Tag Archives: Compaq

Disingenuous Diversity

I originally posted this 10 years ago and am re-running it in light of the recent Google Goolag tantrums over a completely logical and factual analysis that actually supported what Goolag claimed to want.  But that wasn’t enough for the Orwellian types who can’t tolerate any discussion of their bigoted beliefs.

Corporate Diversity organizations are a joke.  Even a Leftist photographer I know had to concede how completely and ironically uniform they are (she was doing a photo shoot of them for a magazine).  Just as in HP, they were all middle-aged black females.  The exception at HP was a black middle-aged male, but he was gay, so in a sense they were still the same.  I felt sorry for them, knowing that at some point they’d realize the company had no use for them in anything that actually contributed to the success of the company.

Check out Gab if you want a site that doesn’t censor conservative viewpoints like Goolag, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. do.


diversity.jpgDiversity programs at businesses and schools tend to be disingenuous (lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity) and hopelessly mired in PC-land.  It is a shame, too, because if companies used them properly they could be fabulous recruiting and retention tools.

I believe in true diversity.  The groups I have managed have always been diverse, and my current group resembles the United Nations (except that we actually get things done).

I don’t aim at politically correct diversity.  I try to hire smart, hard-working, talented, team-oriented people.  Prima donnas need not apply.  By doing that in a color-blind way, I tend to end up with a broad representation of sexes, ages, religions, races, etc.

I am quite familiar with diversity programs and the politics behind them.  I represented the Christian employee network group at Compaq / HP and experienced some interesting things.  Corporations cave to threats of boycotts by the gay groups and do little to police them.  One “Pride” group at HP had a team building event to go to a drag queen contest.  Indeed.  It was published on the company’s intranet.

Of course, free sensitivity training was offered to anyone who might not think that a company funded employee organization based on sexual preferences was a swell idea.

We had a Christian employee network group with official “diversity group” recognition when we were still just Compaq.  The Diversity Manager complimented us regularly and considered us the model network group.

After the merger with HP, they approved all the other groups immediately but scrutinized the Christian group for a full year.  We met the criteria they had published better than any other group, so they finally approved us.  But someone complained and then our charter was revoked without discussion.  The explanation we got was tortured in its logic.  They obviously didn’t want to tell us the real reason behind it. They refused to meet with us to discuss the matter, even after I wrote Carly Fiorina.

A good friend of mine ran the Asian-Indian network group, which, as you can imagine, was primarily Hindu.  The company paid every year for them to have a Diwali celebration (the Hindu Festival of Lights, a religious event) on company property on company time.  When we asked why that group could have a religious festival when all we wanted was the ability to network and communicate, the Diversity VP acknowledged that she didn’t even realize it was a religious festival.

It all worked out fine, though.  To HP’s credit they let us use the email system for prayer requests and informal communications.  Many wonderful things were accomplished with that.  We could use conference rooms for lunch time Bible studies.  In some ways it was better to be an unofficial group than an official one, because that way we didn’t look too “corporate.”

It also gave us a great witness opportunity.  I found out later that the leaders were amazed that we didn’t protest and complain like other groups did.  We didn’t agree with their decisions, but we always responded graciously and didn’t disrupt the workplace.

The “Day of Silence” and “Diversity Week” programs at businesses and schools are a joke.  They aren’t about diversity at all.  They are aggressively promoting a particular worldview – and doing so with the power of the State in the case of the schools.  If they want to champion real diversity, how about inviting people with opposing views, such as those who view homosexual behavior as immoral yet think the homosexuals themselves should be treated with kindness and dignity and protected from abuse?  Now that would be real diversity.

I really encourage you to watch these videos and check out this site.  This is going on in public schools – elementary schools – today!

Please read these timeless and simple investing tips

Yes, that is the most boring title ever, but please read anyway.  This is important.

The Sheep and the Wolves: Smart Investing Made Simple had some great advice for all investors.  There are always risks — especially in the economy we’re suffering through now where a major crash is possible — but this advice should work well regardless.  The risk of completely sitting out of the market is that inflation drives stocks up for a time and you miss out on those gains.

The odds of you timing the market perfectly or even well are extremely low.  Most experts can’t even do it.

Even picking individual stocks is a challenge for amateurs and pros alike.  When I used to work for Compaq / HP I sometimes had access to earning per share results and projections, the holy grail of investment information (no, I never abused it — I always invested steadily and could only trade in narrow windows each quarter).  But even with that knowledge I couldn’t guess where the stock would go, because we would sometimes see the stock dip even after record earnings.  Why?  Because of some comment about future earnings or even a misstatement by our CEO or CFO.  The lesson?  Don’t try and be an expert about market timing.  Even with the ultimate inside information I still wouldn’t have been sure to win.

I also saw how a company could drive up a stock price by mortgaging the future.  They would rush out a new product to hit quarterly earnings then suffer for years because of quality issues and customer dissatisfaction.  Or if times were tough they would consume financial reserves that had been built up in conservative years.  That gave the illusion that things were still going well, but eventually the reserves ran out.  In theory the Big 4 auditors would have done something about that, but their value is highly overrated (I say that as a CPA who used to be in a Big 8 firm, back before they started merging).

I was glad to see that two of the Vanguard Funds I’ve used for years were listed (VGSTX and VTSMX).  Vanguard is easy to use and their low cost model is crucial, especially in down years.  If your broker is churning your investments and charging you upwards of 2% over the course of a year, then in a year of 5% returns he has taken 40% of your gains, leaving you with nothing after inflation.  Buying a mix of mutual funds and holding them is the key.

The other key, of course, is to start early.  There are lots of ways to convey the benefits of compound interest, but no matter how much you make I urge you to start young.  If you save 10% per year for your career you will be fine in retirement.

Here’s a sample of the link.  I encourage you to read it all.

Stock-market investors are like these sheep farmers. Collectively, they enjoy investment returns of roughly 10 percent per year. Individually, however, things are different. Most investors suffer severe losses from the wolves of Wall Street. Wolves, by the way, who don sheep’s clothing to convince investors to trust them. (These investors also have a tendency to make things worse by selling their flocks when sheep prices fall and expanding them when prices rise.) If you want to be a successful farmer, you have to understand how farming works, and how to protect yourself from the wolves. Fortunately, it’s not as tough as it seems.

The financial industry wants you to believe that investing is difficult. If you buy into their message, if you accept the premise that you need help to invest wisely, they can charge you big bucks to handle your money. The truth is somewhat different. Investing is simple. In fact, it can be one of the easiest things you do while managing your finances. How simple? Let’s boil it down to just a few sentences.

Here’s how to invest wisely:

Set aside as much as you can in investment accounts. Prefer tax-advantaged accounts (like a 401(k) or Roth IRA) before taxable accounts.

Invest all of your money in a low-cost stock index fund, such as Vanguard’s VTSMX or Fidelity’s FSTMX.P

If the stock market makes you nervous, allocate some portion of your money to a bond fund. Or invest instead in a low-cost combo fund like Vanguard’s VGSTX or Fidelity’s FFNOX.

Continue investing as much money as possible. Never touch it. (Nothing makes a bigger difference to the size of your flock investments than how much you contribute.)

Ignore the news and ignore your fund.

That’s it. Seriously. That’s all you have to do to earn returns better than 90 percent of other investors.

There are scores of books and published research papers that support this strategy. It’s also the strategy that Warren Buffett (and other top pros) recommend for 99 percent of investors. If you’d like, you can spend days or weeks or months reading about why this works. Or you can trust these folks and do it.

Better news coverage through blogging

One of things I love about blogs and my Google blog reader page is that it is like getting a custom newspaper where you can actually trust the columnists.  With normal media the bias is astounding, not just in slanting what they report but in what they don’t report at all.  They did their best to mock Christine O’Donnell over her accurate statements about what the 1st Amendment actually says, but they completely ignored the countless people on the Left who were so eager to criticize Sarah Palin that they didn’t realize that here 1773 reference was tied to the date of the Boston Tea Party instead of the Declaration of Independence.

But it isn’t just that the mainstream media is wildly and notoriously biased, but that they are so error-filled as well.

When I was the controller of the Portable Division at Compaq there was an article in the Houston Chronicle about one of our new products.  There were so many errors – none significant, but it just showed how sloppy the journalism was.  An article about a ballet performance of the girls was equally error filled.  There have been many examples of this.

And with the Liberal media being 90+% wildly pro-abortion and 18-1 negative on Sarah Palin, for example, how could you hope to make informed decisions on controversial topic if you only consumed their views?

Sloppiness + rampant bias = massive train wreck.

Yet with blogging you can get perspectives and news from across the spectrum.  You can figure out over time who is reliable and who corrects any errors they make.  It results in you being much, much better informed and confident in what you are reading.

But you already knew that, right?  You’re a blog reader!

Christians. The original diversity group.

Christians.  The original diversity group.

 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

Galatians 3:28

When we had a Christian employee network group at Compaq that was one of our tag lines (that was before HP came along and decided our organization was too controversial). Not sure what reminded me of that, but I still like the sentiment.

Christianity is the ultimate in diversity. Any age, race, gender, etc. can repent and believe and be saved. It doesn’t matter who your parents were. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter who you know (uh, except Jesus). It doesn’t matter how much money you have.  It doesn’t matter how smart you are.  It doesn’t matter what social rung or caste you are in. 

Just repent and believe.

Disingenuous Diversity

diversity.jpgDiversity programs at businesses and schools tend to be disingenuous (lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity) and hopelessly mired in PC-land.  It is a shame, too, because if companies used them properly they could be fabulous recruiting and retention tools.

I believe in true diversity.  The groups I have managed have always been diverse, and my current group resembles the United Nations (except that we actually get things done). 

I don’t aim at politically correct diversity.  I try to hire smart, hard-working, talented, team-oriented people.  Prima donnas need not apply.  By doing that in a color-blind way, I tend to end up with a broad representation of sexes, ages, religions, races, etc. 

I am quite familiar with diversity programs and the politics behind them.  I represented the Christian employee network group at Compaq / HP and experienced some interesting things.  Corporations cave to threats of boycotts by the gay groups and do little to police them.  One “Pride” group at HP had a team building event to go to a drag queen contest.  Indeed.  It was published on the company’s intranet.

Of course, free sensitivity training was offered to anyone who might not think that a company funded employee organization based on sexual preferences was a swell idea.

We had a Christian employee network group with official “diversity group” recognition when we were still just Compaq.  The Diversity Manager complimented us regularly and considered us the model network group.

After the merger with HP, they approved all the other groups immediately but scrutinized the Christian group for a full year.  We met the criteria they had published better than any other group, so they finally approved us.  But someone complained and then our charter was revoked without discussion.  The explanation we got was tortured in its logic.  They obviously didn’t want to tell us the real reason behind it. They refused to meet with us to discuss the matter, even after I wrote Carly Fiorina. 

A good friend of mine ran the Asian-Indian network group, which, as you can imagine, was primarily Hindu.  The company paid every year for them to have a Diwali celebration (the Hindu Festival of Lights, a religious event) on company property on company time.  When we asked why that group could have a religious festival when all we wanted was the ability to network and communicate, the Diversity VP acknowledged that she didn’t even realize it was a religious festival. 

It all worked out fine, though.  To HP’s credit they let us use the email system for prayer requests and informal communications.  Many wonderful things were accomplished with that.  We could use conference rooms for lunch time Bible studies.  In some ways it was better to be an unofficial group than an official one, because that way we didn’t look too “corporate.” 

It also gave us a great witness opportunity.  I found out later that the leaders were amazed that we didn’t protest and complain like other groups did.  We didn’t agree with their decisions, but we always responded graciously and didn’t disrupt the workplace. 

The “Day of Silence” and “Diversity Week” programs at businesses and schools are a joke.  They aren’t about diversity at all.  They are aggressively promoting a particular worldview – and doing so with the power of the State in the case of the schools.  If they want to champion real diversity, how about inviting people with opposing views, such as those who view homosexual behavior as immoral yet think the homosexuals themselves should be treated with kindness and dignity and protected from abuse?  Now that would be real diversity.

I really encourage you to watch these videos and check out this site.  This is going on in public schools – elementary schools – today!