Twitter is for old people

Those were the words spoken by a teenage girl during an NPR interview. By "old people", I'm assuming she meant 20 year olds or so. This is the latest evidence that young people today live in a world that has a very different perspective from mine. Me, I like to stay current on what's going on in the world. I listen to NPR religiously; I get new off the Internet, largely from google news; I read the Wall Street Journal; and I watch news shows on TV including Charlie Rose and CSPAN. However, I end up seeing and hearing a lot of stuff I don't care about. Then there is GenY, aka Michael. A GenY "aha moment" for me was while listening to yet another NPR interview where a GenYer said "If the news is important, it will find me." Using twitter, facebook and other social media, the news finds the GenYer. They too get a lot of worthless static but not necessarily more than me. I hunt my news, theirs finds them. Not right or wrong, just a different process. I do plan to stick with mine ... except for maybe during pledge weeks.

Odds and Ends

Friday started as a quiet day around the farm but then things really got crazy. I was working from home, Eric got back from Minneapolis mid-morning and Tim had the day off. All of us were on the farm quietly minding our own business. Suddenly I noticed two horses and a mule in our front yard. We no longer own any large animals so they were not ours. I called them to attention of Shirley. I asked "What should we do?" She suggested she call our neighbor whose animals they are. I thought that sounded reasonable so I told her to go ahead. Only minutes later the phone rings. It's Tim asking "Do you know there are two horses and a mule in your front yard?" I explained that we had already taken action. I later noticed that I had a missed call from Eric. I called him back. He said he had called about the horses and the mule ... but the neighbor had come over and took them back. Eric will be over for coffee in the morning. I can't wait to talk to him about the horses and the mule.

Jill ignored Tylir's and my advice about keeping Hayden home from mother's-day-out after they taught her to cry. Sure enough she picked up on lesson number two, how to pinch. I suspect this week she learned how to bite but Jill denies it.

The New Office

Having a place people want to be is one of the key ingredients to Starbucks phenomenal success. Their goal was to be the third spot where people spent a lot of time along with their home and office. They were successful to a large degree. Others are trying new versions of this formula. Yesterday I went to Panera Bread for lunch around 2:30. They offer free Wi-Fi and the place was full of people. I could hardly find a place to sit. Most tables had people working on their laptops. People were interviewing for jobs on other tables. A cold cup of coffee was about the only evidence of a purchase in nearly all cases. I’m thinking a lot of people are back to spending most of their time in two places, home and the pseudo office/coffee shop with free Wi-Fi. My thoughts, this isn’t a bad way to work. I think the formal office is going to go the way of newspapers. All you need is a table, laptop and a cell phone for an awful lot of jobs. Companies could save a great deal of money and create more interesting places to work by adapting to this reality. Sell your stock in file cabinet and desk manufactures.

Dirty rotten banks and credit unions

You may be one of the majority of Americans that cheers as congress finally begins to act on the consumer abuses committed by financial institutions. They are going after all of the excess profit areas of the banks:
• Congress passed the CardAct this past May to stop unfair practices such as increasing interest rates on credit cards even when the consumers were reliably paying their bill. They also added disclosures and longer notification periods for the consumer’s benefit.
• Congress is expected to pass legislation to limit overdraft charges. Many of the large banks have taken preemptive action to not charge on small purchases or to set a limit on the number of charges per day.
• Congress is looking at limiting interchange fees paid by merchants to process debit/credit card transactions.
• Congress is likely to set up a new agency to protect consumers from future versions of these activities from financial institutions
These actions are all intended to rein in abuses that most financial institutions benefited from. But here is the rub. Credit cards, overdraft protection and interchange fees became so lucrative that financial institutions (and non-banks) would offer low interest loans or high interest checking accounts to get your business, loss leaders so to speak. Most community banks and credit unions entered into these practices because they had to in order to stay competitive. Their core business had become loss leaders for others. Offering these services became necessary to stay afloat. Take away profit from overdraft protection and interchange fees today and most small and medium size financial institutions will lose money. Do we really need more troubled financial institutions? I agree they need to get back to the basic services they do well, but they need time. Hopefully congress will enact these measures in a way that ensures an orderly transition back to the business model back of basic banking.

Big Crybaby

Hayden has always been remarkable in that she rarely cries. She cried for a total of about 30 seconds when she spent a week with Shirley and me. She doesn’t cry when you put her down to sleep. She doesn’t cry when she wakes up. She doesn’t cry when she wants something. Friends are in awe (not to mention jealous) at what a good baby she is. She may cry for 10 or 15 seconds if she hurts something. Oops, change where I used “doesn’t” to “didn’t” and “is” to “was”. Jill and Tylir thought it would be a good idea if she had more time with other children her age. Hence, mother’s day out. Within a couple weeks Hayden has learned the proper action whenever you want anything … crying at the top of your lungs. Tylir has come up with the best solution, not letting her socialize with children her age ever again. Mother’s day out is over. They also need to screen TV shows for crying kids and only go to adult oriented restaurants. No more “kids eat free” fares. Oops again, forget that last one. It is too good a deal. Other than that Tylir has my full support.