Recipes for Success

Now and then, we all have had a cinnamon roll or two for a treat. While busy licking the sticky icing off our fingers, probably none of us would direct our thoughts to the good recipes that bring this ubiquitous snack to the marketplace. A simple product such as a cinnamon roll or a cupcake can be the basic ingredient for a success story in the baking goods business.

And Cinnabon, Inc., is one of these successful companies in the industry. This Atlanta-based franchiser was featured in the last week’s “Undercover Boss.”* It holds the right to market its name sake’s franchise that sells freshly baked cinnamon buns. According to its president, Kate Cole, her company through 9,000 franchisees sold a half billion-dollar worth of cinnamon buns each year. Evidently, even in a bad economic time like what we are facing now, business at Cinnabon’s counter continues to thrive.

Interestingly, two years ago Cinnabon added an extra ingredient in its winning mixtures. It hired Kate Cole. She, at 34 years old, is the youngest CEO ever featured on “Undercover Boss.” Her own recipe for success calls for determination and hard work. Perhaps growing up in a single-mom family had made her more resilient and a better decision maker. She, a college dropout, also has the humility to remember her many mentors who led her to becoming the president of a multimillion-dollar corporation from a Hooter girl at a Hooter’s restaurant. - Ayee

@A CBS Telelvsion Production

Generous Bosses

Now every Friday night, I glued myself to the television watching “Undercover Boss.”* I enjoy this popular reality show because in it everyone is a winner, including a couch potato like me.

The stories uncovered on this weekly show were often uplifting and inspiring. They had provoked many poignant thoughts in me. Somehow the show told us that happy faces are not immune to profound tragedies. As a reality show, its casts are made of real people, including the bosses. We all know real people have real people challenges.

Now let’s count our winnings.

First, for the undercover boss and his(or her) company, they got a worldwide exposure on television which is simply priceless from the marketing aspect of the business. The undercover mission also gave the boss opportunities to view his company from bottom up. So the boss could be more in sync with what was going on within his company. The hands-on intelligence the boss gathered from his undercover operation will also help him take better care of his company’s business.

Next, instead of getting fired or reprimanded for “spilling the beans,” the hard-working and honest employees got recognized with both constructive criticisms and material rewards. And these incentives, tangible and intangible, can be a game changer for the recipients, their colleagues and the company they are working for.

And for a passive viewer like me, this Emmy winning television program had afforded me a chance to see a side of the business that I was not able to discern in a company's news releases, and other business publications. - Ayee

*A CBS production.

More does not mean better.

I do not know if others had the same experiences as I did after my desktop computer was updated with the latest software.

Matter of fact, I am very appreciative of the smart engineers who invented many useful and smart gadgets for us. I do, however, wonder why our computers would need that many updates. My computer is full of them. And the latest ones my computer got did not seem to be very user-friendly either.

After I downloaded the latest Internet software onto my computer a month so ago, accessing to the Net became a snail-paced process. Despite the high-speed services I have on my desktop, now it takes me much longer to get into the cyberspace. And my trouble does not end here. Once on line, the top part of the screen is full of colorful icons that have no uses to me. I am sure the programs these icons represent take up a lot of free spaces on the hard drive.

It must be my third or fourth attempt. A few days ago, I tried again to give my feedback to this blogger’s site, I ended up having four Internet connections at the same time. No wonder, my computer is getting slower.

This newly redesigned site with pleasing orange colored text looks very “busy” to me too. It is teeming with many extra options and tools which the users did not ask for. It is nice to have accesses to all these extra software programs. But who has the extra time needed to explore them? - Ayee

Love thy body.

Recently, I signed up an online course in biology. This self-study program may not be for everyone. But for me it is the way to go for a learning moment that can stay with me for a lifetime. After I waded through streams of foreign concepts and Latin terminologies, I did feel a bit smarter on the facts of the life that my parents had never told me. The study of life also left me in awe on how well and perfectly a human body is made of and organized. According to the text book, “Inquiry into Life “*, a human body is made with billions of wiggling cells. These tiny organisms, invisible to the naked eyes, are the basic components of a perfect body. Fueled by nutrients from carbohydrate, protein, and fat, as well as chemical elements, fresh air, and water, they grow into becoming parts of the eleven organ systems in a human body. Except the appendix, each biological system built intricately of cellular tissues performs its own unique function that is conducive to the well-being of its bodily host. While other organs work on getting foods digested, nutrients transported, excess energy stored, wastes removed, and genes accurately replicated, the central nerve system together with the hormonal glands is busy coordinating the works that others did to help the body grow, regenerate and reach its maturity. In addition, the human body is equipped with a homeostasis mechanism that keeps the body’s internal environment in a perfect balance. When the body’s internal condition is out of the kilter, for instance the blood chemistry is offside from its norm, the body will get sick. A human body is also imbedded with a built-in advance warning system. The body has the ability of manifesting its feelings when it is being pushed over a tipping point. - Ayee *Tenth edition by Sylvia S. Mader.

Another one bit the dust.

I had just recycled a digital answering machine at a neighborhood thrift store. Hopefully, someone else can still get some good uses out of this electrical contraption before it becomes part of the heap in the landfills. It looks like that leaps and bounds in telecommunication technology had claimed yet another victim. With features like voice mail, call waiting and caller-ID included in our regular phone service, this 20th century invention is no longer a must-have item in our bustling and hustling life. Our friends and family members have not left any message on our machine for ages. They can contact us instantly through many wireless devices. The messages left in our machine these days are mostly from the telemarketer. Portable answering machine, like what it did to the personal answering services industry, itself becomes redundant and obsolete. Now I wonder which e-gadget will be the next casualty under the fast moving technological cloud? - Ayee

$430 Million of False Medicare Claims*

When I heard the arrest of many healthcare providers in many US cities on fraud charges, I had two thoughts come to mind. First I felt sad for the perpetrators who would commit such despicable crime. What they did to the Medicare program is not only criminal. It is also immoral. We always think that only the destitute resolves to crime to survive. But many arrested are professionals, like doctors, nurses, and administrators. My second thought on this massive fraud case came upon the question on how the costs of the government sponsored medical services are determined? Many years ago, healthcare industry started “de-bundling” their services. We all know when a service got de-bundled, invariably not only the cost to the users of the service rises, so is the complexity of the underlying service. Based on this real life experience, it is not hard for me to speculate perhaps the de-bundling of healthcare plays a pivotal role why oversights and abuses are prevalent in a government program like Medicare. - Ayee *“Medicare Fraud Crack Down,” The Nightly Business Report, October 04, 2012

Number can be misleading.(II)

Yes, indeed. According to what is reported in the news, in 2011 Mitt Romney paid a whopping $1.9 million income tax at the rate of 14%. Personally, I think based on the amount of taxes Mr. Romney paid to the US treasury, not at what the rate he was paying, the public should commend him being a law-biding and productive citizen who contributes to the country’s fiscal well-being. One-million-nine-hundred thousand dollars are a lot of money. It can make some definitive difference in the looming government deficits. When we think mathematically, we will realize that it will take 99% of us, myself included, despite at higher income tax rates, many, many, many years, even life times, to pay $1.9 million in taxes. So let’s pay attention to the actual amount, not the rate, and be fair! - Ayee