On Cyber Monday FSO Salutes TECHNOLOGY i.e. "Better Service and Support, At Lower Cost"

"Listen closely and you too will hear the thumping, pulsing heart of a new economy. And now creativity, "the ability to create meaningful new forms," as The Random House Webster's Dictionary puts it--has become both the driving force of economic progress and the decisive source of competitive advantage."

Good Morning Folks,

Welcome to December. I hope you enjoyed the holidays. But the season of joy is just beginning.

Have you noticed that people everywhere at the holidays seem nicer, except at FSO where we serve to please and aim for daily smiles every day of the year, in everything we do, wherever you find us.

But while our people shine, people alone can not rise to the tough challenges facing businesses everywhere to compete successfully and profitably into the 21st Century and beyond.

As you know, the Executive Leadership team and I and more specifically our IT team are always thinking about how technology can drive out costs and cycles, making possible what was not before. This includes new products and methodologies to identify opportunities for improvements and help resolve critical IT issues that affect business performance for greater efficiency and productivity.

On this day, the first Monday in December otherwise known as "Cyber Monday" — Online commerce gets a lot of headlines. 

Many people talk about it as a very exciting element of what is happening on the Internet, and clearly it is. 

But I think one area that doesn't get enough recognition is service and support. Look at Dell, as an example. They get 100 million visitors every year to their Website. If you imagine the physical infrastructure that a company would have to have to support 100 million customer contacts, you can begin to see the efficiency that comes from working online with customers in the way the Internet does. Customer service will be a key differentiator in the future of e-commerce, and one of the most sure-fire methods of acknowledging customer queries is by answering e-mails.

This was high-tech in 1867— the innovation that drove Wall Street. The inventor Edward A Calahan unveiled the world's first stock price ticker system in 1867, but it used morse code and was essentially a glorified telegraph receiver. Two years later, Thomas Edison launched the Univeral Stock Ticker machine (pictured). It used alphanumeric numbers and printed one character per second. (Picture from the Museum of American Finance)

In his book titled "Creativity Is the New Economy" economist Richard Florida argues that "it's common to say we are now living in a post-industrial information or knowledge economy. And now creativity, "the ability to create meaningful new forms," as The Random House Webster's Dictionary puts it--has become both the driving force of economic progress and the decisive source of competitive advantage. He writes:

The Creative Age has been distinguished by the rise of two great social classes. The first is the Creative Class, workers in science and technology, arts, culture and entertainment, healthcare, law and management, whose occupations are based on mental or creative labor.

The second and larger one is the Service Class, whose members prepare and serve food, carry out routine clerical and administrative tasks, provide home and personal health assistance, do janitorial work, and the like. The Service Class has grown alongside the Creative Class, rising from twenty percent of the workforce in the late nineteenth century and thirty percent in the 1950s to almost half of the workforce, 60 million plus workers, today. 

The Creative Class, which comprised less than ten percent of the workforce in the late nineteenth century and no more than 15 percent for much of the twentieth, began to surge in the 1980s. Since that time more than twenty million new Creative Class jobs were created in the United States. 

This epoch-defining class now numbers more than forty million workers, a third of the workforce, and it generates more than $2 trillion in wages and salaries--more than two thirds of the total US payroll. An additional seven million or so Creative Class jobs will be created over the next decade, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections.

Members of the Creative Class engage in complex problem solving that involves a great deal of independent judgment and requires high levels of education. Interestingly enough, however, the Creative Class is not simply another name for the college educated.

While nearly three quarters of college graduates belong to the Creative Class, four in ten of its members do not have college degrees, but still engage in work that is creative by definition. 

At the worst of the crisis, in the first half of 2009, the rate of unemployment for the Creative Class barely topped five percent, even as the rate of unemployment for the nation crested over ten percent and the unemployment rate for blue-collar production workers surged above 15 percent or more. Creative Class unemployment is roughly four percent today, a little less than half the rate for the nation as a whole."

In helping our clients meet the changing demands of business, FSO has and will be launching innovative technologies and hiring and training personal so that your team is comprised of both service and creative-class minds. The best example of this is that only FSO gives you the white glove onsite service backed by the creative-class staffed (re) imagination team. It's all built around a strategy customized to the needs and opportunities of your business.

My friend Jay Turo at GrowThink.com blogs about Jessica Simpson, Renée Zellweger, and Bold Predictions.

As we usher out the present and get ready to usher in the new his ideas and predictions from when FSO was just getting started are worthy of reexamination. IHe predicted...

"The prototype of a breakout technology company will continue to evolve from “geeks in a garage tinkering with transistors” to loosely - coupled gangs of media - savvy trendsetters that get the game of viral and cross - platform brand and buzz-building. 

According to Jay, America is getting its mojo back. Once one quiets the mind to the drumbeat of negativity that passes as business and economic news, one can hear the sound of the nation’s entrepreneurial and risk-taking wheels turning.  

He predicted: It Will Be the Year of the Young (and the Young at Heart).
The best qualities of youth – enthusiasm, flexibility of mind and spirit, and the over-riding desire to be inspired will continue to shape the brave new economic world order. 

From youth by the millions leaving the countryside (smart phones in hand) to find their dreams in Shanghai, in Mumbai, in Sao Paulo, in Nairobi, to the young technocratic of Palo Alto, of Manhattan, of Santa Monica, of Moscow, the youth like Renée Zellweger’s unforgettable character in the movie Jerry Maguire, are not so much looking for jobs as they are looking to be inspired.  

And that inspiration, and it is a credit to their more open-minded than ever parents, is found in BOTH making a difference AND making a buck (and/or a rupee or a ruble).
Anti - business do-gooders they are surely not, but nor are they faceless and dreamless company men. Rather, their spirit is raised by big ideas.  

By clean energy for all. By friendship and professional networks not limited by nationality, race, and creed. 

By eliminating hunger in the world not via charity but via a combination of venture philanthropy, technology, and always - on global communication and awareness. 

By healthcare breakthroughs of all types - diagnostic, prescriptive, and in cost and efficiency so that everyone gets great care when and where they need it. 

And it will be the young and the young at heart that will move all of the above and more from dream to reality.  

Not all of it without setbacks and heartaches along the way. But a lot of it.  

This will be the REAL story of the decade- listen closely and you too will hear the thumping, pulsing heart of a new economy."

Not only do these life-changing inventions benefit all of humanity, they promise high employment at good salaries contributing to the economy. And that's why I recently decided to get more involved as I joined the Board of Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools who operates one of the largest Research & Development and Training centers for science and technology education in the world. It develops innovative curricula for robotics, nanotechnology, biomedical engineering, teaching-learning methodologies and online pedagogy for implementation in Israel and export to education systems and hundreds of schools around the world.

On this Cyber Monday, as we shop and pay by mobile phone with applications and possibilities we never dreamed possible, let's give homage to these "Anti-business do-gooders they are surely not, but nor are they faceless and dreamless company men. Rather, their spirit is raised by big ideas." For they have made possible all that we are realizing on our smart phones, and smart TVs today.

The Internet is changing the way business is conducted, at a speed unprecedented in human history. As interconnectivity and information flow increase exponentially, the old "rules of the game" no longer apply. Geographic proximity and established name-brands no longer assure sales or customer loyalty. The ability to instantly compare prices and features empowers buyers and puts new pressure on suppliers to compete on other levels. Business ethics become more important than ever before, as do service and the ability to integrate inputs from a multitude of sources around the globe.

Opportunities to globalize, engage customers and suppliers in real time and facilitate knowledge sharing and best practices can now be achieved in much less time than anyone could have imagined, thanks to the emergence of the Internet.

This New Economy is being driven by a profound development: Individuals and companies worldwide are being electronically linked, a process as significant as an organism developing a nervous system. It's the new platform for business, with the power to trim costs and create sales opportunities by connecting every corner of the corporation with partners and customers.

So it's no surprise that the rules of the game are changing. Many of these principles have been stated before. But taken together they constitute a revolution in the rules of business. Companies that recognize and harness these trends will profit. Companies that do not will shrink or disappear.

FSO has been prepared from the beginning. Readying for 2015 brighter minds, better ideas and breakthrough technology to drive them.

If you aren't familiar with what FSO is up to lately, I hope you'll give us a fresh look.

Have a GREAT Cyber-Monday and a wonderful week!

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

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"Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning"
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*(Now to my sales team please stop shopping and get back to work!)