Monthly Archives: June 2010

Alliance Brings Leaders Together — for 20 Years

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In the November-December 2009 issue of BizVoice, we featured a short story on the Alliance, a networking and business development forum for senior leaders of established Indiana-based companies. The group recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with an event sponsored by Oxford Financial Group, Ltd. Among the highlights:

  • Daniel W. DeHayes, a co-founder of the group and professor emeritus at the IU Kelley School of Business, noted that the 150 different member companies through the years (there are currently more than 45 businesses involved) have generated nearly $60 billion in sales revenue and currently account for more than 30,000 Hoosier jobs.
  • William L. Haeberle, also a Kelley professor emeritus, was recognized for his "intellectual and sovereign leadership" for 15 years.
  • Butler University President Bobby Fong shared insights on the subject of excellence: "Enduring excellence is a matter of values. Excellence depends on a firm and consistent commitment to mission. Excellence means identifying the things you do well. Excellence resides in your people and the culture you build to sustain them."

The manufacturing, retail and service sectors each make up one-third of the Alliance membership. Groups like it are excellent examples of business leaders learning from each other — as well as outside experts. While Indiana often seems to feature too many organizations working separately toward similar interests, the Alliance does not fall into that category. Congratulations to all involved and best of luck in your next 20 years.

Heartland Institute Reviews Odd Lawsuits Around the Country

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The Heartland Institute released another installment of its Lawsuit Abuse Fortnightly newsletter recently, which is normally good for a chuckle and a solid read. Here’s an excerpt of one lawsuit that you may have seen in the news, as well:

A Queens woman is suing Citibank, claiming the bank fired her because she looked too sexy at work.

The woman was a business banking officer at a Citibank branch in Manhattan. The branch manager and his assistant told her “she must refrain from wearing certain items of clothing, in particular, turtleneck tops, pencil skirts, [or] fitted business suits,” the suit alleges. She told them other women workers wore such clothing, the suit says. “In blatantly discriminatory fashion, plaintiff was advised that as a result of the shape of her figure, such clothes were purportedly ‘too distracting’ for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear.”

She also alleges she was told “as a result of her tall stature, coupled with her curvaceous figure, she should not wear classic high-heeled business shoes, as this purportedly drew attention to her body in a manner that was upsetting to her easily distracted male managers.”

The claim was originally filed in court but dismissed because she had previously agreed any employment disputes would be settled in private arbitration, where her case is now pending. 

While I’ve certainly never been accused of being too attractive for work, I was once falsely accused of being "too cool for school" by an acquaintance. And maintaining my innocence did prove to be a very trying and litigious process, so I can see why this is such a noteworthy hearing.

We’ll Take Our Indiana Governors

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The current latest circus in Illinois (that’s the trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich) serves as another reminder of how lucky we are in the Hoosier state. No matter political affiliation, our governors are good guys (I’m sure we’ll make that gender neutral sometime in the not-too-distant future) and have some core basic values — something missing in far too many places.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet our last six governors (Bowen, Orr, Bayh, O’Bannon, Kernan and Daniels; for those keeping score, that’s three each among Republicans and Democrats) and interview the four most recent. The most unique of those engagements would be when sitting governor Otis Bowen’s son served as our high school basketball coach. That was a big deal for the state’s top official to come to a high school basketball game in St. Leon.

Due to several opportunities to interact outside of official interviews, I have to say that I have a strong favorable opinion of Joe Kernan. The fact that the former governor happily provided his cell phone number, hopped in the back seat of my Grand Prix for a ride and shared baseball stories in the stands at South Bend’s Covaleski Stadium are small symbols of a down-to-earth man who has also been an outstanding public servant.

Contrast that with a few of the latest details from Illinois, courtesy of CongressDaily:

The trial of Blagojevich, which is entering its third week, has already gotten off to a rocky start. U.S. District Judge James Zagel ordered the defense and prosecution to come to an agreement on keeping the loudmouthed Blagojevich from waging the trial in public or he would consider slapping gag orders on the defense team.

Prosecutors asked Zagel for the gag order on June 16 after Blagojevich said outside the courthouse the day before that Alonzo Monk, who had just wrapped up four days of testimony as the government’s star witnesses, was lying in his testimony. Monk, Blagojevich’s former chief of staff, is cooperating with the government after being indicted on corruption charges along with Blagojevich.

And if recent history is any guide, Democrats may learn the same lesson from voters that the Illinois GOP did in 2002 in the wake of the bribery scandal that forced Gov. George Ryan not to seek a second term and eventually led him to prison in 2007.

In the wake of the Ryan scandal, the charismatic Blagojevich ran on a platform of cleaning up Springfield and ended 26 years of GOP control of the governor’s mansion. Democrats also took control of the Senate for the first time in 10 years. Blagojevich cruised to re-election in 2006 by tying his opponent to Ryan, and Democrats expanded their majorities in both chambers to near super-majorities.

Ironically, Blagojevich could be the reason that the Democrats again fail to hold onto the governor’s mansion for more than eight years — which they have not done since before the Civil War — and the Illinois GOP is making sure voters are reminded of what Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn said about Blagojevich while sharing a ticket. According to media reports, Blagojevich’s trial is expected to wrap up in September, when the campaign season will be kicking into high gear.

Jones, Merisotis Offer Education Plan

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Stan Jones, Indiana’s longtime commissioner for higher education, was the Indiana Chamber’s 2009 Government Leader of the Year (BizVoice story here). Jamie Merisotis is president of the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation for Education. The two teamed last Friday to deliver a clear message to the Obama administration: get newly appropriated funds to community colleges that do a good job taking displaced workers, helping them earn a needed certificate in a timely manner and putting those people back in the workforce.

Inside Higher Ed has an in-depth report on their proposal. Here are some key excerpts:

While Merisotis and Jones did not set a time limit, they generally praised as models programs that take a year, maximum, to finish – quite a contrast from the two-year norm for many associate degrees – assuming students enroll full time. If anything, the model Merisotis believes community colleges around the country should emulate is a rather old idea – that of a traditional vocational school.

In a handful of states – Ohio, New York, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin – there are technical institutions separate from community colleges. In Tennessee, for instance, 13 community colleges offer associate degree programs, whereas 27 “technical centers” offer only one-year certificate programs in high-demand fields. These institutions, like for-profit trade institutions, focus on getting students a credential and getting them out out in a short period of time.

Jones: "There’s nothing wrong with directed choice. … I call it kind of back to the future. They didn’t invent this yesterday; They’ve been doing this [in Tennessee] for 20 years. Some of the rest of us kind of discovered it – that they were on the right track for 20 years. Block scheduled, cohort-based, integrated – it’s highly effective.”

Jones and Merisotis believe the government should encourage the development of short-term, quick-hit programs like this at community colleges around the country with the $2 billion Community College and Career Training Grant program, which passed as part of the health care/student loan reconciliation bill earlier this year.

Additionally, Jones and Merisotis say that Congress should extend unemployment benefits so that anyone receiving them can attend college, as long as they are enrolled full-time in a one- or two-year degree program. Finally, they suggest that the government create a new program of “education stipends” to offset the tuition and living costs of going to college, essentially making the completion of a program the “job” of the recipient. 

Michigan Candidate Taking Heat for Advocating Use of Local Workers, but Using Out-of-State Firm

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Michigan Gubernatorial candidate Andy Dillon got some flack from CQ Politics over the fact that he’s advocating the hiring of local workers, but then using an out-of-state creative agency (Obama advisor David Axelrod’s, no less) to spread his message.

Reminds me of the Dan Burton flap during the 2010 primary, in which he was raked over the coals for using out-of-state actors in an ad.

Are these on par with each other, or is one worse? Or is it just politics as usual, and neither is worth being surprised about?

Keeping Tabs on For-Profit Schools’ Federal Aid

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For-profit colleges will likely be required to disclose information about their programs’ job placement rates, graduation rates and other statistics so the U.S. Department of Education can calculate graduates’ debt load and income, a New York Times article reports this week.

Ultimately that data could make a school ineligible for federal financial aid based on graduates’ debt in relation to their income if it doesn’t meet a certain ratio (which has not been finalized). The original idea was “cutting off federal aid to programs whose graduates could not repay their student loans in 10 years with 8% of the income,” the story notes.

Wondering what exactly constitutes a for-profit school? The proposed rule would affect the likes of Harrison College and ITT Technical Institute – both based in Indiana.

I wrote about this fast growing higher education sector in a March/April  BizVoice® story. Read about how for-profit schools don’t receive taxpayer dollars directly (like IU, Purdue and other public schools); instead they are large consumers of federal student aid. Nationally, for-profit schools received about one-fifth of federal financial aid each year.

It’s stats that like that have the Department of Education evaluating whether these same programs are a drain on federal aid while leaving graduates in low-paying jobs with no way to pay off the debt. The final rules are expected to be published in November and take effect in July 2011, the NYT reports.

While this regulation wouldn’t disqualify all for-profit schools from financial aid, I imagine such rules could continue to feed many perceptions about the industry. Read what leaders at Indiana for-profit schools have to say about how their programs are built around top-demand jobs in Indiana.

Free Speech for All

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Look at most polls and you’ll see voters are in a surly mood and wanting to boot incumbents out of office. So no one should have been surprised that congressional leadership wants to move fast to pass new restrictions on speech by those who might disagree with them.

It’s called the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections, or “DISCLOSE Act.”  A long and cute title, but the bill is really designed to put duct tape over the mouths of businesses and trade associations. Labor unions and trial lawyers get a pass in the bill, an important preferential treatment with real election impacts.

For-profit corporations doing federal contract business, taking TARP money, or with as little as 20% overseas ownership would be flatly shut-out of making campaign communications. CEOs of any other corporations who tried to speak up would have to go on camera in any advertisement saying they approved the ad and could face criminal complaints. Independent expenditure ads by businesses and associations would be blocked from being on the air from April through November in Indiana.

For decades, federal campaign finance rules and “reform” packages like McCain-Feingold were crafted with some balance for corporations and labor unions. The DISCLOSE Act abandons this important balance and bipartisanship. There was no attempt at a bipartisan approach here, particularly with the current chair of the House Democrat Campaign Committee (Rep. Van Hollen) and immediate past chair of the Senate campaign committee (Sen. Chuck Schumer) actually authoring the bill.

Businesses and trade associations have First Amendment free speech rights, as reinforced by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Citizens United ruling last year. That pesky First Amendment getting in the way of politicians again.

You can take action in fighting this legislation via the Indiana Prosperity Project.

Image is Everything in a Greener World

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So who’s the greenest of them all? If perception is reality, then AdvertisingAge has the answer. This report illustrates who’s done the best job of being — check that — appearing to be the greenest companies around.

Burt’s Bees and Whole Foods lead the 2010 ImagePower Green Brands Survey’s list of top 10 U.S. brands perceived to be the greenest, with Aveeno and Microsoft joining the list this year. The fifth annual study also found that in the U.S., people are more concerned about the economy than the environment, while in developing countries, such as Brazil and India, the environment takes precedence.

Making the top 10 brands list in the U.S. after Burt’s Bees and Whole Foods were, in order, Tom’s of Maine, Trader Joe’s, Google, Aveeno, S.C. Johnson, Publix, Microsoft and Ikea.

The survey, released this week, was done by WPP companies Cohn & Wolfe, Landor Associates and Penn Schoen Berland in partnership with Esty Environmental Partners, a corporate environmental strategy consultant. They did online interviews from Feb. 27 to March 24 with 9,022 people in the U.S., Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, U.K. and, for the first time, Australia.

The survey found that more than 60% of consumers around the world said they want to buy from environmentally responsible companies. In the U.S., though, 35% of those surveyed said they plan to spend more on green products, down 4% from 2009. That reflects the U.S.’ focus on economic worries. "Almost 80% of the [U.S.] consumers said they were more concerned about the economy that the environment. That’s the highest of any other country," says Russ Meyer, chief strategy officer for Landor, San Francisco.

In developing countries, however, the split goes the other way. Of those surveyed in Brazil, for example, 72% were concerned about the environment while 25% cited the economy. "India’s got a split like that, too—59% and 32%," Meyer says. "It’s interesting to see. There’s a bit of a Western bias that the West is further advanced in thinking about sustainability. India, China—those economies are already on their way to mending, and not so in Europe and the Americas."

Township Disarray: Case No. 278 (or so it seems)

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What does a state audit for Madison Township in Morgan County show? According to a new 6 News report:

  • Spending that exceeds the budget by nearly $500,000
  • No written contracts for hired services
  • Employees being both overpaid and underpaid

This is the latest example of your taxpayer money being wasted. When, we ask again, will this convince legislators that a government system set up in 1851 does not work in the 21st century?

Decide for yourself and let your legislators know you’re sick and tired of reading these stories and their refusal to do something about it. The news story and video are here, along with the state audit report.

Education: Days + Hours = Improvement

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I wrote two days ago about an Expanded Learning Time pilot program in Massachusetts that has generated improved academic performance. Didn’t really think it would be time to harp on the same subject again, but …

Hawaii has passed a new law that guarantees 180 days per school year. (Our 50th state had the fiasco in 2009-2010 of furlough Fridays when state budget shortages sent teachers home at the end of the week and resulted in 163 days of instruction). Indiana and a large number of other states have been at that 180 number for years.

Big deal! Other countries around the world are at 190, 200, 220 days and more. They’re greatly exceeding the five-hour daily instructional average that Hawaii is also putting into law and others undoubtedly are following. And those countries are somehow ending up with better test scores than their U.S. counterparts in international comparisons.

Let’s review. More days in school plus more time on task each day helps equal better results. Sounds like a basic elementary school equation.

Oh, by the way, in Hawaii, leaders indicate the next challenge is bargaining with teachers unions on how to implement the new requirements. Don’t get me started on that.

Read the Hawaii story if you wish; more importantly, speak up and support school reform efforts before more students pay the consequences.