Kermit the Frog is known for being Green, but an Auditor? Yep Page 3 if the In Style section of the 11/26/07 Business Week explains the

Green Audit.  Green Team Advertising suggests that Progressive Brands will rate higher with consumers if compannies can truly show rather than just tout, their well greeness, eco friendliness.  They conduct awakening audits to point out problems, suggest solutions, and then make sure the supply chain or product line can be promoted as truly sustainable.  Now why didn’t we think of that?

These guys are not CPAs but can that type of audit be far off, here is someone on the cutting edge.

Apple has done just the opposite of what DELL did in 2001 – Apple is benchmarking five star hotels for the atmosphere it wants in an Apple Store.  When DELL had a store in Austin, it was the worst of San’s meets the Clearance Basement sale, crowded, no help, a mob scene.  Then DELL gave up on stores and went 100% on line.  Then HPQ came roaring back with in store sales.

Now DELL is in WMT, gee, click on the Apple hyper link to see the diference. I had trouble with the plug ins the second time but to say the least this is ellegance MAX!  An article in the Dallas paper reports that Apple have removed cash registers, assistants now have hand held scanners which e mail a receipt or print one out under a counter. So now there is more room for help desks.  There is even a Concierge to greet and direct you when entering Apple Stores.

So, what is Apple establishing with this approach? How is this different From DELL in WMT?  What is the perception left in the mind of the shopper in each store for the respective product?  Note, iPods are avaialbe on line at WMT, an interesting strategy,  though one can get i Pods at Costco and Radio Shack.  My point is that Apple has adopted the Dr. Deming TQM long term strategy of a premium product in a premium location. ala Neiman’s or Double Tree Hotels.  DELL meanwhile has jumped from one strategy to another only to fall behind its rivals. In fact, many would probably say that Apple and DELL are no longer serving the same markets, what say you?

Denis Reggie is THE premier wedding photographer in the world. How premier, well he did Arnold and Maria, as well as 21 other Kennedy Family weddings.  Click and watch the video interview with Denis, really interesting, He describes how he works every weekend, often flying to say Belgium for the wedding and then another flight to the party following in the Mediterranean.  No doubt the price for all this is in the ‘ if you have to ask…’ category.  Interestingly he offers two levels of service, Signature and Company. Signature gets you Denis himself or one of his two assistants. Company gets one of their approved photographers.  He is based out of Atlanta given the good airport there.

Now, we offer a major in entrepreneurship. Think about the managerial accounting course involving budgets, target profit, and just in time practices. How would you bring these concepts to bear on being successful in such an enterprise?  A criticism of college is that we only train folks to work for someone else, not necessarily.  You will also note that he mentions the business side of things. He gets about 360 requests a year.

This might be an interesting assignment. Suppose you had to fly to Belgium, shoot the wedding, then fly to Cannes for the party afterward, and then return home to do the photo processing.  What would your budget include, how would you calculate what to charge, what would your target profit be?  Most of all, how would you be absolutely positively sure you got and returned with the digital photos, at least digital lets you see what you took.

Imagine what this guy’s rolodex looks like!

Okay maybe we all can’t be the best in the world, what about turning your hobby into a business using the internet, no daily grind, no 8-5, no asking for a raise, just do what you want all day long.  Well, Gordon Laing at Camera Labs did just that. Take a look, while a lot of photo mags say they test cameras and lenses, most are really just lightweight shills for the manufacturer to run an ad in the magazine.  As you will see, Gordon is the one man Consumer Reports of Camera Testing.   I   Now think about his business modelo, he apparently does not accept camera advertising but has links to retailers. I mention suppse those retailer supply the cameras and lenses.  What do you suppose his budget looks like, how many emplloyees are invovled, what internet capability did it take?  I really like the idea that he uses You Tube so I don’t have to down load.  Can you think of a service you could provide that would allow you to pursue your hobby while making a living?  How would you use Managerial Accounting to help?

Well thanks to GPS and satellite communication, ordinary folks are now travelling like the Starship Enterprise, where a lot of folks have not gone before so to speak.  One can now follow the ill fated Shackleton tour to Antarctica. Indeed this tour even planned to visit the grave of the explorer who succumbed to a heart attack on his voyage.  But an iceberg ala Titanic had other ideas.  Happily all were rescued without incident after floating for four hours in Zodiacs et al in some really cold water. 

As I said on Wednesday, be careful over the holidays and come back to us safe and sound.

In a speech to the debating society at Trinity College in Ireland, Heather Mills lambasted the rich as stingy or snobby.  But as she says, ifyou want to change the world you have to deal with them.  Meanwhile Heather is rumored to be demanding $100 M from her ex husband Paul McCartney. He has apparently offered her half that amount.

Steve Brown lays out several reasons why a recession merits higher than a 10% probabilty-I agree. A good read, meanwhile reposessions of older apartments and office buildings in DFW soar.  One group suggest that there is a lot more to be written down and off in the mortgage business to come, gee once these things start the economists always underestimate the extent of the damage.

I mentioned a few movies a couple of posts back as the solution to ‘family viewing’ over the holidays, something the kids can watch while being something the adults will enjoy, tonight is full of great choices particularly for a movie buff or an aspiring one so here goes

I recommended Family Man and it is on NBC but of course dragged out to three hours with commercials, record it and fast fwd the commercials.

Casino is on Bravo, I don’t know how much will be edited but it does not pass the kid test.  The first hour however is pretty interesting in terms of just how a casino operates.

Now, Hunt for Red October kicked off Tom Clancy’s multi million dollar writing career. This is one of the best adaptations of the books simply because it stars Sean Connery, OK so  Russian sub captains don’t have a Scottish accent, still the opening scene of him in the conning tower of the sub is a cinema classic, as is his comment that every ting will be ok as long as the American is not a buckaroo, look for Alec Baldwin (gee that was smart quitting this series and letting Harrison Ford make all the money in subsequent Clancy movies) and one of my favorites, Scott Glenn

Untouchables is on Cinemax but also remains a Connery classic, great cast including Andy Garcia, Costner, De Niro, and the underrated Charles Martin Smith as the accountant no less

For those that think John Wayne was just a cowboy star that got lucky, check out Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, come to think of it, a great choice for my ethical movie list.  John Ford (one of the true greats) directed Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Vera Miles,  Lee Marvin, Eddmond O Brien in a tale of allegory.  Ahead of his time in 1962, Wayne resents race discrimination against another of my favorites, Woody Strode.  A hallmark of this movie is the inclusion of so many GREATS or those that subsequently became great in the supporting cast. IN addition to Strode, how about Andy Devine, John Carradine, Ken Murray, and two whose careers really took off in the 1960s, Strother Martin (made famous for his line in Cool Hand Luke, what we have here is a failure to communicate) and another personal favorite, Lee van Cleef.  Wayne would cast Strother Martin in True Grit, the only time I ever saw Martin wear a clean shirt in a movie role and Jimmy Stewart in his swan song, the Shootist.

Dad has me watch this final selection, and provided welcome background to the movie. The Best Years of Our Lives chronicles the return to civilian life of four WW II soldiers and sailors.  This is an educational look at life in 1946,  just how things were.  This is as close to a time machine as you are likely to get.  The sailor who lost both hands really did have that happen in WW II which is why he was cast in the role.  A true classic.

Or of course you could watch the basketball game but don’t tell me so…..

Cheers!

Freddie Mac FRE stock collapsed 30% in one day this past week. This is the second largest mortgage company in America.  FNM and FRE are both seeing their credit ratings drop. If there is anything I have learned over the years it is simply that Fitch S & P and Moody’s are like the Three Stoges Fire Dept, they get there just in time to watch the last embers burn to the ground.  They are nearly always late to sound the alarm. This is another reason the stock market melted before T Day. Such holidays are traidtionally up for the stock market.

Understanding accounting and what lies behind the strength of a balance sheet helps us understand such news. I have been preaching about the sub prime mess for months, Jim Rogers was sort FNM two years ago, I could not figure out whyit was not dropping then, he was finally proved right. Now the DMN reports that FRE may have to sell stock to raise capital, but who will be buying?Go to finance.google or finance.yahoo and check out the charts on FRE and FNM and CFC, where is the bottom for these stocks?

One firm as used You Tube as a contest area to excite potential recruits about DeLoitte. Click on You Tube hyperlink to see the vidoe that their employees voted best of the lot.  You will be surprised I think and not on the upside.

I think this will just reinforce the idea that accountants are not comedians.  What do you think of it?

Better yet, I am thinking of doing some You Tube videos to promote accounting as a major and you guessed it, UNT Dallas as a destination for same. What ideas would you suggest for such a video?

Should we feature faculty, students, success stories of students, students speaking about their experience one year later on the job, profiles of CPAs in different roles like FBI, public accounting, government, etc

This is your chance to be the Speilberg of the accounting world, what say you?

I will put the best suggestions to good use over the Christmas break.

An alert Marie Callier spotte this article on Countrywide Mortgage.  A 79 year old postal worker took out a mortgage to pay off some credit card debt. But the one percent interest rate ballooned to over 8 percent in one month.  Will CFC foreclose on him?  After re bounding to 17, CFC has dropped to just over nine bucks.  Will this stock survive?  My guess is that the truth about their predatory lending practices is now coming out.  It is hard to see how machinations by Bernake et al can save a company that, after you read this article, will hardly stir sympathy from the public.