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A car. A special car.
Farah had heard about it, of course. The Chevrolet Volt was the automotive sensation of 2007, a new kind of electric hybrid that GM was proposing to have in showrooms in late 2010. Farah had advocated a similar design years earlier, so he didn’t need to be sold on the idea.
Still, he hesitated. GM had called him because of his deep experience with battery-driven electric cars. In the 1990s, he had worked on GM’s EV1, an all-electric technological masterpiece that had done so poorly commercially that GM wound up crushing the cars amid a hail of public condemnation. Farah had been fiercely committed to the EV1, and he was not about to relive the disappointment.
“Hell, no,” he said. “I’ve been on programs like this before. They’re not real.”
“No,” came the reply. “This one is real.” Farah asked to talk to other senior executives, and they concurred. So, in the spring of last year, he took one of the hardest jobs at GM, and became the Volt’s chief engineer.
And how, I ask over coffee early one February morning in Detroit, is it going? It is 6 a.m., and Farah, who is 47 and has angular features and prominent black glasses, is rushing to make a 7 a.m. meeting. The car, he says, is 10 weeks behind the original schedule. Any more slippage, and the 2010 deadline will be history. Even if no more time is lost, he will have only eight weeks to test the underbody, the car’s structural base.
GM, he tells me, is taking an industrial organization designed to grind out incremental improvements and repurposing it for a technological leap. “I spend 20 percent of my time being a psychologist and counselor,” he says. “I tell people, ‘Yes, there’s a lot of risk. And, yes, that’s OK.’
“It’s not a program for the faint of heart.”
When one of the world’s mightiest corporations throws everything it’s got at a project, and when it shreds its rule book in the process, the results are likely to be impressive. Still, even for General Motors, the Volt is a reach. If it meets specifications, it will charge up overnight from any standard electrical socket. It will go 40 miles on a charge. Then a small gasoline engine will ignite. The engine’s sole job will be to drive a generator, whose sole job will be to maintain the battery’s charge—not to drive the wheels, which will never see anything but electricity. In generator mode, the car will drive hundreds of miles on a tank of gas, at about 50 miles per gallon. But about three-fourths of Americans commute less than 40 miles a day, so on most days most Volt drivers would use no gas at all.
Because it will have both an electric and a gasoline motor on board, the Volt will be a hybrid. But it will be like no hybrid on the road today. Existing hybrids are gasoline-powered cars, with an electric assist to improve the gas mileage. The Volt will be an electric-powered car, with a gasoline assist to increase the battery’s range.
Electric drive is as old as the automobile itself. Anyone who has ridden in a golf cart has experienced it. Compared with the fire-breathing internal combustion engine, an electric motor is simple, quiet, and clean, and it provides marvelous acceleration and torque. For a century, though, the deal-breaker has been the battery. Any battery with nearly enough power to drive a full-size car was prohibitively large and heavy, prohibitively expensive, unable to go more than a few miles on a charge, or (usually) all of the above. Only recently has the advent of lithium-ion batteries brought a full-range electric car into the realm of the practical. Even so, the battery for the Volt doesn’t yet exist, at least not at a mass-market price, and building it poses formidable challenges. Loading enough energy into a sufficiently small, lightweight package is hard (the battery isn’t much good unless it fits in the car); keeping it cool lest it burst into flames is harder; making it durable enough to last 10 years on bumpy roads is harder yet; manufacturing it in high volumes and at mass-market prices may be hardest of all.
Given the challenges, standard procedure dictates first building and testing the battery, and only then designing a car around it. That process, however, would take until 2012 or 2013—time GM does not have if it wants to beat Toyota. The only hope of meeting the 2010 deadline is to invent the battery while simultaneously designing the car. Just-in-time inventory is common now in the car business, but just-in-time invention on the Volt’s scale is new to GM and probably to the modern automotive industry.
Many in the industry will tell you there’s a good reason car companies don’t do things this way. Toyota, which is proceeding much more cautiously with its own plug-in car, has made no secret of its belief that neither GM nor anyone else can keep the Volt’s promises. When I called Menahem Anderman, a prominent battery consultant in California, he said the lithium-ion battery will be expensive—far too expensive to make sense as a business proposition as long as gas is $3 or $4 a gallon. (“At $10 a gallon we can have a different discussion.”) Its life is unproven, and unprovable in the short time GM has allotted. To deliver tens of thousands of vehicles in 2010, Anderman said, “they should have had hundreds of them already driving around for two or three years. Hundreds. Not everybody can say it publicly, but everybody in the high-volume industry is saying, ‘What are they thinking about?’” An executive with a GM competitor, after making some of the same points, offered forthrightness in exchange for anonymity: “They’re making a huge mistake.”
The people at GM understand very well the reasons they’re not supposed to do what they’re doing. They offer a variety of retorts. Batteries will improve and get cheaper. Gas prices will rise. They have two decades’ worth of experience with electric drive. They have smart algorithms to test the battery. Strict new fuel-economy standards will vindicate the business case. But, at bottom, what they say is that the challenge is part of the point. They have something to prove.
In conversations with everyone from staff engineers to Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO, I heard references to the Apollo program. “John Kennedy didn’t say, ‘Let’s go to the moon and, you know, we’ll get there as soon as we can,’” Wagoner said in a recent interview in his office, atop a high-rise in Detroit. “I asked our experts, ‘Guys, do we have a reasonable chance of making it or not?’ Yes. ‘Well, then, let’s go for what we want rather than go for what we know we can do.’” With the Volt, GM—battered, beleaguered, struggling for profitability—hopes to re-engineer not just the car but the way the public thinks about cars, the way the public thinks about GM, and the way GM thinks about itself.
The company turns 100 this year, but amid the birthday celebrations it can expect a slap in the face: in 2008 GM is likely to be demoted to No. 2 among the world’s carmakers. Memories of past glory make being overtaken by Toyota all the more galling. In the 1950s and 1960s, GM poured forth a stream of innovations in design and technology. In the 1960s, it manufactured nearly 60 percent of the cars sold in America. Then, of course, the Japanese arrived, the energy crisis hit, and GM began to look like the company that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In the 1970s, when gas prices rose, GM proved incapable of building a decent small car. In the 1980s, when the Japanese redefined quality, GM failed to respond, because its brands were competing against each other instead of the imports. In the 1990s, when minivans and SUVs took off, GM was caught unprepared. In the early part of this decade, it decided hybrids were too unprofitable to pursue, leaving a gap in the market that Toyota, with its Prius, brilliantly and mercilessly exploited. By the time GM recognized its blunder and launched its own hybrids, Toyota dominated the field.
GM also had problems with high health-care and manufacturing costs, expensive union contracts, excess capacity, poor quality, lackluster designs. Its public image got so bad that focus groups liked the company’s cars better when the logo was removed. In 2005, GM lost $8.6 billion and saw its bonds downgraded to junk rating. Analysts were speculating about bankruptcy.
Adding insult to injury, the prominent acquisition of Hummer in 1999 had made GM a poster child for environmental irresponsibility, even as Toyota and the Prius piled up accolades for eco-friendliness. “We looked at the Prius and the masterful job of positioning and public relations Toyota did with that,” Steve Harris, GM’s top PR executive, says, “and we thought, That could have been us.”
The combination of bad news and worse publicity created a sense of emergency. “Everyone’s thinking the same thing: We’ve got to turn this thing around,” one executive told me. “We’ve got to get our mojo back on advanced technology. The PR guys want something more sexy and dramatic, a singular point for our message. This issue of the environmental image was hurting the company substantially.” Playing it safe looked paradoxically more dangerous than taking a gamble. The company was conductive to a high-voltage jolt, and Bob Lutz provided the spark.
After a storied career at GM, BMW, Ford, and Chrysler, Lutz returned to GM in 2001, as vice chairman, to reinvigorate its droopy product line. He is not the first person you might expect to bend GM’s will toward politically correct propulsion. For one thing, he is not what you would call green. A tall, gravel-voiced former Marine pilot in his 70s, he has a carbon footprint approximately the size of Delaware, thanks to his 16 classic cars and eight motorcycles and two helicopters and two military-surplus fighter jets (which he flies). He relishes his cigar-chomping, fast-driving image, and scoffs at any notion that he has converted to environmentalism. A few months ago, while GM was busy trying to improve its environmental image, he couldn’t stop himself from telling reporters that global warming is a “total crock of shit.”
But Lutz is also, as he has described himself, “a walking contradiction.” He is trilingual (English, French, and German), the sophisticated product of an elite upbringing in both Switzerland and America, and he spent years successfully working in Europe, where gas is expensive and cars are small. Like many of GM’s top executives nowadays, he is convinced that dependence on a single, increasingly problematic fuel, gasoline, has become the auto industry’s Achilles’ heel. Plug-in cars run on as many different fuels as the electricity plants that charge them: coal, methane, nuclear, hydro, and wind, and potentially solar, biofuels, and garbage—but almost never Saudi or Venezuelan oil. This suits Lutz, a hawk on energy security. “The one thing I care about is getting off imported oil,” he told me in December, over dinner in Detroit. And, as it happens, his last stop before GM was the chairmanship of Exide, a battery company. There, he became fascinated with electric drive.
When he returned, Lutz had, as a GM engineer recalls, “batteries on the brain.” He nagged and he nagged, but the company pushed back. The EV1 had been a commercial flop and a public-relations fiasco, and no one wanted to go back down that road. Then, in late 2005, Lutz got wind that a Silicon Valley start-up, Tesla Motors, was moving toward production of a high-performance electric roadster. (It’s available this year, if you have $100,000.) At that point, Lutz “just lost it,” as he puts it. He refused to accept that a small start-up company could build and sell an electric car but mighty GM couldn’t. In early 2006, he summoned Jon Lauckner and told him to dream up an electric concept car for the 2007 Detroit auto show, a year away. The car had to be more than just interesting, he said. It had to be remarkable: a game-changer.
Lauckner, 50, is vice president of global program management, which puts him in charge of moving vehicles through GM’s new-product pipeline. His father and grandfather worked for GM. Although he has a Stanford management degree, Lauckner is an engineer to the core. Ask him why he is so sure the Volt is doable, and he is likely to say, “I work in power train!” He sees the Volt as an engineering problem that, with enough determination, can be broken down and solved. He also thinks engineers do their best work when asked to stretch, and the further the better. “Risk is my friend,” he once told me. “I like risk. You either go big or go home.”
In February 2006, Lauckner pulled together a brainstorming team that included, unusually, a public-relations man, Chris Preuss. Then just turning 40, Preuss was a Chrysler veteran who had come to GM in the late 1990s and discovered a depressingly hidebound organization. Things had improved since then, but not enough for Preuss. While Lutz was agitating for electric drive, Preuss had been arguing that GM needed a breakthrough product in the mold of the iPod. “Apple Computer was almost on its last breath,” Preuss says. “Once the iPod hit, all the other things they had suddenly looked relevant again.”
That March, the group laid its conclusions before Rick Wagoner and the rest of the top leadership. Preuss and Larry Burns, who runs the company’s research operations and is regarded in the industry as something of a visionary, did not pull punches. GM had to show a real change of mind on the environment and sustainability or remain Toyota’s doormat. It had to lead on plug-ins or get left behind in yet another new market. It had to restore credibility damaged by the mishandling of the EV1, the abdication on hybrids, and the repeated failure to deliver on promises. It needed not just one more in a long series of research programs and concept cars but a real-world product, one ambitious enough to impress even the cynics.
The group proposed a plug-in that would drive at least 10 miles on a charge. It would be a cool, stylish, high-tech car, marketed to trendsetters. They called it the iCar.
The senior leadership green-lighted the project. Burns left the meeting feeling euphoric.
Lauckner’s engineers, meanwhile, were struggling with the battery problem. With anything like an affordable battery, an all-electric car would lack the range consumers expect. But a Prius-style hybrid, however well executed, would amount to a mere me-too. The solution turned up in the form of a rediscovery. In the early 1990s, engineers testing the EV1 had been vexed by its limited range. After 60 miles or so on the test track, they would have to wait hours for the car to recharge. So they rigged up a motorcycle engine, connected it to a generator, and connected that to the battery. Now the car recharged itself while driving. Some of the engineers—among them, Andrew Farah—thought this was a nifty arrangement and pressed to develop it. A few years later, GM put an onboard recharger in an EV1 show car.
And that was as far as the idea got. It elicited zero interest, because in the 1990s, policy makers and car companies were focused on zero emissions—that is, on cars that burn no gas at all. By 2006, however, all of that had changed. Thanks to the Prius, the market was brisk for hybrids, and the public seemed receptive to a plug-in car; but Toyota and Honda were pooh-poohing plug-in technology as unready for prime time. GM’s brainstormers thought they saw a gap in the Japanese line and relished the thought of doing to Toyota what Toyota had done to them. After a sometimes heated debate, they decided the iCar would be the lineal descendant of that once-orphaned test car.
The company then made a series of decisions that look, in hindsight, startlingly audacious. Instead of becoming a safer bet as it ran the internal slalom, the iCar became more ambitious. Its target range on a single charge increased from “at least” 10 miles to 40—the outer limit of what seemed possible. Not a few outsiders think this decision was misguided; a 20-mile battery, say, would still allow many commuters to drive gas-free most days, and it would be easier and cheaper to build. But Lauckner, always pushing, insisted on a car that the public would perceive not just as saving gasoline (that was Prius territory) but as replacing gasoline. The Volt, as the iCar was eventually renamed, had to be perceived as severing the umbilical cord between the car and the gas pump, and nothing less than the longest feasible gas-free range, he believed, would accomplish that.
Yet this adventurous car would be branded Chevrolet. Chevy is GM’s biggest brand, and the only brand it sells everywhere it does business. The last time GM tried for a big breakthrough, in the 1980s, it avoided the Chevy brand, instead creating a new division under a new name (Saturn). This time, GM was proposing to tie its core brand to an untested technology. “If we want to make a big difference with this,” Wagoner told me, “we have to do this with a big brand.”
Producing a high-end statement car for trendsetters, as Tesla is doing, would have been pretty safe, but positioning the Volt as affordable family transportation—Chevy’s bread and butter—is an order of magnitude harder. It implies selling not thousands but hundreds of thousands of cars, and at Chevrolet rather than Cadillac prices. The battery alone is likely to cost something in the high four figures. At Chevy prices, GM can expect to lose money on every Volt it sells, at least in the early going, and possibly for years.
Outflanking Toyota makes good sense strategically, but GM’s market capitalization is less than a tenth of Toyota’s. Unless battery costs fall as quickly as GM hopes, the car could break the bank by succeeding.
Perhaps most audacious of all was a decision to allow unusual public access to the Volt program. The industry’s standard procedure is to develop new products, especially risky ones, out of sight, unveiling them only when proven. GM decided to do exactly the opposite. The PR department flung open the doors. GM executives discuss the program’s progress as publicly as if it were a bill in Congress. They show off photos of batteries under development. They promise to let reporters ride in test cars. They lead them through the labs and design centers and even into the wind tunnel. They run ads, for instance in this magazine, touting the Volt in the present tense, as if it already existed. By earlier this year, expectations were so high that President Bush was commending the car, and it had developed a national grassroots following. This article is itself a product of the fishbowl strategy.
GM is using the publicity to excite the public, of course. It is also using the publicity to push itself. “We thought it would be a motivating thing to do,” Wagoner says. “Certainly it gets everybody aligned”—not always easy in a giant corporation. And GM wants credit for trying, which it never received for the EV1. “If it fails,” Harris says of the Volt, “we want people to know exactly why it failed. It wasn’t lack of commitment or passion on our part; we hit a hard point we couldn’t get around.”
On the other hand, if it fails, it will fail in full view. GM will have given its critics the most spectacular example yet of a broken promise, and Toyota will look prudent instead of timid.
Each of these decisions was ambitious; together, they amounted to an all-in commitment. The company hoped to make a splash with the Volt at the concept car’s unveiling in January 2007, at the Detroit auto show. Even so, executives were stunned by the public’s reaction. GM won both North American Car and Truck of the Year, but the enthusiasm created by the Volt completely eclipsed that news. “We were pumped for something big,” Wagoner says, “but this was a lot bigger.”
Riding the wave of euphoria following the show, GM’s board of directors urged the project on. Although GM had made no formal decision to produce the Volt, what had begun as an experiment was coming to be regarded inside the company as destined. Momentum built still further that spring, as GM began staffing the project with dozens of its ablest engineers—people like Andrew Farah, plucked on short notice from whatever it was they were doing, anywhere in the world.
The pencil pushers had done none of the marketing and cost studies that typically precede a product launch, but no matter. Normally, Bob Lutz says, “you basically define the whole future of the car on paper before you give the go-ahead to start spending some serious engineering and design money on it. And in this case it was completely backwards. We saw that we had a smash hit that hugely resonated with the public, and we just decided: let’s go to work. No business case, but let’s get this thing into production-ready form, and we’ll worry about the cost and investment and the profitability later.”
If GM was seeking to seize the world’s attention and upstage Toyota, it had succeeded, spectacularly. But now it had to build the car.
Lance Turner is 43, of medium height, with a thatch of brown hair and a soft, round face commandeered by heavy, square glasses. Like many at the heart of the Volt project, Turner is a gearhead, the sort of person who gets excited by a histogram of cell voltages. (Don’t ask.) GM is full of people who have labored for years on advanced-technology concept cars and test vehicles—“science projects,” in the company vernacular—with no prospect of seeing their handiwork reach showrooms. For them, the Volt is a jailbreak. Turner, an electrical engineer who worked on the ill-starred EV1 and a series of forgotten electric concept cars with names like Precept (bad name for a car) and Impact (even worse), woke up one morning to find himself in the middle of GM’s busiest intersection. He is the guy testing the battery.
“It’s swim. I already know,” Turner told me, when I asked if the battery was likely to sink or swim. This was during a visit in December to GM’s mile-square technical center in Warren, Michigan, just outside Detroit. Volt development is going on both here and in Germany, allowing for around-the-clock testing. The battery lab, an expansive but otherwise unimpressive room containing test chambers and consoles with digital readouts, clearly had not been dressed up for visiting journalists, of whom I was only the latest. “Before I’d even started the project, we’d opened up the lab to 50 reporters that came in,” Turner told me, sounding bemused. “You’re not allowed to bring a camera or a cell phone into this building. Here we were with a TV crew.”
During this visit, I found the technical center brimming with optimism, and the battery lab was no exception. One of two suppliers, a company called Compact Power (a subsidiary of a big South Korean chemical and advanced-materials company, LG Chem), had delivered two copies of its version of the battery, and on the bench they were testing brilliantly. “They may not look beautiful,” Turner said—the battery was a six-foot-long T-shaped object from which wires, clamps, and circuit boards protruded—“but as far as the data goes, they’re the best I’ve worked with.” Heat is a problem with lithium-ion batteries, but this one was staying cool even when run hard—and the cooling system had yet to be attached.
Moreover, improvements were being incorporated as fast as they could be conceived; the battery would be on its second generation in January, its third in June. “It’s incredible,” Turner said. “The design they’ve come up with for thermal changed 10 times before they delivered the first battery.” And all of this was before the arrival of a competing battery that might be as good or even better, designed jointly by the Massachusetts-based company A123 Systems and the German company Continental A.G. “We’re inventing and creating on the critical path,” Turner said. He was using the industry jargon for the countdown to production, when time is money and delays can cost millions. “I’ve got guys trying to release things before they’re actually invented.”
As I got ready to go, Turner pointed to a laptop wired to the battery. “I’m testing as I’m talking to you,” he said. “It’s working great. I’m all giddy.”
The news was just as good in the Volt’s design studio, a repurposed auditorium. Designers sat in cubicles on the stage, an aptly theatrical touch for so publicity-conscious a car. A mural proclaimed the program’s goals, one of which was “Radically Shifts GM’s Public Perceptions.” On the main floor was a full-size model of the car, hidden under a blue tarp. As a rule, car companies go to great lengths to hide their developmental designs, and so I was surprised when my handler ordered the model disrobed: even by Volt standards, this was exceptional access. The model looked rounder and smoother than the aggressively sporty show car, and for good reason: to squeeze 40 miles out of its battery, the Volt will need to be the most aerodynamically efficient car GM has ever built.
Here, as in the battery lab, work was proceeding rapidly. The design, though still evolving, was already 98 percent there, Bob Boniface, the Volt’s design director, told me. “We’ve taken more than half a year out of the schedule,” he said. Ordinarily, if you had a problem with a taillight, you might schedule a meeting for the next week. “With this, there is no next week.”
Early on, word had come down from Bob Lutz and Jon Lauckner that standard procedure was suspended where the Volt was concerned. “You guys are not going to be held to the normal GM bureaucracy,” Lutz recalls saying. “You guys spend money when you need to spend it. You have a problem, call us on the phone.” Engineers, designers, and executives were told to trust their instincts and make decisions on the spot. If a larger issue crops up, it is taken to a special Volt steering committee, and Lutz, Lauckner, and the key company vice presidents settle it before leaving the room.
“Whenever I have a problem, it is resolved within days,” Frank Weber, who manages the Volt project, told me. “Within days! One call, and things happen immediately.” Weber, a 41-year-old German import from GM’s Opel division in Europe, is precise, organized, unflappable, as if German-engineered himself. One morning, when the steering group heard that the battery was running behind schedule, a senior production executive said to Weber, “Tell us what you need.” By early that afternoon, the two of them were enlisting more engineers.
At the end of February, when I returned to the technical center, the picture looked different. December’s ebullience had given way to a sense of strain that was evident even to a tourist. “We currently are at the limit of our stretch,” one senior battery engineer told me. He was just back from a week’s skiing in Colorado, where he had sought escape, but where for three nights the battery had intruded on his dreams. “Three nights, and I could only think about that battery!”
The Volt had moved from the late stages of conception to the early stages of execution. The personnel count had more than doubled, to 500 or so. They were now out of the sunny foothills and beginning the craggy ascent. Unpleasant surprises and resource limitations and aggressive deadlines and the laws of physics were biting. “Suddenly,” Weber told me, “playtime is over.”
In the battery lab, I found Lance Turner visibly exhausted. As we talked in a cluttered office, where he sat in front of a blackboard covered with scribbled graphs and equations as if out of a mad-scientist cartoon, he kept removing his glasses to massage his eyes. When I asked if he was having any fun, perhaps not the most delicate of questions, he said, “There’s a fair amount of camaraderie in the misery of being tired.” Had he had a vacation? He couldn’t remember just then. “I’m going to take one,” he said, not all that convincingly.
And how was the project going? “I’d had nothing but phenomenal testing experiences last time you were here,” he replied. “This time I’m more humbled.” He led me into a temperature-controlled chamber, where one of the batteries was hooked up to a tangle of tubes filled with clear orange fluid. It looked like an intensive-care patient. The cooling system was being tested. The engineers had expected this to be a challenge, and it was. The system was leaking both fluid and electricity, which meant it could not yet be installed in a test car. Nor was the competing battery robust enough to drive around. Originally expected by Easter, test cars, the crucial proof, would not be on the road before May.
“We’re counting on home runs every single time, and quite frankly, we’re hitting doubles right now,” Turner said, as I watched diodes on the battery’s control circuits flash green. It seemed, he added wearily, that there were not enough hours in the day.
Of course, what I wondered is what everyone wonders: Can GM pull this off? Whenever I asked this question inside the company, I got one or another version of the same answer: “Failure is not an option.” Today’s GM, though not out of trouble, is off the critical list, thanks to a landmark labor agreement, reduced costs, and some widely acclaimed new cars; and the company now has hybrid and ethanol programs to fall back on if the Volt fails. Still, everyone agreed that failure on the Volt, real or perceived, would be a severe setback. And General Motors has tried moon shots before.
In the early 1980s, humiliated by its inability to build a car that met the Japanese challenge, GM announced a new program to create a space-age small car that would leapfrog the Japanese and, in the process, reinvent GM’s business model. It would be an effort of “cosmic proportions,” as the CEO in those days, Roger Smith, put it. The name—Saturn—recalled the space program. The development team was given free rein and $5 billion. “By 1985, the Saturn project had become a giant media event, propelled by a steady stream of tantalizing announcements from Roger Smith’s office,” Maryann Keller, a prominent automotive analyst, wrote in her 1989 book on GM, Rude Awakening. “With the promise of Saturn, the world was suddenly Roger Smith’s oyster.” The start-up moved at breakneck speed, growing from six people to 800 in the first year; it designed and built an all-new car in three years, Japan-fast and twice GM’s normal pace. The car was popular, the new production system and dealer network even more so: by 1992, there were waiting lists for Saturns.
And then Saturn withered. The cars sold well but struggled to break even, and GM’s union and bureaucracy pushed back against the division’s organizational privileges. Instead of nurturing and growing Saturn, GM merged it into the larger organizational blob and then neglected it. What was supposed to have been a tonic for the corporate culture became another victim of it. Only recently has Saturn gotten back on its feet.
GM’s history of great leaps forward dates to its founder, William Durant, who was known for his sometimes impulsive style. “Mr. Durant would proceed on a course of action guided solely, as far as I could tell, by some intuitive flash of brilliance,” his legendary successor, Alfred Sloan, once wrote. “He never felt obliged to make an engineering hunt for facts.” In the 1980s and 1990s, the company fought stagnation and decline with a series of what it hoped would be breakthroughs: a joint venture with Toyota in the early 1980s; acquisitions of two high-tech companies; a spending spree on robots and other advanced manufacturing technology; Saturn; the EV1. Some, like the acquisitions and the program to replace humans with robots (which ended up painting each other instead of the cars), failed outright. Others, like the joint venture, Saturn, and the EV1, yielded opportunities that GM failed to exploit.
History suggests that the largest dangers for the Volt are not technological but organizational and commercial. Will GM have the focus and creativity to market such an unconventional car? Will it have the doggedness, and the cash, to weather the inevitable commercial setbacks and financial losses? To judge solely from history, the odds are not great.
On the other hand, GM is not the company it was in the 1980s and 1990s. “There’s a generational change in GM,” Maryann Keller, who has tracked GM since the early 1970s, told me recently. “There’s a generation of managers who never knew the rich GM. These are people who are bruised and battered. These are the kind of people who can make change.” (And the worm turns: Toyota is now run by a generation that has known only success.)
GM, once notoriously smug, today is a hungry company. Its executives and engineers will recount, at the drop of a hat, the great technologies and cars that GM has fathered. They want some of that glory back. They know the world expects them to fail, and that makes them all the hungrier. “The empire strikes back,” is how one executive sums up the Volt’s effect on morale.
Rick Wagoner, the CEO, is a GM lifer who joined the company fresh out of Harvard Business School in 1977, and he knows his history. “Making big bets is not something this company has been averse to,” he told me. GM’s downfall has been in execution and follow-through, not ambition. “If I’ve learned anything over the past three or four years,” Wagoner said, it’s that “a lot of this business is sticking with it and persistence. In the coaching vernacular, we’re going to leave it on the floor to make this happen.”
My own feeling, just a reporter’s guess, is that battery glitches have reduced the odds of GM’s having the Volt in showrooms by late 2010, but advances in the underlying technology have increased the odds of its producing the Volt early in the decade. In other words, delay on the order of months is looking more likely, but delay on the order of years is looking less likely. I’d also guess that the car’s sticker price will be higher than GM initially hoped, maybe north of $35,000.
How much the calendar and the price matter will depend on the competition. Despite its head start, GM will have to fight to be first. In January, after a year of watching GM bask in the Volt’s publicity, Toyota reacted. At the 2008 Detroit auto show, Katsuaki Watanabe, the president, announced that Toyota would produce a lithium-ion plug-in car of its own, and would have it on the street in test fleets “not at the end of 2010, but earlier than that.” Toyota was talking about a few hundred experimental cars in a controlled setting, not tens of thousands of cars in dealer showrooms, a much less ambitious goal than GM’s. But Toyota is famous for under-promising and over-delivering.
In February, Tesla, the Silicon Valley company, announced plans for an electric sedan with a gasoline-powered generator, like the Volt—but set to arrive a year earlier, in late 2009. In March, BMW said it might produce an electric car for the U.S. market, and in May, Nissan said it would have one in test fleets in 2010. The drumbeat seems likely to continue. Simply by announcing the Volt, GM has attracted a bevy of competitors, bringing the electric car’s mass-market advent from over the horizon to around the corner.
GM’s leaders, needless to say, do not particularly welcome the competition from a business point of view. But they relish it from a psychological one. When I asked Larry Burns, the R&D vice president, how he felt about Toyota’s plans, he said, “Paranoid, because they’re good.” But the real answer was the grin that spread across his face as he recalled Watanabe’s announcement and said, savoring each syllable, “He was a follower.”
In late March, at the New York auto show, I checked back in with Andrew Farah, the Volt’s chief engineer, and asked for an update. “Still just as bad as before,” he said. When I mentioned that another executive had said the underbody was a well-proven design that didn’t need much testing, he shot me a look of disbelief. “There’s a big gaping hole down the center of this car where the battery goes.”
All around us, at the Chevrolet stand, a crowd was forming. Volt fans from as far away as Arizona, Colorado, and California had made the pilgrimage to question the team about the car.
“Maybe what we’re going to learn out of this isn’t some technological thing,” Farah said. “Maybe what we’re learning is to be more comfortable with a higher level of risk.” I asked if he did feel comfortable with the risks the program was taking. He thought for a moment. “I realize there’s no other way to do it, so I am comfortable with it.” Was he holding up under the pressure? He thought again. “It’s my job to hold up.”
As the event began, I melted into the crowd. Next to me was a 23-year-old grad student who thought the car was historic; next to him, a 21-year-old network engineer who said he loved the car and would buy one now if he could; next to him, a 59-year-old foreman (and grandfather) who said, “I just want to be a part of this.” None of them were car people or GM people, at least not before the Volt. Glancing at the concept car on the dais, I realized I was looking at the Barack Obama of automobiles—everyone’s hope for change.
At the podium, Bob Lutz was saying, “I think the whole company has now learned the lesson that when you set out and do bold things, you win, and when you’re cautious and let someone else do the bold things, you lose.” The crowd applauded warmly. A voice called out, “You’re absolutely right, Bob!”
Lutz said, “It may be years before we make a dime on this product. Years! And the board said, ‘Don’t even talk about profitability. General Motors needs this car.’”
I couldn’t see Andrew Farah just then, but for a moment I almost envied him.
Written by Jonathan Rauch


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It’s the 30 th anniversary of Banned Books Week and the ALA has released its list of the most challenged books in the United States for 2011.
The Hunger Games has made the list once again, this time as the third most challenged book in the U.S.
Here’s the rest of the list and the reasons they are being challenged:
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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As part of a Victorian manufacturing sector that continues to be a vital component of the nation’s economy, Glyde Metal has a keen eye on how the technological revolution will impact our industry of steel fabrication.
What is Hannover Messe?
Founded over 70 years ago, it’s the world’s leading industrial technology show, where over 6,000 exhibitors and close to a quarter of a million attendees converge on northern Germany’s third-largest city, as it showcases the latest technology developments and best practice examples of industrial automation and digitalisation.
The Victorian Delegation
Via the Global Discovery Exchange initiative this year, the Victorian Government provided support for short-listed Victorian manufacturers to send a senior representative to the exhibition, with Siemens hosting.
And Siemens don’t do things by half – as an automation, digitalisation and electrification heavy-hitter, they were this year’s largest exhibitor at Hannover Messe, with their stand accounting for an acre of trade-fair space. So with our delegation (which also included AiGroup and the German-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry), we were given the VIP treatment, with access to factories, meetings and events.
Mark Wood, our General Manager, was the face of Glyde Metal Industries for this Victorian delegation.
“Upon arrival at Hannover Messe, it was like the MCG on Grand Final Day – masses of people. A 300m-long elevated platform with travelators transporting our delegation (and huge crowds) directly to the Messe complex, with 27 exhibition sheds”.
“The sheer scope and size of the trade fair is overwhelming”, says Mark. “We tried to make sure we didn’t miss anything before leaving, which was futile!”
The Siemens Stand
The VIP treatment promised by Global Victoria didn’t take long to materialise, as Mark soon found out. “The delegation enjoyed a private tour of various exhibits with headsets, simply because it’s so noisy due to the sheer quantity of people at the Messe.”
“Siemens had the biggest stand at the Messe, something like 120m x 30m, and reportedly spent €80 million on the five day exhibition, an impressive investment.”
“The Messe has everything imaginable on display regarding production automation, the future of industry, digital twins, robotics and much more.”
“Our delegation focused upon the methods and means to collect and process your production data to make better decisions.”
“A lot seems ‘pie-in-the-sky’ to us”, he adds, “but this is absolutely the path manufacturing in Germany and Europe is traversing– it’s happening now!”.
What exactly is happening now? It’s the fourth Industrial Revolution that is now underway, and industries worldwide are grappling with the effects, opportunities and possibilities as we move at lightning speed towards Industry 4.0
In our next post, we’ll be talking about Industry 4.0’s impact on Australian Manufacturing, and in particular, metal fabricators.
Our thanks again to :
German-Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry


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GLENNVILLE, Ga. (WSAV) — A local Glennville business is expanding overseas after opening its first manufacturing facility in Germany to reach European customers.
Rotary Corp has been making lawn care parts as a family business for 66 years.
“I’ve got two stockholders I need to please and that’s my sisters,” said Ed Nelson, president and patriarch of Rotary Corp.
He told News 3 that setting up shop in Germany was decades in the making.
“I told my employees several months ago that I was more excited about this business now than I was 20 years ago and that’s the truth,” said Nelson.
Hornbach, Germany, just a couple hours away from Frankfurt houses the newest manufacturing facility for Rotary’s lawncare equipment parts.
“Hornbach reminds me a lot of Glennville,” said Nelson. “Small, it’s smaller than Glennville, it’s got less people, but it’s a real laid-back town. You don’t hear any sirens or stuff like that and I kind of fell in love with that town.”
Getting the support of the town’s mayor and the European Union, he’s excited to expand.
“Somebody said, ‘You’re going to take business away from our production here.’ I said no! We’re going to grow our business,” said Nelson. “There’s so many people here that don’t buy our product that we’re going to look for, and we’re finding them now.”
While the business has been selling products overseas for decades now, Germany’s facility will be able to get products to Europeans faster than ever before.
Nelson said with all the money he hopes to make from his new customer base overseas, he wants to reinvest in his Glennville business.


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NEW YORK -- An ad by McDonald's (MCD) is testing the fine line companies need to walk when referencing national tragedies.
The ad by the world's biggest hamburger chain that aired during the NFL playoffs and Golden Globes on Sunday featured a montage of signs outside McDonald's restaurants, including messages of support after devastating events.
Among them were "We Remember 9 11" and "Boston Strong," a reference to the bombing at a marathon that killed three people. Other messages thanked veterans, or were more personal and wished individuals in the community a happy birthday.
The ad was set to a children's choir singing a version of "Carry On" by the rock band Fun.
The commercial provoked strong reactions, with some saying they were moved by it and others saying it's tacky for a company to use tragic events to burnish its image. The ad is part of a new campaign by McDonald's to highlight the "loving" in its "I'm Lovin' It" slogan and associate its name with that positive emotion.
Deborah Wahl, chief marketing officer for McDonald's USA, said the ad was intended to reflect the company's history in communities, through good times and bad. Leaving out the bad moments would've been dishonest, she said.
She noted that McDonald's gets a lot of attention no matter what it does because of its size, although the level of attention for the latest ad was surprising.
"Did we expect all this? No," she said in a phone interview.
She said it was too early to tell whether the ad was a success, but that the company is trying to engage more with customers and that "good advertising creates emotion."
Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries, a branding consulting firm, said the ad hit a nerve in part because it was unusual for McDonald's, which typically features shots of its food.
She thought the intention was to celebrate the company's history in communities, and that it was effective because it did so by using the "iconic imagery" of the Golden Arches.
"It's something that everyone has seen on the roads growing up," Ries said.
Not everyone was moved, however. The Washington Post's Wonkblog referred to it as "tone deaf" and a "disarming minute of mushy corporate propaganda." For others, the reference to the Sept. 11 attacks and Boston Marathon bombing in a McDonald's ad were jarring, and some commenters on Facebook and Twitter called it crass and exploitive.
Other companies have faced even sharper backlash for trying to incorporate national tragedies into their marketing. In 2013, for instance, AT&T (T) was criticized for an ad that feted New York's recovery after the Sept. 11 attacks while showing off its new smartphones. Campbell Soup (CPB) also apologized that year for a tweet by SpaghettiOs asking followers to "Take a moment and remember #PearlHarbor with us." The tweet featured an image of its smiling cartoon mascot jauntily holding an American flag.
During an investor meeting last month, McDonald's USA President Mike Andres noted the company is working with franchisees to strengthen their ties in communities. The majority of the company's more than 14,000 U.S. restaurants are operated by franchisees.
"More than ever, people want to feel good about the businesses and the brands they do businesses with," he said.
During that same meeting, Andres and CEO Don Thompson highlighted the various ways McDonald's is working to re-energize its business in the U.S., where it has struggled to lift sales for about two years. The meeting came after the company reported a 4.6 percent decline in sales at established locations for November.


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Zero Motorcycles recently announced a new addition to its senior leadership team, naming Karl Wharton as its chief operating officer (COO). Wharton comes to Zero after more than 20 years of business experience, including over a decade in the motorcycle industry, most of it at Triumph Motorcycles.
While at Triumph, Wharton developed extensive experience in financial management, market development, operations, worldwide distribution and export sales growth. Wharton helped Triumph move the business from a primarily domestic UK manufacturer to an internationally established brand with 80 percent of its sales bound for overseas markets. Following his tenure at Triumph, Wharton workedl at CCM Motorcycles and has held successful executive operational roles with other privately funded companies prior to arriving at Zero.
“Karl is a proven leader with a strong track record of success, and we are proud to have him join the team,” said Gene Banman, CEO of Zero Motorcycles. “He understands virtually every aspect of our business, and with his leadership, we are better equipped to achieve our long-term goals of building a ‘better motorcycle’ and a strong company. I have every confidence in Karl and look forward to his help in achieving our vision and developing the electric motorcycle market.”
Wharton’s new role of COO will focus on Zero’s overall operations and day-to-day execution. “This is a tremendous opportunity to join a dynamic team and help lead a new and innovative company to higher levels of performance and success,” said Wharton. “My goal is to ensure that Zero Motorcycles continues to grow and to lead the electric motorcycle industry through product innovation and sound management, while never losing sight of our goal to build a ‘better motorcycle’ for our customers to enjoy.”
Banman added, “Karl’s addition builds on the extensive recruitment of executive staff over the past year at Zero Motorcycles, which includes the addition of Abe Askenazi, Scot Harden and Steve Salyer. We have consciously sought out senior executives with industry experience to add to our already strong senior management team.”
For information about Zero Motorcycles, visit www.zeromotorcycles.com.


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In case you missed the news earlier today, Sony revealed that the PlayStation 5 console would be coming next year during the holidays. This is big news for the company, as it’ll no doubt be lining up announcements leading to the system’s launch in late 2020.
But hot on its heels is the Xbox Scarlett. Microsoft revealed that it’s hard at work on the next-gen hardware, with more news to come next year. It promised to be the most advanced architecture it’s ever worked on, surpassing even the Xbox One X.
So, that leaves an interesting scenario for Nintendo. It just introduced its Nintendo Switch a little over two years ago, and it’s become the hottest selling console since that time. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it’s got a bevy of exclusive titles, both first and third party, to back up its power.
What do these forthcoming systems’ launches mean for the Nintendo Switch? Well, there are several scenarios here, so let’s look at each one.
What the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett Release Could Mean For the Switch
Nintendo Continues To Cater To Its Own Audience
Even though the PS5 and Xbox Scarlett could be more powerful devices, Nintendo will likely keen on keeping on as it has been. It hasn’t followed the typical mantra in the video game console wars for years, instead opting to do its own thing with creative game releases, top third-party titles (like this month’s Overwatch and The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, both due next week) and quality entries in its popular franchises. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.
And the company already has a killer line-up growing for 2020. Along with Animal Crossing, it’s already cooking up some high-caliber sequels that will get a great deal of attention, like Metroid Prime 4 and Bayonetta 3. And that’s not even counting what’s on the horizon for announcements.
Nintendo Will Still Have a Substantial Lead Due To Price
While the Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 will no doubt appeal to players that want maximum performance from their games, they might be a big “meh” when it comes to casual buyers. While Microsoft and Sony will no doubt price the systems competitively, they’ll likely come out of the gate at around $400 to $500. That’s a hard price to pay for families that are gaming on a budget.
By comparison, the Switch is a much more practical deal. Nintendo will likely stand by its $300 price point for the traditional model, which is a reasonably good deal considering what fans are getting. And for that matter, it’ll still offer a wealth of games that won’t require a great deal of storage (physically, anyway) and tremendous value for the money.
And that’s not even including the option for the Switch Lite, which opens doors to a new audience for the more-than-reasonable price of $200.
Nintendo Could Benefit More From Microsoft
Finally, while Sony isn’t likely to pay them any mind, Nintendo could benefit greatly from what Microsoft has to offer. The two are already working hand-in-hand in several ways, from Banjo-Kazooie’s involvement in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to indie releases like Ori and the Blind Forest and Cuphead. So what’s to stop them from benefitting further?
By that, we mean the Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft has already introduced Xbox Live integration to some degree for the Switch, so what’s stopping them from bringing its cloud service to the system? That means the possibility of Xbox Game Pass and playing older Xbox One titles on the Switch front. Not only does that help Nintendo by opening up a new way to play games, but also Microsoft with sales of games like Forza Horizon 4 and Gears 5, if they can get up and running on the hardware. (And based in the cloud, why not?)
That’s not to say it’s a done deal, but considering how close the companies are, all it’ll take is one announcement to keep Nintendo well in the running as next-gen consoles are introduced. And it could happen any day now since Microsoft’s cloud service is about ready to enter testing. We’ll see what the next year brings!


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1 February 2008
Cellular technology company Clickatell has teamed up with Don’t Go, a consumer advocacy website, to launch a new service that enables consumers to share their customer service experience – and complain about bad service – by SMS.
Clickatell said in a statement last Tuesday that the new service provides customers with the opportunity to report bad service using their cellphones in “a matter of seconds”, enabling organisations to take immediate action to deal with problems.
Founded in Cape Town in 2000, Clickatell specialises in bulk messaging services and SMS gateway connectivity, and is now headquartered in Redwood Shores, California.
Research used by the company shows that only a fraction of customers complain to businesses directly when they receive bad service, giving companies little chance to deal with problems directly.
Instead, consumers simply withdraw their support for the product or service and criticise the establishment to anyone who will listen.
“Businesses everywhere are challenged by not knowing the reasons why customers don’t come back to their establishment, other than telling the manager on the spot, which most people simply don’t do,” said Clickatell chief executive Pieter de Villiers.
“Customers everywhere carry cellphones which now can easily be used to provide honest customer feedback via simple text messaging in real time at the point of service.
“Don’t Go’s innovative feedback service is a prime example of how businesses everywhere can leverage text messaging to better interact directly with their customers and improve the overall customer experience.”
The service is already being used by a range of organisations, including restaurants, hotels, airlines, grocery store chains, and many other businesses across South Africa, with more information being available at the Don’t Go website.
Don’t Go provides participating organisations with several service options for customer care to easily monitor and address service shortfalls. Companies advertise the service in their retail outlets.
Customers SMS the keyword “dont” to 34040, followed by the name of the company and their comment. Dontgo then sends the information via e-mail to subscribers at a nominal cost per month, while non-subscribers are called and provided with alerts at no cost on the first occasion.
Don’t Go also provides industry-specific service reports to participating organisations, which outline continued service problems and create the opportunity for them to establish a competitive service advantage.
“Our service is designed to help companies build and protect their brand through effective complaints resolution directly from the people who matter most – the customer,” said Don’t Go chief executive Moshe Sohaba.
“With ubiquitous mobile phone use around the globe, the ability to offer instant feedback using SMS makes customer service better.”


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Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 Zombies Mode Teased Again By Dev
"Mankind's reckoning will be its salvation."
Activision will finally pull back the curtain on Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 in just a few days, but in the meantime, developer Treyarch continues to drop hints about the game on social media. This time, Treyarch sent out a cryptic tweet that again seems to confirm Zombies mode will return in this year's Call of Duty.
The tweet, which you can see below, simply reads, "So it begins..." and is followed by "#Zombies." However, the most intriguing aspect of the tweet is the accompanying image, which shows what appears to be a zombie-like character putting on a mask, with the words "Mankind's reckoning will be its salvation" lining the bottom of the image.
This isn't the first we've heard about Zombies mode potentially returning in Black Ops 4. Earlier this week, the official E3 Twitter account apparently outed the mode in a tweet about an E3 Coliseum talk with Treyarch. "What's lurking around the corner of Treyarch's next Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Zombies experience? Come hear the history of Call of Duty Zombies from the creators themselves at E3Coliseum!" the tweet reads.
Activision and Treyarch have teased other features that could be returning in Black Ops 4. A couple of weeks ago, Treyarch tweeted an image of a screen that simply says "10/10," suggesting it may bring back the popular Pick 10 system. It also hinted that perks and scorestreaks will remain in the game.
Outside of that, there's little that we know about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Activision has confirmed that the game will release for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 12--nearly a full month earlier than Call of Duty games typically launch. We'll get our first look at the game next week when Activision hosts the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Community Reveal Event. That takes place on Thursday, May 17, at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET.
GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.


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Amazon started as online book store and has grown to be the worlds largest online retailer.
Amazon Prime Day 2018 date leaked by Amazon
Amazon Prime Day will take place on the 17th of July, not the 10th as previous suspected, according to an image spotted on Amazon UK by Techradar. The banner has the Amazon Prime Day 2018 date as the 16th.
Deals will start on the 16th of July at midday in what Amazon describe as ‘An epic day (and a half) of our best deals’.
The 36 hours of deals will make this the longest Amazon Prime Day to date, in 2017 deals ran for 30 hours so starting at midday gives an additional 6 hours of selling time… if they can whip up consumers interest enough to sustain sales which doubtless they will because half the country must be Prime members.
What will really make a difference to Prime Day this year is how searchable Amazon make the offers. In the past, it was very much a case of taking a quick look at the site and seeing if a Prime Day offer grabbed your attention. Last year offers were split into categories, but there are so many deals on Prime Day that what’s really needed is a search function on upcoming deals so that you can save them for when the deal goes live.
If you’re a merchant, you may as we were have been expecting Prime Day to be on the 10th of July as it’s traditionally been the second Tuesday of the month. It may well still be then, but with the banner that Techradar snagged a screenshot of the smart money has to be now on the 16th/17th. If you’ve lined up extra staff to cope you’ll need to be aware that the you may need to have them on standby until the date is finally officially confirmed


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Online Cab service provider Uber now makes encashment easier for drivers.
On Thursday, Uber launched a new Instant Pay service for drivers in San Francisco. The service is in the pilot phase now.
Uber Drivers in the company’s hometown will now be able to sign up for the Uber Debit Card from a mobile business checking service offered by Green Dot Bank. The service goes by the name GoBank. The debit card can be used at any time for drivers to cash out their earnings.
According to Uber, all the transactions are free of charges and the debit card requires no minimum deposits.
Uber released a statement on their website which explained the reason for them launching the instant pay pilot.
“Today’s launch of Instant Pay is a result of valued feedback from our driver-partners. We look forward to inviting more drivers to this pilot program and developing more features that help more drivers reach their goals.”
Uber, which operates in almost 400 cities, currently pays its drivers once a week. This forces some drivers who are in urgent need of money to wait for days before they could cash their earnings.
Uber has been criticized by concerned communities and critics for not providing drivers a quick access to their earnings.
Uber’s service has been friendlier to passengers than it has been to drivers. Customers of the company use a mobile app to tell drivers where to pick them up and where they’re going. Customers then use credit card information and pay the company instead of paying the drivers. The driver then collects his or her fare once per week.This stands in contrast to a traditional taxi driver, who get access to their earnings instantly.
Uber admitted that ability to collect cash instantly to some drivers, although not for all.
“Whether it’s to support your family, pay the rent while going back to school, or earn money on the side, drivers say the flexibility to drive on their own time is a top reason why they drive with Uber.
However, Uber is still a little behind the times. While this new feature is expected to give a boost to Uber’s business, its major competitor Lyft had already announced similar feature in December.
— Lyft (@lyft) December 5, 2015
“We can’t think of a better way to treat you better than letting you get your money faster,” Lyft made a statement targeting to drivers last year.
Uber has reportedly taken several new business decisions following a fierce competition in the car-hailing service market. The most recent being a purchase agreement of a fleet of Mercedes with automatic features.
Uber is facing a tight competition in all parts of the world, including India—the second largest population in the world.
The major competitor of Uber in India is OLA, an India-based cab aggregator. Other major competitors of Uber include large and well established online cab services that are available in smaller cities such as Bookcab. The online cab rental giant of India has lately been focusing on expanding its services to smaller cities.
“When travelers from metros visit these smaller towns, there are hardly any taxi players who offer quality services. Looking at this growing demand, we decided to venture into the smaller cities. In the coming months, we want to increase our base in the tier III markets,” Ashish Kumar of Bookcab, said in an interview.
Although Uber tuned its announcement this week toward the San Francisco Bay Area market, company spokeswoman Jessica Santillo told Fortune that “the pilot is underway in several other cities, as well.” Santillo, however, didn’t reveal where else Uber Instant Pay is now available.
[Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Stringer]


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Fattening, unhealthy menu items are having the best year ever. First, KFC starts selling its now infamous Double-Down sandwich. Now, Friendly’s has added a 1,500-calorie cheeseburger to its menu.
The Massachusetts chain’s Grilled Cheese Burger Melt squeezes a giant beef patty with lettuce and tomato between two (yes, TWO) grilled cheese sandwiches. With those ingredients involved, it’s no surprise that the artery-clogging extravaganza has, in addition to all those calories, 79 grams of fat, 38 grams of saturated fat, 180 grams of cholesterol, 101 grams of carbohydrates and 2,090 milligrams of sodium. And that’s before you factor in the side of fries!
Friendly’s new addition makes the Double-Down, which has 540 calories, 32 grams of fat and only 1380 milligrams of sodium, look like diet food.
Diners should also consider that while one’s recommended daily caloric intake varies from person to person, moderately active adults require 2,000 to 2,400 calories a day on average. Perhaps those who order the burger melt should be friendly … and share.
Want to read more about gross (and delicious?) restaurant creations? Check out MainStreet’s article on The Unhealthiest Restaurant Dishes.
—For the best rates on loans, bank accounts and credit cards, enter your ZIP code at BankingMyWay.com.


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Gaz de France, the country's main gas provider, posted a surge in fourth-quarter sales on Wednesday and raised its 2007 earnings guidance amid the backdrop of delays to its merger with French utility Suez.
The state-controlled company said fourth-quarter sales rose 13 percent to 9.3 billion euros ($13.48 billion).
"Gaz de France's financial objective for 2007 will be exceeded," the company said.
"Thanks to better cost control, the good overall performance of the business in the second half of 2007 and a normalized rate context, the 2007 EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) will be significantly higher than that of 2006," it said.
The French state currently owns around 80 percent of GDF's share capital, though its holding will decrease after the Suez merger.
The French government engineered the merger in 2006 in response to the threat of a bid for Suez from Italian utility Enel.
GDF's higher sales and raised outlook helped its share price recover some of the losses suffered on Tuesday. The stock closed lower by 3.2 percent, while Suez was down by 5.3 percent.
On Tuesday, GDF and Suez shares fell 5.7 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, after a source close to the situation told Reuters a Paris court had ordered GDF to give its works council more details on the merger, though analysts said it was unlikely to stop the deal closing in the first half of 2008, as expected.
"People are saying that the merger will be delayed. GDF is at a discount to its sector, but for us it looks quite cheap," said Stratege Finance fund manager Valerie Cazaban, who holds GDF shares in her portfolio.
Based on latest prices, GDF shares have fallen around 12 percent since the start of 2008. The stock rose 15 percent last year.


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Cloud Management Company’s Products Now Used in More Than 125 Countries
SEATTLE, WA – April 25, 2016 — /BackupReview.info/ — SkyKick (www.skykick.com), a global provider of cloud management software for information technology (IT) solution partners, announced today that it has added three new executives to its team. The three positions are new for SkyKick and all three hires have served in global leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies. Chike Farrell has been named SkyKick’s vice president of marketing; Kathryn Saducas as general manager of Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Anthony Philips as general manager of business development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
“We’re in the early stages of the next seismic shift of IT,” said SkyKick co-CEO Todd Schwartz. “With IDC forecasting that worldwide public IT cloud services revenue will reach $141.2 billion by 2019, the cloud will continue to be a driving force in how people work. It is more important than ever for IT partners to have the most robust platform to move, backup and manage their customers in the cloud.”
“SkyKick’s mission is to help partners succeed in the cloud,” said SkyKick co-CEO Evan Richman. “Today more than 5,000 IT solution providers in 125 countries rely on SkyKick to deliver cloud migration, backup and management services for their customers, which also provides new cloud revenue streams for those partners. With these hires, we’ll be able to better help these partners and expand our global footprint.”
Chike Farrell — Vice President of Marketing
Kathryn Saducas — General Manager of Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa
Anthony Philips — General Manager of Business Development EMEA
SkyKick is headquartered in Seattle, Wash., and has offices in Amsterdam, London, Sydney and Tokyo.
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Macy’s is betting more substantial on its retail media network at a transitional position for digital promoting that has seen rivals chase very similar ambitions. The press also arrives as Macy’s vies for a reinvention on the shopper-going through end, with a new “Very own Your Brand name Model” platform unveiled final week that carries streamlined world-wide-web design and style and a spotlight on personalization.
With a more sturdy suite of ad merchandise on faucet, the office retail store chain’s retail media staff is narrowing in on richer media formats and designs to launch a self-assistance marketplace later this yr. Encouraging help the unit’s pace and scaling efforts is Macy’s target on managing most operations internally, in accordance to executives.
“Maturity of retail media networks is genuinely pushed by the extent to which core features are in residence,” mentioned Melanie Zimmermann, vice president of the Macy’s Media Community and the head of its devoted in-dwelling agency unit.
Zimmermann, a longtime Macy’s veteran with prior roles in corporate strategy and analytics, was brought on to expand the retail media network virtually from scratch two many years in the past. She earlier helped produce Backstage, an off-selling price strategy Macy’s debuted in 2015, and the retailer’s revamped loyalty plan. Retail media networks have turn into a incredibly hot product throughout the marketplace, with providers such as Walmart, Concentrate on, Albertsons, Kroger, Walgreens, Nordstrom, CVS and Ideal Purchase amongst the pack.
Macy’s Media Network hit the marketplace in August of 2020 and has rapidly crafted out its tech abilities as makes request out options to electronic stalwarts like Facebook and Google. For the entire yr of 2021, the platform produced $105 million in web income. Advertiser depend grew 2.8 instances calendar year-on-12 months in the essential fourth quarter, while the quantity of strategies managing quadrupled (though there was only 1 prior period to measure in opposition to).
“We have been equipped to grow the variety of clients we are performing with significantly, and at the similar time, we ended up able to considerably improve the year-above-calendar year investment decision,” explained Zimmermann. “It is a mix of increasing to a broader range of suppliers throughout unique categories, plus important will increase in each contained depend and average spending plan dimensions, that aided us exceed anticipations.”
A Macy’s spokesperson declined to share difficult figures on Macy’s client foundation and campaign count. Expending on retail media in the U.S. doubled to $40 billion previous year, according to exploration from Winterberry Group.
While Macy’s has offered some sort of sponsored products advertisements due to the fact at the very least 2015, the Macy’s Media Community nowadays wields a wider range of alternatives. On-site, sponsored and display ads are effortlessly the most popular, for every Zimmermann. Macy’s very last 12 months rolled out modular campaign landing internet pages with essential templates for smaller advertisers, capabilities like fashion guides and store-the-seem for these with medium-sized budgets, and completely custom-made packages for the premier brand names. Off-web-site, Macy’s leverages channels this kind of as programmatic display screen, video clip-connected television, online movie and e mail promoting, as very well as physical collateral like in-retail store screens, offer inserts and an legendary billboard in New York City’s Herald Square.
In the electronic sphere at least, building far more customized, interactive experiences is now having priority more than ad saturation.
“There are not a lot of more placements we can locate. The up coming section of our journey is to make people placements even richer and [more] inspirational,” claimed Zimmermann, noting there are about 40 placements on Macys.com and 23 on Bloominbgdales.com. The latter website included Macy’s Media Network solutions final 12 months.
Some suggestions in the cards consist of integrating quizzes or guided shopping into landing pages. Shoppable video clip is one more project for both equally on- and off-web-site channels.
Making a toolkit
A further space of investment over and above high quality ads for Macy’s is expanding its tech stack. The device not too long ago launched buyer relation management and purchase administration platforms, together with its to start with iteration of reporting automation for consumers.
“I feel that we have identified the mystery sauce of what metrics to present to our advertisers,” Zimmermann stated. “Now that we can discuss all over the metrics, it is really all about automation, and of study course, consistently refining the techniques we are working with.”
Macy’s also aims to step into the self-assistance arena in the year’s 2nd 50 percent. Executing so is usually a mark of maturity for electronic marketing platforms striving to attain a wider swath of brand names. Other corporations operating retail media networks, which includes Walgreens, have a short while ago plotted comparable moves.
“These days, we are practically exclusively managed expert services,” claimed Zimmermann. “In the long run, you can start off observing additional self-provider options from us as properly. Specially with the future start of marketplace, we will supply even extra alternative to distributors that would like to run their strategies them selves.”
In-house as opposed to outsource
Lastly, Zimmermann is directing methods into the back-of-property talent that has propped up the Macy’s Media Community to day. Ninety p.c of the hires at Macy’s Media Community have been web new considering the fact that she bought the initiative of the ground. The group now has about 40 workers. Several of them are professionals in areas like advertisement tech and retail media, with a chunk signing up for Macy’s Media Community from Triad, the defunct WPP shopper-advertising and marketing company. Triad’s premier client was Walmart, but the shop encountered troubles following the big-box retailer — alone an more and more significant retail media player — decided to in-property numerous marketing functions.
“You need to do a genuinely excellent occupation managing these campaigns and optimizing and targeting these campaigns. It is incredibly problematic outsourcing this part of your price chain externally, because that is definitely the main of what you supply to the advertiser,” Zimmermann mentioned. “I went out to safe remarkably experienced talent across account administration and notably media arranging and marketing campaign management.”
In phrases of expert talent Macy’s is looking for out, Zimmermann pointed to parts like analytics as essential. Other areas of Macy’s Media Community, this kind of as trafficking, occasionally count on exterior labor so Macy’s can continue to keep tempo on its targets.
“There are specific components of the value chain the place you can be running in a much more price-effective way,” stated Zimmermann. “By getting a balanced solution of in-property, and in some circumstances, augmentation, we’re equipped to supply the development that you’ve got found in our business.”


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Sony Corp has posted its quarterly results for the company’s fiscal Q3, with streaming growth surpassing even the strong numbers posted today by rival WMG.
For recorded music, Sony posted streaming revenues of 55.5 billion yen (£355.2 million), a year-on-year increase of 36.6%.
Physical sales were stable in the quarter, dipping slightly to 43.7 billion yen (£279.5m)
Total recorded music revenue was 128.2 billion yen (£819m), an 11.7% year-on-year increase. Growth was lower on a constant currency basis.
Music publishing revenue at Sony/ATV increased 17.9% to 18.3 billion yen (£117.2m).
Big sellers for the quarter included Pink, Chris Brown, Camila Cabello, Khalid and David Gilmour.
Sony Corp also announced that CEO and president Kazuo Hirai is stepping down and will be replaced by current CFO Kenichiro Yoshida.


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The latest App Report from research firm Appthority has found that free apps downloaded onto iOS devices are more likely to collect your personal data than free apps downloaded on Android, with 60% of the top ten App Store downloads sharing data with advertising and analytics networks.
The report suggests that due to the volume of titles in the App Store, iOS developers are more likely to collect your data and pass it on as an alternative revenue stream.
One of the more intriguing and, in our minds, controversial comments Tim Cook made during his interview at Goldman Sach’s conference:
“The innovation has moved away from PC development to the tablets and smartphones. Who is making PC apps now? No one, except the usual suspects.”
That’s a bold thing to say. When Cook refers to “PC development” the context of this question makes it clear the’s also referring to Mac development. That’s a strange comment to make when one of the legs on Apple’s stool of businesses is the Mac App Store, which is a lucrative business in its own right for Apple.
But is Tim Cook right? Have Mac and PC developers stopped innovating? Are all the innovators working on iPhone and iPad apps now? Take part in our poll, then please feel free to give us your thoughts in the comments.
Apple has seeded yet another OS X 10.8.3 beta in the Mac Dev Center. This specific build has no known issues, and Apple asks third-party developers to focus on testing a few more areas of the OS.
The first beta seed of 10.8.3 was released back in November, and Apple has updated the beta software no less than 10 times in 3 months. Still no official word on when 10.8.3 will be available to the public, but we’ll keep you posted.
Just over 100 years ago, Ford, one of America’s oldest car companies, was selling the model T; my, how far we’ve come.
Back to 2013, Ford has announced they’re opening up their AppLink service to all the iOS and Android app developers of the world, essentially creating an ecosystem full of apps that will make their cars even better. They’re calling their new initiative the Ford Developer Program, and I think it’s pretty cool.
When you’re designing an app for iOS, you need to take into account what specific devices you’re building for, whether it be just the iPhone, iPad, or both. There are several Retina and non-Retina screen resolutions to remember, and then there are other nerdy elements like PPI and color temperature.
User interface designer Ivo Mynttinen has published an updated version of his handy iOS Design Cheat Sheet, “a collection of useful data about iOS devices and things you have to keep in mind when designing something for iOS.”
Whether you’re a novice iOS dev or a seasoned pro, this cheat sheet is a handy thing to bookmark for future reference. There’s a clean chart for all of the iOS device resolutions, display stats, icons, and common design elements.
Before Apple had their very own Internet browser, Mac users had to depend on Internet Explorer for Mac to surf the web. Part of Steve Jobs plan to resurrect the popularity of the Mac was to create its very own web browser – Safari.
Apple being Apple, the entire project was top secret. Even Apple employees weren’t allowed to know that Apple was cooking up its own browser. The secrecy of the project made things difficult because Apple needed to test the browser as they built it, but server logs would identify Safari before it was announced and Apple’s secret would be blown.
Rather than risk someone discovering Safari via their server logs, Apple cleverly hid Safari’s true identity by pretending it was Mozilla, and it actually worked. Here’s the story according to former Apple employee Don Melton who was in charge of the Safari team:
For the last few decades, developers have always flocked to Microsoft’s operating system while Apple’s Mac OS X has been an afterthought. In the post-PC world though the tables have turned.
Apple’s App Store has the highest quality apps for iPhones and iPads while Microsoft has been struggling to get developers to come over and make apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. In an effort to sway the tide of the battle, Microsoft is now trying to woo popular iOS developers over to Microsoft.
Apple has just released the third beta build of iOS 6.1. Anyone with a developer account can install the latest iOS 6.1 beta 3 on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch by either downloading the update directly from the developer portal, or checking for a software update from the Settings app in iOS.
We’ll let you know if we find any new goodies in the beta once we’ve installed it on our devices and ran our fingers through it.
For developers, distributing promo codes can be a pain in the neck. Apple gives its third-party devs the ability to share an app with a limited number of users—a feature that is often used to give bloggers like myself early access to software before it comes out. That way we can test and get familiar with a certain app in order to provide helpful feedback and possibly write a review.
A new Mac app called Tokens offers developers a drastically improved method for generating and distributing their app promo codes.
Even though they’re not leading in marketshare, Apple’s iOS devices account for more than 60% of all mobile web consumption. Because of this, many websites provide custom layouts for multiple devices so that users can enjoy an optimized experience regardless of whether they’re viewing a website from their iPad, iPhone or MacBook.
However, with the new iPad mini Apple has made it impossible for developers to deliver an optimized experience for the device, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.


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Power Moves | Hearst Names Samira Nasr Editor-In-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar, Munroe Bergdorf Joins L’Oréal in D&I Role
This week Harper’s Bazaar appointed its first black editor in the magazine’s 153-year history, while beauty giant L’Oréal announced the transgender model will consult on its diversity and inclusion advisory board.
Several major fashion firms, including VF Corp., The Gap and The RealReal, are without a permanent chief and experts say the turmoil at the top is a prime opportunity to reshape the industry’s leadership profile. MyTheresa and J.Crew CEOs discuss leadership.
Fashion executives need a new vision for what the organisation of the future will look like, focusing on attracting and retaining top talent as well as elevating teams and senior positions to align with strategic objectives for growth.


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Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) Canada welcomed Athlone Travel of Victoria, B.C. into its Associate program on September 1st. The CWT Associate program offers independently owned, local travel agencies like Athlone Travel the opportunity to partner with CWT. Acceptance into the program is based on local market position.
Athlone Travel and its team of more than 20 travel professionals have been part of the Victoria community since 1986. Elizabeth Smith, President, and partners Jane Purdie and Loraine Curtis, are looking forward to aligning with CWT and the additional resources it affords to their clients.
“As the travel industry has changed over the past several years, we have been looking for the right opportunity to become part of something bigger than ourselves, and CWT’s globally recognized brand is a great fit,” Smith said. “Our management team has been consistently impressed with the quality and professionalism of CWT’s people throughout this process and we’re excited to work closely together going forward.”


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Economic realities lurk beyond Pakistan's upswing
| Islamabad, Pakistan
Thanks to a run of good crops and overseas sales, the thrift of Pakistanis working abroad, and favorable smiles from international aid donors and financial institutions, Pakistan's drooping economy has gone on the upswing.
But it remains to be seen whether the conditions attached to a massive International Monetary Fund bailout can permanently right the economic habits of a country long accustomed to living beyond its means.
Soaring bills for oil imports have done their share to devastate Pakistan's economy, as indeed they have in most of the developing world.
But many of Pakistan's economic wounds have been self-inflicted, such as overly tight controls, tolerance of a lackluster public sector, long-term neglect of industrial development, a taste for costly imported consumer goods, and domestic political instability which has frightened off large-scale private investment.
On the surface there is an air of prosperity about Pakistan. Savings sent home by its 2 million overseas workers have driven up annual per capita income to $283, the highest in the Indian subcontinent. Televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, radios, and other appliances sent or brought home by the migrant workers are proudly displayed in even remote villages.
Imported cars fill the streets -- Pakistan neither makes nor assembles any of its own -- and shops are well-stocked with American, European, Chinese, and Japanese goods. Visitors accustomed to outstrectched hands everywhere in India are astonished at their freedom from beggers. High level bureaucrats and businessmen dress nattily in well-tailored suits.
But although the economy looks in the black, the books are written in red.
Export sales have increased by a substantial 40 percent in the last year. But this year's import bills are estimated at $4.5 billion -- more than double the anticipated export earnings of $2.2 billion.
At the end of 1979 Pakistan owed $8 billion to its overseas creditors, nearly 32 percent of its gross national product. Debt servicing -- repayments -- reached a dangerously high ratio to export earnings of 38 percent.
Despite hefty hard currency remittances from overseas workers. Pakistan at one point last year had only enough foreign exchange in the till to pay for two weeks worth of imports.
Pakistanis continued to increase in numbers by 3.1 percent a year, the highest population growth rate in the Indian subcontinent. The new mouths will help eat up much of Pakistan's genuine economic gains -- including 6 percent agricultural growth, an 8.1 percent increase in manufacturing, and an overall 6. 2 percent growth in gross domestic product.
Pay packets sent home by overseas workers are no longer enough to cover the balance-of-payments deficit, and they helped send inflation soaring into the 14 to 20 percent range.
Although small-scale industry flourished, thanks to its relative freedom from government regulation, big investors generally sat on their hands or sank their money into quick-high profit ventures such as trading rather than long-term productive enterprises. Swollen staffs, low productivity, inefficient management, and low or no returns continued to mark most government-run enterprises.
Ironically, the Soviet invasion of neighboring Afghanistan is proving to be Pakistan's economic salvation -- at least for the time being.
Suddenly, Pakistan was seen through new eyes as an important buffer against further Soviet expansionism. Observers believe it was more than a concern for Pakistan's economic health that led the aid-to-Pakistan consortium to increase its economic assistance to $1.08 billion and agree to postponement of Pakistani debt repayments due last year.
The International Monetary Fund also checked in last year with a commitment of $1.7 billion over a three-year period from its extended fund facility, the largest IMF loan ever made to a developing country.
In turn, the IMF has demanded measures aimed at greater agricultural and industrial output and stabilization of the Pakistan economy. Among them are reductions in politically popular but costly subsidies on such essentials as fertilizers, kerosene, and utility bills; tight credit to hold down the runaway growth in money supply; tax restructuring, and a liberalized import policy to bring in more raw materials, machinery, and semi-furnished goods that would ultimately enable the country to produce more.
The government of President Zia ul-Haq is already moving on these measures despite some high risks: Domestic rumblings over higher prices as subsidies are reduced and the possibilities of even greater inflation and trade deficits in the short run.
The question is whether President Zia's shaky martial law regime has the politicaL will to see them through -- and finally set Pakistan on the road to sound economic management.


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McDonald's Will Start Testing McPlant Burger in These Locations in November
Following their announcement last year about the arrival of their new "McPlant" line of menu items, McDonald's USA has announced that the McPlant sandwich, a plant based burger co-developed with Beyond Meat, will officially debut in eight McDonald's restaurants starting in November as a test of the product. Starting on November 3rd the McPlant will be available to order in McDonald's in Irving and Carrollton, Texas, Cedar Falls, Iowa, Jennings and Lake Charles, Louisiana and El Segundo and Manhattan Beach, California. The McPlant is made from plant-based ingredients like peas, rice and potatoes and served on a sesame seed bun with tomato, lettuce, pickles, onions, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and a slice of American cheese, so it'll taste just like a McDonald's burger.
Vegan fans perhaps interested in trying it should read the fine print on the latest press release though which denotes (H/T CBS News): "In addition to the plant-based patty, the McPlant in the U.S. contains non-plant-based ingredients such as American cheese and mayonnaise. It's also cooked on the same grill as meat-based products and eggs. As always, guests can customize and request to hold the cheese and mayonnaise, or any other ingredients." The McPlant patty being cooked on the same grill as the regular meat burgers might be sticking point for some restaurant guests, and they may be out of luck in hopes of their burger not touching a meat burger.
McDonald's went on to note that, yes, they have released the McPlant in other markets before with Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria and most recently the U.K. all getting the plant-based burger earlier this year. The test being conducted within the United States will likely be to see how it can handle the pressures of McDonald's quick service within the US but also how much demand there might actually be for said product anyway.
Though often thought of as a leader in fast food options, McDonald's is already somewhat late to the game in terms of bringing a vegetarian option to its menu. Burger King, one of McDonald's biggest competitors, has had a similar product, The Impossible Whopper, a meatless version of the classic Whopper burger, on its menu for almost two years. Other fast food chains that have vegetarian options as well include White Castle, Carl's Jr/Hardee's, and Wendy's.0comments


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Zero Contact, a new thriller featuring Anthony Hopkins, will become the first full-length feature film offered as an NFT.
Vuele, an NFT film viewing platform dedicated to direct-to-consumer, full-length feature film viewing and distribution, has announced the debut of Anthony Hopkins’ new movie, Zero Contact, exclusively on its platform as an NFT.
In addition to purchasing the film, members also get access to behind-the-scenes and never-before-seen footage, bonus features, exclusive Q&As, #filmobilia, and more.
The Vuele platform opens the doors for filmmakers to reach consumers in a new and relevant way and further develop new business models for releasing their films with direct-to-NFT consumer distribution.
“For Vuele’s very first movie to be featuring such a high-profile star is a major endorsement for what we see as the next frontier for Hollywood and how it will premiere feature-length films and merchandise collectibles surrounding the films produced,” explains Cameron Chell, co-head of Vuele. “This is just the beginning for our platform and NFT capabilities which will enable our partners to explore new opportunities and set new standards of how movies will be consumed by fans and collectors.”
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GROOT, a character from Disney’s film “Guardians of the Galaxy”, is usually mass-produced by the entertainment company as a small, collectable figurine and sold by retailers such as Toys “R” Us. But just before the release of the second film in the franchise earlier this year, Byambasuren Erdenejargal, a Mongolian enthusiast, noticed that people in a 3D-printing group on Facebook were searching for a computer model of Groot. So Mr Erdenejargal decided to create one. He spent four days perfecting the design and its printability before uploading his creation to Thingiverse, an online 3D-printing community based in New York. His digital model of the arboreal creature has since been downloaded (and probably printed in physical form) over 75,000 times.
Fans of popular TV programmes and films have long used arts and crafts to express their attachment to fictional characters. Etsy, an online marketplace for artisanal products, is full of Harry Potter-inspired golden-snitch charms. But a combination of 3D modelling, scanning and cheap 3D printers allows fans to reproduce items like never before.


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A growing blindspot in the marketplace is the continued association of Millennials with the youth lifestyle, but it’s time to the face the facts – the era of Millennial youth marketing is over.
As Millennials quickly age out (the oldest now being in their mid-30s) a new generation of youth – Centennials – is moving in and bringing a decidedly different dynamic to the market, one that will create new rules for the marketplace and have influence beyond their size and years.
Centennials (born from 1997 to the present day) represent approximately a third of the world’s population, according to global census figures. Unlike their predecessors, Centennials are growing up with a less idealistic and more pragmatic edge. They’re facing situations that Millennials didn’t have to deal with until early adulthood, and, as a result, they are growing up far more savvy, in graver times when choices are limited and success is harder to come by.


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The City of Cape Town is determined to get people back to work as the country prepares to move to level four of the nationwide lockdown.
Level four permits certain businesses to start operating and some workers to return to work under stringent hygiene regulations.
Mayco member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management, James Vos, said: “I wrote to the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ebrahim Patel, to put forward key proposals on the phased reopening of the economy, so we can get as many people as possible back to work and earning an income, while still practising strict health protocols to continue to contain the spread of the coronavirus.”
Vos said more could be done to protect people’s livelihoods.
“The City’s proposal is allowing all retail stores selling non-essential items to be allowed to open immediately, with the implementation of strict health protocols.
“This should include, but not be limited to, hardware stores for general purchases as well as independent sports retailers,” he said. Vos also proposed that all small, micro and medium-sized enterprises (SMMEs) be allowed to reopen, regardless of the sector.


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Newport UK, October 2016 – The UK leader in squeaky shoes for toddlers is to attend one of the world’s foremost children’s trade shows. The ABC Kids Expo is due to take place on 18-21 October 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Expo, which is taking place at the Las Vegas Convention Center, sees Hop’n’Squeak’s debut as an international retailer of specialist squeaky shoes for children below three years of age.
“We want to bring our shoes to the global market, and felt that taking them to Nevada would be the perfect opportunity to announce that our website is now open for international orders,” said Daniel Dyer, Company President of Hop’n’Squeak.
“The ABC Kids Expo is just the beginning of the Hop’n’Squeak adventure. We’re always looking to improve our shoes, and will be releasing new styles in the coming months. We are also experimenting with innovative new technologies to incorporate into the design of our shoes. We hope these technologies will increase children’s safety whilst outside their homes,” Dyer added.
Hop’n’Squeak is attending the ABC Kids Expo alongside two of its sister divisions: America’s Media Marketing and Twins Magazine. All three companies are owned by Panoptic Media Marketing.
To see a selection of the Hop’n’Squeak range and meet the Hop’n’Squeak team, visit booth #2628, where you will also have the chance to enter a prize draw to win an Apple TV.
To learn more about Hop’n’Squeak shoes please visit www.hopnsqueak.com.
Note to editors:
Hop’n’Squeak is the UK leader in squeaky shoes for toddlers designed to promote body awareness and encourage reluctant walkers to their feet.
Hop’n’Squeak believes in protecting precious growing feet so they have sourced and designed a range of squeaky shoes that require no width fitting but ensure comfort and breathability in every beautiful shoe.
Company Name: Hop’n’Squeak
Contact Person: Laura Cunningham
Country: United Kingdom