Rod McQueen's Blog, page 57

Getting closer all the time

I have seen the new BB10 from BlackBerry and it is both sleek and slick. I viewed the touchscreen version and can report that the keys are bigger than the keys on either the iPhone or Android smartphones in the hopes that businesspeople will find the larger size helpful and won’t flee elsewhere.

Overall, it looks and behaves like the PlayBook. No surprise there, the two devices share the same software. The audio and the video both work well.

There are only two issues. One is that old bugbear, the developer community is slow to produce apps. Second, when exactly is availability? When you parse the announcement by Research In Motion saying the launch is January 30, 2013, it doesn’t exactly read that either or both of the initial two models will be ready for sale or even ship on that day. It could well be that the launch on January 30 is all about giving a firm date off in the future.

Meanwhile I have to be satisfied with my exciting sneak peek. To quote Watch Closely, sung by Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, “Watch closely now/You’ll observe a curious exchange of energy/Are you a figment of my imagination, or am I one of yours?”

Hotel helter skelter

The design problem with the new Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville is obvious right from the forecourt. In the middle is a four-tiered fountain that could come from the Renaissance, the pad uses a mosaic of stone inspired by a Persian rug, and the glass canopy over the entrance has a floral pattern reminiscent of a nineteenth-century textile by William Morris. It’s as if they weren’t sure what to do so they did everything.

The hodge-podge continues inside. A minuscule hotel lobby that could seat a dozen gives onto a room containing only a sculptural dandelion. The front desk is almost invisible in an alcove. The next room is even more empty with the concierge discreetly in an antechamber behind a desk of Indian indigo tiger-eye marble, another of the one-offs with no tie to anything else. Vertical metal work looks like Spanish wrought iron gates.

Cafe Boulud, the chichi restaurant on the second floor, continues the helter-skelter design. To the left, tables, chairs and the banquette are in dark wood and black leather. In the middle of the room, the tables are glass-topped and sit on shiny metal pedestals. Elsewhere the seating includes fabric couches and camel-coloured leather. A communal table has been cut from a tree trunk. The flooring is quarried dark stone, the walls could be from sun-washed pueblos in the southwest. The paintings are by Mr. Brainwash, a street pop artist from Los Angeles who appears to have studied Andy Warhol and no one else.

Rosalie Sharp, an alumna of the Ontario College of Art and wife of Four Seasons founder Isadore Sharp, had a role in the interior design of the previous Four Seasons Yorkville. The new hotel’s website mentions various designers but not Ms. Sharp. I have not seen any of the hotel’s 259 guest rooms but the public spaces I did view are nowhere near as graciously done as the earlier version. Ms. Sharp’s knowing hand would have helped here. Based on the interior design, I’d call this place the Two-And-A-Half Seasons.

A woman’s work is never done

There’s that number again, 21.7 percent. According to a study by The Council of Canadian Academies, women represent one-third of all full-time faculty, but only 21.7 percent of full professors. I say there’s that number again because if you look at other sectors such as financial services, law, and accounting the proportion of women in executive positions or partner roles is usually about 22 percent and has been for some time. On boards of directors, the share is even lower, about 11 percent, with no progress in recent years.

Whenever I see a half-page advertisement for a law firm or an accounting firm announcing new partners, I always count the women. Recently, I saw an ad with 30 percent women but that was unusual, the 22 percent figure is more typical. It’s endemically hard for women to succeed. My daughter who is a full professor in art history at McMaster told me recently that of the thirteen women in her high school graduating class who went into law, none of them is still practicing.

The plain fact is that in many organizations, despite their claims and programs to the contrary, the real reason women don’t succeed in greater numbers is sexism. The men in charge feel they have competition enough from other men, why let a bunch of women into the game and reduce their own chances for promotion?

There is only one course of action left: quotas. It is long past time for Canada to put in place by parliamentary legislation or securities regulation something to propel firms to promote women. The best place to start is with the board of directors. Norway has mandated 50 per cent women on boards. A European Union proposal would link board representation to hiring. Unless companies have 40 percent female directors they will be forced to hire a woman over a man when qualifications are equal with the goal of 40 percent women as senior executives. There would be plenty of time to achieve the targets – everything has to happen by 2020 – but meanwhile the efforts leading to that end must be transparent.

For years men have claimed that the rising numbers of women getting ahead in organizations will eventually change the balance. Ten years have passed since I first heard that strategy and nothing has happened. We need to move now to something more coercive. Sexism in the office must end. It’s time for talented women to replace testosterone at the top. To do so, nothing less than mandated fairness is needed.

A modest proposal improved

Yesterday I spoke to a class of eager young business students at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. They’ve been reading my BlackBerry book under the guidance of Professor Knut Jensen who issued the invitation for me to tell his class why Research In Motion started its sad downward slide right after the book came out in March 2010.

Readers of my blog will be familiar with my thesis but I had a few new thoughts worth sharing. I told them I was dubious about RIM’s future and not at all convinced that the new BB 10, due to be unveiled in January, will be sufficient to breathe life back into the company. When I ask people who have used the new smartphone how it is, the answer goes something like this: “It’s fine. Success will depend on the marketing.” That doesn’t sound like the new model is disruptive enough. Meanwhile, I’m nursing along my venerable 8700 in hopes it lasts long enough for me to buy a BB 10.

I also told the students about my idea how to keep recent university graduates in the country. If any graduate takes a first job outside Canada, they have to repay the public portion of their tuition. I want grads to stay, help build Canada, and in particular, I want them to start their own companies rather than go to Google or Microsoft. All the money collected by my “toll gating” scheme would help finance startups by their fellow grads. By a show of hands about 40 per cent of the class approved.

One of the students had an interesting add-on. She suggested that if she stays in Canada and starts a company that reaches a certain size that her student loan should be forgiven. I think that’s a great idea. My thought for the threshold is five years in business and ten employees for repayment. Money for loan repayment would come from the toll gating.

What’s not to like about this additional incentive? We need young people who are willing to take a risk and get a reward. I told them the only way they would ever be rich is to run their own company. Nobody gets wealthy working for somebody else. That should be incentive enough.

Turning Magna into magnanimous

Frank Stronach’s plans to run for office in Austria sound familiar to me. In 1987 he hired me to write a book about his life that would also contain policy ideas for Canada. The story of his business career creating Magna was inspiring but his policy platform was a tad thin. The book was never published.

Frank would have loved to be prime minister, particularly if he could somehow just be appointed to the job, but he was willing to go through the democratic process. He ran as a Liberal for Parliament in 1988 in York-Simcoe and finished second, about 7,000 votes behind the Progressive Conservative candidate, John Cole. Frank later launched an essay contest called If I Were Prime Minister that annually gave away scholarships.

Because he’d built a global auto parts business from a one-man shop, he thought he could succeed at anything. He launched a magazine called Vista, of which I was editor for an afternoon, sought to get into broadcasting, owned a restaurant, and created a racing stable. He was more hands on than any entrepreneur I’ve ever seen. He owned a local newspaper and once grilled me at length how the paper should be displayed in those dispensing boxes on street corners. All those sidelines evaporated when Magna nearly went under in the recession of the early 1990s. With help from Scotiabank, he righted the ship.

Frank had two great attributes. First, he believed in himself. He built a new factory every three months, always assuming that when it was ready, he’d have an order to fill the plant with workers and he always did. Second, he had ten new ideas every day. Mind you, eight of them were stone stupid, but how many business leaders come up with two good ideas in a quarter, let alone daily?

Now that he’s eighty years old, he wants to succeed where he previously failed: get elected to office and run a successful restaurant chain. His new dining idea is organic beef grown on his own farms. He hopes to have 100 outlets. You can’t help but love a guy who still dreams big.

But there’s another step he should be taking. Frank claims he’s going to live until he’s 150, but barring that, if he seeks immortality (as do all entrepreneurs), he’s going to have to decide what to do with his billion-or-so-dollars of net worth. Here are my two ideas for today: He should build a school to train skilled workers and/or establish a foundation to back immigrants who want to start a business.

Knowing Frank as I do, he probably thinks he can take his money with him. I wouldn’t put it past him.

The big screen beckons

A story in today’s New York Times has set me pondering about pandering. On page one of the Sunday Styles section – the one with street fashion photos, society weddings, fundraisers for elites, and coverage of Kate Moss – there’s a story about Canada. The thesis is that left-leaning Americans will flock to live in Canada if Mitt Romney wins on Tuesday.

But wait, there are no actual Americans saying they will move to Canada, there aren’t even any Americans commenting on who or how many might move to Canada. What writer John Ortved has done is contact a dozen Canadians and ask them what they think of this unlikely scenario.

Among the heavy-hitters quoted are two profs at the Munk School (Janis Gross Stein and Jeffrey Reitz), a bank chairman (Rob Prichard), a former deputy prime minister (John Manley), a writer and artist (Doug Coupland), a party leader (Bob Rae), a former party leader (Stockwell Day) and a fashion designer (Jeremey Laing). Imagine the time involved in tracking all those folks down (lengthy) and the time taken to convince them to talk (likely a nanosecond).

Canadians are so desperate for recognition in the U.S. that they will participate in the most unlikely exercise just to get their names in the Times. Let’s face it, no one’s really going to pull up stakes next week and move here from Sedona or Sacramento. Even when Americans come to Canada to buy cheap drugs, they don’t stay, the chartered bus waits at the curb while they load up on Lipitor.

The article also says that “the number of United States citizens who permanently reside in Canada doubled during George W. Bush’s presidency (from 5,800 in 2000 to 11,200 in 2008).” If there are only 11,200 Americans in Canada, I must know them all.

But why quibble about mere facts? My main worry is that the big frogs in our small pond can’t resist the siren call of a higher profile in the U.S. I walked through Times Square last month and noticed that the main attraction is not a flashing LED jumbo sign for Coke or Annie or any other consumer product, it’s a video screen that shows a portion of the crowd below. For that moment, they are part of the chichi, just like Snooki or Jimmy Kimmel.

So, too, with those quoted in this story. Someone in America cared enough to call and ask them their opinion. For a Canadian, such recognition is the height of acclaim. Or, like the folks waving at themselves on Broadway, the depth of narcissism, I’m not sure which.

Stories we used to tell

The announcement today that Random House and Penguin Books will merge is another sad step in the downward spiral of a business already in disarray. The press release was full of cheerful wording about how writers will benefit from the new arrangement. Indeed, individual relationships may continue but important aspects like advances will suffer since the two are unlikely to bid against each other for a work they want.

With famous Canadian houses such as McClelland & Stewart, Stoddart, Key Porter and Douglas & McIntyre merged or bankrupt, fewer players in publishing is not good. Perhaps it no longer matters. Publishing is far from what it was even ten years ago. Time was when a manuscript was given a thorough structural edit as well as a careful copy edit. Today no one asks a writer what he means if there are foggy paragraphs or suggests an entire new final chapter.

Time also was that the writer read galleys, page proofs, blues, and Van Dykes, making corrections and looking for typos. Today you see page proofs and that’s all. It’s not for lack of time. I submitted the first book I wrote, The Moneyspinners, in typewritten form on June 1, 1983. Macmillan of Canada did two edits, set type, I saw four iterations, staved off a legal challenge, and books were printed well before the mid-October publication date. Even though manuscripts are now submitted in digital format, publishers want the manuscript in January for a fall release with far fewer production steps along the way. No one’s ever been able to explain why.

Publishers used to say that authors sold books and sent us on national promotion tours. Now it’s all social media from home with no support from the publishing houses. Far too many independent bookstores are closed. If Indigo doesn’t want your book it might not be published at all.

So best wishes to Random/Penguin. I sincerely hope one of you publishes my next book. But like the newspaper and magazine businesses, it’s safe to say that publishing’s glory days are behind us.

Lincoln Alexander 1922-2012

When I arrived in Ottawa in 1970 as a young, green press secretary to Robert Stanfield, there were a few MPs who took me under their wing. Lincoln Alexander was one of them. I met a lot of politicians then, and more in the years since, but it’s safe to say that Linc was the only one I ever knew who had no enemies. None.

Stanfield’s followers were not always loyal to their leader. Nor did Pierre Trudeau help Stanfield’s cause when he placed before the House a resolution confirming bilingualism, even though the policy had previously been approved. As a result of internal rebellion and such partisan shenanigans, Tory caucus meetings could be argumentative, even divisive, on many topics. On several occasions I watched in despair as various battles played out on matters that seemed insoluable.

And then Linc would get to his feet, and say, “I can sense a consensus emerging here.” I’d think to myself, “Whaaaat?” Linc would take a few threads from this speech, another few threads from that speech, and so on until he had woven a piece of cloth that everyone could wear. National political parties owe their very existence to consensus; Lincoln Alexander could achieve consensus like few others in any party.

Ten years ago I interviewed several people for a video extolling the virtues of Jack Cockwell as a business leader and fundraiser for the Royal Ontario Museum. Among those on my list was Linc. I suggested he come to Toronto from Hamilton and meet me in front of the Ontario Legislature where he had so ably served as Lieutenant Governor. He agreed and we did the interview with the Pink Palace behind him, lit by the morning sun.

As we finished, a busload of school kids arrived who turned out to be from Hamilton. The teachers recognized Linc immediately, introduced him to their charges, and there was much picture-taking of Linc surrounded by the youngsters. My cameraman shot the scene for possible use in the video and as I moved closer I could hear Linc singing, almost to himself, “Vote for Alexander, vote for Alexander.” As he bid good-bye to the kids, he said, “When you go home tonight, don’t forget to tell your parents you saw Linc Alexander today.” He was ever the campaigner, even though at that point he hadn’t run for office in more than twenty years.

Since then I’d see him at Raptors games or when I visited my daughter in Hamilton and we’d stop at Denninger’s Foods where he regularly had lunch. Wherever it was, Linc was always smiling, surrounded by fans, and making them feel good. For most politicians, an ego trip is the only journey worth taking. Not Linc. He cared far more about others than he cared about himself. As a result, among politicians of all stripes, Lincoln Alexander was unique. I can only hope that some of the love we all felt for him found its way to his heart.

Hurrah for other things

My five-year-old grandson recently announced that he didn’t like SpongeBob SquarePants. I always found him a bit grating too, but rather than agree, I asked why? Without hesitation he said, “Some people like some things and other people like other things.”

Maybe that insight applies to all ages and explains why I like some people and not others. Take Salman Rushdie, for example. Now that he has turned his murderous fatwa into a novel, Joseph Anton, he has become inescapable. Not to wish another period of danger upon him, but I liked him better when he was in hiding. Then there’s Leonard Cohen. So languid, so laid back. He’s a wonderful songwriter (Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell both sang his material) but except for Suzanne from 1967 everything he has intoned since all sound the same to me. Must be a chick thing. In the immortal words of Mitt Romney, Leonard Cohen probably has binders full of women.

Speaking of women, has anyone been able to finish a Margaret Atwood novel since Surfacing, published in 1972? And what’s so great about Diana Krall? All she does is sing covers. If she weren’t so beautiful – not that there’s anything wrong with that – she’d be playing the piano bar at the Bide-A-Wee Motel in Shediac.

But just in case you think I’m some grumpy geezer who doesn’t like anyone or anything, here are a few folks I admire and can’t get enough of. I’m currently reading The Passage of Power, Robert Caro’s third volume in his continuing biography of Lyndon Johnson. This book took Caro more years to write than Johnson spent living them. As a tribute, I might take even longer to finish it so much do I treasure Caro’s storytelling style. My favorite novel has long been F. Scott Fitgerald’s The Great Gatsby with its impossibly lyrical last line, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” I reread Gatsby once a year.

My favorite music includes anything by Vivaldi as well as Beethoven’s 32 sonatas. I’ve listened to the complete 10 CD sonata collection so often that when one ends, I can hum the opening bars of the next before it begins. From the nineteenth century, I revel in Gilbert and Sullivan. Among more modern musicians, Adele, Queen, and Sarah Brightman.

Amateur psychologists, read into all of that what you will.

Frank talk

I spent yesterday with Frank Hasenfratz, founder and chairman of Linamar Corp. He is the subject of a new book called Driven to Succeed (Dundurn) written by Susan M. Papp and me. Usually it’s the authors who promote their books, but Frank is such a great storyteller and media savvy business leader that we thought the focus should be on him.

Before Frank spoke at lunch to the Toronto Rotary, one of the members droned on for far too long about the public relations effort involved in the club’s one hundreth anniversary. Fortunately there was an interesting tidbit amid the dross. She did a quick survey of the one hundred people in the audience to see who was using what social media. About 10 percent were on Twitter, 30 percent on Facebook, and 50 percent on LinkedIn. The surprising popularlity of LinkedIn likely shows the business focus of the audience but I was astounded at the penetration of social media in general.

Frank was also interviewed by Howard Green for a thirty-minute segment on his BNN show, Headline. Prior to the taping in their terrific new studios at 299 Queen St. W., I enjoyed chatting with several former colleagues from fifteen years ago at The Financial Post: Scott Anderson, Tony Keller, and Zena Olijnyk. Paul Bagnell was also there, but on air, so we didn’t talk.

Even after the many hours Susan and I spent interviewing Frank, Howard managed to find a new insight. Early in the segment Frank  talked about how he and his family, who had lived in Hungary for 250 years, were targeted by the Russians during the Second World War because of the family’s German ancestry. Howard noted that Linamar did no business in Russia today but had operations in China. How could be explain choosing one but not the other given that both were communist, a form of government Frank despised. Frank pointed out differences between communism in Russia versus state capital in China but said that the real reason he felt more positively about the Chinese was that they had not hurt his family while the Russians had.

At another point, Howard asked Frank, “Are you cheap?” In response, Frank told a story from the book. All 15,000 employees are well aware of Frank’s ongoing efforts to cut costs. In one plant he visited, the employees put two pennies on the floor where they knew he’d see them. They waited and then watched as he bent down to pick them up only to discover that they had been glued in place. Everyone laughed, including Frank.

BNN has three clips of the interview with Frank available on the Video Player. Here’s one.