Russ: Good morning. This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com and this is Episode No. 272 of that show that champions innovation and entrepreneurship.
John: That's right. That's what it's all about
Russ: You bet. All right and here's our lineup for this morning. Our topic is cool technology used to increase the production in existing oil reservoirs and up first, for The BusinessMakers Flashback, we're gonna revisit our interview with Bill Schrom, CEO of Geosource. This is the company that uses old data and looks at it with smart people, to produce more oil in old reservoirs. And then that's gonna be followed by our Featured Guest segment where our own John Pacini sits down with Stuart Page, CEO of Glori Oil. Glori Oil is the company using microbiology to get more oil out of those older wells. But first - That's right, it's time for The BusinessMakers School of Business powered by Champion Energy Services. So we're doing pretty good with those guys and they're doing pretty good for us.
John: Yeah, I get a real charge out of this sponsorship, I'll tell you that.
Russ: That's right. Right.
John: Okay.
Russ: Well and they are the guys that kinda really open the books up so you can see exactly what you're paying for - every -
John: The transparency.
Russ: - for every little piece of energy you use.
John: For every little piece of energy no matter how minute or fractural it is in that -
Russ: Right. You could figure out how much -
John: It's in that electricity journal that you have access to 24/7.
Russ: There you go.
John: There you go.
Russ: All right. And we kick off the School of Business each Saturday morning with the Quote of the Day.
John: Quote of the Day. Hey that last - last week was a doozy. It's gonna be a tough time coming up with something better than that.
Russ: Well I can't beat that. That was Maggie Thatcher and man she knows what she's talking about, big time.
John: Maggie - yeah. Yeah right, right.
Russ: But this morning's quote's from a pretty smart guy, Mr. Albert Einstein.
John: Yeah, he's pretty smart.
Russ: He said this: "Make everything as simple as possible but not simpler.
John: Hmm.
Russ: Right, which I think is real good advice, you know -
John: Yeah.
Russ: You know, we get often complex and wordy and it's good advice.
John: Okay.
Russ: All right, that brings us to This Week in Business History. So what happened during this August week in business history?
John: Okay, 79 A.D. all right, now -
Russ: Going way back, right?
John: Now put this in historical perspective in the year 70 A.D. is when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.
Russ: Okay. Wow.
John: But in 79 A.D. -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - Mt Vesuvius erupts.
Russ: Okay.
John: Now the dormant volcano, at the time -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - and these people had, you know, they, these people had, they had no seismology expertise.
Russ: Right. Right.
John: Obviously, they didn't know anything.
Russ: Yeah.
John: maybe the animals left, like 30 seconds before the eruption.
Russ: Right.
John: You know, like the birds and the dogs start barking and everything but not only was the entire city of Pompeii destroyed -
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: - killing thousands of people, but there's another town called Herculaneum.
Russ: We don't talk about that one.
John: Which - yeah, nobody knows about that one but, you know, there was a lot of volcanic material and mud that covered the whole area.
Russ: Yeah.
John: And the cities were wiped out.
Russ: Yeah? Wow.
John: [snaps] Just like that.
Russ: Wow, okay, cool. 79 A.D.
John: Whew, 79 A.D.
Russ: Going way back.
John: Right, okay, now we're moving ahead. In the year 1609, this week in business history, astronomer Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to a group of Venetian law makers.
Russ: Whoa. Wow.
John: Okay and later on they declared him a heretic. So, okay. This week in business history in 1814 the British sets fire to the main treasury building in Washington, D.C. -
Russ: Wow.
John: - and then they head across the street to take a meal at a restaurant called Rhodes Tavern.
Russ: [Laughter] They read about it
John: Yeah.
Russ: - and knew, "Well I'm hungry now, let's" wow.
John: But you know, this is - I mean this sounds funny but this was a devastating event to the new nation.
Russ: Sure it was. Yeah.
John: 'Cause you know, the British, who were, you know, lost in the Revolutionary War -
Russ: Right.
John: - they started causing trouble a couple decades after that was over.
Russ: Yeah.
John: And they, you know, they invaded the City of Washington D.C. and burned it to the ground, the capitol, the White House -
Russ: After they officially lost the war.
John: Yeah, now what happened with -
Russ: Terrorists is what it sounds like.
John: - yeah, oh I know but what caused this to happen was some American troops went up into Canada and burned a few cities up up there.
Russ: Oh, okay. All right.
John: So there's been - but right after this -
Russ: Tit for tat's what they say.
John: Yeah, tit for tat, but right after this, they headed up to Baltimore -
Russ: Yeah?
John: - and they were turned away at Ft. McHenry.
Russ: The British did?
John: The British, yeah, right and the Star Spangled Banner was written. So -
Russ: Okay.
John: - and we'll probably hit that later on.
Russ: Right, sorry. Okay.
John: Okay, this week in business history in 1853 the first potato chips were prepared by Chef George Chip in Saratoga Springs, New York. No, his name was Crumb, which is another ironic -
Russ: Yeah.
Russ: We went from British terrorism to the potato chip in one -
John: To the potato chip, right.
Russ: - one fell swoop. Cool.
John: I know it's a -
Russ: All right.
John: - this is an eclectic -
Russ: Yeah. Yes.
John: I would say an eclectic School of Business.
Russ: Okay.
John: Okay. This week in business history in 1859, oil is found in Pennsylvania. Edwin Drake, 69 feet underground. That's funny. This is only 69 feet because -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - you know, now you gotta go a mile under the water -
Russ: Right.
John: - and then five miles under the -
Russ: Right, right.
John: - but here they find it at 69 feet. It was the world's first successful oil well and opened up a whole new, inexpensive source of power, replaced the whale oil and -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - you know, these oil - these environmentalists are all over -
Russ: Fossil fuels, yeah.
John: - oil and fossil fuels but look - we saved the whales as a result of this.
Russ: Right.
John: This week in business history in 1901, you know, we talked about the Cadillac emblem last week -
Russ: Right, right.
John: - well they just didn't just make up an emblem and say, "Gee, isn't this nice?" They were actually making a trademark for -
Russ: Right.
John: - the Cadillac automobile which came out this week in business history a week after they did the emblem.
Russ: In 1901. Yeah.
John: Right, yeah.
Russ: Wow. So -
John: Named after an 18th Century explorer -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac -
Russ: Yeah?
John: - founder of the - he founded the City of Detroit.
Russ: Wow.
John: Okay.
Russ: 1901, so Cadillac's like 109 years old. Wow.
John: Yeah, it sure is. Yeah.
Russ: Cool, cool.
John: This week in business history in 1906 the first Victor Victrola -
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: - which is a record player -
Russ: That's right.
John: - was manufactured in 1906.
Russ: That's cool. Yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. This week in business history in 1914 the parachute is invented by Stefan Banic of Greenville, Pennsylvania.
Russ: Okay.
John: And that's something I didn't know about at all.
Russ: No? And then it was a ____ -
John: But Greenville's not too far from Pittsburgh where I grew up, yeah.
Russ: Yeah, okay. And then a couple of decades later, it was followed by the golden parachute, yeah.
John: The golden parachute which is invented by several business people.
Russ: Okay, right.
John: Okay, this week in business history in 1964, man we move ahead 50 years -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - the Supremes had their first number one hit when "Where Did Our Love Go" hit the top of the chart for the first of two weeks.
[Music: "Where Did Our Love Go"]
John: This week in business history two years after the Supremes hit the top of the charts, the lunar orbiter takes the first photograph of the earth from orbit around the moon.
Russ: Wow. That was the stuff. [Laughter] Yeah, yeah.
John: And the earthrise. That's where that - everybody's seen that shot of the earthrise -
Russ: It was just unbelievable.
John: - it came from - there you go. Yeah.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Right. Okay. This week in business history in 1968 the Democratic Convention is besieged by protesters.
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: There's a lot of contention on who would get the Democratic nomination 'cause LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson -
Russ: Right.
John: - refused to run again. So that opened it up for Hubert Humphrey and couple other folks.
Russ: Right.
John: And there was a group of radicals called The Chicago Eight. They were anti-war and they thought if Humphrey got elected it would continue the war and so it was just a mess.
Russ: I watched it -
John: Oh yeah.
Russ: - I don't know if you did - I watched in on TV and it was just unbelievably sensational. That was when TV coverage would go outside and would show the protests and the Chicago Police under the direction of Mayor Richard Daley were pretty rough on the protestors.
John: I know.
Russ: I mean they're whacking them over the head and -
John: Yeah, right.
Russ: - people were bleeding and getting hurt.
John: Yeah, I know. See, it's also noted that CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace -
Russ: Right.
John: - was punched in the face.
Russ: Right, right.
John: And there's a lotta people to this day that would like to be able to do that.
Russ: [Laughter]
John: The Chicago Eight did it.
Russ: Yeah.
John: All right, this week in business history one of the more famous, you know, one time this was the most famous nefarious Wall Street scheme.
Russ: Yeah.
John: But, you know, as time has gone on, this is kinda -
Russ: Beat it to death. It's about number ten.
John: Yeah, it's, you know, it's not that big a deal, really but anyway. Guy named Marty Siegel meets Ivan Bosky at the Harvard Club in New York and they decide to, one, give the other - mainly Siegel giving Bosky insider information in return for some cash.
Russ: Yeah.
John: And it kept going on and on and on until they got caught.
Russ: It worked out pretty well for a while, right?
John: Sooner or later you get caught, you know?
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: And it's -
Russ: So it's actually an embarrassment, yeah.
John: - you wonder why people do this stuff. You know, very - you know, sooner or later something's gonna happen.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Something bad's gonna happen.
Russ: Yeah. [Laughter] When you're stepping across the line that far, my God.
John: Okay, this week in business history in 1990 after opening for Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, from - a good ol' Texas boy - dies in a helicopter crash.
[Music: "The Sky is Crying"]
Russ: Goodness gracious, yeah.
John: Yeah, that was tough.
Russ: Yeah, he actually played in a business that I ran when I was in college, man.
John: Oh really?
Russ: Yeah, yeah. Back in the '70s and quite a guitar player.
John: Yeah. This week in business history in 2007 Michael Oxley is interviewed on The BusinessMakers Show. Now here's a guy who's really smart.
Russ: Yeah.
John: But did something dumb.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Okay, Michael Oxley, smart guy -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - he's now - he was Vice Chairman of NASDAQ in 2007.
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: But he also dreamed up Sarbanes-Oxley Law with Senator Paul Sarbanes.
Russ: Yeah.
John: And what a mess that is.
Russ: Yeah.
John: So, you know, just 'cause you're smart doesn't mean you're gonna do well.
Russ: All right and that wraps up this morning's history lesson.
John: Hey, you know, we start out with an eruption and we end up with a destruction.
Russ: All right. [Laughter]
John: Okay, there you go.
Russ: Great history lesson as usual.
John: Well, thank you.
Russ: And I know it takes a lotta effort just to get all those stories out there. I mean, we don't -
John: Hey.
Russ: - you don't hold back.
John: Well I tell my- I give people my opinion -
Russ: That's right.
John: - and I try to throw in a few humor -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - and I make a few things up along the way and there you got it.
Russ: There you go. All right and that brings us to The Jargon Challenge Round.
John: Uh huh.
Russ: And this is that part of our show also known as -
John: Hey, I won last week. You even - you went to the Oxford Dictionary reject list.
Russ: Right and you got freegan, man that was, that was freegan unbelievable.
John: Freegan, baby. Freegan unbelievable.
Russ: All right and this morning's word is also gonna come from the rejects to the Oxford English dictionary.
John: All right. Okay.
Russ: Here's this morning's word.
John: Yeah.
Russ: And I'm gonna spell it for you, too. Wurfing.
John: Wurfing.
Russ: Which is W-U-R-F-I-N-G.
John: Wurfing. Okay. I know what it is.
Russ: Okay.
John: You know the movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves"?
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: Okay. Well that was about a group of miners.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Okay and they were dwarves.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Okay. Well, there were also dwarves that worked on railroads -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - and they were wurfing on the railroad.
Russ: [Laughter] No, no. You had the right theme going for this rhyme thing, too, but -
John: Yeah, all right.
Russ: - you'll die after you hear it because you shoulda got this. It's the act of surfing the Internet while at work.
John: Oh!
Russ: Wurfing.
John: Hey that's pretty - I like that.
Russ: Wurfing. Wurfing.
John: Yeah. Okay.
Russ: All right, all right.
John: That's a good one. Wurfing.
Russ: All right, thank you very much. All right.
John: I like that with duck shuffling.
Russ: There you go.
John: Right, there you go.
Russ: That brings us to Dumb Moments in Business. Do you have a story for us this morning?
John: Yeah, I've got - this is kind of a sequel to last week's dumb moment.
Russ: Okay. Right.
John: We all talked about last week about how the benefits -
Russ: Right. Of government, yeah, right.
John: - I mean not only are the salaries of government employees, federal employees versus the private sector -
Russ: Right.
John: I mean those are higher but there's a bigger percentage, bigger gap in the benefits.
Russ: Oh yeah. All right.
John: But apparently that's good enough for some retired New York City cops.
Russ: Okay.
John: Now, this is being investigated right now so we're not sure whether this is really gonna eventually be a fact -
Russ: Okay, okay.
John: - but it was big enough to catch the eye of the New York Post, which is where I got this information from -
Russ: Okay.
John: - and I think where there's smoke there's fire.
Russ: Yeah. Okay.
John: Okay, and so right now you've got up to 24 retired New York City cops and they're already getting tax-free disability pensions.
Russ: And they were participants in these cool government benefit programs that you keep highlighting.
John: Yeah right but they're being investigated for allegedly pretending to have mental illnesses so they can get Social Security payments added to what they're already getting.
Russ: Oh they're trying to get a little upgrade on those benefits?
John: An upgrade, yes, right, yeah. And this corruption probe and it's prompted the feds to target the retirees as well as their lawyers and their psychiatrists.
Russ: Yeah. Wow.
John: So this thing runs really deep. It began two years ago and this is all again from The New York Post -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - when Social Security cops investigated - they were working on an unrelated corruption case - noticed that one lawyer represented an inordinate amount of retired policemen filing Social Security claims.
Russ: Social Security probably -
John: These are benefits for the mental, you know the mental -
Russ: - yeah. The Social Security disability claims, probably, yeah, yeah right.
John: Disability claims because of the fact that these people claim that they had mental illnesses.
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: But the fact is you see, they had gun permits and you can't issue a gun permit to a person who swears that he isn't taking any drugs for mental problems.
Russ: Oh! So, that's where the kinda conflict ari- yeah.
John: So that's where the rub is. So if they - so if you got the gun permit, how can you all of a sudden have -
Russ: Be mentally disordered as well. Wow.
John: - yeah, right. So here's a problem. Yeah.
Russ: So they realized that if you just had an orthopedic disability you only got three-quarters of your benefit but if you had a mental disability you jacked it on up.
John: Yeah. Well you still go three quarter but you got the Social Security disability.
Russ: And you got more. Yeah. Oh but God then you have to give up the gun, right?
John: Yeah - well no, they - well it's, you know.
Russ: You should, at least.
John: You should've never gotten a gun to begin with.
Russ: That's right. That's right.
John: So we're - well, we're gonna stay on this but we're just illustrating how this can really - this become a tangled web.
Russ: There you go. Well, so now it's time for a guy that can really untangle a web -
John: That's right.
Russ: - and so we -
John: And he shows no signs of any mental illnesses.
Russ: [Laughter] No he doesn't, so -
John: Okay, here he is.
Russ: Yeah, we're talking about the PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook -
John: Greg Price.
Russ: - with Mr. Greg Price.
Greg: This is Greg Price with PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook.
Last month I spent two weeks in Italy and the Tuscany region. That meant I would be away from the office and not be connected to my technology based consulting practice and my clients. Needless to say I was quite a bit nervous about this, not because I didn't have an excellent team backing me up at the office, but the expectations of many today are that you are on "the grid" 24/7. The reality of the situation is that while in Italy my current iPhone service provider (ATT) would have had outrageous charges and roaming charges for 3G data services while outside the US. As a result, I turned off the 3G data service and just went with international phone service.
I felt guilty, nervous, and edgy the first few days of my vacation, but I soon settled in to not being connected and I think it was great for my psyche and outlook when I returned to the office. Because we are connected 24/7 for the most part here in the US, I think we put tremendous time pressures and constraints on ourselves which can lead to all kinds of other challenges and management issues.
I noted in a recent survey by Robert Half which indicated that of over 1,400 CFOs surveyed; a whopping 69% said that they check in with work at least twice a week while on vacation. And 33% said that they check in at least once a day and sometimes more. Wow! So much for your vacation, if you are never on vacation.
In the article on the survey I noted one person's approach which was to stay in touch, but setting some limits on how and when you responded. I like that approach, one that works well with wine, pasta and your iPhone.
To read and comment on the PKF Texas' Entrepreneur's Playbook, visit my blog, fromgregshead.com. And be sure to check out the new mobile ready website at PKF Texas.com - PKF Texas, The Fit That's Right!
Russ: Okay and that wraps up this morning's School of Business. Stay tuned in for The BusinessMakers Flashback where we revisit our interview with Bill Schramm, CEO of Geosource and then that's gonna be followed by our Featured Guest where John Pacini sits down and talks with Stuart Page, CEO of Glori Oil. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.
