How simply can I put it: There is no one in ad world that I respect more than Lee Clow, the chief creative at TBWA Worldwide—he's been my hero since the 1985 Apple ad showing IBMers as lemmings walking off a cliff. (I was in the Stanford stadium when it played for the one and only time during the Super Bowl.)

The New York Times recently reported on Lee's remarks at a big ad world confab. He seems to have said that the key to getting with it in the New World Order of advertising-marketing is hiring lots of youngsters and giving them more or less free rein to invent the future.

Seems as though I've heard that line before—from me.

Well, to a large extent, Lee and I are simply full of it.

How about hiring ... old people [and giving them more or less free rein to invent the future]?

That is: I have met the future, and it is me!

As most of you know, Susan and I have just returned from a seven-day walking tour along the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia. There were about 15 of us. As I recall, the age range was about fifty to a little over seventy-five. (!!) While the daily hikes were not reminiscent of the Boston Marathon that occurred the day after we left, they were up-and-down, rocky, and averaged perhaps eight miles a day.

You didn't have to be a Rockefeller to be a part of the group, but a reasonable amount of money changed hands, especially when airfare is included.

We—collectively—are the poster "children" for the most enormous-wealthy-healthy market opportunity, well, ever. As in: ever.

Boomers.
Geezers.

Bill Novelli, AARP head, lets us in on the world's most commercially profound "secret":

"People turning 50 today have more than half of their adult life ahead of them."

When I first read that, I believe it's no exaggeration to say that I literally "gasped." I guess I more or less knew it, but I'd never seen it in such plain-succinct text.

50.
Over.
Half.
To go.

Of equal impact, on a micro level, was the fact that:

The average American buys 13 cars in the course of a lifetime.
She-he buys seven of the thirteen after the age of 50.

Cars.
More than half.
After 50.

The leading edge of boomer-dom is now over 60. I tried to describe, on a single PPT slide, what I think is coming-here, from the Boomers, and their older peers, the [amazingly healthy] Geezers:

"We are the Aussies & Kiwis & Americans & Canadians. We are the Western Europeans & Japanese. We are the fastest growing, the biggest, the wealthiest, the boldest, the most (yes) ambitious, the most experimental & exploratory, the most different, the most indulgent, the most difficult & demanding, the most service & experience obsessed, the most vigorous, (the least vigorous,) the most health conscious, the most female, the most profoundly important commercial market in the history of the world—and we will be the Center of your universe for the next twenty-five years. We have arrived!"

We.
Have.
Arrived.

Back to my gripe with my friend Lee Clow.

Here is my current report card on the market's (manufacturers, retailers, designers, marketers, product and service developers) effort to understand and encompass and exploit this Incredible-Humongous Expanding Market Opportunity:

Awful.
Dumb.
Disgraceful.
Insane.
Stupid.
Pitiful.
Embarrassing.

As I put it, ever so gently, and with great cultural sensitivity, post-Croatia, in my London seminar on 28 April:

"You are all idiots."

Hint: I considered it understatement.

NB: I am not suggesting that things aren't changing. But I am suggesting-insisting that I and my friends on the trip to Croatia and several hundred million others with literally trillions of bucks-Euros burning holes in our collective pockets, will be the centerpiece of economic opportunity for the next Two Decades or so. It ain't forever, but 20 or 25 years is a good, solid hunk of time.

Think: Next quarter century!
(After that you're on your own—and I ain't gonna be bugging you.)

Attached is a short PowerPoint "Special Presentation" on this topic.

Above and below are a couple of pics from our trip.

Source: Time, 11.26.07

WALL STREET JOURNAL. NOVEMBER 9-11: "WHY WOMEN REFRAIN FROM PURSUING MBAs." ONE EXCEPTION TO "NORMAL" [#s HEAVY] APPROACH TO MBA IS UK's LANCASTER UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT SCHOOL. LANCASTER FOCUSES ON "SOFT SKILLS" THAT "PLAY TO WOMEN'S STRENGTHS."

TOTAL, PURE, UNMITIGATED CRAP!

WHY DO WE CALL "LEADERSHIP" ET AL. "SOFT," "WOMEN'S STUFF"? ENRAGES ME. (This is the first post ever in all capital letters. Capital letters = Enraged.)

LET'S TALK ABOUT "HARD STUFF," THE "REAL GUY STUFF" THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND—AND MARKETS AND ECONOMIES CRASH!

THE ULTIMATE "HARD STUFF" IS QUANT FINANCE—THE PRODUCT OF PURE MATH—"GUY STUFF," THE STUFF THAT MEN ARE MADE FOR! TAKE "MARK-To-MARKET" AND "SUPER-SENIOR CDOs" [CONSOLIDATED DEBT OBLIGATIONS]. THEY ARE KILLING US!! "MARK-TO-MARKET"? FINE! BUT WHAT, MY DEARS, IS THE "MARKET"? NOBODY HAS A SWEET CLUE—ESPECIALLY THE "QUANTS." THE "MARKET"/A MARKET/ANY MARKET IS A FUNCTION OF THE LONG-FORGOTTEN [BY THE "QUANTS"—"HARD GUYS," "REAL MEN"] UNDER-LY-ING VAL-UE OF THE REAL [NOT "MODELED"] ASSET. [E.G. THE ORIGINAL MORTGAGE BY REAL PEOPLE ON A REAL HOUSE]. THE "QUANT"-"HARD GUYS"-"REAL MEN" MEGA-MODELS KNOW "EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING"—AND NOTHING ABOUT NOTHING ABOUT WHAT MATTERS, THE ACTUAL VALUE OF THE ACTUAL LOAN. CITIGROUP HAS NO LESS THAN $60 BILLION+ TIED UP IN "SUPER-SENIOR" CDOs [THOUGHT "SUPER-SAFE" ONLY WEEKS AGO—BY THE "QUANTS"]—AND THEY HAVE NO F-ING CLUE AS TO THE REAL VALUE OF ANY OF IT!

SOFT?
HARD?

BOB WATERMAN AND I, IN 1980, DEVELOPED A MANTRA IN THOSE DAYS OF YORE WHEN "STRATEGY [STRATEGIC PLANS] WAS EVERYTHING." WE SAID:

HARD IS SOFT.
SOFT IS HARD.

THE READILY-MANIPULABLE NUMBERS ARE THE TRUE "SOFT STUFF."

THE RELATIONSHIPS-LEADERSHIP-"CULTURE"-"ACTION BIAS" [OR NOT] ARE THE TRUE "HARD STUFF."

PERIOD.
END OF STORY.
[I WISH.]

WOMEN BEING CATERED TO BY TEACHING "SOFT STUFF"? IT WELL AND TRULY PISSES ME OFF TO READ SUCH UNMITIGATED BULLSHIT! [MY ONLY CRITICISM OF SAID WOMEN IS THAT THEY'D BE SILLY ENOUGH TO CONSIDER AN MBA IN THE FIRST PLACE!]

WOMEN GOING TO B-SCHOOL IN LESSER NUMBERS THAN HOPED FOR? PERHAPS THEY'RE ON TO SOMETHING!

I, then, read an article about Pier 1 Imports' financial woes and their plan to correct their downturn by cutting healthcare costs. The plan includes cutting employees' hours to disqualify them for health benefits (very Wal*Mart-like). Pier 1 CEO Alex Smith is calling it a "cost-efficiency mission." Sounds to me like a nice way to say, "Hey employees, we're screwing you, but keep up the good work because you're improving our bottom line." According to the article, "Pier 1 Imports soon will learn whether cutting health care benefits for the very employees who deliver what the company calls its signature in-store shopping experience will help resurrect the failing retailer or exacerbate its multimillion-dollar losses."

I could go on and on discussing why I think this is a tragic solution to their problem, but given that I just read the Catalyst study, my first thought was, "Huh? I wonder if there is a correlation between their performance and the number of women they have on their Board?" So, I googled Pier 1. Imagine that ... the Board of Directors is made up entirely of men! I'm completely flabbergasted! Pier 1?! All Men?! What are they thinking??? They might do well to heed this statement from the study: "It makes sense that companies with more women on their boards would perform better than those that don't because these companies probably have a better handle on their customer base," says Dale Winston, CEO of Battalia Winston, a New York-based executive search firm.

Recall this passage from Tom's Re-imagine! "All you have to do is look! LOOK AT A DAMN PICTURE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS IN THE ANNUAL REPORT ... hopelessly unrepresentative of the market being served ... I am not championing "quotas" ... I am championing a board whose composition mirrors the market (diversity) and technologies (youth) that represent our biggest challenges." Do you think Pier 1's customer base is made up entirely of men? Given that I shop there, I can say with 100% confidence the answer is NO!!! Perhaps I'll send some enlightened inspiration to Mr. Alex Smith (a copy of Tom's book perhaps?) so instead of disenfranchising his staff, he can re-imagine a strategy to revitalize Pier 1. I'd love a happy ending ...

Now, courtesy yesterday's Wall Street Journal, we learn that Deloitte is pioneering again—this time in altering work practices in recognition of the role that women leaders and professionals play at Deloitte's client organizations: " [Deloitte partner in charge of the project Cathy Benko] started exploring the issue while researching ways to retain and attract female employees. She teamed up with TrendSight Group, a Winnetka IL consulting firm, and after interviewing senior women executives and Deloitte employees, they concluded that the same discovery process women use when doing personal shopping applies to purchasing business services."

From this sprung a half-day workshop that, after initial skepticism, is being well received by men and women at Deloitte—and clients. Benko agrees that there is a fine line between improving communication approaches to women and appearing condescending, but the overall merit of the idea is sound and worthwhile, as women become almost dominant in the middle ranks of corporations where so many commercial purchasing decisions, adding up to trillions of dollars, are made.

(Full disclosure: Marti Barletta is founder and chief of TrendSight Group—I have relied on her research for years; she was in fact coauthor of Trends, part of a set of four small books, called "Tom Peters Essentials," that I released in 2006. Marti is also a Cool Friend.)

So I read a good column (as far as it goes) by a good friend. Joe Nocera's "Talking Business" column in the September 29 New York Times was headlined: "The Worst Investors? Humans."

He writes about a bushel of demonstrated human irrationalities that lead to counterproductive investment behavior. But never once—so damn typical!!!—does he touch on the issue of gender differences in investment strategies. Yet, significant research shows that there are gender differences, that they revolve around irrationality, and that women, the rational ones, the less emotional ones, out-invest men.

Consider a Merrill study reported in the Atlantic ("When It Comes to Investing, Gender A Strong Influence On Behavior"): "Women come out better on almost every count as investors … They are less likely to hold a losing investment too long, and less likely to wait too long to sell a winner; they're also less likely to put too much money into a single investment or to buy a reputedly hot stock without doing sufficient research."

Or consider a Jane Bryant Quinn column in Newsweek ("Stop Treating Women Investors Like Idiots!"): "Why all this focus on women and our lack of investment guts? A far greater problem, it seems to me, is trigger-happy speculation, mostly by men. The kind of guys whose family savings went south with the dot-coms. Imagine a list of their money mistakes: Shoot from the hip. Overtrade their accounts. Believe they're smarter than the market. Think with their mouse rather than their brain. Praise their own genius when stocks go up. Hide their mistakes from their wives."

I'm not arguing that the case is open and shut, though I think it is, I'm simply wondering why it never occurs to men to examine gender differences???

Case II:

As I write, I'm in High Point NC at the semi-annual monster furniture (home furnishings) show—85,000 in attendance.

Re gender, the statistics are solid as a rock: Women buy upwards of 90% of home furnishings.

So I picked up a freebie in the Sheraton lobby, October's issue of Home Furnishings Business: Strategy for the Furniture Retailer.

Page 12, "Home Furnishings Business Retail Advisory Board Members."

Total advisors: 6.
Total male members: 6.
Total female members: (Do the math yourself.)

But …
Halleluiah!!
Improvement is on the way!!

Page 14, Contributors (to the October issue).

Total contributors: 9.
Total male contributors: 8.
Total female contributors: (Do the math yourself, but, statistically speaking, an infinite difference.)

Redux: Who's got the problem, me or "them"?
(Could well be me, often is.)

The To Be Determined name makes sense for the boomer cohort as well. According to research in Marti Barletta's latest book, PrimeTime Women™ (see most recent interview with Marti here), 59 percent of women 50 to 70 years old feel that their greatest achievements are still ahead of them. So, yes, their lives are still to be determined.

We send our best wishes for success to Robin and the rest of her team at TeeBeeDee.

You can download the complete article here.

You can watch the video here.

Companies that remove the barriers and recognize the power of women buyers can cash in on a great market, but I think Tom's been saying that for awhile now.

How does your company take advantage of today's key markets, boomers/geezers and women??

The issue Buckley so effectively satirizes is indeed very real—earthshaking, actually, unprecedented in human history, in fact. But there's reason to believe the results may be quite the opposite of Buckley's plotline. Or at least that's the story from Sunday, May 6, 2007.

All the coverage here in Europe (I'm in Munich, on the 8th, heading for Dubai as I write) tells us that Mr Sarkozy trounced Ms Royal to make it into Élysée Palace. Indeed, in electoral politics a 53%-47% beating is at least a semi-trounce.

But one small story in Britain's Independent, digging an inch or two below the surface, caught my eye, then fully grabbed my attention. Call it Boomsday Reverse.

Mr Sarkozy, a tough cookie, ran on an uncompromising platform that aims to deal with France's dire slippage in global competitiveness. Some are predicting he'll be France's Margaret Thatcher. He aims to lengthen the work week, cut taxes, hammer the unions, and such to get the French economy in tune with 21st century economics. Ms Royal, on the other hand and in stark contrast, effectively ran on a "What's all the fuss?" platform, claiming that the hyper-liberal French employment practices can be retained without further damage to France's ranking in the global competitiveness polls. So, the rather straightforward story goes, "the voters" went to the polls in record numbers, bit their collective tongues, prepared to accept the bitter medicine—and awarded the powerful presidency to Atilla the Economic Reformer.

Not so fast ...

The real story is far different. As to "the trounce," Trounc-ee Royal was in fact the trounc-er with a "very interesting" "little" slice of the population. She in fact handily topped Sarkozy among those who are in the 18-59 demographic. That ain't Gen X, my friends, that's more or less everybody on active duty in the workforce!

So how, in the end, did Sarkozy become the Ultimate Grand Trounc-er? Simple. He beat the bloody hell out of Royal among the 60-and-up crew. "Beat the bloody hell out of" equates to unheard of margins that were above 2-1.

That is, Team Elder exerted incredible, decisive de facto unity and power in France's demographically old-and-getting-older-and-we're-healthy-and-will-
be-around-for-a-long-long-time population. It's not that Sarkozy beat Royal. The actual story is that the 60+ geezers have ordered the wee 60 minus crew to get the hell to work and stay the hell at work ... so the Six Zero Plussers can get their hands on the loot they need to spend their remaining winters in Nice, or some such.

Boomsday was a fable about a very real issue, and a hilarious one at that. Boomsday Reverse, Variety Française, is episode one of Ultimate Reality TV—and it's going to be a long-running show, from France to Japan, with impact that buggers the imagination.

Stay tuned ...

Nearly half of all millionaires are now women (24 April 2007)
Why today's women want a girl (25 April 2007)
Lifeline for 1m hospital patients (25 April 2007)
The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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The author praises the Eastern approach—which is at least worthy of examination and consideration. I applaud that, remembering my days at McKinsey when I sometimes was tarred with the ultimate brush of opprobrium: "You think in circles, Tom." Though it didn't help my standing with my betters, it was exactly what I thought of myself. Partly because my PhD mentors at Stanford were the likes of Gene Webb, Karl Weick, and Jim March, who tried to take the idea of organization beyond bloodless org charts and sterile strategy documents.

But that's not really my point here. Instead I am bridling at the fact that Grierson's flavor of linear "Western thinking" is really about ... MALE Western thinking." (Try to find a female philosopher in the Age of Greece! Fat chance!) FEMALE thinking, based on relationships rather than competitive spearthrowing in the bush, has always tended to the "circular." Research, among other things, shows that women see ten sides to an issue—where men see but one.

There's lots to say here, but my point is a simple one: Why must the "sample," in a book like Grierson's, always be male-centric?

In the end it was, to be precise, Harry Burn's mother who made all the difference. A suffragette, she wrote to her son, age 24 and Tennessee's youngest legislator, saying, "Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs Catt ..." He did, tipped the scales on a 49-47 vote, and brought, effectively, to an end a struggle that in its most open form had lasted 72 years, 1 month, and 5 days. With Mrs Burn's urging and Harry's courageous vote on 18 August 1920, some 26 million American women were franchised in one fell swoop.

But that gets ahead of the game. Above you will find a picture of a 64-year-old male wearing a white wig and a black dress. In fact, a shamefaced 64-year-old. Said 64-year-old, M, purports to represent the spirit of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rightfully called the Mother of the American women's rights/women's suffrage movement.

But that gets ahead of the game ...

It was a simple costume party in Dorset, Vermont, at the home of our friends Jill and Dave Sands, on March 31, this past Saturday. The idea was to dress as someone you admire—and be prepared to respond to questions as the admired personage would have responded. I thought it would be great fun, and therefore took it seriously. Franklin? Churchill? Nelson? John Paul Jones? Monty Python? No problem, I had them all pegged. And a satisfactory costume would hardly be a challenge (e.g., Churchill, cigar & brandy; Nelson or Jones, folding telescope or bits of my mildewed, 40-year-old Navy uniform).

That was 5 weeks before the party. And now was now—31 March 2007. And now, following Susan's "sartorial" guidance and that of a close friend who is an eminent women's historian, I was encased in a white wig and long black dress, courtesy a Boston costume shop, and, though tripping over my hems again and again ["Welcome to our world"—Susan], ready to go—and, courtesy a dozen books hastily ingested on a dozen plane trips, ready to respond to questions and declaim, among other things, on Mrs Burn, her young son Harry, Carrie Chapman Catt, and, of course, the angry, tenacious firebrand, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

I was indeed shamefaced—shamed, after a dozen years loudly and doggedly championing change to women's still diminished role in business and government, that I was almost totally ignorant of the astounding history of the American women's rights movement. And worse yet, of the gruesome details of women's status in our society only 100 years ago—that makes the use of the loaded word "slave" entirely appropriate, beyond question, as I see it. It was no coincidence that the American's women's movement, effectively launched in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 13, 1848, grew in tandem with the abolitionist movement in America.

On the other hand, the last 5 weeks have been an absolute ball! There is simply nothing but nothing that I enjoy more than sinking my teeth and heart and soul into a new historical topic. I did indeed devour a dozen books from the original, and always controversial, works of Mrs Stanton to middle school books on the life of Susan B. Anthony. In particular I learned from:

In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by Elisabeth Griffith; Ladies of Seneca Falls, by Miriam Gurko; and Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, by Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick.

*I learned of the fateful luncheon meeting in Seneca Falls in July 1848 that was hosted by Mrs Stanton and attended by 5 "ladies" including Lucretia Mott, one of the subsequent superstars of the movement, the convention that followed 6 days later, the first of its kind—and the brutally negative and demeaning reaction thereto.

*As I said, I read with my mouth often seemingly open, about the total (as in Cap T Total!) absence of rights of American women and, almost as important, the contempt with which their so-called frail and vacuous and largely useless selves were held by males one and virtually all, from the ignorant to the most learned. And I learned—concluded—that, as I said before, women were de facto, and de jure, the equivalent of slaves, denied fundamental and trivial rights alike, and even a modicum of respect.

*As an orator myself, I learned of the critical role of powerful women orators in the women's rights movement, especially the Grimke sisters, the first women to speak in public to an audience with men—and the brutal and demeaning response thereto.

*I learned of the stream of small steps forward (some minor property rights established by New York state—subsequently reversed); and the first granting of the vote, in the Territory of Wyoming in 1870 by a "legislative" vote of 6 in favor, 2 against, and 1 abstaining (on 07.23.1890, Wyoming became the first state to grant the franchise to women—bravo).

*I learned of the unabated viciousness and bitterness and "dirty trick" tactics unleashed by male legislators and media barons and "men on the street" of all classes that attended the 72-year struggle, from the 5-person luncheon/cabal at Seneca Falls on 13 July 1848 to Nashville and the enactment of the 19th amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America on 26 August 1920.

*I learned of the role of "demented" [my word] optimism and matchless relentlessness that marked the movement—909 political campaigns, mostly failures, between 1868 and 1920, according to Carrie Chapman Catt (campaigns at state party conventions to include woman suffrage planks—277; campaigns in state legislatures to get suffrage amendments before voters—480; campaigns before 19 successive Congresses of the United States; etc.).

*And I learned that I was hardly alone in my own ignorance of the history of the American women's movement, and hence my de facto diminishment (ignorance is never an excuse) of the role and lot of women in our so-called egalitarian democracy. Typical of our "modern" approach to women-in-American history was the "towering" Oxford History of the American People, by the "towering" historian Samuel Eliot Morison; he honors the 19th amendment with two (count 'em) sentences in a section of his book with the exalted title, "Bootlegging and Other Sports." There is a monument to Morison on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston that I routinely pass as I powerwalk; in the future I shall snort derisively and turn my head from his bronzed gaze upon passing this contemptible male chauvinist pig (ironically there is a monument to women's rights pioneers about two blocks further along the Commonwealth Avenue mall—I shall accordingly genuflect).

*"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." (Incidentally, it was not until 1956, a scant half century ago, that the number of women voting equaled the number of men.)

I dwell on this story because it describes a personal journey away from ignorance that was, well, a blast—and, I believe, important. (I shall campaign, starting in 2007, for far greater attention to the history of the women's movement—still woefully skimpy; and not corrected by the recent "feminist" movement.) I also dwell on this story because innovation, including social innovation, is the "business" theme nearest and dearest to my professional heart—and the most important business issue of this, and, frankly, every era. It is my longstanding argument that all innovation is irrational, non-linear, and anything but the product of plans and focus groups; it is instead about anger to the point of rage that eventually boils over (from suffrage to the PC); "a little band of brothers" (whoops, the 5 great sisters of Seneca Falls and a slew of successors); willingness to suffer vicious smear attacks and unspeakable opprobrium of both a professional and personal nature, passion (!!!!!!!!); relentlessness (!!!!!!!!!—72 years, 1 month and 5 days from lunch at Seneca falls to ratification of the 19th amendment by Tennessee, the 36th state to do so; and those 909 political campaigns); tolerance for setback upon setback upon setback (Churchill: "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm"); and the strokes of luck such as the willfulness of Harry Burn's blessed mother.

All the above made the sacrifice of wearing a wig and a long dress for 5 hours seem like small beer!* (*Hmmm, should I have gone as Harry Burn's mother?)

My hero, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, per Elisabeth Griffin, In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton:

"She was defeated again and again and again, but she continued the struggle with passionate impatience."

"She had survived her husband, outlived most of her enemies, and exhausted her allies. Her mind remained alert, her mood optimistic, and her manner combative." [ECS 80th birthday celebration, attended by 6,000 people]

Move over Ken.
Move over Tom.

Enter the irrepressible Christopher Buckley. (Author of Thank You for Smoking among many others.) Mr Buckley now offers Boomsday. It is a wonderful spoof (that isn't) about the coming all-out war between boomers bent on a comfy (and lengthy) retirement and those who follow. I am only a few dozen pages into the book—but I love it. A glowing USA Today review offers a peek: "The novel's heroine, a 29-year-old blogger, comes up with a solution [to the wealth allocation problem—boomers fobbing their needs off on the young]: tax breaks for baby boomers who kill themselves at 65. 'Voluntary transitioning' is her term. ..."

Presumably you get the drift.

Forget the "serious" analysts—this is the primer, so far, about this genuinely transcending issue.

This is in stark contrast to the stupidity I saw this week in a business. Eighty percent of the sales force are women under 35. (Selling to a predominantly male population—you figure it out!) NONE of the sales managers were female. ALL of the exec population were OWM. And they are asking me why they have such high turnover. They also got upset when I described it as the least of their problems!

Are you/your organisation truly talent focused ... or is memory substituting for thinking? Has anyone got a great example of a maniacal obsession with talent, to the point of being blind to prejudice, in their organisation that can cheer us all up?!

The story that really caught my attention was about Greenwich Leisure Limited, an organisation that 14 years ago took over 7 struggling leisure centres that had previously been run by the London Borough of Greenwich local authority. They converted the organisation into a worker-led trust and have transformed it into an innovative, high performing organisation, that makes more profit, now costs the council only 20% of what it did 14 years ago, and has become a business model that has been copied by at least 110 Leisure businesses in the UK.

Mark Sesnan, the leader who took the brave step of leaving the relative security of a public sector job to embark on this challenge, speaks enthusiastically about the change in attitudes that he was able to stimulate in his workforce. By treating his people as partners, adults, and fellow contributors he has found that it has converted 80–90% of them into "happy, co-operative people." One indicator of their commitment is that sickness levels in the trust are consistently less than 2% per year, which is exemplary by any standards in the UK!

The various programme contributors contend that social enterprise will be the business model for the 21st century. As one of them says, it's the Robin Hood approach to business! Some might say this is "pollyanna" thinking, but I'm not so sure. I think (almost) all of us are looking for meaning in our work that goes beyond what we pick up in our paypackets at the end of the month. What can we all learn from businesses with a real conscience?

"It's no longer the days of eight-track tapes and big speakers with the big foam that smells. The products we sell and the services we sell are about trends and fashion."—Julie Gilbert

"Women couldn't get anyone to help them. They weren't treated with respect."—Julie Gilbert

"We're working with the Girl Scouts, with private female colleges and others to recruit amazing women so we can delight our women customers."—Julie Gilbert

"Instead of hitting high-tech hysteria at Best Buy this holiday season, shoppers may notice a softer, more personal atmosphere. Music is quieter. Lights are lower. Salespeople talk to customers about their lifestyles, what they want the technology to do for them ... and how they want it to fit into their homes, offices, cars. ... If you need more help, one of thousands of its 'Geek Squad' techies will come to your home to hook stuff up."—USA Today, 12.20.06.

Welcome aboard the ultimate megatrend, Best Buy! It turns out that about 90 percent of consumer electronics decisions are made by or significantly influenced by ... women. So, too, DIY. Lowe's figured that out years ago—and it's a leading reason Lowe's has given Home Depot fits. (I remember a biz article that featured pics of the two contending CEOs. Home Depot's top gun was pictured among stacks of plywood. Mr Lowe's was shown among plants in the inside nursery. One photo doth not a strategy make, but still ...)

Not catering to women was hardly the whole reason Bob Nardelli took an invited hike yesterday—and will have to be content with his $200 million+ severance pay for a while. But it's not unrelated. I railed at Home Depot about the women's thing for years—my present to Bob, who is a pal. Some moves were made, but hardly up to the strategic re-orientation of Lowe's or, apparently, Best Buy.

Nardelli took an ailing giant—and put needed infrastructure in place to run a $100 billion company. Profits leaped but the stock stayed in the basement. And then there was the 2006 annual meeting fiasco—I predicted that was the end, but I was off by a few months. The meeting farce was tied to the nutty pay package. Nardelli was worth a ton ... but so many tons?

(Last Sunday the New York Times reported on the $200 million+ that the former Pfizer CEO walked away with—after losing more than $100 BILLION in market cap. Ye gads!)

(Exec pay is a thorny topic. On the one hand I think the market should rule. But there's also something to say for common sense and killing the goose who laid the billions of golden eggs. "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ..." Well, the pay issue to me is to a large extent about ducks—it "feels" all wrong, and business' reputation may sink below the "Enron days" if folks don't wise up.)

Then there was the "Home Despot" tag. Home Depot needed tough medicine—but a reign of terror? What I saw up close did not "make me shudder"—but it set alarm bells ringing.

(Nardelli was enraptured with the military approach—very common among those who did not serve, I've observed. Those of us who did serve know that the public "military model of leadership" has little to do with the real thing. As far as I know, incidentally, Nardelli's former boss, Jack Welch, was never active military either.)

Nardelli did a lot of good stuff. Nardelli did a lot of bad stuff. I applaud discipline and accountability—but do not believe that despot-like behavior is needed to achieve those goals.

I fear that Mr N got his just desserts.

Meanwhile, again, hats off to Best Buy:

(1) Cater to women! (Hey, they buy everything.)
(2) Put women leaders in charge—Best Buy's female "wolf pack" aims to get a woman in the CEO's seat at Best Buy! (The leadership profile ought to mostly mirror the buyers' profile.)
(3) And: Watch the money flow in!

(NB: Marti Barletta's wonderful PrimeTime Women: How to Win the Hearts, Minds, and Business of Boomer Big Spenders ... is on the shelves! So, too, Margaret Heffernan's terrific How She Does It: How Women Entrepreneurs Are Changing the Rules of Business Success.)

[Note from Cathy: We did a thorough search of every source we had access to, and we found no evidence of Mr Nardelli's being active in the service, let alone a war zone. But if you know something we don't, we're sure you'll fill us in.]

You can get an excerpt from BOOM on marketing opportunities related to empty nest syndrome by clicking here.

Sunday's New York Times reviewed Dan Kindlon's Alpha Girls. I bought it yesterday, the same day I offered a long Post on the Women-Boomer-Geezer thing. One of my key points was that "womanpower" ("womenomics," per one observer) is going through the roof. Kindlon adds to that stunning tale. He argues that girls are no longer being kept on as short a leash as in the past. Among many other interesting points, Dads are taking the lead in pushing girls to the fore and urging them to take no guff from boys. Frankly, 10 years into intensely studying "all this," I am mesmerized by this notion of rapid, exponentially increasing womanpower. Here's Kindlon's opening paragraph:

"Not long ago I was talking with a group of girls at Greenfield High, in northern New Jersey, about Mary Pipher's bestselling book, Reviving Ophelia. ... The girls' reaction to Ophelia was one of confusion. They disagreed with the book's premise—that girls are robbed of vitality and self-esteem as they enter adolescence. According to Pipher, our sexist society causes girls 'to stifle their creative spirit and natural impulses, which ultimately destroys their self-esteem.' 'Who are the girls in this book?' asked Sarah, a Greenfield sophomore. 'I mean, I feel sorry for them, but they're pretty much losers. We're not at all like them.' From what I could see, she was right. The girls I met were vital. They appeared more confident than many of the boys. They had not 'lost their voice.' ... They neither feared competition from boys nor the consequences of out-performing them."—Dan Kindlon, Alpha Girls

And that topic was Women-Boomer-Geezer market potential. As I said: Period. I claimed (and I believe) that a loyalty program for women, for instance, has to start from a fundamentally different premise than one for men. One basic idea-differentiator: Men are "transaction oriented"; women are "relationship oriented."

I insisted that anything short of Fundamental Strategic Re-alignment around the women-boomer-geezer opportunity was, well, stupid. Stupid. Negligent. Whatever.

I've changed my "women's thing" lately—added a third leg to my argument's stool. In the past I've featured (1) women's purchasing power and (2) the attendant need for women's increased leadership role.

The implicit idea is that companies are not doing enough to orient themselves—big time—toward this under-appreciated market. Fine enough. And true.

But a much bigger point is that the Degree of Market-Wealth Control by women is going through the roof. As the Economist put it in a Special Survey in April: "Forget China, India and the Internet: Economic Growth Is Driven by Women." In short, (1) women have taken two of every three new jobs for decades. (2) The pay-for-same-job differential is falling. (3) Women are occupying more and more senior roles. (Over 50% of managers, in the United States.) (4) Most senior Boomers are men—and about to retire by the million. (Within a few years, 10,000 additional men per day eligible for retirement.) Women will fill most—the overwhelming majority—of those slots. (5) Boys, soon to be men, are rapidly falling behind women in the education race. (6) Etc.

Hence the "third leg" of my stool is Rapidly Growing Women's Control of the World Economy.

Perhaps "Womenomics"?

Consider this from Aude Zieseniss de Thuin in the Financial Times, 10.03.2006:
"One thing is certain: Women's rise in power, which is linked to the increase in wealth per capita, is happening in all domains and at all levels of society. Women are no longer content to provide efficient labor or to be consumers with rising budgets and more autonomy to spend. ... This is just the beginning. The phenomenon will only grow as girls prove to be more successful than boys in the school system ... For a number of observers, we have already entered the age of 'womenomics,' the economy as thought out and practiced by women."

Amen!
Amen?

I've attached two Special Presentations. The short one is my new "section opener" on the women-boomers-geezers issue. The long one is the Whole Deal, the entire women-boomer-geezer section from the Master Excellence Always presentation.

Why the title "Not. Yet. Done."? Consider this invented exchange between me and an Amazon.com reviewer of the Trends book in the Tom Peters Essentials series:

Amazon Reviewer: "Trends is old news!" (1 of 5 stars!)
TP: "Repeating it doesn't make it 'old.' It ain't old if it hasn't been implemented!"

The reviewer's part of the exchange is the real thing—my response is the contrived bit. But it is exactly the point. Yup, I've been ranting about "all this" for a decade. But the results are disappointing—and then there's that "Third Leg" argument that the enormity of this opportunity grows by the day.

To summarize, in shorthand (one slide from the Short presentation):

1. Women's CONSUMER GOODS purchases.
2. Women's COMMERCIAL GOODS purchases.
3. WOMEN ARE THE MARKET. Not an "initiative."
4. Women-owned BUSINESSES (absolute #s, acceleration of startups, relative growth).
5. Women's "brand" of LEADERSHIP SKILLS.
6. Women's DRAMATICALLY INCREASING-COMMANDING WEALTH—absolute, relative. (Jobs. Longevity. Education. Entrepreneurial. Decline of BOYS. Retirement of MEN/Senior MEN.)
7. DEMOGRAPHIC TSUNAMI. WOMEN. Women as solo HEADs-OF-HOUSEHOLD. THE WOMAN-BOOMER-GEEZER LOOOOOONG-TERM GLOBAL PHENOMENON.
8. SPEED of "change." Mother of all "megatrends."