Drive Thru's and The End of the World

Will Drive-Thru’s be the end of the world? Well, maybe.

The City of Los Angeles voted to lift a ban on drive-thru this week. The ban was in place because of the congestion it caused on the streets. The vote to lift the ban was because drive-thru operations bring in lots of revenue and the city needs revenue.

Leadership is about guiding an organization to a better place. Unfortunately, throughout the world (and the United States) leadership is failing because they have become shortsighted and the new vote is just one example.

The real drive behind the original ban was to stop the growth of unhealthy fast-food restaurants in areas of LA. The bill only passed because of the argument about traffic congestion.

In lifting the ban, not only is leadership ignoring the health consequences (come on down, unhealthy fast food), intelligence consequences (new studies show smog reduces IQ in children), environmental consequences (smog, gas, CO2 levels), and the traffic consequences (accidents, death, time delays). And why, because the shine of money today carries more weight than the costs that come three months later.
Will this vote end the world? Not likely, but the path is leading down a dark road toward a cliff.

A real 4th of July

In 1864, you could shake the president's hand. Since 1964, the president has been behind Plexiglas: sometimes it's real Plexiglas, sometimes it's political Plexiglas, sometimes it's donor Plexiglas.

On this July 4th, a day of declared independence and revolution, think of the Internet and twitter as your opportunity to break through the Plexiglas. Think of the facts that are devoid of politics and being re-elected: health care issues which lead to debt issues, which lead to IRS issues, which lead to freedom issues.

Ask - no demand - that our leaders quit being politicians and do their job. If they don't, let them know they will be removed from office. The Internet, Facebook, twitter, etc. - they change everything. No longer do you need millions of dollars to be heard and our elected leaders are about to find out leadership no longer needs to be elected!!!!!!!! We can change the world - and we need to realize it is up to us - because our leaders are politicians first and leaders of the greatest democracy in the free world second.

Call for Revolution

Change, change, change. All the politicians talk about change. Talk, talk, talk. They only tweak here and nudge there.

We don't need change. We need a revolution!

The State of California is a consumer state: Consume electricity, consume water, consume gas, etc. Homes are built with twigs and stucco and poorly insulated.

I call for a revolution! California needs to be turned on its head and become a self-sustaining state. The following are just a few ideas that could be implemented immediately.

Homes should be built to not require any heat in the winter or cooling in the summer. Electrical outlets should be smart or at least have power on/off switches to cut the waste to plugged in electronics.

We need to change the mentality of consume to conserve. Our water, power, and open space infrastructures are heading for disaster within the next decade.

For example, in Huntington Beach, they are building up the downtown and planning how to build it even more. All their plans are built around more consumption, even as the city struggles to balance the books. Even as Pacific City languishes before their eyes and could even fall into bankruptcy, the city plans on creating more overhead and maintenance.

And what will more buildings bring?: more trash, more crime, more cost. The wind blows nearly everyday and could generate enough electricity to sustain the entire public system, yet the city puts its money into intersection cameras to generate revenue.

With more buildings, Huntington Beach will become just another city with very little that makes it unique or special. If they focused on more open space and connecting parks with paths filled with trees and life, they would indeed create something special. These parks could be designed with self-sustainment in mind and be used to create a revolution in the way all of the United States operates (or at least just the state).

I don’t usually buy fish in the market and I’m a HUGE fan of Commercial Fishing

As a diver, I hunt my own game when I want fish – spoils of the hunt and all that.

So why am I a huge fan of commercial fishing? Because commercial fishing will be extinct by 2048, unless we do something about the way we handle our environment.

In a report, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-11-02-overfishing-threat_x.htm , done by 14 ecologists and economists, analyzing fish populations for 4 years prior determined that by 2048 ninety percent of the fish and shellfish species that are hauled out of the ocean will be gone! Twenty-nine percent of the fish species have already collapsed (meaning no longer generating sustaining populations). The trend is clear and accelerating.

The plummet in fish populations isn’t just from commercial fishing, it’s from coastal area destruction, dredging of reefs and estuaries, and pollution. If the trend is going to be reversed, it will take cooperation from everyone.

I’m a fan of commercial fishing because I believe that 39 years is within their reality ‘vision’ and since they have the most to lose, might possibly fight the hardest to reverse the trend as soon as possible.

Strange Visitor from another Planet.

Meetings, meetings, and more bloody meetings.

No. It's not corporate America having meetings, meetings, and more meetings. They're on a diet...

Faster than a stimulus package. More powerful than a bank stress test. Able to create debt with a single pen stroke.

Funnier than an HBO comedy special. It's government. It's Congress. It's the White House!

Yes, it's President Obama, first President of Color, who came to this office with a vision far beyond those of other candidates. Obama, who can change the course of the country, bend the economy with his bare hands; and who disguised as President, government rethinker and speaker to greater metropolitan newspapers, fights a never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way...

If you have any funny in you at all, you've got to admit President Obama rocked at The White House Correspondents' Dinner the other night. He even pushed the envelope with the material, and without jeopardizing the office.

Here's the only issue I have: He still hasn't cleared the path for corporate America to meet freely, yet it must have taken 99 meetings to put that dinner together. There were planning meetings, site inspections, meetings with writers, secret service meetings, meetings to change seating arrangements (couldn't you just tell that Demi Moore pushed to be at that table in that seat).

Meetings are good! That meeting was valuable. Wanda Sykes was an asset, and no, you can't calculate the ROI she brings, and trying too has contributed to why corporate meetings are in the mess they're in now!

All I'd like to see is the gloves taken off for corporate America - just a word of support given by President Obama - so they can get back to the focus of meetings and off of the focus on meeting.

And in case you weren't sure and needed clarification, The Washington Hilton isn't a budget hotel! Some might even describe it as a luxury property. And no, a sleeveless First Lady, doesn't save enough to justify it.


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Now is the time for ...CVB's to act. Now is the time for Leadership!

Leadership is a word thrown around easily. The fact is leadership is tough. Leadership is being the first to move into an unknown area, doing something never done before, and taking a chance because all the data shows it's the right thing to do. Leadership is taking a solid step forward in a sea of conflicting opinions.

Government is suppose to do the things private enterprise can't or shouldn't, and national government is suppose to do the things state government can't or shouldn't, and so on down the line.

Alexander Hamilton realized the best way to bond the states was by assuming state debts as part of the U.S. Congress. Abraham Lincoln realized that expenditures for growth, even during an expensive civil war, with Pacific Railway Act of 1862 to aid construction of the railroad, telegraph and postal routes from Missouri to the Pacific was the right thing to do. FDR understood the necessity for governments role, even after a misstep with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, with his New Deal during the depression, as does President Obama with his stimulus package.

In the meeting and travel world, CVB's (City Convention and Visitor Bureaus) should be proactive right now. They should be investing in their marketing, sales, and operations. They should be using their inventory to bring in new business at their expense!

So why aren't they? Because they are caught in a political squeeze between spending money to support their members during a time when their main source of funding (hotel revenues) is dramatically reduced. This means standing up in front of city council and demanding to run an aggressive costly campaign that could (or will) put them in the red. This means putting their very political job on the line because it's the right thing to do.

And why should they do this? Because for a city, this economy isn't just affecting 2009, it's affecting 2010 and 2011 even more. If they play it safe, they will lose millions of dollars for their cities, cost hundreds of jobs, and put private enterprise further behind.

Which CVB leaders are willing to make the right call and make the investments necessary for their cities? Who knows?

For most, it's why even try, because city council, who are interested in their positions as well, will just reject it.

The one good thing about this is - the leaders will identify themselves. In times of crisis, leaders ask for the unreasonable and find a way to get it.

We don't need Meetings

Kerry and Obama wants to criminalize meetings?! Well, not quite. They are coming down hard on the meetings of companies that have received government assistance and sent a very chilling message to the rest of corporate and organizational America.

Do you have any idea how much it costs tax payers for the President of the United States to visit a foreign country? Now multiply that by 10 to visit a country with fighting in the streets. Just to run Airforce One is about $75,000 / hour (annual budget of Air Force One Air Wing is classified). Add in the transportation of his limo, the press, the Secret Service advance teams, security, etc, and his stop over in Iraq was conservatively $15 million.

$15 Million for two people to meet for a couple of hours, and they are on AIG's case for a sales reward for people that did a good job at what they were hired to do.

Why didn't he just pick up the phone and call?

Because it's not the same, and if the President of the United States feels it is a good thing to have a meeting, then by all means have it! Just get off the backs of the rest of the industry for making similar decisions for their organizations.