J Patrick Hunt

I’m a huge Washington Redskins fan, and that’s both hard to admit and live with. Many people have pegged Dan Snyder as the problem, and of course they are right. But I’m not sure everyone gets why. Most people think its because he’s not a football guy, that he has no idea how to run a football team. He meddles with player selection, overpays for star power while ignoring moderately priced contributors, and chases every hot name or aging coach with past success he can find. And he does so despite having a football GM in Vinny Cerrato, who either knows less or just won’t stand up to the Dan.

But here’s the thing. Based on his background, Dan Snyder wins when he makes money. Period. In all his prior businesses, there was no other metric that mattered. Profit is the only true goal for a typical CEO of his ilk. Today, of course, there are other metrics that matter, including social responsibility, a phrase which can cover a wide range of goals not directly focused on the bottom line, like the environment and employee welfare (though recent studies have actually shown these to be important contributors to profitability). But these things don’t matter to Dan. Profitability, and only profitability, matters to him.

Pro football serves three masters. One is winning, another community, the third profitability. The best owners in the league, such as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Rooney family (and including Knoxville’s Jimmy Haslam) and the Kraft family in New England, understand that to win is to endear yourself to the community and to be profitable as a result of both. It is possible to lose and hold onto your community. The Boston Red Sox until recent years are proof. But if you continue to lose and at the same time make an obscene amount of money, you will lose the community. After 10 years of patience from fans who continue to buy tickets, concessions and merchandise, Snyder is on the precipice of losing his community, which will directly impact his profitability. And I say its about time.

Many observers call for new players, a new coach, and most accurately, a new GM. But the Washington Redskins will continue to lose, or see modest success at best, until he puts winning and community at equal par (or better) with profitability. If he can make this much money losing so many games and alienating so many fans (however short-term that income may be), imagine how much he could make if he won over the community by winning games.

Like most observers, I think Apple is only a short time away from introducing a tablet computer. Imagine an iPod Touch with about a 10″ screen, and you’ve got what is likely to be a real winner in mindshare if not market and profit share. There’s been much speculation about this device, including when it will be announced. I think it will be in the January timeframe even though Apple has decided to forgo Macworld. The company now announces iPhone models in the summer and iPod models in the fall. I think new products will hit in January and new Macs in the spring, filling out a seasonal calendar of product introductions. But there are 2 things about the tablet that I don’t think I’ve read elsewhere and believe will help drive its success.
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Does every coffee maker on the planet suffer from the same poor usability design? It goes something like this:

• Make yourself a pot of coffee and enjoy.
• Wake up the next morning to repeat the process.
• Raise the lid.
• Condensation the formed on the inside of the lid pours down the back of the coffee maker and onto the countertop.

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These 2 things are not necessarily related to the primary topic of useful/usable, but what the hey? I need to put them out there. So here goes.

1. What exactly are the markets expecting from governments right now? The market dropped 5% on news of an $800 billion stimulus package and retooling of the balance of TARP to leverage private money, purportedly because of lack of confidence. Pure and simple, it is lack of confidence that is causing this mess right now. People just need to buck up, innovate, go after new market, reinvent their businesses, and quit being scared. Getting over it is the only way to right this ship. (more…)