A short stack, robot style
British food producer HoneyTop employs the Flexpicker machine to stack its pancakes for shipping. The robot uses a high-def camera to identify the stackable pancakes and utilizes a buffer shelf to save pancakes to fill in short stacks. The process, one part “The Jetsons” and one part “Terminator,” must be seen. First view of the Flexpicker comes at about 1:15; the buffer shelf is demonstrated at about 2:10. (via eatmedaily.com)
By the way, who buys pre-made pancackes? Is there any food that’s easier or faster to cook?
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Switzer always liked the pitch
Barry Switzer has hired on as a spokesman for Dunkin’ Donuts, and a new set of ads trades on his willingness to do crazy stuff, along with his intensity as a coach — even when he’s coaching chess. (via Sporting Press)
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Tech night out: market meltdown edition
I was on a mission Thursday night when I raced into the conference center at the Presbyterian Health Foundation Research Park. My editor wanted a “man-on-the-street” take on the ongoing market meltdown from the crowd of technology-based entrepreneurs.
What I found is that most of the start-ups working to commercialize a technology in Oklahoma haven’t been hit with a direct impact from the market crash.
That’s because they aren’t yet in a position to seek financing directly from lending institutions, which likely have made credit much more difficult to obtain.
“I think that’s evaporated,” said Tom Francis, vice president of investment funds at i2E, the not-for-profit corporation that mentors many of the state’s tech-based start-ups. “I think the start-up companies that were just sort of marginably bankable before, now are not. It just got tighter.”
But there’s an indirect impact, said David Thomison, i2E’s vice president for Enterprise Services.
”Many of our entrepreneurial companies rely on individual wealthy angels for start-up capital,” Thomison said. “The indirect end result of it, being the drop in the stock market, will potentially over the next 12 months have an impact on our clients’ ability to raise private capital.”
Despite the crushing financial news of the past week, the mood at the networking event was upbeat. There were knots of people gathered in small groups engaged in animated conversation throughout the conference center.
When I completed the man-on-the-street interviews, I got a few minutes to relax and meet some OCU students who are planning a major assault on the 2009 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan competition.
I’ll write in an upcoming edition of The Oklahoman about their ambitions and the wonderful fallout the past year’s Governor’s Cup brought them.
In the photo above, Scott Rollins, l
eft, and Richard Alvarez, right, both of Selexys Pharmaceuticals, share a conversation with Max Doleh of Productive Technologies.
Business Writer
Best customer service ever
This is a heart-warming tale of a company that cares about its customers. I’ve written previously here about Zappos, an online shoe retailer, that has some unusual ideas about how to treat its employees and its customers. Business, particularly retail, is all about relationships.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
New Data Center: Backup for your Backup
The highlight of my week has been touring the new Perimeter Technology Center data center facility that was just completed. The 23,000-square-foot building has everything to keep a business up-and-running during a disaster and access to its critical data.
A virtual whose who of Oklahoma City’s business community showed up Thursday for the open house that Perimeter held to celebrate its opening. The photo below shows part of the crowd and a pair of tents just outside the doors from which food and drink were served.
In the video above, Chief Operating Officer Stan Chase talks about the building and what it offers.
Jim Stafford
Business Reporter 
Fantasy football and productivity
The NFL begins play tonight and that means nirvana for fantasy football fans. Many of those faux football fanatics spend an inordinate amount of time preparing for their drafts, fiddling with their lineups and generally casting about for information and rumors on injuries, depth charts and match-ups. Much of that work is done in the workplace, and a study by the outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates that fantasy football costs American businesses nearly $615 million per week in lost productivity.
The firm based its estimates on the premise that the 13.6 million Fantasy Football enthusiasts each spend an average of 10 minutes of company time per day managing their fantasy teams and players during the regular season that runs from now through December.
However, the study also notes that banning fantasy football activities in the workplace likely would reduce productivity more and sink office morale. How much time do you spend at the office each week managing your team? And, more importantly, should I start Dwayne Bowe or Kevin Smith at my flex spot this week?
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Trailblazer Capital: Watch the Video
I sat down with David Matthews of Dallas-based Trailblazer Capital for a short video interview today. David’s an Oklahoma City native and recent opened a branch of his venture capital company here in town.
Jim Stafford
Business Reporter
Aubrey McClendon’s stock advice
Aubrey McClendon says to buy Chesapeake. Whadya expect from a guy who owns $1.5 billion worth of the stock?
McClendon, chairman of Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. appeared Monday on CNBC to discuss the recent decline in this company’s stock price. The drop mirrored a decrease in the price of natural gas, of which Chesapeake is one of the nation’s biggest producers.
Chesapeake Energy’s stock price has tracked the price of natural gas over the past couple of months.
McClendon pointed out that Chesapeake has hedged all of its natural gas production through 2009, and the lion’s share of its 2010 production. Most of those hedges are well above the current market price.
Those hedges offer protection for shareholders while the recent dips in the stock prices of Chesapeake and other producers offer something else, McClendon said — an opportunity.
“It gives investors an opportunity to build positions in E&P (exploration and production) stocks that they might not have had the opportunity to do when prices were higher,” he said.
The company’s hedging activities don’t reflect McClendon’s opinions about the future of natural gas prices, which he expects will head upward.
“I’m very very bullish about gas demand going forward,” McClendon said. “In the meantime, I always want to run scared as a company and that’s why we hedge, to make sure that we provide a downside risk to our shareholders through our hedging program.”
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
Seeking the Cure for Medicare
After hearing a group of unhappy Oklahoma physicians this past weekend discuss the diminishing returns from the Medicare program, I came to this conclusion: If Congress keeps cutting reimbursements to doctors there soon may be very few doctors participating in the program.
In fact, one doctor at Saturday’s Medicare Forum at the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics stood up and said he was “opting out of the program.”
That may be just what some in Congress want, one doctor told me. The concept of a government managed health care program doesn’t sit well with some Congressmen, so they want to see Medicare die off and replaced with a privately run program. The problem with that scenario is that there aren’t any options on the table to replace Medicare.
At one point in Saturday’s forum, Dr. William Hazel, a trustee with the American Medical Association, asked the doctors, “who thought Medicare would disappear within five years?”
Not a hand was raised.
”We don’t have a replacement for it that works,” Hazel said. “We are on the clock. We have 16 and a half months before we run into a 21 percent clip (in reimbursements). The punch line is that to continue to have influence in the process we have to work together.”
Business Reporter
The delight
I regularly eat in a Thai restaurant run by an individual who cares little about how quickly the food is served, but how good it tastes when it arrives. He grouses about large groups that show up on a busy Saturday night and expect their orders to come rushing out of the kitchen.
But I also notice that he greets his regular customers by name, and rarely makes them wait any longer than necessary. He understands that repeat business is the most important kind. In fact, he generally rounds my check down to a round figure. I have begun rounding them up, and adding a healthy tip, to boot. I’m more than happy to pay for that kind of service — and that quality of food.
Seth Godin on his blog looks at the business/customer relationship from another angle, noting that businesses should waive added costs or hassle because it is a way to delight customers. A delighted customer is a customer that comes back.
Here’s my advice: have all the add ons you want. But waive them early and often. Waive the charges for great customers or for customers that make a face or just because it’s Tuesday. “Well, the to go charge is usually a dollar, but since you come here a lot, no charge for you.”
It’s not about charging less. It’s about delight.
In a world of poor, surly and inattentive service, delight can be hard to find.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
