From a cheap coal miner's beer to the largest American owned brewery

Seeing as how I am in full on Yuengling mode since choosing it as the topic of our group paper I will stick with that for this week's post. For those of you that don't know Yuengling has overtaken Boston Beer Co. as the largest American owned brewery. No small feat for a once small time feat for a 5 generation family owned business that was once propped up solely by the coal miners of Eastern Pennsylvania.

Throughout history Yuengling has battled prohibition, goliath corporations, a total rebranding and marketing changeover and the light beer craze. Their story of success is one of patience, calculated risk and most of all, a great deal of sheer luck. Much of their success can be attributed to current CEO Dick Yuengling who is very much an old school throwback. The guy does like to use email, just recently got a cellphone, drives a 2002 Taurus to work and chain smokes while re-using plastic cups. He appears to be an extremely frugal individual indeed.

Its refreshing to see someone so invested in a business in a day when family owned businesses seem to be falling by the wayside more and more. Its my personal belief that this gives the company quite a unique marketing angle being both the nation's oldest brewery was well as being the largest American owned brewery. Dick seems to be already taking advantage of such an ad campaign.

The Smartest Guys in the Room...

A lesson to all you kids out there. When you are knee deep in America's biggest corporate scandal, know when to cash out. Just ask Lou Pai. It's my opinion that he is just as guilty as Lay, Skilling or Fastow but he had the foresight to know that the mark to market accounting scheme couldn't last forever.

The problem I have with all of this is that it is not the greed that surprises me, that is a naturally occuring trait some humans possess. Its that we still haven't learned our lesson from all of this. Enron officially went bankrupt in 2002 after the scandal was exposed. This documentary was released in 2005. Many of the nations largest banks were heavily involved in the Enron scandal. At the core of the issue was the classic debate of what effects regulation and deregulation have on the free market. Enrons top execs felt (not surprisingly) that deregulation was the answer as it gave them the power to set the rules in their favor. We have become a country of extremes. Both sides of that argument have their point, which is precisely why a moderate solution is needed. So as I watched a film that was made in 2005 it disgusted me to think that only 3 years later that the crisis on Wall Street occured. Once again it was an issue of deregulation and lack of oversight. Industries such as energy and banking are far too vital to America's success to be allowed to set their own rules. They have proven that they can't responsibly hold that power.

So as Ken Lay sits six feet underground and Jeff Skilling and Andy Fastow waste their days in what is likely a minimum security white-collar prison, Lou Pai is high on the hog. Just another wealthy landowner with an ex-stripper wife who has probably been upgraded to a more current model by now. Just remember kids, the smartest guy in the room, leaves first.

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Organizational Effectiveness

Organizational Effectiveness is the concept of how effective an organization is in achieving the outcomes it intended to produce. Out of all of the OE reading so far I prefer Kim Cameron's Critical Questions in Assessing Organizational Effectiveness. The reasoning there is basic, Cameron was able to summarize 4 major approaches in a simplified manner. I find most of the other articles (Cunningham especially) to be unnecessarily confusing in regards to how OE is measured. My team and I have yet to designate which lens we will view our company from for the purposes of the paper, but if I have my way it will be one of Cameron's approaches!

Weick & The Mann Gulch Disaster

Karl Weick's take on the Mann Gulch disaster is that at it's core, a mutiny occurred. Between the loss of the only radio, misjudging the severity of the blaze and a lack of trust in leadership due to unfamiliarity 13 smokejumpers lost their lives. Had the men listened to their leader they may very well have survived the ordeal. I can see why many of them chose not to though. Communication had been lacking, they had been ordered to drop their tools (they possibly viewed this as an early retreat order) and the method in which Wag Dodge chose to combat the blaze was not an accepted procedure. Considering the dire circumstances the men face I believe that many of them were not in a position to use logic and reason to see the wisdom of Dodge's plan. With hindsight, I agree that this is an example of mutiny. Had the men followed the order and died however, it would have been a lack of leadership. Another great example of history being written by the winner (Darwin).

Sacramento Changes Alarm Response Policy

Sacramento County Sheriff Alarm Response Policy
Currently Central Station facilities across the country are beginning to see more response agencies going to a policy of not responding to alarm activations unless they are verified. This is being done due to nationwide budget cuts within state government agencies. This means that in order for police to respond a guard service or video verification of an actual event must be made prior to a dispatch unit being sent.

In my opinion this will lead to increased criminal activities in these areas until the security systems are updated to meet these requirements. While this will likely lead to increased security sales many dispatch agencies are not giving local business enough time to meet these requirements leading to a gap in protection.