Lamar Odom, 26 years old, and a high achiever for the Los Angeles Lakers, has figured out the ingredient for success. According to Liz Robbins of the New York Times, Lamar's approach to basketball in the NBA is simple - "I understand about being passionate about what you do, how to give effort and energy every night".

Entrepreneurs and executives - heed Lamar Odom's lesson. Be passionate about what you do!

Lamar, well said. Perhaps coach Pat Riley of the reigning NBA champions - the Miami Heat - taught Lamar his lesson?

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

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Warren Buffett is my hero. He always has been and always will be. My son Nathan and I met Warren ten years ago at a Coca Cola shareholders' meeting. Warren was on the Board of Directors for Coke. Nathan, twelve years old at the time, was a shareholder and decided to attend the meeting in Wilmington, Delaware, as he knew how crazy I was about Buffett. And I still am!

Nathan stuck out at the meeting, being the only minor in the room. After the meeting CEO Roberto Goizueta and Warren Buffett spoke privately with Nathan. The conversation made a big impact on my son (detailed story for a future post).

Move the clock forward ten years. In June of 2006, the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, donated $30.7 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This single act, the largest charitable contribution ever, is making a big impact on philanthropy. Buffett's donation sets the standard. More and more wealthy people are following Buffett's action - giving in large numbers.

Warren Buffett, you are my person of the year for 2006! Ten years ago you made a big impact on my son (now employed by a Wall Street firm), and you are making a huge impact on the world of philanthropy.

Thank you.

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

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A suggestion of a great post from my business partner, Geof Lambert. He has posted information on his Digaria site.

Do you have any clue what Couch Surfing is?

CouchSurfing's home page description:

What is CouchSurfing?
You're probably here at CouchSurfing to find a free place to stay or people to hang out with while you are traveling. After your first experience of either surfing or hosting, you'll find out that what you get out of it is so much more. We help to create a better world by opening our homes, our hearts and our lives. We open our minds and welcome the knowledge cultural exchange makes available. We create deep and meaningful connections that cross oceans, continents and cultures. CouchSurfing changes not only the way we travel, but how we relate to the world!

CouchSurfing.com helps you make connections worldwide. You can use the network to meet people and then go and surf other members' couches! When you surf a couch, you are a guest at someone's house. They will provide you with some sort of accommodation, a penthouse apartment or maybe a back yard to pitch your tent in. Stays can be as short as a cup of coffee, a night or two, or even a few months or more. When you offer your couch, you have complete control of who visits. The possibilities are endless and completely up to you.

The friendships made through CouchSurfing enhance members' lives and contribute greatly to making the world a better, safer, more peaceful place. Signing up for a free couch and ending up with amazing adventures and a global family--that's what CouchSurfing is all about!

Give it a try - sounds like a new twist on student hostels, but with a chance to meet lots of cool people.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Are you up to speed on the new laws that you will be required to follow as an employer? Here's the scoop from the California Chamber of Commerce:

The following is a list of new laws that have recently gone into effect or will take effect in 2007:

Discrimination
SB 1441
Adds sexual orientation to existing classifications protected from discrimination by recipients of state funds and expands the definition of discrimination to include the perception that the victim is a member of a protected class.

Employment
AB 546
Outlaws the use of state-owned or state-leased computers by government officials or employees to access obscene materials.

SB 1759
Establishes requirements for background checks of certain administrators, executives and employees in the health care industry, and a process for transmission of fingerprint images.

Health and Safety
AB 2067
Extends and clarifies the prohibition on smoking in the workplace.

AB 409
Immediately authorizes suspension of the license of a cosmetologist, barber, estheticians, manicurist, and electrologist if required to protect the public health and safety. Provides a means for temporary stay and appeal of the suspension.

AB 881
Requires all roofing contractors to have workers’ compensation insurance, whether or not having current employees.

SB 1613
Effective July 1, 2008, limits the use of cell phones while driving to those having hands-free operation except for contacts with law enforcement and public safety agencies and certain commercial vehicles for whom the effective date is July 1, 2011.

Until July 1, 2011, this prohibition does not apply to a person driving a motor truck or truck tractor, an agricultural vehicle, tow truck, or a commercial vehicle, when using a digital 2-way radio service that utilizes a wireless telephone that operates by depressing a push-to-talk feature as long as it does not require immediate proximity to the user’s ear.

The law does not apply to a person driving a school bus or transit vehicle that is subject to certain existing wireless telephone usage restrictions, or to a person while driving a motor vehicle on private property.

Sexual Harassment
AB 2095
Limits mandated sexual harassment training to supervisors located in California.

State Government
AB 3058
Directs development of a web-based small business handbook on emergency preparedness.

AB 1302
Amends the process by which state government agencies can create and impose emergency regulations and the duration of the period during which emergency regulations can remain in effect.

SB 1436
Requires state agencies to improve their communication regarding regulations and assistance with the business community, with an emphasis on small business.

SB 1827
Permits registered domestic partners to file joint state income tax and have their earnings treated as community property on a par with married couples.

SB 1428
Permits payroll services companies in the motion picture industry to be treated as the employer for purposes of unemployment tax filings and responsibility.

AB 2293
Penalizes an educational employer that submits willfully false statements about a worker’s employment or termination to the Employment Development Department.

Wages
AB 2613
Establishes conditions for a state overtime exemption for teachers in private educational institutions.

SB 1468
This law extends the repeal date of the Car Wash Industry compliance program from January 1, 2007 to January 1, 2010.

SB 1719
Permits employers and unions in the entertainment industry to establish conditions for payment of final paychecks by collective bargaining.

AB 1835
Increases California’s minimum wage and exempt salary standards for all California employers.

This law increases the California minimum wage to $7.50 per hour on January 1, 2007, and to $8 per hour on January 1, 2008.

AB 2095
Permits reporting of overtime hours on the same payroll date as the hours are paid when overtime is paid in the payroll period subsequent to the one in which it is earned.

Wage Deductions
AB 2440
Imposes a penalty on an employer that assists an employee or contractor with child support obligations evade meeting those obligations, including failure to file reports upon hiring.

Workers’ Compensation
AB 1368
Excludes public safety employees from the presumption that medical apportionment applied to certain specified job-related illnesses or injuries.

AB 2068
Permits pre-designation of a medical group as the primary treating physician and extends the sunset date of the right of pre-designation.

AB 2292
Provides for payment of workers’ compensation death benefits to the estate of the deceased worker. Labor Code Section 4706.5 requires workers' compensation death benefits to be paid to the California State Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) if the employee does not leave surviving any person entitled to a dependency death benefit.

For more information about the new laws.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Looking for a different way of celebrating this New Year's Eve? How about the Annual Black & White New Year's Eve Tango Ball! Dancing tango, sipping champagne, and the kissing part at midnight! Beginning tango lesson from 8:00-9:00 p.m and then dancing until 1PM. Cost is $15 per person and includes lesson, dance, hors d’oeuvres & refreshments (including champagne!) Tango by the River is located at 128 J Street in Old Sacramento, on the second floor above the "Visions of Eden" boutique.

You can even squeeze in the 9:00PM Old Sacramento New Year's Eve Sky Spectacular fireworks show, which will also be repeated at midnight.

Tango into 2007. Sounds like lots of fun.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 1:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The United States has now become the world leader in its rate of incarceration, locking up its citizens at 5-8 times the rate of other industrialized nations. So begins Marc Mauer's excellent post on TomPaine.com entitled "America has become incarceration nation". Some of the alarming statistics he reports:

There are now a record 2.2 million Americans incarcerated in the nation’s prisons and jails according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Since 1972 there has been a 500 percent increase in the number of people in prison.

Sixty percent of the prison population is African American and Latino, and if current trends continue, one of every three black males and one of every six Latino males born today can expect to go to prison at some point in his lifetime. The overall rates for women are lower, but the racial and ethnic disparities are similar and the growth rate of women’s incarceration is nearly double that of men over the past two decades.

The US corrections budget now totals $60 billion annually.

Drug policies have been responsible for a disproportionate share of the rise in the inmate population, with the 40,000 drug offenders in prison or jail in 1980 increasing to a half million today. A substantial body of research has documented that these laws have had virtually no effect on the drug trade, as measured by price or availability of drugs. Most of the drug offenders in prison are not the “kingpins” of the drug trade. Indeed, the low-level sellers who are incarcerated are rapidly replaced on the streets by others seeking economic gain.

And there's little evidence that our race to incarcerate has any substantial impact on crime rates:

While crime rates have been declining nationally for a decade, research to date demonstrates that expanded incarceration has, at best, been responsible for only a quarter of this decline. Other factors that played a key role include a strong economy in the 1990s that provided employment opportunities for low-skill workers, a marked decline in crack cocaine use and its associated violence by the early 1990s, and strategic community policing. New York City, which experienced a two-thirds reduction in homicides from 1990 to 2002, did so despite a one-third decline in its jail population during that period. And conversely, while Idaho led the nation with an astonishing 174 percent rise in its prison population, it nevertheless experienced a 14 percent rise in crime.

According to the author, areas that should be high on the reform agenda:

Crack cocaine sentencing reform—During the last 20 years, the federal sentencing laws for crack cocaine offenses have subjected thousands of low-level defendants to mandatory five- and 10-year prison terms, while exacerbating the racial dynamics of incarceration. More than 80 percent of the persons charged with these offenses are African Americans, who receive much stiffer terms than those meted out to powder cocaine defendants.

Mandatory sentencing reform—Congressional mandates to impose harsh sentences with no judicial input have created unfair and overly harsh penalties, and have been decried by the American Bar Association and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, (Sacramento's own!) among many others.

Racial impact statements—Just as fiscal impact statements aid lawmakers in assessing the financial implications of sentencing policies, the preparation of racial impact assessments could provide similar benefits to policymakers. Had such assessments existed in 1986, we could have had a debate on the racial dynamics of the crack cocaine laws prior to their enactment, not 20 years later.

Felon disenfranchisement reform—Five million Americans could not participate in the November election due to a current or previous felony conviction. Laws that govern these practices are enacted by the states, but Congress has the authority to require uniform voting rules in federal elections. Legislation proposed by John Conyers in the House would require states to permit voting by any non-incarcerated person in federal elections, even if barred from participating in state elections.

And then, the author concludes citing several alternatives (dear to my heart) to our nation's shameful practices:

Both public safety and community health would be better served through investments in policies that promote job creation, high school graduation and substance abuse treatment.

Let's hope our governor incorporates plans for incarceration alternatives in the $11B prison reform program he announced yesterday. His previous program was voted down last fall. This time he calls for $4.4B to be spent on 78,000 new beds. Currently California is housing 174,000 in facilities that were built to hold 100,000. 17,000 of the overflow are living in gymnasium and classroom housing - so much for exercise of the body and the brain. Thankfully, he has asked for $1B for new beds to house 100,000 sick and mentally ill prisoners. Since President Reagan closed the mental hospitals in California in the 70's and nationwide in the 80's and never replaced them, as he promised, with community mental health facilities, many of the mentally ill are lingering in jail with little or no adequate treatment. Schwarzenegger has also proposed a review of sentencing laws in California. Currently, we have a mandatory 3-year parole period, no matter the crime, the longest of any state in the nation. His argument is that by reducing this period for less serious crimes, parole staff could spend more time tracking higher risk parolees. There is some money allocated for juveniles although there are no specifics.

What a waste we are making of our young people and minorities. We must offer them alternatives, motivation, role models, jobs, education, mental health and/or drug treatment. A life in prison is rarely the answer.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Too much holidays, family and bad winter weather. Time to get re-introduced to your sweetie? Well, here's your guide:

The Top 10 Romantic Islands of the World

1. French Polynesian Islands
2. Bali Island
3. Fiji Islands
4. Seychelles Islands
5. Hawaiian Islands
6. Greek Islands
7. Madeira Islands
8. Cook Islands
9. Caribbean Islands
10. Bermuda Island

This list is prepared by: Howard Hillman, who bills himself as the world's leading travel wonder authority. Wow, I want that job!

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We wish all of our readers time to enjoy the wonder.
We thank you for your readership and support
We look forward to winning your continued support in 2007 and beyond.

Happy Holidays



Gillian and Pierre
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Got a new IT project for 2007. Here are some great lessons to be learned to increase the success probability:

From Baseline Magazine

The key to project success is learning from what works as well as what doesn't work . Baseline has compiled a list of best practices drawn from nearly 230 case studies we've written in the last five years.

Lesson 1: Business processes should set the agenda, not technology. Toyota Motor is on track to pass General Motors and soon become the world's largest automotive manufacturer. Technology plays an important role in Toyota's drive to the top, but the company never loses sight of what comes first: improving its manufacturing and business processes.

Lesson 2: Biting the bullet and migrating off an older technology can pay off. R.L. Polk & Co., one of the largest providers of marketing data to automakers, wanted to retire its expensive batch-oriented mainframe system. It spent $20 million to form a new subsidiary that in 18 months developed a "data factory" built on a service-oriented architecture and Intel-based servers. The project let the company cut the head count of its data center operations group by 43%, and also saved money on hardware and software.

Lesson 3: Track projects across the entire enterprise. American Family Life Assurance Co. (AFLAC) used to have dozens of technology projects moving at once, but the company wasn't ever sure when its 230 technologists would be done with an installation and free to start something new. AFLAC set up a project management office and put software in place that lets executives and project planners see who is assigned to which projects, how many hours they have put in, how many hours are left and which project they will work on next.

Lesson 4: Get stakeholders in the same room. In five years, the number of software applications used by Cirque du Soleil employees had ballooned from roughly 40 to more than 200. Although these tools ran a wide range of operations, they could not share data. The company's goal was to organize all the application environments onto a single, standardized platform for access and development. Getting all the stakeholders in the same room to agree on the requirements was critical to the project's success.

Lesson 5: Give customers what they want. Megachurches like the 25,000-member World Changers of Atlanta can look at their data and identify members, determine who contributes how much in donations, and track who's becoming discontent and may abandon ship. With a well-trained staff and the technology to track worshipper demographics and their shopping, prayer and volunteerism behavior patterns, World Changers can target products and services to its followers and keep its pews filled.

Lesson 6: Measure success—but also failure. Technology managers at the Bank of New York thought they were doing a good job of running its information systems, but they couldn't back up their assessment with metrics. That's why they turned to the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL, a set of best practices guidelines for managing technology.

Lesson 7: The easiest solution isn't always the best. Merrill Lynch & Co reinvigorated 420 financial programs stored on mainframe computers. How? By building—from scratch—Web services that can handle millions of interactions a day. But unlike many other corporations that are embracing Web services, Merrill decided to do it without the help of a traditional vendor of Web services platforms. Instead, it chose to develop and implement an entirely new Web services architecture on its own.

Lesson 8: Consider Master Data Management. Mentor Graphics, a maker of electronic design automation systems, tried to manually bandage the problem of incorrect and inconsistent data in its enterprise information systems. But it was losing the fight. Then the company deployed a master data management system to automatically update changes in its operations.

Lesson 9: Make a lean system even leaner. Tom Mathis, vice president of supply chain management at Danaher Sensors and Controls, had the job of taking a "lean" organization and making it even leaner. So he bucked corporate tradition when he proposed adding computerization to a manufacturing process known for achieving efficiency without it.

Lesson 10: Don't use complicated, expensive software when a clipboard and pencil will do. Dollar General, the $8.6 billion discount retailer, can get a new store up in eight days or fewer thanks to a super-efficient logistics process honed each time it sets up one of its 8,000 stores. Key ingredients: sweat equity and scant technology beyond PC cash registers on a satellite system.

Go check out the whole article with case studies from industry leaders.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Plan on attending the American Marketing Association Sacramento Valley's January Luncheon. Local startup founder and CEO Jason Frankel of Coversant, Inc., will introduce Enterprise Instant Messaging: The Next Best Thing Since Email. Jason will discuss the future direction of this new communication technology and how it will impact your business. And, over a delicious lunch, you will learn how EIM will eat SPAM for lunch!

Sounds like a great way to start your new year. You can register on the AMASAV website. There's even a discount for students. And you'll even get to see a future Sacramento bigwig before he gets big! That's my prediction!

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the more interesting propositions facing California’s voters last November was Proposition 87, which would have taxed in-state oil producers to fund alternative energy projects. Proponents of this bill aired a television commercial, narrated by Bill Clinton, where the Brazilian ethanol industry was referenced. The closing message is “If Brazil can do it, so can California.”

This is preposterous. First of all, Brazil, which only replaces a bit more than 10% of their petroleum with ethanol, has a per capita petroleum and ethanol consumption of about 4.0 barrels per year per citizen (ref. EIA). California, the most energy-efficient of all US states, nonetheless has a per capita petroleum consumption of over 20 barrels per year per citizen (ref. DOE). For this reason, California, with 33 million inhabitants and sitting on maybe 40,000 square miles of fully utilized farmland (ref. NetState), requires nearly 700 million barrels of petroleum per year. This is almost as much as Brazil; with 186 million people, and nearly 10,000 square miles of farmland already dedicated to growing sugar cane, Brazil requires only about 800 million barrels of petroleum and ethanol per year.

Where is California going to find enough land to make any dent whatsoever in their petroleum consumption through planting biofuel crops? Let’s not forget that sugar cane doesn’t grow in California, but corn does. Sugar cane, best case, will yield maybe around 11,000 barrels of ethanol per square mile per year (ref. UCLA), but corn yields less than half that, around 4,700 barrels per square mile per year (ref. USDA).
This math is not encouraging: For California to replace 10% of its current petroleum consumption with ethanol, California would have to convert 50% of its existing farmland to grow biofuel crops. Not a chance.

Obviously California can import ethanol from America’s cornbelt, but the issue remains of how to find sufficient land. As we note in Biofuel vs. Photovoltaics, there are around 5.0 million square miles of arable farmland in the entire world, and even at yields of 11,000 barrels of oil per year, to get 80 million barrels per day (to match world petroleum consumption), you would pretty much have to replace 100% of the world’s farmland.

Proponents of biofuel correctly point out that it isn’t meant to completely replace petroleum, and that new techniques to extract biofuel from cellulose or to grow it in self contained reactors may greatly increase capacities. What they aren’t saying is that meanwhile food prices are being driven up all over the world, particularly in poorer countries, and deforestation is accelerating, because of this new cash crop.

Bottom line - if this is the best proponents of Proposition 87 could offer, they didn’t have anything worth voting for. Let’s not forget it was government bureaucrats who wasted billions of dollars on hydrogen fuel cells, delaying the introduction of hybrids and all-electric cars by a decade or more.

It would have been tempting to support Proposition 87 if the bureaucrats intended to use 100% of the funds to expand photovoltaic capacity. But investments are already going into photovoltaic research and new manufacturing. And the private funds going into photovoltaics today are coming from the Silicon Valley, where investors are managing their own money with an eye towards breakthroughs, not patronage.

Ed Ring
Editor, EcoWorld

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ok, it's tragic that 3 people's lives have presumably been lost on Mt. Hood. But, at the end of the day, these 3 climbers were experienced and had deliberately planned this trip at the most dangerous time of the year and to include the most dangerous route.

"What we're they thinking?" asks a search-and-rescue volunteer in this mountain town when told about the three lost climbers stranded somewhere on Mount Hood in Oregon.

"To climb a difficult ascent in the kind of weather they get over there in December is just asking for it," said the volunteer, who preferred not to be identified. (ABC News)

The cost of the rescue efforts is enormous:

The $5,000-$6,500 a day the Hood River County Sheriff's Office has spent on the search is only part of what will be become the final price tag, in part because much of it is being done by volunteers and the military, which in the past has tagged such missions as training.

"There is no way of answering these things," said Georges Kleinbaum, state search and rescue coordinator for Oregon. "Obviously there is a lot of money being expended, but there is never a bill to look at."

The Black Hawk helicopters alone are estimated to cost $2,800 an hour to operate. At least two Black Hawks and a Nevada Air National Guard C-130 transport have been repeatedly used in the search. (CBS/AP)

And at least one of these climbers was not without means. I know that he bought furniture recently from a very expensive store in Dallas.

And frankly, it's not underprivileged citizens that get stuck on mountains and get hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to rescue them with no bill payable at the end. It's people who can afford all of the equipment and training and time off and could quite easily pay, if not all, something toward the rescue effort. Otherwise it is the local county, in this case Summit County, and the Federal government, and you and me and everyone else that never thought about going on a mountain and might want to donate our share to pay for a mammogram for an indigent woman, or for a college education for a poor kid with potential, or for adequate body armor for a solider in Iraq, or even for a hospital bill that never gets waived for peole who are pushed into bankruptcy because they don't have insurance or the means to pay.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From Yahoo

What do you think?

Iraq, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Global Warming, 2006 Election Results. Not even close

1 Britney Spears
2 WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment, for those who aren't in the know!)
3 Shakira
4 Jessica Simpson
5 Paris Hilton
6 American Idol
7 Beyonce Knowles
8 Chris Brown
9 Pamela Anderson
10 Lindsay Lohan

What? No Nicole Richie. I demand a recount. Seriously, this is good fuel for Pierre's dumbing down of America rant.

For those more serious types, here is the Top Ten News Searches:

1 Steve Irwin death
2 Anna Nicole's son dies
3 Iraq
4 Israel and Lebanon
5 U.S. elections
6 Fidel Castro stroke
7 North Korea nuke
8 JonBenet confession
9 Saddam Hussein trial
10 Danish cartoon

Still a little "celebrity" rich for my blood.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The company that purchased Tower Records had plans to keep the Tower stores on Broadway and Watt Ave. open. But they announced today that the leases "weren't what we thought they were." The Broadway store closed today and the Watt Ave. store will close is on Friday. Farewell, sweet prince.

It wasn't so long ago that Tower Restaurant on Broadway was worried about Tower Theatre closing and ruining its business. I wonder what will happen to the Land Park Drive/Broadway Corner with no Tower. And as far as I know the future of Tower Theatre hasn't been secured yet. Is this famous corner snake-bit? Let's hope not, there's a lot of history here that Sacramento needs to work hard to preserve.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 2:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Sacramento Kings - breaking news for this holiday season! The NBA plays with just one ball at a time. And it's a good thing! Can you imagine two balls at the same time and the top two scorers on the same team?

Allen Iverson and Carmello Anthony on the same team - why? The top two scorers. The top two ball hogs (outside of Kobe Bryant). Both players average 24 shots per game. Tops in the league. Even more than Kobe right now. Can you imagine being one of the other three players on the floor? Will they ever get the ball? What about team chemistry? Not just one ball hog. But two!

Ask Charles Barkley if he would like to play for Denver with these two shooters.

It's really simple. A regulation game has 48 minutes - 12 minutes a quarter, four quarters a game. Each team, by definition will have only so many possessions. Even if the game is sped up, it's just a finite number - the number doesn't change (unless you're playing with Steve Nash). There's just one ball and one shooter at a time.

And another thing, the NBA has proven multiple super stars on the same team just doesn't work. Look at Kobe and Shaq. Furthermore, look at our "dream teams" in international competitions. Super star filled rosters don't win. Why? Because basketball is a team sport.

Proof - 2002 World Champions - Yugoslavia. 2006 World Champions - Spain.

Basketball is a team sport. Teams win. They always have. And always will.

Oh. One more thing. I only know one instance of two players on the same NBA team ever to each average 30 points or more in the same season - The Lakers in the 1961/1962 season. The players? Elgin Baylor with 38.2 points per game; and Jerry West (the all-time Lakers scorer) with 30.8 points. The results? The Lakers were beaten in game 7 of the finals by the Boston Celtics, 110-107.

Need I say more about the Nuggets chances of winning it all this year?

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive.

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

YingYing Wu and her star are shining! At 21 years old, Ms. Wu has achieved international fame. Scholar, inventor, media darling, and executive.

What can't this woman achieve? She has it all going for her right now.

I expect more high achievers from China.

My advice to American business people looking for the best in talent - go East young (wo)man!

TopCoder - you are brilliant. What a shrewd move!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Ran across this in the Folsom Telegraph today:

Golf course may close
Tuesday, December 19, 2006 3:14 PM PST

A strong rumor about its closure is making the rounds at the El Dorado Hills Golf Course this week.

Everyone concerned is speculating about a series of employee meetings to be held at Serrano. The focus of these meetings is being advertised as a decision by Bill Parker, lead developer and owner of most of the remaining undeveloped property in the Serrano complex, as to whether this El Dorado Hills signature 45-year old public golf course will remain open or close in the foreseeable future.

Contrary to recent Sacramento area opinion, the oldest Robert Trent Jones, Sr. designed executive golf course in the Western U.S. has "never" closed.

The course is in great shape. Its greens are still immaculate and fast and, best of all, the green fees are extremely affordable, although you wouldn't know it from the complete lack of advertising by the owner during the past two years.

It would be a quality-of-life (i.e. traffic) and an environmental tragedy if El Dorado Hills and the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors were to allow the golf course to be closed or that this last remaining piece of open, pristine land would be re-zoned from recreational/farming to commercial/multi-family.

Walter G. Andrews

Does anyone have any other info? If so, please post a comment.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the many valuable lessons I learned at Sterling Software was that you can’t make every customer happy. There are customers that for various reasons e.g., using your product for a purpose it wasn’t designed for, that will never be happy. And as a company you will go broke trying to make them happy. At that point, it is better to sever the relationship and if that requires a refund, it’s going to be cheaper than the cost of dealing with them for months and years to come.

Over time, I also realize that you can cut service or product or something of value so that the vast majority of your customers are happy and you take the risk that some of them will not be. In times of budget cuts, or stock market requirements for your company to show higher profits, this is a strategy that can work. Although maintaining the right level of customer satisfaction can be tricky and requires that you know a lot about your customer and how much (or how little) they will tolerate. Lately I am seeing more and more of this and from personal experience I am beginning to think that companies are betting the odds a little too often.

A few months ago, Pierre and I went to stay in a resort in Costa Rica – a fancy resort. We booked an expensive room with its own swimming pool. It was only an hour later that we began to hear the banging from next door and realize that swimming au natural in the pool would be a bad idea as their were numerous workmen only a thin hedge away. When we were awakened at 6AM the next day, we finally said enough is enough. We called the front desk to complain and an hour later we were upgraded to a private villa with no construction noises to be heard. So, the hotel was playing the odds. They could close the adjoining rooms during construction time, which would be a big cost, or they could do the work, take a chance that the vast percentage of guests wouldn’t complain and if a small percentage did, then it would be a lesser cost to move them to a better room. I am pretty sure it was working too because a younger couple we met were without water for more than a day and didn’t ask to be moved or be compensated in any way. And in our case, we were at first very impressed by the resort’s ability to recover, but then I started thinking that they should never have put us near that construction in the first place. They didn’t understand how much we would tolerate, so their bet didn't work with us.

Earlier this week I rented a car from Hertz. I rent from Hertz because Pierre has a fit if I rent from anyone else because he associates Hertz with quality and service and he thinks the competition is vastly inferior. I pick up my car and at the first stop realize that there is a big scratch down one side and a ‘smush’ in the back panel. The car has 13,000 miles on it and rattles, and by the time I return it to Hertz the check engine light has come on.
Returning it is a big pain. The car is loaded with multiple packages, suitcases and cases of wine and other things you need for Christmas and the Hertz people watch as I spend 20 minutes lugging my stuff from one to the other. One even remarks, “Wow, you have a lot of stuff.” I wait for the, “May I help you?” But it never comes. And then to top it all off the clerk who waits on me is nothing short of surly and I hadn't even opened my mouth yet. And worse still this is at the executive desk. So, now the brand that we all associate with quality and service is willing to put all that at risk by renting cars that are completely outside the bounds of what we have a right to expect. And worse than that, when they are caught, they don’t even recover well.

So, it is possible to over service your customers, but watch carefully how much you are willing to cut without doing lasting damage to your company.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Proctor & Gamble. Do you think of entrepreneur or innovator when you hear the company name? Well you should. Larry Huston is vice president of innovation at Proctor & Gamble. Huston's title is not just smoke and mirrors.

According to Taylor and LaBarre, authors of Mavericks at Work,

Huston is convinced that P&G must look outside the walls of its celebrated research labs, and beyond the breakthroughs of its full-time scientists, to tap the brainpower of the whole world. Even though P&G employs many of the smartest scientists and engineers in their fields, the company's vice president of innovation understands nobody is as smart as everybody - and not everybody can work for P&G.

"We have 7,500 R&D people who operate in 150 different areas of the science," Huston explains. "But when you look around the world at these 150 areas, you see there are one and a half million people outside of P&G with training that is equal to or better than our people. In other words, for every one person we have in a particular area, there are 200 people on the outside of equal minds or better. Now, it's pretty obvious that 200 can invent better than one - you don't have to be a genius to figure that out."

Huston has asked 60 of P&G's scientists and engineers to be technology entrepreneurs. As such, these technology entrepreneurs travel throughout the world to discover innovations beyond the walls of P&G. The mission - to identify innovative ideas that can be brought in-house to create new products or improve existing products.

Ed Getty, one of P&G's technology entrepreneurs says, "Our job is to look outside, find disruptive technologies and products, and bring them back to the company. We're innovating on how we innovate. That is a real game-changer for us."

Yes, Proctor & Gamble, as big as they are, has the entrepreneurial spirit. P&G is pushing the envelope on innovation. We should all learn from Proctor & Gamble - an elephant that dances with startup companies.

Fascinating!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 7:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

OK. I don't do this often in the space of Sacramento Executive. But I feel compelled to speak my peace. Especially at this time of year, when the Prince of Peace is celebrated.

Quite often I think about the use of the term insurgent and civil war. I'm not sure the press and our elected officials use these terms in the purest sense. Might they use these words to push their own agenda?

According to Wikipedia, a civil war is a war in which parties within the same culture, society or nationality fight against each other for the control of political power. I tend to agree with this definition.

Also, Wikipedia defines insurgency to be an armed uprising, or revolt against an established civil or political authority. Persons engaging in insurgency are called insurgents, and typically engage in regular or guerrilla combat against the armed forces of the established regime, or conduct sabotage and harassment in the land in order to undermine the government's position as leader, or at least their appearance as such. Again, I have no quarrel with this definition.

Well here's my dilema. If a country invades a sovereign state, overthrows the ruling power, and the loyalists of the overthrown government continue to wage battle against the invaders, is that a civil war?

Furthermore, if a country invades our sovereign soil, tosses out the current government, and I fight back against the invader, am I an insurgent?

Semantics? Propaganda?

Peace be with you!

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive,
Holder of a Political Science degree from
The University of Maryland,
and American Patriot.

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jane Hanson, millionaire mentor, money manager, entrepreneur, and former Goldman Sachs banker, has put together a network of 15,000 professional women. Featured in the current issue of Fortune Magazine, 85 Broads focuses on mentoring and coaching college undergraduates and business school students. The networking program has partnered with more than 40 MBA programs and 100 undergraduate programs. UCLA and UC Berkeley are partners, but amazingly enough the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, who's dean is female, is not a partner.

I want to change this. Gillian and Nicole get moving!

Check out this YouTube video on 85 Broads.

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last year I shared with you my Christmas wish list. This year - I want the same things.

My Christmas Wish List:

Goodwill towards all women and men,

Housing for everyone,

Close the digital divide,

Affordable health care,

Clean air and water,

Respect for those who are different,

A calmer mother nature,

Leave no child behind,

Stop the dumbing down and fattening up of Americans,

A balanced budget,

Religious tolerance,

Fair trade,

Peace on Earth,

and,

A Kings championship!

Is this too much to ask? OK. Maybe the Kings championship is pushing it. But, the others...come on these are definitely possible.

Oh, and for my stocking stuffer - a 20-bagger liquidity event from American River Ventures, so we can fund more great Sacramento-based entrepreneurs. Harry, John, and Corley, are you listening?

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Fortune Magazine's reporter Jia Lynn Yang identifies ten rules for building wealth in the December 25, 2006 publication.

1. Start early.
2. Use your 401K.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Don't try to beat the market.
5. Don't chase trends.
6. Make saving automatic.
7. Go heavy on stocks.
8. Hold down fees.
9. Ditch credit card debt.
10. Defer taxes.

Pierre Cutler
The Sacramento Executive

Posted by Pierre Cutler at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

THEORIES ABOUND FOR SCARCITY IN EXEC, BOARD POSITIONS
By Michelle Quinn Mercury News
Women in Silicon Valley have a problem.

They are MIA in the board rooms and executive suites.

I'm talking single digits, folks. According to a recent study, among the top 103 public companies here, women make up 6.5 percent of board directors and 8.8 percent of company leadership teams.

Women fare somewhat better in California overall, where they make up 8.8 percent of board directors and 11.7 percent of managers identified by their companies as executive officers, according to the study released Thursday by the University of California-Davis.

So what's the problem with Silicon Valley, which considers itself a meritocracy?

How is it that Netflix, TiVo, Yahoo and Apple -- all consumer companies with presumably plenty of female customers -- have no female board members? If it was strictly about business experience and coding ability, then why is Al Gore on Apple's board? Obviously, he's got serious juice in some corridors. But what other corridors are companies here overlooking?

It's been a mixed year for women in Silicon Valley and the tech world. The Hewlett-Packard pretexting debacle took down a couple of prominent women, such as Pattie Dunn, the non-executive chair of the board, and Ann Baskins, vice president, general counsel and secretary. Nancy Heinen, resigned from her job as Apple Computer's chief counsel and secretary in May, shortly before Apple's June disclosure of irregularities in its stock options grants.

And Carol Bartz stepped down as chief executive of Autodesk after 14 years at the helm.

On the upside, Safra Catz keeps Oracle running as the company's chief financial officer and co-president. And last week Susan Decker, chief financial officer at Yahoo, was named to Intel's board. And there's Meg Whitman, president and chief executive of eBay.

But why so few?

You've heard all the theories, I'm sure.

The Pipeline Theory -- Girls go ``yuck'' when faced with math and science, limiting their options too soon, which contributes to the shortage of women in technology fields.

The Opt-Out Plan -- Many talented women climbing the ladder pull the rip cord at critical career junctures to have children or downshift to jobs with less responsibility. And they don't or can't re-enter or ramp back up.

The Individual Contributor Syndrome -- Women focus laser-like on doing their jobs but fail to schmooze or work in groups, all of which would help build up their base of support when they want to move up. (Note to self: Take off the earphones at work).

And there is, of course, straight-out bias. Maybe the way meritocracy is defined around here is flawed. It's like kickball all over again. We're not getting picked, so we're not getting better at it.

Ellen Siminoff, president and chief executive of Efficient Frontiers, disagrees. ``Women have an equal shot to get to the top of a company,'' says Siminoff, a former senior vice president at Yahoo. Sure, to succeed in Silicon Valley, ``you have to have a pretty good understanding of technology. It doesn't mean you have to be an engineer.''

Personally, I am partial to the The Despot Decides theory. The person in charge of a company is the Sun King, the company his fiefdom. He radiates influence with grand pronouncements, little asides or even raised eyebrows. He tends to favor people he feels comfortable with...usually male.

The chief executive also holds the power to change the number of women in leadership and on boards by saying Make It So.

That's what seemed to happen at Hyperion, based in Santa Clara, one of the few local public companies cited in the study as having women in more than 25 percent of their executive and director positions.

When Godfrey Sullivan, Hyperion's chief executive, was recently looking for a new chief financial officer, he told recruiters he wanted candidates ``from all walks of life.'' And he knew that edict would mean a longer search.

``You have to have a belief in diversity to overcome the normal search process, which will only reinforce today's norms,'' said Sullivan. ``We could have gotten 10 traditional CFOs in here.''

It took six months before Hyperion found Robin Washington, senior vice president of finance and corporate controller at PeopleSoft. Though she had not previously served as a CFO at a public company, Hyperion hired her. ``You have to take a little chance,'' said Sullivan.

The time might be right for changing people's thinking, says Kim Jones, vice president of Global Education, Government and Health Sciences, Sun Microsystems. ```The valley is taking off again. It's getting hard to find good people again. It's about reminding people there's a great pool of talent out there we can draw on.''

Great story Michelle. My theory. Corporations were set up by the big boys, using big boy rules. Women are never going to win on that playing field. We need to start more of our own companies using our rules. Anyone want to start? Oh yes, that's a problem too because VCs, overwhelmingly men, don't lend to women anywhere near as much as they lend to men.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive

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Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bonuses as high as $100M will be paid to Goldman Sach's employees this Christmas. Here are some spending suggestions from ABC News:

Dec. 13, 2006 — It was reported today that Wall Street's famed investment bank Goldman Sachs will be shelling out over $16 billion in bonuses this holiday season — an average of over $600,000 per employee.

Many of those bonuses will be performance-based, so some of the company's bigwigs are likely to get as much as $100 million.

With all that cash coming in, it's easy to wonder what someone might buy with a $100 million holiday bonus.

You could provide immunizations for more than 40,000 impoverished children for a year ($37.5 million), then throw a birthday party for your daughter and one million of her closest friends ($60 million). You