aFlickringLight

A Crisis Emerging

"There’s been a lot of talk about the recall." Jim Lentz has his hands full lately thanks to his title of President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc. If you've watched or read the news via any credible media outlet the past couple of weeks, it's been hard to ignore the catastrophic Quality Assurance (QA) falters of Toyota Motors. To date, 11, yes, 11 Toyota vehicles have been issued recalls, and the Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood even has gone as far as t...

A Google Story

After spending a week talking about Google in class, my fascination with the company was confirmed. This is a company that truly cares about its employees, and in turn, furnishes great products. It begins at the top and the operating atmosphere manages to filter its way down to even the lowest level employees. Meals are free, that’s a rule. Common services are provided including dry cleaning, massage therapy, outdoor athletics, etc. All available to Google employees for free. And they get util...

Choices

“A Man is a success if he gets up in the morning and does what he wants to do.” – Bob Dylan Life is a complex organism, comprised of existence, of enjoyment, of pain, and most importantly, of failure. It is a prized possession that we all live through – but it is something that we live through only once. It is unfortunate that so many live a life not of their own choosing, but of the wishes and choices of others. So often you hear of people discussing their livelihoods in a negative connota...

Family Became Corporate

It was only 11 years ago that family became corporate in Los Angeles. The O'Malley family, who had long-stood as the owners of the Dodgers baseball organization, both in Brooklyn and in Los Angeles, had sold the team to Rupert Murdoch and the media moguls at Fox News Corp. Family became corporate. The attitude of doing it right was lost for doing it for dollars. And the first move Murdoch and Co. made while at the helm - trading Mike Piazza towards the end of his contract to the Florida Marlin...

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. This phrase, published on the back of the final publication of The Whole Earth Catalog, and repeated by Steve Jobs to the Stanford Graduating Class of 2005, speaks of adventure, of failure, and ultimately, of success. Whether this success is measured in terms of personal, monetary, of professional success, can vary, and much of this measure of success is left to the determination of one entity - you. In Jobs' commencement speech, he spoke of life and death, of love...

State Budget Crisis Affects University of California

Continuing my unfortunate trend of reporting on the harsh economic climate we find ourselves in today, I find myself troubled by the lack of resolve over the State of California’s 2009 Fiscal Budget. We are in a state of flux right now, with no budget set and a deficit that is estimated to be at over $40 billion. The State is facing massive cuts, ranging across all departments. Public school systems are being threatened with a dramatic decrease in funding, including higher education instituti...

Baseball – A Business Machine

Business as usual, right? Unfortunately, it is. Sports today are not the sports of yesterday. Teams are run like Fortune 500 Organizations rather than, well, sports teams. The majority of the 20th Century brought sports teams that were the face of communities. Today, our professional athletes change team colors more than some players use to in an entire career. The likes of Garrett Anderson, Tim Salmon, Sandy Koufax, among others, spent their entire careers with their respective teams. What pla...