Category Archives: rants

Don’t Forget the Time Zone!

You’d think that this would be obvious in the year 2010, but it’s ridiculous the number of companies that advertise on-line events, for which they are obviously seeking a global audience, and don’t include the time zone. Not only does most of the world NOT run on your timezone, but most of them don’t have a clue what time zone you’re in. And don’t give me that B.S. that “your customers know where we are”, because, if you have multiple offices, I guarantee that at least some don’t. And if you are doing it at a partner or customer office that is not in your head-office time zone, how are they supposed to even have a clue?

And learn what daylight standard time means. It’s amazing how many events I see for 11:00 EDT in December (not possible!) or EST in July in New York (again, not possible!). And don’t take the timezone shortcut and just use ET, CT, or PT. Remember, not all provinces and states (like Saskatchewan and Arizona) use daylight savings time, and the usual assumption is that if an abbreviation is used, you mean xDT in summer and xST in winter.

And if there is any possibility of confusion (and with timezones there usually is), spell the timezone out. BST can mean British Summer Time, Burma Standard Time, or Bangladesh Standard Time.

Don’t be a Dummy! Use the fully qualified timezone.

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A Most Favoured Nation’s Rant

Editor’s Note: Today’s post is from Dick Locke, Sourcing Innovation’s resident expert on International Sourcing and Procurement. (His previous guest posts are still archived.)

News yesterday:

U.S. Sues Michigan Blue Cross Over Pricing

The US Department of Justice and the State of Michigan have sued Michigan Blue Cross over their practice of having a clause in their contracts requiring that hospitals never charge other insurance companies less than they charge Blue Cross. In some cases they allegedly required the hospitals to charge 25-39% more than they charged other insurance companies The plaintiffs charge this is anti-competitive behavior.

US purchasing shorthand calls such clauses ‘MFN’ (Most Favored Nation) clauses.

My response:

Well duh, it's about dxxx time! These clauses are a refuge of lazy-axx purchasers who rely on their competitors to do their price negotiations. The clauses I've run into also would require sellers to open their books to audit so buyers can actually check what a seller charges others. If that isn't anti-competitive, I don't know what is.

It's also futile and, in some cases, comical. I had a major client who wanted me to agree to such a clause. They were some of the most lackadaisical price negotiators I've seen. They had just asked me to become an employee of their temp agency (for the same consultant rate) because they didn't have a process to reliably send 1099 tax forms reporting my income to the US Internal Revenue Service. That raised their cost 20% and increased my profit by 7% because now they didn't have to pay the employer's share of Social Security and Medicare. I was waiting for them to ask for a 7% price reduction but the request never came. Sure I signed their agreement but I made sure that my services to them were 'different' than services to others.

So if anyone thinks you're accomplishing anything with these clauses, look again. If it's not a more or less standardly defined good or service, all you've done is increase bureaucracy. If it's a standard product, I agree with the plaintiffs that it's anti-competitive.

Thanks, Dick!

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Why So Few Tweets from the C-Suite?

A recent HBR blog post asked “why so few tweets from the C-suite”. Apparently the author, a “reputation strategist” at a public relations consultancy (no surprises here!), believes that all modern CEO should have a presence online and that the best way to accomplish this is to use modern social platforms, among which Twitter (again, PR person) is supposedly included.

Well, there’s an easy answer to this question, and since I’m such a nice guy, I’m going to give it to her:

Because, contrary to popular opinion, C-suite executives are not a bunch of twits.

Generally speaking, you do not get promoted to the C-suite if you’re an idiot. And most modern executives, who know that Twitter will make a twit out of you by causing you to lose basic writing skills, understand that they need every brain cell they have to survive in today’s modern economy. So while there is an argument for them to be blogging and communicating more with the public using modern tools, there’s never a good reason to use tools like Twitter, and thank whatever deity you believe in that some people still have the good sense to know this!

Have You Been Aribaed: The Harbinger of Getting Paid

Today’s guest post is from Richard Adin, founder of Freelance Editorial Services and blogmaster of An American Editor. It originally appeared on An American Editor on September 23, 2010 and is reprinted with kind permission.

Have you been aribaed (that’s ariba + ed to somewhat simulate the verbing of a company name)? I have and I must admit, I don’t like it.

It’s the modern megacorporation’s way of further shafting (squeezing mercilessly) the little person who really can’t fight back. It isn’t the battle between near-equals or almost-near-equals or even fantasy-almost-near-equals, but the battle of multiple giants against an ant.

Okay, I hear you asking, “so what’s the problem?” The problem is this: freelance editors are generally 1-person small businesses. They do not make million-dollar grosses, do not file SEC reports quarterly, and do not worry about being delisted on the stock exchanges. Instead, they worry about keeping expenses down, getting enough business to earn a living that is at least equivalent to what they could earn working at the local convenience store, and getting those who hire them to pay them the agreed-to amount on time. In other words, we are part of that cadre that both Republicans and Democrats seemingly want to protect when they speak of small business but consistently fail to protect because we don’t fork over enough cash to them.

What is Ariba? Ariba is a megacorporation1 that serves as an intermediary between suppliers and clients for invoicing and payment. I assume that the reason for a company to sign on with Ariba is so that it can eventually eliminate its own accounts payable department, saving the costs of writing checks, verifying invoices, and, of course, all the costs associated with having human beings working in these departments; I don’t know this for certain.

So far, so good — right? Well, setting aside the idea that if American companies continue to forcibly retire low-level workers so they can increase the perks to very-high-level executives there soon will be only a handful of people able to afford to buy the company’s products because the vast majority of people will have no disposable income (and let’s face it, if you manufacture a book, how many copies of a title is the company CEO likely to buy), there is nothing particularly wrong with delegating to a third party bill paying.

Except when you — the supplier of labor or goods — are aribaed, because when you are aribaed, you have to pay Ariba a percentage of your invoice in order to get paid. Imagine this. MegaMonolith Corporation (MM) hires you to edit a book and because of competition and outsourcing to packagers, in order to compete you have had to set your price at the same level as it was in 1995.

So you do the job with great skill and care, working long days and weekends to get the job done in time to meet MM’s compressed schedule — and getting no additional monies for working more than 8 hours in a day or on weekends — and submit your invoice for payment. Previously, your invoice went directly to MM, the client.

But out of the blue MM gets the bright idea to use Ariba. Now you get your chance to be aribaed. In order to edit books for MM, you have to get a purchase order (just like before, so no big deal) but now you have to submit your invoice through Ariba, who won’t process your invoice unless there is a matching purchase order. On the surface it looks great until you get your check and discover that you’ve aribaed — Ariba charges you a percentage of your invoice for sending you the money you are owed. And, if you don’t join Ariba, process your invoices through Ariba, and pay Ariba’s fee, you can no longer sell your services to MM. Welcome to the group of people who have been aribaed!

On wonders if MM needs to replace a thousand computers is it likely that Dell or IBM will voluntarily pay this fee? My guess is not, but they have the power that us freelancers don’t and offer goods that are relatively unique, which we don’t. In the end, it is the small fry like us who will pay MM’s operational costs or be barred from doing business with MM.

Ariba’s pitch is that it is a place of networking. Other potential customers will find you in its database and send you business. And my great-great-great-great-grandmother will be elected president of the United States right after her resurrection. Do they really think we are so naive as to believe that the people who make the decision to hire a freelance editor are searching Ariba’s database?

Unfortunately, just as many publishers have forsaken quality for quarterly returns, so they will squeeze the little person because they can’t squeeze the IBMs and Microsofts of the world. They will squeeze where they can, which means the workers in the trenches. And aribaing freelancers is just one more way to do so. It is a natural next step to the outsourcing of editorial services to packagers that began in earnest in the late 1990s as a way to squeeze editorial pricing.

Are you ready to be aribaed? If not, get prepared, because it is coming.

Thanks, Richard!

1 As per a recent post by Debbie Wilson on the Gartner blogs, it is a megacorporation with a market cap of 1.73 Billion.

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