Office Max!

Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, is trying to decide whether or not to launch a 24-hour cable business news channel. Rumor has it that if he decides to do so, the channel would debut sometime this fall.

While business news isn't particularly interesting to many of us, we thought it important to monitor Fox's weekday "premier business news" program, Your World w/Neil Cavuto, in an effort to show that Your World isn't a "business news" program at all. Your World airs weekdays at 4:00 p.m. ET and again at 1:00 a.m. ET and it spews forth the same right wing propaganda heard on other Fox News shows, under cover of being a "business news" show. When we learned that News Corp. was considering launching a business channel, we were alarmed because should...

To give you an example of what "business news" means to Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. and Fox News, here is what took place today on Your World w/Neil Cavuto, "the most watched business news show on the planet," anchored by Neil Cavuto, who Fox News advertises as the "king of business news" (today Brenda Buttner was the substitute host):

There wasn't one speck of business news. Literally. Nothing. The closing numbers on Wall Street weren't even mentioned.

Comment: If the shows on the new "business news" channel Rupert Murdoch envisions are anything like this "business news" show, we'll end up with two 24-hour cable networks spewing right wing propaganda instead of one.

And Wes still seems unaware of the MNW 1973 photo shoot I'm digitizing. That would be Faux business news.

A 24-7 Faux Business News Network? So, their gonna dedicate every hour of everyday to selling the products of their Faux propaganda broadcasters. Faux QVC. Oh goodie. Selling products that improves their profits is the only business the Faux people care about.

Itasca-based Office-Max says it's begun a tender offer to buy as many as 23-point-five (M) million common shares for up to 799 (M) million dollars.

The purchase represents about 25 percent of the outstanding stock in Office-Max -- North America's third-largest office-products company.

The investigation began in December 2004 and was conducted under the direction of the company's audit committee. Subject to final review by the company's auditors, OfficeMax currently estimates that it overstated operating income in first quarter 2004 by approximately $7 million and understated operating income by approximately $1 million in each of the second and third quarters of 2004. The cumulative net operating income overstatement for the first nine months of 2004 is estimated to be approximately $4 to $5 million. Accordingly, the company expects to restate quarterly income for each of the first three fiscal quarters of 2004 and believes that its previously issued interim statements of operating results for those periods should no longer be relied upon.

The office furniture industry performed satisfactorily throughout the 1990s as the domestic economy has shifted from being manufacturing driven to one where services play an increasingly important role. However, the new millennium has been less fortunate. Between 2000 and 2003, office furniture shipments in the United States fell by more than one-third. This was the largest decrease in shipments for over 20 years. In value terms -- the market stood at $8,505 million in 2003. The office furniture market in 2003 in current dollar terms was ahead by only 8.2% over its 1990 value, and in constant dollar terms it was down by 10.7%.

Office employment growth started to improve in 2004 and real shipments of office furniture increased by about 2%. The positive trend is expected to continue. For 2005 a growth rate of 5.0% is forecast and 6.1% for 2006. This will lift the market value to $ 9.2 billion and $ 9.8 billion respectively. Nevertheless, the 2006 value will remain 26.5% lower than the previous peak level of $13.3 billion reached in 2000.

One of the most exciting and daunting things about starting your own home-based business as your sole means of income is the reality that no one is responsible for your success or failure but you. The lure of the home-based business is undeniable. But before joining the revolution, take the time to think about the real implications of self-responsibility. In the past, you've always had the security of knowing that your employer was taking care of the background details ... you know, those little things like retirement plans, health insurance and capital investment. And making enough money to cover your salary and vacation time. Now it's all down to you.

Nevins claimed that he opened the boxed camera at home to find no camera.

Best Buy officials, arguing that they had no way to verify Nevins' assertion, declined to take any action in the matter.

In response to that column, Greg Maas of Lansing said he had the same experience at a Best Buy in a different city - same brand of camera, same model, same camera-less box. But in Maas' case, Best Buy gave him a camera.

We’ve pulled out the suitcases and I got the strangest look when I pulled out the briefcase and laptop case. “Hey,” I said, “There will be a little down time there at some point during the three days, so I can get a little work done during them.” The strange look stayed. “Anyway,” trying a different tack, “the hotel has Wi-Fi so I can use my Tungsten-C and laptop to find fun things to do and all the different restaurants!” The look still didn’t change. “OK,” I said, “I can blog from the lounge!” Oooops, her eyes rolled. Hmmmm.

Brushing off the chill in the room, I began to think of what was going into the briefcase and came up with this list:

We live in a world where more is expected of us every day.

First there were fax machines, now email and cell phones. Our number of communications daily from various sources is extreme.

How can we get to all of it in a timely fashion and still get 8 hours of sleep?

We all know that accepting credit cards is the key to online sales. Unfortunately, most merchants are unaware that acquiring a merchant account can actually save them money. And in many cases, big money!

For this experiment, we will use a fictional character named Bill. Bill owns and operates a great online resources for marketing tools and resources. Bills website is a membership based website, and therefore could potentially be approved for both third party processing and an internet merchant account.

Nice post by VC Ed Sim on how a start-up should think about competitive dynamics when a big gorrilla enters the market. I would boil it all down to one word: focus. If you can convince a prospect that you will maintain extraordinary focus on their needs then you've taken care of the biggest selling point.

With gratitude (and apologies) to C. S. Lewis.

“Don’t slink along the walls, boy, come in!” The voice is richer than the nephew remembers, vinous and lordlier, but with a reassuring tinge of malice just beneath the surface.

“By his tail, Uncle, this is fine,” gasps Mildew, stepping cautiously into the center of the vast chamber that is his uncle’s new office. The walls are hung with scarlet velvet; the temperature an agreeable Fahrenheit 911.

Screwtape stands in one corner behind a magnificent expanse of polished wood. “These desks are only given to the highest ranks,” he says proudly. “Solid wormwood!” At the familiar name, the visitor flinches and slows his approach. Screwtape chuckles. “Shame about your brother, really,” he murmurs, and just the tip of a red tongue flickers from his lips. “But let us hope you are made of more ambitious stuff?”

It seems as if the bills will never end when you are launching a new business venture. Most new ventures do not make money immediately and it's difficult to keep paying bills when you don't have money coming in the door. One area in which you can cut down on the large start-up costs is by leasing office equipment and peripherals such as phones or computer systems.

I have reached a particular juncture in the writing of this book where I need to buy another 3-ring binder. The real mystery is what happened to my extra, the one that used to hang out on the top shelf of my office shelves.

It's really hard to find the 2 1/2" version, let me tell you. The world is filled to overflowing with 2" binders, or 3", a binder whose measurement I find personally abhorrent. Not that I'm picky about it or anything. I just have standards, is all. Is it so much to ask! All I want is a 2 1/2" binder! Now you all know what to get me for my birthday. That, and a new set of printer ink cartridges. If you really wanted to go all out, you'd get me a full 50-sheet package of the Epson Matte Photo Paper.

Blogs and other on-line tools that enable companies to speak directly to consumers are pushing the news media out of their central role in public relations, says the head of the world's largest independent PR firm.

Richard Edelman, president and chief executive officer of Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, said that as PR practitioners rely less on the media to get messages out, they need to act more like journalists.

I haven’t read all the surrounding blurb to this addin but suffice to say (in my unsubstantiated opinion) this addin has been developed by Microsoft in direct response to findings in the OLAP Report (www.olapreport.com). The report concludes customers really warm up to Excel, as a BI (in particular SQL Server Analysis Services) front end, if they use an addin designed to augment Excel’s capabilities as a slicing, dicing, analysing front end.

Well, to be fair, that’s not the complete story. The biggest competitors to MS Office are the previous versions of MS Office. In response to this threat, Microsoft needs to make the more recent Office releases more attractive than the old ones. To this end, Microsoft has released a number of these Office Accelerators, some of which only work with the more recent releases of Office and which consequently add to the value of upgrading; fair doos I think, don’t you?

Be gentle, I'm the new kid. Engadget Podcast.23 03.21.2005

The SEC has again gone after customers of a company for allegedly helping to perpetrate the company's securities fraud by "round-tripping," i.e., creating fictitious transactions that were reported as revenue. As part of the settlement, the customers' principals, as well as the company insiders who were involved, were barred from serving as an officer or director of a publicly-held company.

The SEC announced today that it had reached a settlement with the former controller, former operations manager, and several former customers and vendors of Suprema Specialties, Inc., a now-defunct cheese manufacturer based in Paterson, N.J. customers in question.

This past week, while giving my new health coverage information to a medical provider, I mentioned that I’d moved to the professional employer organization industry. The provider, who was in the office getting files for the next patient, looked up at me curiously. “What is it, exactly, that your business does?”

The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) defines a PEO as a business that:

provides integrated services to effectively manage critical human resource responsibilities and employer risks for clients. A PEO delivers these services by establishing and maintaining an employer relationship with the employees at the client’s worksite and by contractually assuming certain employer rights, responsibilities, and risk.

The critical difference between a PEO and the traditional understanding of a firm that does outsourced human resources services is the co-employment concept.

BestBuy.com vaulted over eBay Electronics to be the No. 1 computer and consumer electronics retail web site in February, fueled by a 20% gain in BestBuy.com�s traffic and a 29% drop in eBay Electronics�, Nielsen/NetRatings reports. Best Buy hosted 10.49 million unique visitors in February, up from 8.7 million a year earlier, while eBay Electronics hosted 7.84 million, down from 11 million a year earlier.

Larger banks are more likely to issue corporate credit cards to small businesses, which can be used for financing.

Best way I ever celebrated President's Day was in 2001 when I got off work early then stopped by Office Max on the way home to buy a shredder. It was the most appropriate President's Day purchase ever.

Prices may be good at Best Buy but most stores will honor the price when shown documentation.

I actually went there and asked to copy the card in front of the merchandise and took it to Office Max...where I paid the Best Buy price. Takes a bit more time but Best Buy doesn't get the $$.

OfficeMax Inc. reported a 90 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings to $700,000 Monday, but its chairman dismissed the need to consider splitting up the beleaguered office products retailer, as a shareholder group has proposed.

George Harad, who also became interim CEO last month when Christopher Milliken resigned in the wake of an accounting scandal, said this would be "a particularly inopportune time" for the company to change direction since other strategic steps already are being taken.

Those actions, he said, include reshaping top management, integrating contract and retail operations, being more selective with promotions, reducing debt and committing $775 million to $815 million toward a planned share repurchase.

Just a few years ago, Jeff Evans was running to Office Max to get basic office supplies for his start-up company, Linc Mechanical Services.

Now he's busy grabbing large contracts for the company, which has grown to more than $3 million in annual revenue and 18 employees.

A large part of that growth has come in the last year, after the company made some major changes to the way it goes after and services contracts. The changes have cut costs and made the company more efficient. As a result, revenue doubled, from $1.5 million in 2003 to $3 million in 2004. And it was able to land a lucrative contract servicing and maintaining the heating and cooling systems at three local Delphi Corp. plants.

Sales for OfficeMax Contract were $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2004, an increase of 16%. Sales for the full year of 2004 were $4.4 billion, an increase of 17% from 2003. But the division’s fourth-quarter operating income fell 42%, to $19.8 million from $33.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2004. For full-year 2004, OfficeMax Contract reported operating income of $107.0 million, compared with $118.6 million in 2003 before a special item.

Courtney Wilson, 18, of Lancaster, is like many teens her age, keeping busy in her own world of school, activities, a part-time job and church.

By volunteering at a local nursing home, she was able to step into an unfamiliar world in which a number of senior adults live, and received as much as she gave.

Wilson was one of eight high school students honored last month by the Lancaster LaSertoma Club for their volunteer service to others.

MACTECH, a full-service office store based on the “Office Max/Kinko’s” concept, is located in Detroit’s David Mackenzie High School and is operated by its students. Growing out of The Detroit Compact Program, a consortium of businesses and corporations working with middle and high schools, this student-run business is part of the high school’s Business Services and Technology Department and the Tech Prep Partnership 2000 Consortium’s curriculum development initiative.

Students have an opportunity to work in an entrepreneurial business setting and be trained in the “office store” concept while attending school. The two-year Office Technology and Production curriculum offers classes in two-hour blocks, designed to provide practical work experience in office and computer skills, communication arts, accounting, sales, product services and advertising. Asof September 1998, 75 students are participating in this program.

We encourage you to purchase an Anti Virus software package and maintain your subscription to the updates. The university uses McAfee Anti Virus, however, any well-supported Anti Virus software should be fine. Many Anti Virus software packages can be purchased locally at various stores such as Wal-Mart, Office Depot, Office Max, Circuit City and many others. You can even purchase and download the software off of the web from the manufacturers web site.

Okay, the complaint. I live in a medium sized city in the Midwest. We are too small for Best Buy and Circuit City, but big enough for Office Max, Radio Shack, Wal Mart, Sears, . . . etc. When I need something at the last minute, technology wise, Office Max is generally the only game in town. I do not know how they do their distribution, but they seemed to have pegged our market as "too clueless to know the difference."

A company called bun-J offers some fabulous mobile phone holders - such as these "classical bags" (left) which include pockets for credit cards. mobile blog.it spotted them at CeBit.

An investment firm with a sizable stake in Itasca-based Office-Max says in a regulatory filing today that it favors the break-up of the office products retailer.

The firm also says it might take action to ensure the company considers such a step.

Some credit card thieves use stolen cards not to get merchandise, but to earn affiliate commissions. If you run your own affiliate program ,you need to be vigilant in watching out for suspicous transactions, and reversing both the transaction and the affiliate commission.

Thanks to everyone. Office Bricolage 2 had a great turnout, but not everyone can win, so the following are the results of the Office Bricolage 2 contest. These submissions were scored using the following criteria.

Destructiveness (10%)- Strength of the weapon to impose it's damage onto an office. Also a factor of how many people your weapon can affect at once.
Automation (%10) - This facet is dedicated to how simple it is to use your weapon. If your weapon seems hard to load, implement or mobilize, then you might want to make the adjustments necessary to get this valuable percentage.
Presentation (%10)- How well the weapon was presented, by pictures, video and text. This score is always relative to the average presentation quality.
Technicality (%15)- The amount of technical design that went into the submission. Elegant simplicity can score high on this event as well.
Aesthetics (%15)- How the weapon looks. Time designated towards cosmetics of the weapon. Writing Bleach Eating Freaks on the weapon will help boost the score.
Originality (20%) - Ability for the weapon to differ itself from what might be considered common office weapons, and past Office Bricolage entries.
Efficacy (20%) - The ability of the weapon to serve it's purpose. Not all weapons are destructive, a weapon that paralyzes it's victim is pretty kewl, too.

Everyone was asked to submit their entry in a structured presentational format that follows the rules, and a sample entry was supplied:
Office Bricolage Sample Entry - The Eradicator
And everyone is probably familiar with the results of the Office Bricolage 1 results.

OfficeMax Inc. on Tuesday announced completion of a two-month internal investigation into its accounting for promotional receipts from its vendors, and said it will restate downward by $4 million to $5 million its 2004 nine-months earnings. The company previously estimated overstatements in this range. In December, after a vendor notified the company of improper documentation on the part of OfficeMax, its audit committee began looking into the company's payment requests to its vendors .

You might call him a Ronny-come-lately, but Staples, Inc. CEO Ron Sargent isn't dallying any longer. He's invading Chicago this week in force.

In one of the more puzzling omissions in American category-killer marketing, the world's originator of office superstores -- and now the largest in the field -- had blithely bypassed the second largest market in the land. In fact, for 20 years, it gave a free pass to its two arch competitors, Office Depot and Office Max, which established 33 and 47 stores respectively to dominate the Chicago area market. Now has come the great awakening.

Do you use a lot of tippex for those mistakes you're constantly making? was it a mistake to hire you? that's probably a yes for both questions. but at least you're fun to have around.

Office Depot offers to recycle electronics for free: This is a Very Good Thing. I'm not an Earth-muffin or anything, but old electronics do some really crappy things to the environment.

Don't be so quick to toss out your old PCs, fax machines or digital cameras — office supply retailer Office Depot is offering to recycle one electronic product a day for free all through the summer, according to a published report Tuesday. [...]

The offer includes all brands of electronics, and products including computer monitors, digital cameras, copiers, fax machines, cellphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and TVs that are 27 inches or smaller, the report said.

The Think chair should make us all do just that. Created in collaboration with McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (the fathers of "Cradle-to-Cradle" design and other smarties, this task seat was designed to make a dent in the mid-priced ergonomic seating market, but also to raise the bar for eco-conscious design. Ergonomically, it's an overachiever, "intuitively" knowing how your spine needs to move. But more importantly, it's manufactured from 41% recycled materials and entirely from materials deemed by MBDC as safe to the environment. At the end if its (presumably long) lifecycle, it's 99% recyclable and can supposedly be disassembled in five minutes.

Office products retailer OfficeMax Inc. said Tuesday it overstated net income by an estimated $4 million to $5 million for the first nine months of 2004, the result of an accounting scandal that already has resulted in six employees being fired.

The company expects to report the revised results on March 14, when it also is scheduled to release fourth-quarter and full-year earnings. It said Feb. 14 that the earlier results were misstated.

OfficeMax made the announcement after completing an internal investigation into its accounting that began in December after a vendor's allegations that some employees had demanded promotional payments and falsified documents.

The Itasca-based company said it overstated operating income in the first quarter of 2004 by approximately $7 million and understated operating income by about $1 million in each of the second and third quarters.

CNET (www.cnet.com), the trusted, unbiased resource for people interested in enhancing their life with personal technology and a property of CNET Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: CNET), today announced its new "At Work" section (http://work.cnet.com). Edited by technology journalist Rafe Needleman, CNET At Work is a comprehensive collection of editorial and community features designed to help small business owners and individuals discover the technologies that can best improve their productivity.

Research by the Business Continuity Institute reveals that 20% of businesses still do not have disaster recovery plans, despite respondents believing that terrorism, fire and flood present significant threats to their business operations.

Andy Tomkinson of the BCI described the results of a new survey to be released to the public during the upcoming Business Continuity Awareness Week, saying, "The BCI awareness survey provides a timely reminder that more needs to be done to help business prepare for disruption. It is a wake up call for Government and business to come together and highlight what needs to be done, to prepare for better disaster recovery and business continuity planning."

"The national roll out of Vonage's broadband telephony product at Office Depot presents a great opportunity, which will allow us to prove the value of our products on retail shelves," said Daniel Elwell, director of New Business Development for Vonage. "We are looking forward to transform the telecommunications industry with successful sales margins with one of the nation's top retailers, as Office Depot's market savvy and educated sales representatives demonstrate the value of broadband phone service to an untapped market segment."

As for collection buckets, there are the standard: the office inbox, email inbox, and home inbox. I have those, but find that I need others as well. So I've added the following from time to time:

• Jotter Wallet - For recording items on the run. It consists of a wallet section (to ensure that you always have it with you) with a small pad and pen. David sells one on his site for about $100.00, but if you don't mind a little leg work, you can create one of your own for a lot less. At Office Depot, you can find a similar wallet by Wenger (and it includes a pouch for business cards) for about $10.00. Then, a quick trip over to the pen section in Office Max will yield two compact pens by Zebra for about $5.00. Savings: $85.00. Nice. The reminders from here get tossed in my inbox and processed with everything else.
• Digital recorder - Small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, it's for those times when you just can't write: While driving, on the golf course, bicycling, etc. I'm always finding additional uses for mine, such as dictation of letters on the fly, as well as recording important meetings and phone calls (an attachment from Radio Shack makes this a snap).
• Cell Phone - I've used the voice recorder feature when I couldn't, for some reason, have my digital recorder.
• Voicemail - Calling and sending myself a voicemail about a next action is as close as a phone.
• Email - Using my Tungsten C or web-enabled phone to email myself a next action. The nice thing here is that it winds up in my email inbox, which I process daily.
• My Palm's Unfiled Catagory - Writing a next action directly in the Palm's Unfiled category, this is recommended by Sally McGhee in her book, Take Back Your Life!. I eventually dropped this one because it blurred the line between collection and processing my next actions.
• Moleskine Notebook - Simple, straight forward. Toss the entire book into the in-basket and process it along with everything else. Put an "X" across processed pages.

I'm bummed - it looks like I won't be able to get insurance for my Sidekick. Apparently you have to sign up within seven days of activation (for new customers) or ten days after switching phones (for existing customers), and I didn't know that when I bought the Sidekick on eBay. I didn't even know that insurance was recommended, but every website or discussion forum I've seen about Sidekicks has people mentioning broken scroll wheels, buttons falling off, etc. I have some friends who have never had those problems, but apparently they are quite common. I certainly wasn't eager to cough up the $4/month for the insurance, but given what I've heard I figured it was prudent. I tried begging Asurion, the insurer for T-Mobile, but the woman couldn't help me. I asked if she had other suggestions, and she mentioned homeowners insurance and auto insurance...I didn't bother telling her that I don't own a home or a car.