“When Global Crossing, the broadband telecommunications company, was on its last legs, it laid off thousands of employees. Just weeks later, it filed for bankruptcy protection and, as a result, denied severance pay to these workers while a few senior managers got generous exit packages.”

“You know business is in trouble when it starts suing its customers. Bad sign. What has led to this terrible state, and what does it mean for the future of business?”

“David Dickey is director of marketing and communications for direct and new initiatives for Sprint. Susan Goodman leads Goodman and Co. Roger Gray works as VP of plan sponsor communications for Scudder Investments. And Andy Sernovitz is CEO of Gaspedal. Their panel discussion this morning at Ad:Tech 2003 addressed new email ideas to kickstart online marketing programs. Here is a rough transcript of their exchange…”

“What are relevant topics? Posts on business, management, marketing, accounting, finance, economics, sales, capitalism; anything of that nature that logically fits something called ‘Carnival of the Capitalists.’ See the end of this page for a more comprehensive list/description of possible topics that would be appropriate. The extended list may be updated from time to time as we think of anything that is missing.”

“Sometimes it isn’t helpful to start the problem-solving process by identifying a problem. Sometimes the solution has to come first. Only after we’ve discovered a better way do we realize in retrospect that there was a problem to be solved.” More: Why Not? How to use everyday ingenuity to solve problems big and small.

“For 38 years, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. had the same software application at the heart of its customer-information-management system. The application handled the California utility’s billing and credit-history tasks, managing 6.5 million customer accounts and cranking out 250,000 gas and electricity bills every day. Other PG&E systems, such as customer-service and maintenance apps, tapped into it for customer information. By the late 1990s, the system was showing its age.”