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I was excited about going to Chicago so I could try their famous deep dish pizza. My experience there taught me something about why selling deep dish can succeed in Chicago but not in LA.
Here's how I started my Business Casual column:
I recently carried four large deep dish pizzas onto a plane from Chicago's O'Hare to LAX.I drew a lot of curious looks, but also some approving nods.
"Good idea," one passenger told me cheerily.
Read Business Casual.
A rare bit of bad news for SpaceX.
(Space News) PARIS -- Startup satellite broadband provider Avanti Communications Group alleges that launch-services provider Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has unrightfully retained a $7.6 million launch-contract deposit and is asking a New York arbitration panel to settle the issue, the companies said.
Read more about the SpaceX dispute.
Mattel Inc., the El Segundo-based toy giant, was ranked 69th on Fortune magazine's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For. This was the annual list's 14th year.
It was also the fourth time Mattel has made the list. The company moved up nine spots from No. 78 last year.
The list is based in part on survey answers from randomly selected company employees. Questions include:
- attitudes about management's credibility
- job satisfaction
- camaraderie.
The survey is two-thirds of the score given to each company. The other third isbased on pay and benefit programs, hiring practices, internal communications, training, recognition programs and diversity efforts.
I'm surprised it's so low. I expected the average pay to be closer to a million. But you have to consider that many of the 300 employees at Northrop's new Virginia corporate headquarters will be support staff like secretaries. But I expect even the secretaries at Northrop's corporate office make pretty good money.
(Washington Business Journal) Ever wonder why Fairfax County consistently ranks as the first or second wealthiest jurisdiction in the country? Northrop Grumman Corp.'s relocation is a case study.Northrop Grumman's new Fairfax County workers will earn an average of $200,000.
Read more on Northrop Grumman.
Most of my plane trips have been uneventful. By contrast, my most recent trip to Chicago was very memorable.
I wrote about it in Business Casual.
I was mostly just a spectator and translator for the memorable experience that occurred on the plane.A flight attendant - I'll call her Anne - approached me to say that it was her last day on the job before going on a months-long medical leave for cancer surgery.
Read Business Casual.
toyota gets the added benefit of more publicity from this issue.
DETROIT (Reuters) - The National Football League prodded Toyota Motor Corp to edit a television commercial, removing an image of a helmet-to-helmet tackle at a time when the effects of concussions have come under heavy scrutiny, representatives of both sides said.
Read more on Toyota.
I file this one under "creative business ideas that may or may not have a chance of success."
An engaged couple in Torrance started a business to advise men on how to propose to a woman.
Unique? Definitely.
Business potential? Unclear.
Here's how I started the column:
Had Cyrano de Bergerac lived in the age of capitalism, he could have made a fortune advising men on how to romance beautiful maidens.Given that de Bergerac is long dead - and the story of his helping Christian de Neuvillette to win Roxane's heart is likely pure fiction - this specialized niche is wide open for a couple of ambitious entrepreneurs.
Enter Michele Williamson and her fiance Marvin Velazquez.
Read Business Casual.
Considering Mattel's financial resources, I'd be surprised it the El Segundo-based toymaker would drop the case. Mattel wants to punish anyone and everyone who steals or may have stolen its ideas.
(Bloomberg) Mattel Inc., the Barbie-doll maker whose $100 million verdict against MGA Entertainment Inc. was thrown out on appeal last year, is taking its fight over the origins of its rival's Bratz dolls back before a jury.Jury selection is set to start today in Santa Ana, California, for a trial that U.S. District Judge David Carter has said may take as long as four months. Mattel claims Carter Bryant, the designer who created Bratz, was a Mattel employee when he came up with the idea and made the first sketches and that he secretly took the doll design to MGA.
Read more on Mattel and Bratz.
But will Toyota lose its disciplined culture with more Americans and fewer Japanese in charge?
(Detroit News) Toyota Motor Corp.'s big U.S. operations are staffed by more senior American executives making more key decisions, in a significant shift prompted by its record recalls last year."We're a totally different company today," said Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA in Torrance, Calif. "In the past we were more of an antenna providing information. Today, we have a seat at the decision-making table."
Read more on Toyota.
This could be great for Southern California's economy. But I wonder if making war less dangerous for us will make us more like to wage it in the future.
(LA Times) An experimental spy plane with a wingspan almost the size of a Boeing 747's took to the skies over the Mojave Desert last week in a secret test flight that may herald a new era in modern warfare with robotic planes flying higher, faster and with more firepower.
Read more on the spy plane.
Toyota, with its array of fuel-sipping vehicles, would benefit from high gas prices. So this prediction may also be Toyota's hope.
(Reuters) - Gasoline prices in the United States this year will rise to an average of about $3.50 a gallon, a top Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) executive said on Monday."What we see is national average gas prices will remain above $3 a gallon through 2011, approaching $3.50," Bob Carter, the Toyota brand chief for the United States, told Reuters at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
In states with high taxes and other costs, such as California, prices could hit $4 a gallon, the highest level since 2008, he said.
Read more on gas prices.
You knew it had to happen with such a successful vehicle model.
(Bloomberg) Toyota will unveil the Prius V, a wagon-type model larger than the current gasoline-electric car, today in Detroit at the North American International Auto Show, according to the Japanese company. Along with the wagon and a previously announced electric plug-in Prius due by 2012, Toyota will show a concept version of a possible fourth model for the Prius line.
Read more on Toyota's Prius.
Northop Grumman Corp. developed the center fuselage for the F-35 in El Segundo, and those center fuselages are now being built in Palmdale.
Northrop's El Segundo operation also makes the center and aft fuselage for the F/A-18 Super Hornet, which the Pentagon will order more of to offset the drop in F-35 orders.
(Reuters) - The Pentagon overhauled the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program for the second time in a year and said it would buy 41 Boeing Co F/A-18 warplanes over the next three years to offset slower production of the Lockheed plane.
Read more on the F-35
Have you ever dreamed of owning your own business?
This is the story of my dream. It's the topic of Business Casual.
Here's how I started the column:
A couple of months ago, I came close enough to taste one of my lifetime dreams. I have always wanted to own an ice cream store.This goal has persisted despite my current (almost) no-dessert diet that has amazingly lasted since June.
Read the rest of Business Casual.
This can only happen if Toyota fully recovers from its bad PR from the recalls.
(Bloomberg) Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest maker of gasoline-electric autos, expects the Prius hybrid and related models bearing the same name to become its top-selling U.S. vehicle line by the end of the decade."We will end the decade with Prius being the number one nameplate in the industry," Bob Carter, Toyota's group vice president for U.S. sales, said in a call with analysts yesterday. The Camry, Toyota's top-selling U.S. model, "will be a close second, and that's not because there will be a drop in Camry sales," he said, according to notes from the call confirmed by Toyota.
Read more about Toyota's Prius plans.
