I’m pulling for John Hodgman . . .

Get a Mac - Pep Rally

I’m starting to like this guy - and really dislike the apple guy.

Hmmm - TO’B

Fred does Fix You by Coldplay

Young@Heart sing ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay

A Vision of Students Today

Discovery Channel: I Love the World

Hat Tip to Mario Sunder at Linkedin

Injured, Injured Bad

This Kid has some sweet skills!

This has been out a while - but you gotta like it. Unusual - to say the least for healthcare advertising.

Good stuff

Land’s End

lands end

Originally uploaded by tombuckob2

One of my favorite Ireland photos.

Circuit City Part II

This story goes back to one of my favorite alltime posts about Circuit City firing 3,400 “overpaid” sales employees.  

 

Wattles Reignites A Proxy Battle Over Circuit City Management I don’t think CC management is going to survive this one.TO’B 

Hewitt wins Pinnacle Airlines

Delighted to see that my old company (RealLife HR) is proving of value to Hewitt. I think RealLife HR’s SAAS model and rapid implementation architecture will provide Hewitt with unmatched capability to provide superior service to mid-market employers (5k to 15k employees).

It gets really interesting when combined with some of Hewitt’s other capabilities (HighRoads and Hewitt Pharmacy Benefits).

Hewitt Strengthens Health Care Benefit Capabilities for Mid-Size Companies

TO’B

Smoked Turkey

OK, in the spirit of Word of Mouth, I am going to share my Thanksgiving Turkey secrets.

This year we had family in for Thanksgiving which made us responsible for dinner. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to try not one, but two new (to me) methods of cooking the turkeys. (This is a somewhat risky strategy because as you know the turkey is the linchpin of Thankgiving dinner - so I was more than a little nervous.

I grilled one bird on the Weber, and smoked the other on the Traeger.

Drumroll please . . . They came out great. We ate right on time - 4:00 PM and both birds were very well cooked. The smoked turkey on the Traeger took about 5.5 hours. The turkey on the Weber only took 2.75 hours.

I cooked both to an internal temperature (instant read thermometer) of 170 degrees and then took them off. Preparation was simple. Two 15 lb fresh organic turkeys (from the local food co-op) brought to room temperature and then dressed with a simple rub of olive oil, salt, pepper and finely chopped fresh sage, rosemary and thyme. I chopped up some apples, drenched them in the rub and put them in the cavities - just for flavor. (No stuffing.)

For cooking, I ran the Traeger on high for about 45 minutes and then turned it down to medium for about the next 4 hours. I then ran it on high for about 30 minutes to get up to 170 degrees. No turning, no basting, etc. On the Weber, I just followed their instructions from the website. Turkey in the middle with drip pan underneath. About 75 coals in two piles (on either side of the turkey) then add 8 briquettes per side per hour. That was it.

I was pretty surprised that they came out as well as they did - and will definitely do it again. They tasted great and there was no messy turkey pan to clean!

TO’B

SuccessFactors IPO??? I’m going short . . .

OK, I’m technically not working in this space any more - or else I might refrain from commenting on this, but looking over the SuccessFactors IPO (thanks Jason) just makes me cringe.

Gravity defying claims of success, shrinking client size, profligate management spending and serious questions about SF’s ability (and track record) to produce financial statements consistent with GAAP and compliant with SarBox really make me wonder.

SuccessFactors sv1

SuccessFactors numbers are just ugly. And not just in a “we’re growing really fast” kind of way. The faster they grow, the more money they lose. Right now, Their annual loss > annual revenue. Breakeven is not even contemplated.

And it isn’t just sales and service costs driving the loss, but G&A grows faster than revenue. In ‘06 and ‘07 SF opened offices in Denmark, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong, Korea, Italy, and Singapore. These offices (combined) managed to contribute managed to contribute 3.6% of sales. Spend, spend, spend.

No disclosure on revenue by segment - my guess is they are selling 2 of the 8 claimed suites - goal management and performance management and really struggling with the other 8. (Gotta love this quote from the sv1 on why they do not report segment information: The Company’s chief operating decision maker is its Chief Executive Officer, who reviews financial information presented on a consolidated basis

Customer size? Went from 1.3 MM users @ 400 customers (thanks to Joshua Greenbaum) to 2.0 MM users @ 1,300 customers. Average client size dropped from 3,250 users/client to 1,358 users/client. Or, if you assume the old clients stayed, the new clients averaged 778 users/client. This is a pretty radical turn in client size, and I can’t imagine SF can possibly support a global, high comp direct sales model selling to customers with only 778 users each. Just doesn’t make sense.

Not to mention the holy grail of HRO, which is profitable (well, for the rest of us) implementation and service delivery for clients with less than about 3,000 or so users. My experience is that more smaller customers is very hard to do profitably - and impossible with a direct sales model. I think Employease is the only company that has really been successful implementing HRO technologies for smaller clients profitably, but they did it with channels. (SF reports only 10% of revenue comes from channel partners.)

Then you look at financial controls - their auditors cite material weaknesses relating to revenue recognition, stock-based compensation, deferred commissions and accrued liabilities (2005) and similar material weaknesses for year ending 2006 - and I think it should be enough to put anyone off of this IPO.

Put me down for a short on this one if it ever comes out.

TO’B