Coors Light Wins Gold Medal in German Beerfest

DRESDEN --

In a surprising turn of events, American-style light lager Coors Light was awarded a 2014 Dresden

2014 Best Water Gold Medalist -
Dresden Beer Festival

Beer Festival Gold Medal yesterday.

Named "beste Wasser" for 2014, Coors Light topped other well-respected entries such as San Pellegrino, Evian, and Perrier. Judges reported that "although FIJI was a close second, Coors Light was the bottled water that offered the most flavorful rich body". While it was only able to weakly compete in the clarity and color segment, Coors Light astonished the judges with its sparkling character, ease of drinking, and its bold flavor notes of goat piss and old wallet. It was found to be most useful for rinsing the palate and spitting between samplings of actual beer.

Malaysian Plane Found in Australian Maintenance Hangar

PERTH --

Australian aviation authorities announced today that crews have located the missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370 after over three weeks of globally-coordinated search efforts. The missing aircraft, which vanished from air control radars on March 8, was discovered by maintenance technicians early this morning in an Eastern Australian maintenance yard.

"It's the damnedest thing, you know?" says hydraulic inspection tech Cooper Ashcroft. "I'm off signing for a load of kero, trying to finish up this scheduled service, and all my crew is standing around gobsmacked looking at the bird."

According to hangar foremen, the aircraft arrived the morning after it went off radar for an unscheduled C service. Instructions were made to repaint the craft as a Qantas flight, but overhauls were hampered by what appeared to be a full cargo hold of baggage.

Area Cable Guy Reportedly Early to Appointment

DAYTON, OHIO --

Today, resident Dave Wilson was surprised to hear a knock at his door at approximately 9:50 am. Upon answering, he discovered it was a local Time Warner cable technician showing up for Wilson's 10 am-noon installation.

"I'd just come out of the can, and I hadn't even put pants on," explained Wilson. "The doorbell rang, and like magic: there he was."

"It's been really great today. The tech hasn't had to leave yet, he hasn't fallen asleep, and I think he has all the equipment I ordered. Plus, my internet is on. Also, he left me with a working remote."

Sources were able to confirm that the technician did indeed have all the needed equipment for Wilson's 2 DVR + high speed internet installation, and he additionally did not leave any tools or debris behind after he was finished. Citing company policy, sources were unable to confirm or deny whether the technician did indeed arrive early.

Four Reasons To Beware Of "We Don't Do That Here"

Part of consulting is suggesting new (and hopefully better) ideas and processes. You'll suggest new metrics for tracking performance, or a training program that provides refreshers on a regular basis. These will often be welcomed with open arms, but not always. If your experiences are anything like mine, you'll eventually hear someone in charge say "We don't do that here."

Keep an eye out for this phrase. You'll typically hear it from people in one of two camps:

The Myth of March Madness Productivity Loss

Hey sports fans, here we go again. The NCAA men's basketball season is coming to a close, and the annual tournament is about to begin. It's time for mass media to start spouting off articles about the billions and billions of dollars the American economy loses due to this event. What a load of bull.

Does March Madness create some distraction in the workplace? Sure it does. Just like Christmas shopping season, Labor Day's 3-day weekend, and the Super Bowl. These cultural calendar events aren't happening live on CBSSports between 9am and 5 pm, so they don't get any press.

Where do these productivity loss numbers come from? Well, the LA Times estimated the 2012 tournament caused $1 billion in foregone output.

And as long as we are going two years back in the Wayback Machine, this Harvard Business Review post is a wonderful example of an academic who writes 600 words and doesn't ever tell you a damn thing.

Everyone else is reporting from the annual study by Challenger, Grey, and Christmas, which was predicting $134 million in lost productivity in the first two days of the 2013 tournament. Columbus Dispatch cites a figure of $1.2 billion per unproductive hour this year. Considering this is a three-week tournament, that's $140 billion in potentially "lost" productivity and wages. This seems high. Whatever, we'll accept it.

The US annual nominal GDP is in the neighborhood of $17 trillion. The "lost" money is 0.82% of our annual GDP. It's less than a rounding error.

What can't be attributed to a rounding error is the increase in camaraderie. Employers should welcome March Madness: it's an externally hosted and funded event with national 24-hour TV coverage that they can use to perk up morale. It's office appropriate and nothing foul to object to. Few, if any, big businesses are savvy enough to take advantage of this slam dunk. They could easily guard those three points of morale instead of letting it dribble away. This is a major missed opportunity "overtime". (OK, enough bad basketball puns, I'll go away now.) 

Sports: A socially acceptable time for upset grown men
to stand in public and make farmyard sounds as loudly as possible.

Recommended Reading: Six Common Complaints about Field Service Software

Here's an article I hope you enjoy: http://lnkd.in/b_vT9Et

The Changing Role of Field Service

I stumbled across this Q&A video today. It's a good review of the forces changing the market segment in general. Aubrey Fox, Product Manager of Trimble Work Management, discusses the pressures to which field service businesses are adapting.

What do you think? Agree or disagree with Trimble's view?