W-S, Greensboro, High Point) is ranked 37th in the country by population (1,251,509).  Compared to the DC-Baltimore corridor, ranked 4th with 7,608,070 residents, we definitely downsized but you still can’t say we’re in a small town.  Perception really is everything!

Here’s another surprise: the NC Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) actually ranked behind the Triad at 41st place (1,187,941) and Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill only ranked three in front of the Triad at 34th place (1,499,293).  By 2010 the Triangle should pass the Triad since the growth rate for the Triangle from 1990-2000 was 39% compared to the Triad’s 19% growth.  Add to that all the lost jobs in the Triad from the furniture, textiles, and financial services industries and the Triad will probably fall a bit.

And here’s a fun one to end on: Salt Lake City-Ogden, UT was in 36th place (1,333,914) and they got to host the winter olympics a few years ago.  I say we go for the ’16 Summer Olympics, and put the velodrome in Lewisville.  I’ll even rent my guest room to the highest bidder!

People I Met in Chicago

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Okay, if you aren’t interested in business information, competitive intelligence, market research, etc. then I suggest you skip this post.  But if you are interested, read on.

My main responsibility at the SCIP conference in Chicago was working with the exhibitors and sponsors.  Since there were about 60 of them I didn’t get to talk to them all in-depth, but I did get to spend some time with many of them.  Here’s some of the more interesting (to me) services and products I came across:

Traction Software — These guys provide an "enterprise blog", which is essentially a blog on steroids. Jordan Frank is one of the "funner" guys to talk to in the business. 

auroraWDC – Partners (and brothers) Arik & Derek Johnson have a consultancy in Wisconsin and even better (for my purposes) a blog.  Arik’s also a SCIP Board Member, and did me a huge favor by moderating our CI Buyers Panel this year.

ZoomInfo – This firm provides a business person search engine. Just type in a person’s name and all of the relevant web-based info tied to that person comes up.  Great tool if you want to get some basic background on someone you are going to meet, or someone you’re doing a deal with.  Rest assured, however, that there isn’t anything personal about it.  Since it only pulls information from the public web it’s mostly bios, press releases, etc. They had the benefit of having two speakers mention their product, causing a flood of traffic to their booth, but Leah Kirlis, a product manager for the company seemed to handle all the attention without breaking too much of a sweat!

Alot of the big-boys in the industry were present too.  Here’s a quick list:

Thomson Scientific – Had the pleasure of speaking with Todd Cohen for a while and I was happy to learn some of the new developments for them.  Surprise: acquisitions!

Thomson Dialog – We just inked an annual marketing agreement with them, and they had a good presence at the conference.  Definitely a tool that any researcher would love to have.

Standard & Poors – Had a very interesting conversation with James Postell about the need for basic financial education in the business realm, especially with researchers, corporate librarians, etc.  Hopefully something fruitful will come out of it.

Finally, I can’t forget the guys at Proactive Worldwide.  They had the biggest presence at the conference.  Big booth, oxygen bar, water giveaway, two $500 raffles at the general session and an army of staffers on site.  Top it off with David Kalinowski receiving a Catalyst award and I think you could say they hit a home run.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.  Very impressive people from very impressive companies were at the SCIP conference.  I couldn’t list them all, but it was definitely a privilege getting to work with them.  Hopefully I’ll see them all, and many more next April in Orlando.

Sales Intelligence Summit with SCIP Members

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MemberpicMe and SCIP members Rob Sidrow (Microsoft, in the middle) and Rob Jeppsen (Primary Intelligence, right) at the Sales Intelligence Summit. 

Microsoft won the Sales Intelligence award, and Rob Sidrow gave a great presentation based on their case submission. 

I don’t know if copies of the various summit presentations are available, but if you’re interested in any of it let me know and I’ll check it out.  I think that any one of my four readers who are running their own business, or are in any way involved in sales should take a look at this stuff.

Rob Jeppsen was largely responsible for putting the summit together, so if you have any interest in incorporating competitive intelligence into your sales program then I suggest you contact him for more information.  I think he knows EVERYBODY in the business.

Progressive Libertarianism

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I’ve often struggled with my political identity.  I agree with some of the Democrats’ agenda and some of the Republicans’ agenda.  And there’s the fact that I harbor a severe distrust of all politicians, no matter what their stripe.  So if pressed I’d say I’m a cynical DemoPublican.

However, after reading this piece by Chris Nolan, I think I come closer to being a Progressive Libertarian than anything else.  Unfortunately that’s the kind of name that gets parties marginalized, or at least confused with a party in Mexico or Italy.

I’m Guilty of an -ism

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I haven’t been blogging much during the last week because I’ve been VERY busy working at my client’s annual conference in Chicago.  This post, and I’m sure many posts that will follow, is inspired by some observations and experiences I had last week. That’s what happens when you spend a week with literally hundreds of people who are smarter than you’ll ever be.

The opening keynoter for the conference was Bob Galvin, whose father started Motorola in 1928 and who took the company over in the late 50’s and grew it to the behemoth it is today.

Many of the folks involved in putting the conference together, myself included, were a little nervous about having Mr. Galvin as the opening keynoter.  The opening act is vital because he or she sets the tone for the conference.  The fact that Mr. Galvin is an octogenarian, and not a current business superstar, had us wondering if we’d made a wise choice.  Despite the fact that we’d all been reassured that he is actually a very good speaker, we were sure he’d get the conference off to a snoozing start. Of course not one of us is over 45!

None of us would categorize ourselves as ageists, or any -ist for that matter.  The fact is, however, that we were definitely biased by Mr. Galvin’s classification as an old man. 

Sure it took Mr. Galvin an inordinate amount of time to get to the podium, and maybe he wasn’t the most dynamic speaker in the world, but he was captivating. For 1 1/2 hours you could have heard a pin drop.  There were 800 or so people in that room and no one made a sound.  No one ran out to check their messages, no one’s cell phone went off, no one fell asleep.  It was as if we were in the town square listening to the sage advice of a village elder. 

Everything Mr. Galvin had to say was on topic, was well thought out, and most importantly was wise.  His body was stooped, his mannerisms were lethargic, but his mind was as sharp as a tack.

It was easily one of the most amazing business experiences I’ve had, and it was definitely a moment of personal discovery.  I’d never thought of myself as biased but I realize now that I had shown the most fundamental symptom of bias when I judged a man not by his achievements or his being, but by a classification.  Shame on me. Hopefully it is a lesson I’ll remember and not repeat.

Cherry Wine?

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I’m in Chicago on business and just finished watching UNC beat the Illini for the national championship.  On the news they interviewed Governor Blagojevich of Illinois, and he informed them that he had made a friendly wager with Governor Easley of North Carolina.

The bet?  Deep dish pizza and-some-drink-I-can’t-remember against barbeque (Lexington style I’m sure; not that inferior Eastern NC stuff) and cherry wine.  Cherry wine?  That sounds like ripple.  Surely the governor was refering to Cheerwine, the world’s greatest soda.

Oh, and I must remind everyone that Wake beat NC the only time they played this year. 

Tarheel Tavern

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Check out Tarheel Tavern #6. I contributed my post about my family’s amazing dinner last Monday, and there are some excellent posts from other North Carolina blogger.

For those of you not familiar with the "tavern" concept with blogs, it’s basically the blog practice of bringing together posts from bloggers with a commonality (like geography) and then posting them all on one blog, with links back to the original blogs.

Of all the posts on the Tavern, my Bush-hating friends and family will enjoy the piece, Comparative Wingnuttery, that compares Bush to Milosevic and concludes Bush is much worse.

For one soldier’s perspective in Iraq, read this post from USSoldier.  By the way this blog is one example of how the new world of communications is changing how we live our lives.  Basically this blog is like letters home in the old days, except it is instantaneous and has worldwide distribution.  It makes spinning the war a whole lot harder on the Pentagon, don’t you think?

The host of the Tavern rotates among members of the group, although you don’t have to host it to be included. If you’re interested you can see all of the available issues of the Tarheel Tavern here.