March 29, 2024

Who Can Save the ‘Today’ Show?

For NBC, limiting Curry’s exposure seemed wise. Her tear-stained departure from “Today” had become a public-relations debacle, deeply damaging the most lucrative franchise in television news. Just one day after Curry signed off, the advantage “Today” had over its top rival, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” turned into a 600,000-viewer deficit. Millions in advertising revenue vanished.

If the network was still reeling from her mismanaged departure, Curry, who spent much of the past year lying low at her home in New Canaan, Conn., had not yet recovered, either. She still often woke before dawn as if she were about to go on the air. Some mornings, she cried as she read e-mail and Twitter messages from fans. For weeks she couldn’t bring herself to return to 30 Rock, where her closed office door bore a red Post-it note that read “Do Not Enter” in capital letters.

Many executives at the network never grasped how profoundly hurt and humiliated Curry remained — not just by her televised dismissal but by all the backstage machinations that led to that fateful morning. Curry felt that the boys’ club atmosphere behind the scenes at “Today” undermined her from the start, and she told friends that her final months were a form of professional torture. The growing indifference of Matt Lauer, her co-host, had hurt the most, but there was also just a general meanness on set. At one point, the executive producer, Jim Bell, commissioned a blooper reel of Curry’s worst on-air mistakes. Another time, according to a producer, Bell called staff members into his office to show a gaffe she made during a cross-talk with a local station. (Bell denies both incidents.) Then several boxes of Curry’s belongings ended up in a coat closet, as if she had already been booted off the premises. One staff person recalled that “a lot of time in the control room was spent making fun of Ann’s outfit choices or just generally messing with her.” On one memorable spring morning, Curry wore a bright yellow dress that spawned snarky comparisons to Big Bird. The staff person said that others in the control room, which included 14 men and 3 women, according to my head count one morning, Photoshopped a picture of Big Bird next to Curry and asked co-workers to vote on “Who wore it best?”

Curry had spent 22 years, a majority of her professional life, in the hallways of the NBC headquarters. She knew 30 Rock’s shortcuts: the side door out of Studio 1A that allowed her to dart across 49th Street and avoid the tourists; and the exit that ensured she would bump into autograph seekers in the concourse. But on this March morning, according to a colleague, she was standing in the lobby and was unable to find her employee badge. Instead of being waived through by a security guard or rescued by one of the legions of pages or young producers from “Today,” Curry queued up at NBC’s visitors’ center, where the lunch-delivery guys and MSNBC guests announced themselves. Her attempts at being unnoticed, in her trench coat and hat, were backfiring. When it was her turn, Curry immediately apologized to the guard — gratuitous apologies were one of her on-air trademarks. The guard looked at her quizzically.

“Name?” he asked.

“Ann Curry,” she said.

Then, after a moment. “A-N-N.” Pause. “C-U-R-R-Y.”

Brian Stelter, a media reporter for The Times, is author of “Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV,” to be published next week.

Editor: Jon Kelly

 

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/magazine/who-can-save-the-today-show.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Ex-Bank Officials Named in Cyprus Inquiry

LONDON — Two of the most senior executives at Bank of Cyprus may have deleted crucial e-mail documents last year related to what proved to be a disastrous decision to invest heavily in Greek government bonds just before Greece’s international bailout in 2010, according to an investigative report commissioned by the central bank of Cyprus.

The report said forensic experts found that the computer belonging to the bank’s former chief executive, Andreas Eliades, who was forced to resign last summer, had “wiping software loaded which is not part of the standard software installations” at the Bank of Cyprus.

Investigators also found such software on the computer of Christakis Patsalides, a senior executive in the bank’s treasury department who, according to the report’s findings, was a driving force behind the decision to buy the Greek government bonds. Mr. Patsalides has also left the bank.

Efforts to reach Mr. Eliades and Mr. Patsalides late Thursday were not immediately successful. The report said Mr. Eliades did not “participate or assist” in the investigation, despite being urged to do so by the bank and its outside lawyers.

The Bank of Cyprus, long considered the better run of the two large banks that have been at the center of the Cypriot bailout debacle, decided to speculate in high-yielding Greek bonds by accumulating a 2.4 billion euro position from late December 2009 until June 2010, just as the Greece government was running out of money.

That decision resulted in a loss of 1.9 billion euros, or about $2.4 billion, when bond investors were eventually forced to take a 75 percent haircut under the final terms of the Greek bailout, worked out last year.

That loss and a larger one at the other big Cypriot bank, Laiki Bank, on a similarly misguided investment foray, totaled 4.5 billion euros. That was more than Cyprus, with a gross domestic product of 18 billion euros, was able to sustain. And the losses resulted in a near-collapse of the Cypriot banking sector, leading the country’s government to seek a 10 billion euro bailout from the troika of international lenders: the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

Under terms of the bailout, the Bank of Cyprus’s biggest depositors will be forced to take losses of as much as 60 percent to help absorb the cost of cleaning up Cyprus’s financial mess.

The issue of how the banks became laden with Greek government bonds has become an explosive one in Cyprus as politicians and regulators try to explain to furious taxpayers why the country has been forced to impose harsh measures on bank clients of all sizes, including restrictions on fund transfers and withdrawals.

A committee of judges has already been appointed by the government to get to the bottom of the matter.

The report that surfaced Thursday was commissioned by the Cypriot central bank last August, well before the country’s bailout was made final. The central bank hired Alvarez Marsal, a financial consulting firm, to investigate how and why the Bank of Cyprus had come to make such a high-risk gamble.

Investigators say that from Aug. 12, 2012, the central bank had ordered that all electronic data at the banks be preserved. The report did not say when the file-wiping software on Mr. Eliades’s and Mr. Patsalides’s computers was installed.

But investigators did suggest that digital documents could have been erased during the many delays that followed Alvarez’s requests for documents.

“Mass deletion of data appears to have been undertaken on the Patsalides computer on 18 October 2012,” the report said.

The findings of the Alvarez report, especially the contention that top bank executives may have obstructed a central bank investigation, are likely to stir anger widely in Cyprus. And while the top executives and board members most closely tied to the Greek bond purchase are no longer with the banks, the allegations could raise further questions about the Bank of Cyprus’s ability to survive.

The Alvarez report provides new details on the extent to which Bank of Cyprus officials were hoping that the high yields generated by the Greek bonds would cover the bank’s imploding loan book.

Alvarez investigators said that, according to the records they were able to secure from the bank, the decision to buy the bonds was based on a last gasp effort by the bank to generate profits as their loan book began to sour in late 2009 and through the spring of 2010.

Investigators also said that the bank, like others in Europe at the time, made use of cheap financing from the European Central Bank to make these bets. As a result, executives in the bank’s treasury department bought the riskiest high-yielding bonds available and found willing sellers in banks eager to reduce their exposure to Greece.

When it became clear not long after the Greek bailout in May 2010 that some form of debt restructuring would have to take place, the Bank of Cyprus found itself stuck with a 2.4 billion euro portfolio of Greek bonds.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/business/global/former-top-cypriot-bankers-cited-in-report.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Former Top Cypriot Bankers Cited in Report

LONDON — Two of the most senior executives at Bank of Cyprus may have deleted crucial e-mail documents last year relating to what proved to be a disastrous decision to invest heavily in Greek government bonds just before Greece’s international bailout in 2010, according to an investigative report commissioned by the central bank of Cyprus.

The report said forensic experts found that the computer belonging to the bank’s former chief executive, Andreas Eliades, who was forced to resign last summer, had “wiping software loaded which is not part of the standard software installations” at the Bank of Cyprus.

Investigators also found such software on the computer of Christakis Patsalides, a senior executive in the bank’s treasury department who, according to the report’s findings, was one of the masterminds behind the decision to buy the Greek government bonds. Mr. Patsalides has also left the bank.

Efforts to reach Mr. Eliades and Mr. Patsalides late Thursday were not immediately successful. The report said Mr. Eliades did not “participate or assist” in the investigation, despite being urged to do so by the bank and its outside lawyers.

The Bank of Cyprus, long considered the better run of the two large banks that have been at the center of the Cypriot bailout debacle, decided to speculate by accumulating a €2.4 billion position from late December 2009 until June, just as the Greece government was running out of money.

That decision resulted in the Bank of Cyprus sustaining a loss of €1.9 billion, or $2.5 billion, when bond investors were eventually forced to take a 75 percent discount on the value of those bonds under the final terms of the Greek bailout, worked out last year.

That loss, and the larger one absorbed by the other big Cypriot bank, Laiki Bank, in a similarly misguided investment foray, together totaled €4.5 billion. That was more than Cyprus, with a gross domestic product of only €18 billion, was able to sustain. And the losses resulted in a near-collapse of the Cypriot banking sector, leading the island’s government to see a €10 billion bailout from the troika of international lenders: the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

Under terms of the bailout, the Bank of Cyprus’ biggest depositors will be forced to take losses of as much as 60 percent to help absorb the cost of cleaning up Cyprus’s financial mess.

The issue of how the banks became laden with Greek government bonds has become an explosive issue in Cyprus as politicians and regulators scramble to explain to furious taxpayers why the country has been forced to impose harsh measures on bank clients of all sizes, including restrictions on fund transfers and withdrawals.

A committee of judges has already been appointed by the government to get to the bottom of the matter.

The report that surfaced Thursday had been commissioned by the Cypriot central bank last August, well before the country’s bailout was made final. The central bank hired Alvarez Marsal, a financial consulting firm, to investigate how and why the Bank of Cyprus had come to make such a high-risk gambit — one which, in the end, would push Cyprus to the verge of bankruptcy. Investigators say that from Aug. 12, 2012, the central bank had ordered that all electronic data at the banks be preserved.

The report did not say when the file-wiping software on Mr. Eliades’s and Mr. Patsalides’s computers was installed. But investigators did suggest that digital documents could have been disposed of during the many delays that followed the Alvarez evidence request.

The findings of the Alvarez Marsal report, especially the claim that top bank executives may have obstructed a central bank investigation, are likely to resonate widely in Cyprus. And while the top executives and board members most closely tied to the Greek bond purchase are no longer with the banks, the allegations could raise further questions about the Bank of Cyprus’s ability to survive as a viable financial entity.

Under the terms of the bailout, Bank of Cyprus will take on €9 billion of short-term loans provided by the central bank to Laiki Bank, which is being shut down.

But bankers and lawyers are only now discovering that the Bank of Cyprus will also be saddled with €6.7 billion of Laiki’s nonperforming loans.

Originally, it was thought that these most toxic of Laiki’s assets would remain in its bad bank so as not to further infect the Bank of Cyprus’ already dubious loan book.

The Alvarez Marsal report provides new details on the extent to which Bank of Cyprus executives were hoping that the high yields generated by the Greek bonds would cover the bank’s imploding loan book. More explosive, though, was the claim made by the report that the bank was obstructing its investigation well into last autumn.

“Mass deletion of data appears to have been undertaken on the Patsalides computer on 18 October 2012,” the report said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/business/global/former-top-cypriot-bankers-cited-in-report.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Bucks Blog: Coffees to Go, and Make One ‘Suspended’

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

A while back, I wrote about how I was pleasantly surprised to receive a free coffee at a bagel shop drive-through, during “Random Acts of Kindness” week. The customer in front of me paid for my order before driving away.

Now, it seems, some do-gooders are trying to go beyond simply paying for the person in line behind them, who — truth be told — may or may not be hard up for cash. Supporters of the “suspended coffee” trend are aiming to prepay for future customers who are truly needy.

The movement has apparently spread here to the United States from Europe, according to a recent post on The Consumerist, which also said it considered the practice “stupid and inefficient.”

So what is a “suspended” coffee? It works like this, according to a Facebook page about the practice: Customers pay for their own coffee, then pay for an extra coffee — or two — but “suspend” delivery of the drink. Then, someone else can come in and ask the cashier if there are any suspended coffees. The cashier hands the drink over to the nonpaying customer.

This may sound nice in theory, but it can cause problems in practice. For starters, the coffee shop has to keep track of the coffee credits somehow. And then there’s the delicate issue of having lots of down-on-their-luck people wandering into cafes to, in effect, beg for coffee. Not to mention, as The Consumerist notes, that coffee isn’t exactly the most filling food for truly hungry people. And they may not know to ask for a “suspended” coffee, anyway.

I called Starbucks to ask what they think of this, since they have locations on most busy corners in most big cities. A spokeswoman, Jaime Riley, said the company was aware of the trend, but that so far it seemed mostly confined to Europe. In an e-mail, she said, “We are always touched when we hear about such thoughtful acts of our customers.”

That said, the company doesn’t have a formal store policy about this sort of thing. “We simply encourage our partners (employees) to use their best judgment to help make every customer visit special,” she said.

What do you think of this idea? Do you know of a coffee shop that does it?

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/coffees-to-go-and-make-one-suspended/?partner=rss&emc=rss

NBC Is Said to Offer Lauer’s Job to Cooper

Mr. Cooper may have told NBC he was not interested. Nonetheless, the entreaty indicates that NBC executives are actively talking about a succession plan for Mr. Lauer, whose future on “Today” has been the source of widespread speculation in recent months. Mr. Lauer, a star of the “Today” show for the better part of two decades, signed a contract last year — believed to pay him $25 million a year — that keeps him at the network at least through the end of 2014.

But the recent outreach to Mr. Cooper, described by people on condition of anonymity, suggests that NBC might remove Mr. Lauer from his co-host chair before then, or that Mr. Lauer might ask to be replaced.

The call from NBC was first reported Tuesday night by Deadline.com. It was so surprising that some television industry executives thought the story was untrue, chalking it up to troublemaking by agents or rival networks. But three people with knowledge of the call confirmed that it happened, and said they too were taken aback by it. The people insisted on anonymity because the call was considered confidential.

It is unclear who at NBC made the call to Mr. Cooper. The news division does not currently have a president. Patricia Fili-Krushel, the chairwoman of the NBCUniversal News Group, who oversees the news division, previously worked at Time Warner, the parent of CNN, for nearly a decade.

An NBC News spokeswoman declined to comment about the circumstances of the call or about Deadline.com’s report that Mr. Lauer later called Mr. Cooper to “express his disapproval.” A news division executive, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity, confirmed in an e-mail that “NBC News has many exploratory talks with talent inside and outside of the network, but to read anything specific into that is presumptuous.” The same person also said, “We are confident in our anchor team and are focused on producing great morning TV.”

After 16 years as the No. 1 morning show, “Today” slipped behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” last year. While NBC News executives say they have resisted leaning toward the lighter fare and tabloid style of their rival, the “Today” show itself risks becoming tabloid fodder. In the wake of the Deadline.com report, TMZ.com said its sources had said that “Lauer is actually on board with the idea of Anderson replacing him,” and that “he actually planned to have a meeting with Anderson to sit down and discuss it.”

Mr. Cooper’s contract at CNN expires this fall. In some ways he’s a logical choice for “Today”; he is in his mid-40s and he has demonstrated that he can juggle hard news interviews with the fun and games that morning TV shows serve up. His presence on “Today” might spur former viewers to give the show another chance. “Today” has fallen about 20 percent in the ratings since Ann Curry was removed from the co-host chair next to Mr. Lauer last summer.

On the other hand, co-hosting “Today” would be a drastic lifestyle change for Mr. Cooper, who is “not a morning person,” in the words of one friend, and is used to hosting a prime-time newscast. “Anderson Cooper 360,” his nightly hour on CNN, is shown live at 8 p.m. and is replayed at 10 p.m. While “360” is one of CNN’s highest-rated programs, it has struggled in the ratings; it currently attracts fewer than one million viewers at 8 p.m.

Furthermore, Mr. Cooper’s shot at a daytime talk show in the fall of 2011 has been viewed as a disappointment; it was renewed for a second season, but was canceled last October, only one month into the second season. Episodes of the talk show will continue to be televised for a few more months.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/business/media/nbc-is-said-to-offer-lauers-job-to-cooper.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Staplers, the Attachment That’s Still Making Noise

If you do, maybe it’s a little dusty in this age of PDFs. Or maybe it’s been missing for a while, after someone borrowed it and never brought it back. Or maybe you’ve affixed your name to your stapler with a piece of clear tape, so your co-workers know: you take this stapler, you die.

Even as data moves to computers and the cloud, staplers continue to help people keep it together. On the computer, we can file copies in folders and send messages to mailboxes. We can cut, copy and paste text and files. But which computer activity is similar to stapling? Sure, there’s the paper-clip icon that attaches documents to e-mail. But nothing, really, comes close to the satisfying ka-chunk of a stapler: it’s a sound that means work is getting done.

Paper receipts are supposed to be on their way out, but they continue to flutter their way through restaurants, stores and doctors’ offices. Staplers are there, attaching the receipt to the business card, the return receipt to the original receipt, the merchant copy to the bill, the receipt to the takeout bag.

If you have a stapler, the odds are fairly good that it was made by Swingline. Other companies, including Stanley-Bostitch, along with OfficeMax and Staples, also make staplers. But Swingline, now owned by Acco Brands, has long been the market leader.

Acco, based in suburban Chicago, sounds like the perfect name for a faceless conglomerate from the era of “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.” But it actually has a sterling office products pedigree — it is short for the American Clip Company, a manufacturer of paper clips founded by Fred. J. Kline of Queens at the turn of the 20th century.

Signs at Swinglinersquo;s old plant in Queens came down in 1999.

Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Signs at Swingline’s old plant in Queens came down in 1999.

Queens was once the center of the paper-fastening universe. In 1925, it was where Jack Linsky founded the Parrot Speed Fastener Company, later renamed Swingline. For years, the bright red sign of his Swingline factory was a beacon to Queens residents as they drove across the Queensboro Bridge from Manhattan.

Stapling devices have existed since at the least the French court of Louis XV. But before Mr. Linsky’s time, staples generally had to be laboriously loaded, one by one, into the rear of the stapler. Mr. Linsky helped revolutionize stapling by creating an easy way to fill the devices under a horizontal cap. He found an adhesive that could attach staples in rows so that they stayed together in a metal magazine until they were pushed out and bent individually to grip their paper quarry.

Swingline promised to make office work easy. In a newspaper ad from the 1940s, a young woman — presumably a secretary — loads a stapler and says: “Now we’re in the groove, boss! That Swingline Stapler loads quicker, works slicker because of its open, trouble-free channel.”

But Mr. Linsky wasn’t satisfied to serve only the office market; he helped increase demand for staplers by emphasizing their handiness in other tasks, like tacking shelf paper, fastening paper around sandwiches and constructing party hats. (“Swingline does the darnedest things!” another ad boasted.) He also expanded the business by making specialized staplers for carpeting, roofing and auto upholstery.

In 1970, Mr. Linsky sold Swingline to American Brands, and in the next decade Acco merged into Swingline. Amid the manufacturing crisis of the 1990s, American Brands closed the Swingline factory in Queens and moved its manufacturing to Mexico; nearly 500 New York workers lost their jobs, and the Swingline sign came down. Now most staplers are produced in Asia.

Swingline made Mr. Linsky very rich. He and his wife, Belle, were philanthropists and art collectors who once owned one of the largest collections of Fabergé eggs in America. Jack died in 1980, and in 1982 Belle donated a collection of the couple’s European art, then worth $60 million, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Staplers generally don’t rise to the level of prized collectibles, which is why a Swingline’s role as an object of obsession was so funny in the 1999 cult comedy”Office Space.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/business/staplers-the-attachment-thats-still-making-noise.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Senate Report Shows Anxious Moments for JPMorgan Traders

The traders were able to hide losses for months by pricing their positions in a favorable way, but they soon discovered that their strategy wasn’t sustainable, according to the report, which contains e-mails, instant messages and transcripts of taped phone calls.

In one phone conversation with a colleague on March 15, 2012, Bruno Iksil, the trader who became known as the London Whale, got agitated, worrying that the portfolio had grown too large, making it difficult to contain losses:

“It’s getting idiotic. … Now it’s worse than before … there’s nothing that can be done, absolutely nothing that can be done, there’s no hope. … The book continues to grow, more and more monstrous.”

On March 20, the increasingly panicky Mr. Iksil had another phone conversation, this time with his manager, Javier Martin-Artajo. Earlier the same day, an e-mail was sent to a number of people, including Ina Drew, the head of the bank’s chief investment office in New York, about the growing problems in the portfolio. Mr. Martin-Artajo wasn’t pleased by that. In the conversation, Mr. Martin-Artajo referred to Achilles Macris, the head of the chief investment office in London. Following are excerpts from the report:

MR. IKSIL Yeah, so, yeah we sent, we sent an estimate — down $40 million today. …

MR. MARTIN-ARTAJO O.K., O.K. I just don’t want you to do this. I don’t know why you’ve done it anyway, you’ve done it. . . . You should have told me this because it doesn’t help us for the conversation for tomorrow.

MR. IKSIL I know it’s embarrassing but —

MR. MARTIN-ARTAJO Yeah, I don’t understand your logic, mate. I just don’t understand. I’ve told Achilles. He told me that he didn’t want to show the loss until we know what we are going to do tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter. I know that you have a problem; you want to be at peace with yourself. It’s O.K., Bruno, O.K., it’s all right. I know that you are in a hard position here.

 

According to the report, Mr. Iksil indicated the differences between reported and unreported losses were getting too big to ignore.

MR. IKSIL You know, it’s just that, I have to, I don’t know, I thought, I thought that was, that was not realistic, you know, what we were doing, and I said probably I was wrong, you know, I thought that it was this estimate before tomorrow, you know, was the way to, because I know Ina is going to read the comments, so, maybe it will leave some time and she will have different questions, or, I don’t know. … It’s one mistake for another here, because if I don’t —

MR. MARTIN-ARTAJO No, no, man, no man.

MR. IKSIL I think I do a worst one, you know. It’s sort of my logic is strange but, in fact I have to choose between one bad thing and one thing that I think was worse.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/business/senate-report-shows-anxious-moments-for-jpmorgan-traders.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

State of the Art: A Review of Cookoo, G-Shock and Other Smartwatches

In the beginning, they existed only in corporate headquarters. Then came the desktop PC — three feet away. Then the laptop — one foot. Then the smartphone — in our pockets. What’s next — computers on our wrists?

Exactly. As though by silent agreement, the gadget industry seems to have decided that 2013 will be the year of the smartwatch.

The central idea is sound. You already have an iPhone or Android phone. Wouldn’t it be neat if your watch could communicate with it wirelessly?

Imagine: the watch could beep or vibrate whenever you get an incoming call, text message or e-mail. No more, “Sorry I didn’t get your call; my phone was in my backpack.” No more fumbling for your phone when that would be inconvenient or unsafe — like while you’re skiing, skateboarding or driving.

These watches can also make your phone beep loudly when it’s lost in the house. That’s much quicker than using Find My iPhone, which involves logging into a Web site.

They can also serve as a digital “leash”: if you wander away, accidentally leaving your phone on some restaurant table, the watch buzzes to warn you.

I tested the Meta Watch ($180), Cookoo ($130), Casio G-Shock GB-6900 ($180), Martian ($300), and I’m Watch ($400, coming in July). More contenders, like a Kickstarter favorite, Pebble Watch, are on the way. (The Martian, Cookoo and Meta Watch also began life on Kickstarter, the Web site where inventors seek financing from the public.) Even Apple is said to be toying with an iWatch.

The designs are all over the map. Some have touch screens. Some look like regular analog watches; others are basically iPod Nanos with straps. Some require daily charging; others take watch batteries.

They do have some things in common. First, these early smartwatches are thick and chunky — a desirable quality in a stew, maybe, but not for the delicate of wrist.

Second, they communicate with your phone over Bluetooth. You have to “pair” the watch to your phone on the first day — and whenever you exit Airplane Mode. Most models require a companion phone app for this purpose.

Most of these watches use Bluetooth 4.0, which means your phone will lose only a small amount of battery charge each day — maybe 5 or 10 percent — but only recent models, like the iPhone 4S and 5, are compatible.

Finally, the instruction manuals are terrible or nonexistent; it’s as if, in their zeal to make these things work, the companies forgot all about explaining it to you.

Wrists ready? Here we go.

CASIO G-SHOCK GB-6900 ($180). This watch closely resembles Casio’s other G-Shocks: popular, masculine, rugged, waterproof digitals.

But this one can beep or vibrate when calls or e-mail come to your iPhone — though not, alas, text messages. There’s no Caller ID; a cramped scrolling display says only “Incoming call.” For e-mail, the sender’s address scrolls slowly. You can dismiss these alerts with a double-tap on the glass — that’s the only thing this watch’s “touch screen” does.

The watch can also set itself as you cross time zones by checking in with your phone.

These limited functions are solid and power-stingy; one watch battery lasts two years. The watch has four buttons — the usual user-hostile digital watch assortment, like Mode, Adjust and Split/Reset — but they get the job done.

COOKOO WATCH ($130). The round face and analog hands offer spartan good looks; only the watch’s alarming thickness (three-quarters of an inch) and four edge buttons let you know that it’s not a Swatch.

There’s no screen. Instead, icons dimly appear on the watch’s black background as notifications of incoming calls, calendar reminders or Facebook posts. (E-mail and text notifications are coming soon, says the company.) If you want to know what they are or who they’re from, you have to get out your phone.

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/technology/personaltech/a-review-of-cookoo-g-shock-and-other-smartwatches.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

You’re the Boss Blog: Critiquing a Web Site That Tries to Keep It Simple

Site Insight

What’s wrong with this site?

It sounds easy. Sell your product online. Design it to tempt every visitor into becoming a buyer. Add an easy-to-use self-service interface that lets customers get answers without interacting with a salesclerk. Everything seems to happen magically, and everything goes smoothly, without any issues. There may be businesses that manage to accomplish this, but rarely without a few struggles. In this post, we look at one company, Recruiterbox, and its attempt to attract customers and interact with them seemlessly.

Raj Sheth and his two partners created Recruiterbox to help companies organize their recruiting and hiring processes. An entrepreneur from India, Mr. Sheth understood that at many growing companies, the résumés, interviews and internal feedback live “all over the place,” buried in any number of in-boxes, spreadsheets and side conversations. In 2011, Recruiterbox which is based in Boston and Bangalore and has a team of 12 people, introduced a Web-based tool that automates the entire process. Hiring managers can try the service for free for a single job opening; the fee jumps to $60, $120 or $200 per month for three, six or 10 openings, respectively.

When Recruiterbox was introduced, the company stayed away from outbound marketing like e-mail or telemarketing, opting instead to rely on word-of-mouth, postings to human resources and recruitment blogs and a presence in app stores (like Google Apps). This netted their first 100 or so customers (as well as a few media mentions). Still, attracting visitors to the site was slow, and customer growth, while consistent, remained humble — in the low hundreds at the end of the first year. In 2012, the customer base grew to 500.

Mr. Sheth has found that he can generate traffic by answering media queries on HelpAReporterOut.com and by crafting frequent blog and video posts that address important H.R. issues. He also has found that including a transcript with the videos helps boost Recruiterbox’s organic search rankings on Google.

Still, revenue grew only slightly after a few months, so Mr. Sheth created a paid Google AdWords campaign. While the quality of customers that came through this channel was high, larger competitors drove up the bids for popular keywords. As a result, each click cost from $7 to $15 – making AdWords an expensive customer-acquisition channel. The Recruiterbox team kept a fixed budget on their campaign and tweaked the ads, but the cost per paying customer remained high, as much as $500.

After a year, the team began analyzing customer reactions to the sign-up process and pricing structure, which resulted in the company offering more service options. Recruiterbox now handles start-ups and smaller companies — those with fewer jobs to fill — through a self-service tool. The site has found that most of the companies that try the service end up completing the 14-day free trial and electing to continue with the monthly subscription.

But Recruiterbox wants to help larger companies, too — those looking to fill as many as 50 openings. And that’s the challenge: larger clients that want to fill 10 to 25 jobs are much more likely to require an initial service walk-through over the phone to understand how the software works. That of course is a time-consuming burden for a small company.

So the questions facing Mr. Sheth and Recruiterbox are:

Does it make sense for Recruiterbox to focus more attention on one particular customer segment?

• Would concentrating on self-service customers allow Recruiterbox to stick with its original goals and get more business?

• Is that market — companies with fewer positions to fill — large enough?

• Should Recruiterbox add more inside sales people to attract and retain larger companies or is that splintering the business focus?

Some questions for readers to think about while looking at Recruiterbox.com:

• Is it easy to understand?

• Can you tell what it’s offering within 15 seconds of landing on the site?

• Would you register without contacting customer support?

• What are your thoughts on tiered service fees?

• Do those fees represent the right value for the cost?

Next week, we’ll follow up with highlights from your comments and I’ll offer my own impressions along with Mr. Sheth’s response.

Would you like to have your business’s Web site or mobile app reviewed? This is an opportunity for companies looking for an honest (and free) appraisal of their online presence and marketing efforts.

To be considered, please tell us  about your experiences — why you started your site, what works, what doesn’t and why you would like to have the site reviewed — in an e-mail to youretheboss@abesmarket.com.

Richard Demb is co-founder of Abe’s Market, an online marketplace for natural products that is based in Chicago.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/a-web-site-tries-to-keep-it-simple/?partner=rss&emc=rss

DealBook: A Top UBS Executive Is to Depart

Carsten Kengeter, the former head of the investment banking unit at UBS.Carsten Kengeter, the former head of the investment banking unit at UBS.

Carsten Kengeter, the former head of UBS‘s investment bank, has been on the outs at the Swiss banking giant for some time. On Tuesday, the bank announced that he was resigning.

Mr. Kengeter has been head of the bank’s noncore division, which oversees the assets that the bank is hoping to unload as it tries to exit high-risk banking activities.

But when he was running the investment bank, Kweku M. Adoboli, a trader in the London office, was accused of authorized trading that led to a $2.3 billion loss for the bank. Mr. Adoboli  was eventually found guilty of fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison.

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The trading loss raised serious questions about the firm’s oversight and led to the resignation of  Oswald J. Grübel, the chief executive of UBS. Also during Mr. Kengeter’s time at the investment bank, UBS became ensnared in an investigation into the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, the benchmark global interest rate.

The bank did not force out Mr. Kengeter at the time, but the scandals damaged his reputation and UBS eventually reassigned him to run UBS’s noncore division.

“I want to thank Carsten for his many contributions to UBS during his four years with UBS, including his three years as C.E.O. of the investment bank, and I wish him the best for his future endeavors,” the chief executive of UBS, Sergio P. Ermotti, wrote in an e-mail to bank employees.

Andrea Orcel will continue to run UBS’s investment bank, Mr. Kengeter’s old job, and the bank named Sam Molinaro to head UBS’s noncore division. Mr. Molinaro is a former top Bear Stearns executive. He joined UBS in early 2012 and will report to Mr. Ermotti, according to the internal memo.

UBS is refashioning itself in the wake of the financial crisis, drastically scaling back riskier businesses like fixed-income trading. The bank announced plans in 2012 to cut about 10,000 jobs, many of those in its investment bank.

Below is a copy of the e-mail from Mr. Ermotti:

Following the successful transfer of our Non-Core portfolio assets into the CorporateCenter earlier this year, Carsten Kengeter will be leaving UBS after a short transition. He will continue to provide advice to UBS on the wind-down of the Non-Core portfolio over the coming months.

I want to thank Carsten for his many contributions to UBS during his four years with UBS, including his three years as CEO of the Investment Bank, and I wish him the best for his future endeavors.

I am pleased to announce that Sam Molinaro will take on the role of Head of Non-Core and Legacy Portfolio, with immediate effect, reporting directly to me. Sam joined UBS in March 2012 as COO of the Investment Bank and was most recently COO of Non-Core and Legacy Portfolio.

Sam brings extensive industry experience from his time at Bear Stearns where he was CFO and then COO. Before joining UBS, he worked in several advisory roles and was CEO and Chairman of Braver Stern Securities. He was instrumental in the set-up and transfer of the Non-Core unit at UBS and I am confident that, with his appointment, we will continue the effective execution of our strategy in this area.

Please join me in congratulating Sam and wishing him every success in his new role.

Yours,

Sergio P. Ermotti

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/a-top-ubs-executive-to-depart/?partner=rss&emc=rss