Applying the Internet to Buying Real Estate

Usually, when buying a home, you usually look around yourself, or go to a real estate agent.

A Texas-based real estate agency, AlCan Realty Partners, LLC., has created a website for Dallas Real Estate, called homebuyer-rebate.com, that gives buyers a third option.

This option is for resourceful buyers who are willing to do the legwork on their own. If the buyer searches the MLS listings online (thru their website or realtor.com), and/or finds properties by driving around, the buyer can then come to the real estate company with a final list of properties.

The agency will then provide the full realtor service from making the offer thru closing. At closing, the realtor will credit you with half their commission (typically 1.5%), which you can then use towards closing costs.

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Be The Perfect Boss

Dynamics of Software Development by Jim McCarthy and Michele McCarthy  Microsoft Press

#55: Be the perfect boss.

What is a perfect boss,^[1] and what do you do if you want to be one?

A perfect boss doesn’t take care of those who work for him. He is much more effective than that. Some bosses act on the impulse to play the parent to subordinates. They cannot resist the temptation to respond to childishness with “parentness.” When the perfect boss encounters immature behaviors among his subordinates—behavior that simply begs for a parent’s touch from his boss’s hand—he just will not give in. He understands a simple, sad truth: a parent’s touch will forever stay missing if it was missing when it was originally needed. A boss’s touch won’t help. So, wisely, he declines to provide that which will never satisfy.

Instead, he pretends that only the adults come to work. He views his relationship with his subordinates as one of respect, and as one of businessperson to businessperson. Securing the services on which he depends is far too important to be left to the needs of the unsatisfied children lurking within his staff. He must discharge his responsibilities after all, and it is this that ultimately provides the livelihood of all the team. To do this most effectively, he has found it best not to reward the immature aspects of our nature with attention of any kind. He acts as if the dark aspects of the children within us don’t even work for him.

What he does do is conduct business. The perfect boss treats those who work for him as if they were his most important suppliers. Which, of course, they are. Their supply of services is his biggest personal dependency. In addition to the timely pay for acceptable services he offers, he imposes a few additional conditions on you, if you are one of his subordinates:

• What actions you take, you believe in.
• What commitments you make, you keep.
• What resources you have, you use.
• What words you say, you believe to be true.
• What you create, you intend to be great.

He occasionally gives you written assignments. These are your purchase orders, really. A good thing. And, if asked, he helps your team secure resources. He also seeks accurate status from you frequently and efficiently, and he stays out of your team’s content. He knows that if he buys something from experts, he is wise to let them deliver it on their own. That way, it will be to the experts’ standards.

He requires that the team credibly believe itself to be doing something great and also insists that all involved relentlessly pursue—and always adopt—what they think is the best available idea.

He requires that his team members accept their assignments explicitly, believing them to be the best possible assignments. Of course, they have the chance to improve the assignments, if possible, in collaboration with him before they accept.

The perfect boss always refuses to serve as a parent or judge among immature subordinates in conflict. He also knows that no good ever came of listening to one person complain about another who is not in the room, so he won’t allow that.

He never allows people to say, “People say…” If unidentified “people” have something to say, they can come say it. He doesn’t believe in the self-appointed representation of selves not one’s own. And if people think they ought to report to him what “people think…” they will be dismissed out of hand for not thinking.

The perfect boss pays vastly more attention to insuring the productivity, managing the satisfaction, and tending to the well-being of those subordinates who get the best results than he does to those who are dramatically inclined, results-poor, and/or costly to employ. He pays the most attention to those who behave the best. That last sentence is worth saying twice: He pays the most attention to those who behave the best.

The perfect boss is compassionate and wise. One sure sign that this is so is that, one way or another, people who are mostly pained about their job (and this is especially true of any whose pain spills over onto others) will not suffer long in his domain.

When review time comes, the perfect boss assesses his satisfaction with your work. Then he summarizes it with an unambiguous grade. Plus, he says what you did to earn that grade and tells you precisely what you would have to do additionally to gain the maximum grade. He adjusts your pay, states any new requirements regarding your future results, and does both directly in relation to the grade he has decided on for you.

The good thing about this process is it is perfectly subjective and fair. Since your boss as an individual is clearly your most important customer, fairness and your desire for truth ultimately require his naked, subjective judgment.

And, of course, the one task that the perfect boss never overlooks is to regularly and without interruption arrange that the agreed sums of money be paid to you for the services you choose to render him.

And that is all the perfect boss does.

^[1]I’m using the masculine pronoun in this part of the book for notational convenience. No preference for the masculine is intended; in fact, if “he” were a “she,” perfection might well be nearer at hand. Were it not for the grammatical difficulty of repetitively stating “he or she,” and/or the excessive emphasis of the unadorned “she,” the text would be written differently and this footnote would be unnecessary.

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Enjoy Marketing!

A professor at IIM was explaining marketing concepts:

1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" - That's Direct Marketing.

2. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl.
One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says: "He's very rich.Marry him." -That's Advertising.

3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her
telephone number. The next day, you call and say: "Hi, I'm very rich.
Marry me." - That's Telemarketing.

4. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink, you open the door (of the car)for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her ride and then say:"By the way, I'm rich. Will you marry me?" - That's Public Relations.

5. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and
says:"You are very rich! Can you marry ! me?" - That's Brand Recognition.
6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" She gives you a nice hard slap on your face.-That's Customer Feedback.

7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" And she introduces you to her husband. - That's demand and supply gap.

8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say anything, another person come and tell her: "I'm rich. Will you marry me?" and she goes with him - That's competition eating into your market share.

9. You see and gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say: "I'm rich Marry me!" your wife arrives. - That's restriction for entering new markets.

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Judge Says Burrito Is Not A Sandwich

Here is an interesting example of the law and business - a judge had to decide if a burrito could legally be considered a sandwich - for the purposes of a contract.

It turns out that Panera Bread Company had one of its restaurants in the White City Shopping Center, in Shrewsbury, Mass.  Panera's lease contains a clause that prevents the shopping center from renting space to another sandwich shop.

When a Qdoba Mexican Grill wanted to open, Panera tried to stop them by invoking the clause.

Panera argued that a flour tortilla is bread, and anything with bread and filling is a sandwich.

Qdoba (owned by Jack in the Box) called food experts to testify that a burrito is not a sandwich.

Finally, the judge, citing Webster's Dictionary, a chef, and former high-ranking federal agriculture official, ruled that Qdoba's offerings are not sandwiches.

He ruled that a sandwich is two slices of bread - not something made from one tortilla.

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Venture Capital Fundraising in 2006

It looks like venture capital fundraising this year will surpass last year, even though some people think the market is saturated.

For the first 9 months of this year, $19.7 billion was raised. For the first 9 months of last year, $16.7 billion was raised. This data comes from Dow Jones subsidiary VentureOne.

$25 billion was raised for all of 2005. The most since $49.7 billion was raised in 2001.

The interesting thing is that the increase has been from existing funds getting bigger, rather than new funds. 22% of the money raised this year went to funds of $500 million or larger. Last year, 8% of the money went to funds that big.

The percentage of capital going to funds less than $100 million is 29.2% this year, down from $44.2% last year, which was already the lowest percentage since 1992.

What this tells me is that venture funding is being concentrated in fewer firms. This may mean that the money may fund mediocre, copy cat, "playing it safe" companies.

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Enron Trial Winner

Well, the Enron Trial is over, and we know that Jeffrey Skilling was a loser.

Ken Lay was a winner(?). Winner, because his conviction was dismissed (since he died before exhausting his appeals) and so his heirs will get to keep his money. The question mark is because, of course, he is dead.

The clear winner, however, is the Federal prosecuter in the case, 39 year old Sean Berkowitz, a Chicago native. As soon as he won the convictions, he became "hot", and set off a recruiting war among top corporate law firms.

The Los Angeles law firm of Latham and Watkins won out. Berkowitz will be their newest partner in their Chicago office. In 2005, the average partner compensation was $1.4 million.

His two predecessor Directors of the Enron Task Force also left the government for private law firms.

When the government's best prosecutors of white collar crime are hired away by corporate law firms, it means that these talented people will now be defending the next wave of corporate execs.

Is the public a short-term winner and long-term loser?

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Fiscal Disaster for the U.S.?

I read in the Chicago Tribune that David M. Walker has been going around the country lecturing about the dangers of the current U.S. financial policy.  To keep his discussions non-partisan, he has been taking along experts from both the left and the right.

Walker is the comptroller general of the United States - he runs the Government Accountablility Office (GAO), which reports to congress.

He and other experts fear that, in the long run, the fiscal policies of the U.S. will lead to a lot of problems, but politicians aren't discussing them, because the subject "is short on political theatrics and long on complicated economics, scary graphs, and very big numbers."

Basically, from 2001 till now, the deficit has grown in dollar terms, but not relative to the economy.  However, they think that is about to change because of the combination of the Baby Boomers retiring and new entitlements for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

They predict that the deficit may swell from $8.5 trillion to $45 trillion in the next 20 years.  If this happens, then the interest payments on the debt would eat up all the tax revenues collected today.

Bottom line: eventual benefit cuts, and higher taxes, plus the anger of future generations.

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U.S. Coporations and Mexican Hiring Standards

I was reading in the Chicago Tribune that in Mexico, where jobs are scarce, anti-discrimination laws aren't enforced.  So, companies can get away with things such as asking personal questions at job interviews, or requesting a photo with a resume.  Mexicans are passed over for things like skin tone, weight, sex, martial status, and even where they live.

But, it isn't just the local companies who are doing it.  U.S.-based companies are also taking advantage.  The article said major U.S. corporations are engaging in hiring practices in Mexico that violate U.S. policies, and the companies' own diversity practices.

The article gave the example of Lear, a Michigan-based auto supplier.  Its ad for a secretary in its Mexican office included "female...aged 20 to 28...preferably single...with excellent presentation."

It also gave the example of a Chicago-based law firm that advertised for a male lawyer in its Monterray office.

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