Cafe du MondeOn a recent trip across country with wife and Penta Posse we evaluated restaurants on kid-friendly accomodations. Five kids can trash up an eatery in a hurry.

New Orleans, in a city where anything goes, kids can come. Cafe Du Monde was one of the most kid-friendly.

What child in any of us could turn down the beignets and the chicory- laced coffee?

Good news. The Wall Street Journal reports that the outdoor cafe opens today.

Posted at 7:14 PM | Permalink
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Salvation Army
My favorite triple A: US Army, Dick Armey, Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army should be first among your charities during this season of Hurricane Katrina. Here's why.

I once sat on a board to evaluate administrative overhead costs of hundreds of 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organizations.

The Salvation Army always had about the lowest admin burden.

For example:

American Red Cross, Marsha Evans earns $651,957.

United Way, Ralph Dickerson Jr., president of the United Way of New York City, $420,000.

Goodwill Industries, George W. Kessinger, $386,575

Salvation Army, W. Todd Bassett $166,850

and

Catholic Charities USA, Thomas A. DeStefano, $116,362.

Full Disclosure: I once asked a woman in the Salvation Army out for a date (B.C., before Charmaine). She turned me down ever so politely. I always had a weakness for uniforms.

Thank you (foot)notes

Argghhh! has reporting on Katrina.

Left of the Middle has concert.

Relay Blogger has nonprofit donations.

Emmy Advance Media has an excellent posting on brands during a crisis:

Everyone wanted to do what they could to help - but how? That was the question, and to answer it, America turned to trusted brands: The American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, MSNBC, MTV, CNN to name a few. The bigger the brand, the bigger the trust.

Let it Bleed points to "permanent joint rule by WalMart and the Salvation Army."

Stand to The Daily Brief and the Gulf Coast will rise again.

medmusings has info on physician volunteering.

Thanks to Point Five and open trackbacks.

Report to Jack Army and his festival.

Smash has good links.

Update 23 Sept 05: CorporatePR supports the Red Cross.

Posted at 6:32 PM | Permalink
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Tom Peters once said about managing airlines, "If the tray tables are dirty, they don't do their engine maintenance." Lack of attention to detail is not confined to a single block in the org chart. It is usually systemic. And can be historic.

New Orleans

1927 Mississippi Flood
Photo Courtesy of NOAA

US Dept of Commerce

Mayor Nagin's errors are writ large and small. Let us look at the tiniest of details: spelling. From the Wall Street Journal:

The New Orleans contingency plan...states: "The safe evacuation of threatened populations is one of the principle [sic] reasons for developing a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan." But the plan was apparently ignored.

What concerned Your Humble Business Blogger was that "[sic]" which borders on well deserved sarcasm. Principle; Principal? Whatever.

If a manager can't spell, should he be entrusted with a city?

During my first days on active duty in the Army, I was flooded with some paperwork and I made a few typos. But we had a Cold War to win. Spelling shouldn't count.

My boss lost his sense of humor and I was reprimanded, verbally. (But I remember it physically.)

"Son," the senior officer said, "You need better attention to detail."

I became acutely aware at age 23 that details were important in the adult world. Especially where a mistake would have my people in body bags.

Something Mayor Nagin never learned.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Excellent analysis at Sailor in the Desert on Tragedy.

See Outside The Beltway and Traffic Jam. Which points us to Master Snitch! and his biting epic poem.

Visit Mudville Gazette on Open Post. Good reading at Banter in Atlanta posting the Katrina's ripple effect.

Ace reviews chain of command in NO/LA.

Michelle Malkin has quote round up of my people.

Review Managing Product Development at How Much Planning is Enough?

Bad Hair Blog actually says it better.

Posted at 9:40 PM | Permalink
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The Bush Administration certainly did not need Your Humble Business Blogger to remind them of the need to have very, very companies fix the Hurricane Katrina disaster with very, very large contracts. The Administration was working on this all along, I would surmise.

Louisiana's Governor and New Orleans' mayor Ray Nagin should hire Halliburton and leave the Big Easy for the big dogs.

As they should.

Thank you (foot)notes:

Michelle Malkin has the back story.

Posted at 8:21 AM | Permalink
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www.missingkids.com

Part of the tragedy of the Hurricane Katrina Aftermath is missing children. The flood waters destroyed pictures. Tearful, panicked mothers attempting to describe a precious little one. What would a parent do? No image for a missing-child posting.

Nothing for the milk cartons.

To find the little one fastest a picture is best.

ISO 9000

Naval Aviation

Smart managers know that disaster can strike a business much as the breached levees destroyed New Orleans' families. Many businesses, especially those with an international scope, use the ISO 9000 certification as a template for recovery.

ISO 9000 standards are used not only to produce a product or service of consistent quality -- but also as a framework to replicate an enterprise.

If the building burns down, the employees have a 'business picture' to rebuild.

Store the plan two ways: atoms and bytes. The physical paper document is off-site and, most important, web based. Do this with your loved ones: your business; your family.

My Penta-Posse

Today, email and send pictures of your family to a loved one.

And cc me. Jack@Yoest.org (Yes, it's worth the spamming I'll get.)

A picture can help get your business back, and maybe your child.

Thank you (foot)notes:

A Mom and Her Blog

The Indepundit.

WILLisms

RightWingSparkle

Common Sense Runs Wild

Darleen's Place

And read JollyBlogger on Suffering.

Michelle Malkin reports real charity.

Basil's Blog has outstanding posts.

The Monster Blog has The Need to Help After The Hurricane.

Update 23 Sept 05: BoingBoing has the single item to take.

Posted at 4:52 AM | Permalink
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Jack Kemp was fond of the old phrase, "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."

Pfizer is demonstrating real charity providing medications in the Katrina Aftermath. This generates good will which, unfortunately, can't be listed as a line item on financials.

Hurricane Katrina Survivors:

Visit a nearby pharmacy to receive an emergency supply of your Pfizer medicines.

Victims of Hurricane Katrina who have lost access to their Pfizer medications can receive an emergency supply at any Walgreens, Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club or CVS pharmacy.

From now until September 16th, Pfizer and these pharmacies are helping survivors obtain their Pfizer medicines. No matter where patients may be residing, if they are from the affected areas, they can go to any Walgreens, Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club or CVS pharmacy and ask the pharmacist for help. Many independent community pharmacies will also be participating.

Patients without prescription drug coverage will get their medicines for free.

Pfizer and our partners will continue to do all we can to support the efforts of healthcare providers in the area. We are expediting donations of our medicines to relief organizations and local hospitals, and we urge any hurricane victims who do not have their Pfizer medications to contact or visit a pharmacy right away to receive an emergency supply during these difficult days.

For more information, please visit a nearby pharmacy.

A Thank you note to Britt Blaser at Escapable Logic writing Free, as in Lipitor.

Full Disclosure: I interviewed with Pfizer in the late seventies. They didn't hire me. And I still like them. So do many others, I hope.

Posted at 2:25 AM | Permalink
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Leadership is setting the strategic direction; Management is getting things done. Katrina's havoc shows us that government bureaucracies do not perform well in large scale emergencies where people are dying.

Pundit Guy gives us this picture: 205 New Orleans buses, under the command -- or not, as the case may be -- of one Ray Nagin. Via Ace who asks "Bush's Fault?"

The Washington Post and others have been critical of the senior leaders running the Katrina operations. And I would agree that the "middle management" should be replaced -- by one or both organizations that can deal with death and destruction:

The US Military and private business.

The governments have called up uniformed services. But I fear that the Cavalry was called in too late; a most unfortunate decision by the state's governor. The civilian leadership should now give more control to the three star general on site and make him truly in command. And to implement control and rescue, the civilian leadership should hire (the liberal) Public Enemy Number One :

Halliburton.

The Wall Street Journal has correctly suggested that only very large organizations like Bechtel and Halliburton know how to manage very large disasters. The military uses small platoons and big business knows how to use work-group platoons to accomplish a mission. And we've seen this before.

During the Year 2000 roll over we faced such a challenge: a disaster with a known timeline. Your Humble Blogger had the Y2K responsibility for Health and Human Resources, a $5 billion enterprise in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The boss, governor Gilmore, a former military intelligence officer, knew what we could and couldn't do. So he hired the biggest IT consulting firms on the planet and bought their solutions packages. In my weekly staff meetings I had a dozen of the smartest, profit motivated experts in the business sitting in the room. They let me think I was in control at the head of the table. And maybe so. But these consultants wouldn't let me, a mere bureaucrat make a mistake.

(Half of the world's internet traffic passed through Virginia; my continued employment depended on no adverse incidents.)

So Virginia spent $215 million and nothing happened. Nothing crashed. Except for that super-secret CIA satellite...and some defibrillators. Not my fault. No one died.

Louisiana's Governor and New Orleans' mayor Ray Nagin should hire Halliburton and leave the Big Easy for the big dogs.

The Evangelical Outpost has more on small unit tactics to win this battle with nature.

Ace of Spades has more on the Mayor.

Thank you to Basil's Blog for the Covered Dish.

Wizbang has it as always: Res ipsa loquitur...

The Sideshow is unhappy with the redtape.

Michelle Malkin picks between a uniform and the uninformed. (Hint: she goes for the Big Red One, not the little red cup.)

Daimnation has more New Orleans urban legends.

Eric McNulty at Worthwhile has more on what big companies should do.

ProfessorBainbridge.com also says disaster relief effort should be outsourced.

Fastcompany has rebuilding the Big Easy.

Update: ProfessorBainbridge has more on contracts.

Update: 4 Oct 05 Monster blog has Crisis Management.

Posted at 10:52 AM | Permalink
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