Russ: Good morning, this is The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at: TheBusinessMakers.com and this is that show about innovators and entrepreneurs.
John: That's right Russ these people are the athletes and artists of the free enterprise system. There's more and more of them coming online every day and it doesn't matter whether it's a good economy bad economy they still find opportunities there.
Russ: Well, good point and any of you that pay attention to the ads in the Wall Street Journal saw a real cool Kaufman ad, couple of days ago, about the drivers to the road to the recovery. An open letter to President-elect Obama pointing out that it's the six hundred thousand entrepreneurs who started companies in '08 who are the key.
John: But why say, spend all that money just to reach one guy. [Laughter] They know where he lives...
Russ: He's, he's hard to reach, though man...
John: He's over at Blair House or the Carleton Hotel.
Russ: He's hard to reach.
John: Why didn't they just make a sales call?
Russ: Well, we we want everyone to read that one, that's for sure.
John: Alright.
Russ: Alright, here's our line-up for this morning. First up for the Aflac BusinessMakers flashback, earlier this week I visited with Dr. Cliff Kurtzman founder and executive Director of MyCityRocks a real cool story about connecting your online world with the offline world. And then for our featured guest segment this morning, I'm gonna visit with Dr. Don Minnick of Interpersonal Skills Laboratories. And he's gonna share his year's of accumulating real world data from business leaders on what you can do to be a survivor in your organization during this economic downturn, a very timely discussion, but first...That's right it's time for the BusinessMaker's School of Business and this isn't your ordinary business school at all.
John: I know. I don't know what kind of business school it is, but it's definitely not your traditional way of presenting information that may be of help to people who might do well in business.
Russ: You got that. As a matter of fact, you mentioning that reminded me we had some feedback...
John: Feedback.
Russ: ...from your history lesson last week. In fact, it was on that item that took place in January of 1965...
John: What was that?
Russ: When the Searchers released "Love Potion Number Nine."
John: "Love Potion Number Nine."
Russ: We had a writer write in and say: "You know what, they just might have a patent infringement case against Viagra."
John: Yeah. that's right.
Russ: Good marketing campaign with the song, but poor follow-up and product distribution. Wouldn't you agree?
John: Well, there you go. Yeah, yeah, you bet. So they did not do a very good job of protecting their brand, which could come up in the court case.
Russ: It could.
John: I mean, I wouldn't bring that up. Lot of things you bring up with that Viagra stuff anyway.
[Laughter]
Russ: All right, and we kick of the School of Business each Saturday morning with the quote of the day.
John: The quote of the day.
Russ: In staying consistent with our theme for about the last three weeks...
John: Again. Not another politician.
Russ: It's so easy to trash these guys these days though. Listen to this one, this one's from Henry Kissinger. Okay, now it's kind of a math problem: "Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
John: That's right, ninety percent.
[Laughter]
Russ: Ten percent are good.
John: Ten percent are good, that's right. It's tough to figure out who those ten percent are.
[Laughter]
John: How do you find'em?
Russ: That's true, I think it moves around. I think it moves around.
John: And how do you define being a good politician.
Russ: I have no idea.
John: I think the best politician is the one that doesn't do anything.
Russ: That's exactly right.
John: That's sits in the seat and does not try to pass any laws, does not... Maybe tries to repeal some, maybe that, maybe that would be the indicator...
Russ: That would
John:... 'cause every time you pass a law, somebody somewhere in this country loses the right to do something.
Russ: That's right. Okay. And that brings us to this week in business history. So, John, you're the chief history officer. Chief History Officer, dive in.
John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1880, the U.S. sewage disposal system separate from storm drains is started in Memphis, Tennessee.
Russ: Well, that's pretty important, pretty innovative.
John: Because before that everything just came went down a common drain.
Russ: Right.
John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1899 Al Capone was born in Italy.
Russ: Wow.
John: He was a Chicago bootlegger. People couldn't get a drink and he fulfilled that need by illegally importing alcohol and making it.
Russ: Yeah, yeah, now, he got a little rough along the way in some of his tactics, right.
John: Yeah right. Well, yeah, actually the problem with Al Capone is that he had two fatal errors in his life. Number one he was deathly afraid of needles.
Russ: Okay.
John: Okay, 'cause he died of syphilis, he could have easily been cured because penicillin was in use.
Russ: So he wouldn't take a shot.
John: Wouldn't take a shot.
Russ: Wow.
John: The other thing is he didn't file income taxes.
Russ: Yeah, yeah I've heard of that.
John: Alright, later on this week in business history. 1899 was the birth of Nevil Shute, he's from Norway, but he's a very famous novelist because he wrote a book called "On the Beach" which was later made into a motion picture.
Russ: What a classic that was too.
John: It was one of these nuclear holocaust type of movies about this war raged. A nuclear war was set off in the northern hemisphere and people migrated to the southern hemisphere and this involves a group of people in Australia. And they're debating whether to go back home even though they know they're going to die and...
Russ: Right, well they...
John: It's a very sad story.
Russ: Yeah, and they were considering going back home because they could hear this telegraph...
John: Right, yeah. They couldn't recognize what it was and a...
Russ: It wasn't making any sense.
John: Yeah and...
Russ: And they ended up sending a submarine back and discovered that it was just kind of a fluke thing on a telegraph sender that caused the message to come.
John: Yeah right, yeah, very anticlimactic, but a good plot nonetheless.
Russ: You bet, you bet.
John: This week in business history in 1922 the Geological Survey says that the U.S. oil supply will be depleted in twenty years. That's like the guy who said the patent office ought to be closed.
Russ: Right
John: This is a very important history. I gotta tell ya there's doomsayers all over the place that are making these bad predictions. They make them all the time, that's why Samuel Goldwyn, the movie producer, said: "Nobody knows anything."
Russ: Right, they probably used that old-fashioned static analysis back then. I mean they never thought there was gonna be any improvement on the ability to discover it and pull it out of the ground, but they were predicting we'd be out in 1942.
John: Right, yeah, right.
Russ: So they were off.
John: They were off, they should be sued for malpractice. Okay, this week in business history in 1943 is the birth date of Janis Joplin of Port Arthur, Texas, and she had so many good songs...
[MUSIC]
John: ...but unfortunately she died of a drug overdose.
Russ: Yeah,...
John: Yeah, died too early.
Russ: Yeah, very much so.
John: This week in business history in 1951 the NFL rules that tackles, guards, and centers are ineligible to catch a forward pass.
Russ: You mean to tell me before then they could catch...
John: I guess everybody could go out for a pass.
Russ: ...forward passes.
[Laughter]
Russ: That was probably a fun game.
John: You all go long.
Russ: Everybody go long. I would like to have seen that, change those rules back.
John: I would like to have seen it, but it's probably a good rule change, cause you gotta have some sort of order in a game.
Russ: You call that order out there.
John: I don't know.
[Laughter]
Russ: Okay, all right.
John: Okay, this week in business history 1985 "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen peaks at number nine on the charts.
[Music]
John: And we're leaving here on a sad note. This week in business history, 2005, Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show", right, all those years, passes away.
Russ: Boy and what a class act he was. It was a great show.
John: It was a great show.
Russ: Okay, great history lesson. Thanks a lot again, John Beddow.
John: Alright.
Russ: And that bring us to navigating business jargon, and this is that part of the show where we do our best to help our listeners understand all the new techno speak, all the new acronyms, all the new jargon that's spoken out there.
John: That's right cause if you want to be with it, if you really want to be a player in this world of business we're talking about, you better know the words, better know the vocabulary.
Russ: You better believe it.
John: I know.
Russ: You better believe it.
John: I agree.
Russ: And the way that we do this...
John: Oh, here we go.
Russ: The way we do this is a contest format. I say the word...
[Music]
Russ: ... and John gets to try to guess the meaning.
John: Yeah
Russ: And this is gonna be challenging.
John: And I don't know the word.
Russ: That's right. It's gonna be a verb this morning.
John: A verb, an action, an action word.
Russ: We haven't done a verb in a long long time. You ready.
John: Yes.
Russ: Anonymize.
John: Anomynize
Russ: Anonymize.
John: Okay, anonymous means that nobody knows what it is...
Russ: Right.
John: It's, you're hidden.
Russ: Right.
John: ... ize means the process of, so it's in the process of making something hidden.
Russ: We got a winner.
John: Yeah, hey, how 'bout that.
Russ: It's to make anonymous is what it is, anonymize, and you...
John: Wow, I hit it right on the nail of the head.
Russ: You did.
John: I get a Kewpie doll.
[Laughter]
Russ: You do. So if you here somebody talking about wanting to anonymize you, ooh, that's not good.
John: You know, I've often used the expression about somebody. You know, I'd like to be the first to nominate him for oblivion.
Russ: Yeah, well now you can use this one.
John: Anonymize is one word of saying that.
Russ: That's right.
[Laughter]
Russ: There you go.
John: All Right.
Russ: All right and that brings us to dumbest moments. Do we have a dumb moments story this morning.
John: Yeah, this is sophisticated, this is for the learned.
Russ: Okay.
John: And you have to pay attention.
Russ: Okay, all right.
John: There's a guy named Dmitry Medvedev, who's the Russian President, and he wasn't elected, he was appointed by the former president and now the Prime Minister, Vladamir Putin.
Russ: Don't they have like little artificial election that takes place too.
John: Ah, I don't think they did on this one.
Russ:They don't even do that?
John: They don't even do that. We all know what's going on over there, they're trying to re-establish the old Soviet empire.
Russ: Right, right.
John: And they're not being too subtle about it.
Russ: Right.
John: When Putin appointed Medvedev...
Russ: Yeah.
John: He did so and everybody thought well this guy's just gonna be Putin's puppet.
Russ: Sure.
John: Okay, that's very alliterative by the way.
Russ: Putin's puppet.
John: Putin's puppet, yeah. For a while it looked like that's what is going to be, but now Medvedev is getting out on his own here and he's starting to take shots at Putin in an indirect way, 'cause the economy's not doing so well and you know, there's, there's finger pointing.
Russ: Right, it's Putin's fault. Putin's fault, yeah.
John: And he's been trying to pursue some independent policies and...
Russ: Ooh, Isn't that a little bit risky?
John: I know, ther've been. Well, the thing is, you know, in Russia, when there's a power struggle, it's not like the United States where you get voted of office...
Russ: Right.
John: ...and you get a couple million dollars a year to live off the rest of your life and you get speaking engagements.
Russ: Right.
John: You're out of office in Russia, depending on if you're having a difficult relationship with your predecessor or someone who's appointed you, you may not live to tell the tale.
Russ: Someone goes away.
John: You're not gonna live long enough to write your memoirs and get on Larry King.
Russ: Is this kind of a prediction of a dumb moment?
John: Well, yeah it is, but see, here's the sophisticated unusual part of this. Based on what's happened in the past in there you could say Medvedev may end up getting the upper hand on Putin and bye-bye Putin.
Russ: Wow you mean, as in like knocking him off.
John: Well, hey, a yeah, sleeping with the fishes.
[Laughter]
Russ: Alright, alright.
John: Bye-bye Putin. Cement overcoat, okay. Or Putin may say: "Hey, I've had enough of this guy, sayonara."
Russ: Let's have another election.
John: Yeah.
[Laughter]
John: Or: "Gee, whatever happened to Medvedev, where, I just saw him last night, where is he?"
[Laughter]
John: So it could be a dumb moment for Medvedev for popping off or taking the job in the first place. Or it may be a dumb...
Russ: Or for Putin underestimating him.
John: Or for underestimating him, so it's interesting.
Russ: Cool, alright, we'll see.
John: We got a little chess match of dumb moments here.
Russ: We'll keep our eye on that.
John: I don't think it's gonna resolve itself in a peaceful coexistence here.
Russ: You don't think so? That's out of the question?
John: Or that one of them could end up in the gulag somewhere.
Russ: Yeah, yeah, alright well that just about wraps up this morning's school of business except for that part where we bring our good friend in, Greg Price and he presents the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneurs playbook.
John: Hey, there he is. Come on in. Come on in Greg, you look like you've been having a good day, make it good for us..
Russ and John: A one and a two...
Greg: This is Greg Price with PKF Texas Entrepreneurs Playbook with the recent economic upheaval, one of the most significant announcements from the Securities and Exchange Commission seems to have been put on the back burner or at least may no longer be in the forefront of most CEOs and CFO minds. The SEC recently announced it's proposed road map for the eventual conversion of U.S. publicly traded companies from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, otherwise known as GAAP, to International Financial Reporting Standards, otherwise known as IFRS. There are several factors that suggest IFRS will be made mandatory in the near future including the SEC's expressions of continued support for a unified set of accounting standards. The initial plan calls for allowing the largest of the multinational companies to adopt and report financial results in IFRS starting in 2010. Mandatory reporting for large, mid sized, and small companies would begin in 2014, 2015, and 2016, respectively. Right now this will impact public companies, but private companies should be aware of how it could potentially filter down to their organizations. PKF Texas has written a white paper detailing the impact of the impending conversion which can be found at our website at: pkftexas.com/ifrs. To read and comment on the PKF Texas Entrepreneurs Playbook visit my blog: fromgregshead.com. PKF Texas, the fit that's right.
Russ: And that wraps up the School of Business. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at: thebusinessmakers.com.
