"They Speak"

Off The Beaten Path: Phone calls at 3A.M.?

I really hate to enter the political fray known as the democratic primary, especially as a fiscal-conservative; however...

Does anyone else think that if the phone is ringing at 3am in the White House, that it wouldn't really be Monica looking for Bill? If I were the Clinton campaign, I might be a bit more careful about the mental images they want America to draw up about what's going on in the White House at 3am under another Clinton Administration.

Recent Goings

Last week I attended TECH Cocktail on Thursday evening in Wrigleyville. The evening was quite cold and a bit of snow, but that didn't hold down more than 400-500 local technology professionals from attending. It was a great networking event. I spoke with some of the local Chicago VC's and many of the local tech leaders from the area. TECH Cocktail leaders Eric and Frank (who I have not yet met) are to be congratulated for continuing to organize and pull off such events in Chicago and other cities. Chicago is sorely lacking in local networking and leadership in the tech community and events like these help to erase that problem.

This week I'm off to the (RW) Baird 2008 Business Solutions Conference in Boston. Devin Mathews here in Chicago invited me to the event and I'm looking forward to meeting some of the public and private firms that are presenting at the conference, as well as many from the investor community that will attend. The highlight just might be the conference dinner on Wednesday evening. The guest speaker is patriot's Head Coach, Bill Belichick. After the season they just completed I'm sure there are going to be a few great stories. I wonder if the event will be taped? :)

Efficient Markets, Inefficient Pundits

When I read all the news stories and worse yet, all the blogging pundits, on how bad the proposed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft is, I wonder what is really driving all the negative sentiment.

Businesses in all industries for many years have used acquisitions as a form of growth and global competitiveness. Some companies do it well. Some companies do not. But one truth remains relatively constant, shareholders vote with their dollars (buying and selling) based on what they believe the prospects of the deal will bring. Those votes are rather immediate, based on the information that is shared and opinions about the value creating aspects of the deal. And that evaluation continues on well after the close of any deal.

I see so much negative "stuff" written about what it means to consumers of these companies products and services, customer contractual rights, employees, and the potential acquisition pool for others (start-ups looking for these big firms to acquire them are upset that another potential suitor is gone, rather than focusing on building a sustainable business). But I see very little about how this may actually help these constituents and the acquiring firm (does anyone really think that a deal of the size of the one noted above wasn't considerably discussed and debated, and the benefits, not without risk I grant you, could be significant??)

I would like to read more stories and posts from those who qualify as experts on how any potential deal is going to help the company that is doing the buying. Shareholders of the acquired firm typically do very well based on recent stock performance...shareholders of the buying firms are the ones that raise the questions and need the answers to all of the synergistic value creation opportunities that any proposed deal might have. It helps those shareholders "vote" by buying, selling or holding their shares.

That's not to say things won't go awry in the post-merger integration activities of any deal, but markets are very quick and efficient in reacting to this insight and real information, prior to, during and after any deal. All the rest makes for great blogs and headlines, but does little or nothing to help shareholders evaluate a deal, and consumers evaluate the benefits that may accrue, or the pain that may follow.

I don't have the answers. Rather the purpose of my post was to hopefully inspire those who might, to focus on providing useful information and not simply jumping on the anti-acquisition bandwagon because its the fashionable thing to do.

Technology in the Classroom with the right Objectives

Mike Gotta recently blogged about an effort in NYC to test the effectiveness (cost and performance) of a one laptop per child environment. They blog about it here.

The effort's main issue is that..."(m)any laptop programs have failed to increase student achievement and purposeful learning because teachers have been provided with devices and training but no meaningful redesign of the instruction and curriculum now possible with the technology." I couldn't agree more.

Simply providing the technology to children or the classroom does not, in itself, change the performance of our children. Teacher training, curriculum re-development, and community support are needed to reach what should be the goal of every educational institution...that children thrive.

They go on to acknowledge that gains among the under performing students are higher/better than those of average or above average students...but all are improving. Implementations like these where no one class of children are left out of the benefits should be applauded.

The only issue I have with the way this was presented deals with the stated goals and their order. As I mentioned above, the goal of any educational institution is for their children to thrive. That's issue number one in my mind. Their first goal is listed as "Lowering the Total Cost of Ownership." While I realize that each district must be responsible for the direction and use of taxpayer funds, I believe they have to first ask, "will it help our kids" and then ask "can we afford to implement it."

I'm sure that how they considered, debated and decided on this program, and I applaud their efforts to increase the educational enhancement of all their children with the use of technology, in cooperation with the teachers and staff who are responsible to implement it. Technology is becoming and will be a major part of education in the 21st century.