Commentary
Commentary: Untapped Talent
While our region has steadily recovered from the Great Recession to an unemployment rate now in the low 5 percent range, we suffer from a problem that is endemic across the country: We have a large population of long-term unemployed. In the Seattle metro area, there are an estimated 21,856 workers who have been unemployed…
CEO Adviser: Do Your Customers Love You?
I have always been surprised at how few articles are written about customers loving a business. Ever since I can remember, Ive known intuitively that customers will never love a company unless the employees love it. And over the years, I have seen this scenario played out again and again. This is not to say…
Virgin on Business: Beware the Brain Drain
The steady drip, drip, drip of job cuts and moves continues apace at Boeings technical and engineering operations in this region. First, it was IT jobs to St. Louis and South Carolina. Then, it was a design engineering center serving airline customers, sent to Southern California. Tomorrow, itll be … well, what have we got…
Final Analysis: Core Competency
Will Cosmic Crisp be the next apple of our eye?
Have you heard about Cosmic Crisp? Its not a breakfast cereal. Its not related to an outfielder for the Oakland As. Its a new apple crafted by fertile minds at Washington State University. Seems they introduced a Honeycrisp to an Enterprise and, well, you get the picture. Candlelight. Merlot. Barry White on the iPod. The…
Commentary: Cultural Awareness
When I moved here in 1985 to be managing director of Seattle Repertory Theatre, Charley Royer was mayor and I took note that the executive director of the Seattle Arts Commission served in the mayors cabinet. This unique position for arts and culture in city government may have resulted from a strong personal connection between…
Editor’s Note: Up in the Air
A millennium ago, baghdad blossomed, thanks to its position on overland trading routes from Africa, Europe and Asia. In the 16th century, Genoa profited from its strategic location on the Spanish empires sea routes. In recent decades, Seattle has also prospered, in part because it has the closest major seaport to booming Asia-Pacific markets. But…
Commentary: The Retail Duel
The stakes are high as brick-and-mortar retailers battle their online counterparts for shoppers dollars. As people get busier, they are looking for quick and simple transactions, and theyre favoring online retailers. Amazons new mobile app even allows shoppers to use their smartphone cameras to photograph items they see at brick-and-mortar stores and add them to…
Seattle must wake up to global competition
We were a panel of experts and pundits assembled to provide some insights into, or at least plausible guesses at, economic trends of 2014. One of the questions on our agenda: What world economies are affecting the Northwest the most? China was the obvious choice for several panelists. One mentioned Mexico, noting that the stories…
A $15 Minimum Wage, Introduced too Quickly, Could Hurt Seattle
At first blush, our cover this month might seem a little simplistic. After all, the $15-an-hour minimum wage that labor advocates are pushing is not going to solve all our problems, nor is it going to destroy our city. But the proposed 61 percent increase in the minimum wage to a point where it would…
Virgin on Business: After a Fashion
San Francisco-based game maker Zynga, creator of the once popular social network game FarmVille, recently folded up its Seattle office, laying off dozens of workers and adding to the list of companies whose early bright promise rapidly faded to declining sales and disappointment. All of which goes to show how difficult it is to make…
Final Analysis: Creating a Mariners Diversion
When march turns to april, a sports fans thoughts inevitably turn to baseball. In Seattle, thats not necessarily a happy thing. So what can local businesses do to take our minds off another season of Mariners mediocrity? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you I.M. Ondaball, CEO of People Reliving Our Memorable Occasions (PROMO) and executive…
CEO Adviser: Do the Right Thing
ABC and NPR news analyst Cokie Roberts enjoys telling about her daughters involvement in a Seattle political campaign after working in Chicago politics. She called her mother and said, Mom, you wouldnt believe it out here. Theyre all honest! When former Seattle Police Chief Pat Fitzsimons first came to Seattle from New York for his…
Editor’s Note: Benefiting from The Wealth Effect
Theres something special about spring. Even as the days continue to be cold and wet, we see more light, more life. We see it in the buds on the trees and the occasional burst of a flowering camellia. And then there are those For Sale signs that pop up in yards across the community like…