Business Connection; 0205

Business connection is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Business connection starts now. Hello I'm Jeff Salk and welcome to business connection later on tonight's program a look at some of the new technologies that could make their way into your workplace this year. And Ravens coach Brian Billick talks about management lessons learned on the football field. But we begin tonight with the business of sports novelty items with playoff fever running high or Ravens related merchandise is selling fast. Joining us from Baltimore sports and novelty is owner Jeffrey Katzenberg. Jeffrey thanks for being with us. Nice being here. What's what's selling back there. Everything anything Ravens are selling today. What kind of prices give me give me some

options here and anywhere from $5 up to a jersey for 64 95 and a leather jacket for 1995 everything's selling. So how does business compare to you know a normal Thursday. It's about four or five times more. WHAT WHERE DID YOU GET THIS STUFF. Well the outer stuff police and the bestselling is the graphic stores around here the graphic suppliers who have the United shirts of festivus shirts and all those novelty shirts for this week so the Ravens make money on on some of this right. Yes the Ravens make money on the NFL license property. The other ones are done through like a deli as Thomas and the other guy who helps some out and this green printers come up with stuff and everybody likes United shirts and that goes to the United Foundation. But there was somebody on a street corner I saw selling a beat Indy T-shirt and

there's no no reason you can't just make up your own beat Indy T-shirt. Well the thing about the beat in the it's sort of Johnny notices and you know it is 19 is on the back and some of the money goes toward the United Foundation. I didn't realize that so when all of this is over hopefully after the Super Bowl what's next to me where do you see future opportunities for your business future opportunities or if the Orioles business will pick up if they were good or will it just wait till like Eli and when training camp opens up for the Orioles game might be a little bit of a fight for his cause he made the Hall of Fame and we'll see what the interest is in that. What's the timeframe on. If the Ravens are able to take the AFC championship. Let's hope so. When would you be able to get some of that stuff way and how's that all work. Some of it's printed or the printed the night of the game like if they win or they know what the score is.

They'll have it the next day or those ship it to you like next day care will have it on Tuesday but the AFC and the Super Bowl champion stuff is printed actually locally so we can go pick it up and we'll have it like maybe the night when the games are over. Are you surprised at all by the fervor of the fans I mean I've just driving around. You know Martin's west on the on the Beltway they've got these big purple lights it looks great you see in cars with Ravens flags all over the place and it is just a playoff game right. It's a playoff game it's a Ravens first playoff game but they had such a good record and they're so excited about the city so excited about how good they are that everybody's happy and looking good and it's great for the community. All right Jeffrey before we go let's let's tell people exactly where you're located first located in the St. Thomas shopping center now and smell three miles north of the bow. And is there anything you're out of stock on. You know kids watch and stuff like that are disappearing fast. We

got the flags we try to replace the United shirts and you know the car flags when fast but we're getting more of those and some are All right Jeffrey thanks for talking to us and we hope this continues for a while OK. Thanks Jeff Nice being with you. Likewise. Now before the last football season we had a chance to talk with Ravens head coach Brian Billick who has turned his success on the football field into a side career as an author and speaker on the topic of competitive leadership. What I do is very high profile and I think that's why people covet having someone like myself come in and talk to the organization. I learned a long time ago I can't come in and begin to think that I could tell them about their business I don't have that expertise I don't have that experience. What I found is that much of what I do. Let them connect the dots. I'll talk about what I have to deal with in terms of the constantly changing profile of my team because of the cap because of the changeover in the transitory nature of my industry right now. The volatility in

the environment that I live just like in corporate America I mean I'm starting my seventh year and I'm fourth among Jedi. There's been 47 coaching changes head coaching changes in the short years I've been the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens So it's a very volatile environment. Obviously corporate America lives in that same volatility what it's like to deal with a varying degree of talent in your organization. I have just like in business you have the high selling superstar and the role player the person that you need to be successful but maybe isn't as high profile. And how do you mix that together how do you bring that two together when you have all those very experiences and demands obviously in my industry it's all about how do you allocate your resources. The cap you know I have 89 million dollars to put pay in my 53 players you would think that would be enough. But but the market says that some players are worth X amount of dollars and other players aren't and so to begin with that and yet still build that team chemistry that team environment is a challenge.

May I ask about your writing you come back to some themes about passion and accountability. We understand the sports importance of passion what's the business importance of that. Oh you're going to be challenged at every turn. And I have. Difficulty after difficulty test after test individually and as an organization. If you don't have passion for what you do. It's going to wear you out and your energy level is going to wane. Your desire to do the job every year are fans. Of this organization have expectations and if you don't take on each year with a huge amount of passion if you ever start to sit back and go oh you know we're doing OK or I've been down this road before or you give into the wear and tear that an industry like this can have on you and you don't start with that passion every day. You're not going to last. And on the subject of accountability. That's probably the most important thing in a team structure I think is the accountability. What is your accountability you have to identify almost on

a daily basis. People I find generally want to do the right thing. And but many times they need to know what the mission statement is. They need to understand what their obligation is you need to understand that if the mission statement says one thing that maybe their job is inhabited by that problem I call the Prime Directive and you have to recognize that as the head of that organization. So it's a daily thing where you have to make sure that your workforce understands their accountability to you your accountability to them. In our situation our accountability each other what our countability is to our fans to the city of Baltimore and it's a very high accountability sort of a communication a little bit I was surprised to read that before you gave this commencement address at the University of Maryland Baltimore that you got a tape of Tim Russert giving the commencement address last year. That's a tough act to follow. This is a town I had Mayor Giuliani in the morning at the University of Iowa I didn't know they were going to stack me anyway. But here's the question you give a lot of speeches you're on TV all the time you're addressing groups of people all the time.

Why go to the extra step of researching and watching somebody else's speech what did you learn from I love I love listening to and watching other people present themselves. I mean any time. You are have any substance about you and you have to stand in front of a group. And articulate what you're about. Or on a particular subject. You just can't stand up and wing it there has to be some forethought into it. I was very interested and I'm a big fan of Tim Russert I enjoy his work. I was interested in obviously could you could have sat up there for an hour or hours and talked on a multiple of subjects. I was interested in how he was going to take any number of things he could have talked about and condense it down into a 12 or 13 minute segment I was interested now he was going to do it. One of the things you have to do in football is is manage people who are despite how pricey The coaching field has gotten. People who are making even more money ridiculous amounts of money and may not be motivated in the same way that people in an office environment are the extra

few dollars of a bonus payment might not be that great a motivating factor but the idea that there's a high paid performer in an organization making more than the boss is probably a common theme. Is that an issue for some of these executives that you talk with. It can be to a certain degree because obviously it's about leverage. It's about that accountability. If you have someone that represents a certain dollar figure to that organization and as inflated as it may be particularly in our industry dealing with that person their level of importance and their accountability is a vital part of putting an organization together but. You know there's been it's been well documented study after study that says monetary return very rarely is a prime motivator for people and you can't discount it. The end of the day it's going to be about the money. But popular saying I've always lived by and learned a long time ago is there's a time for pay and there's a time for play. We're in the offseason right now so it tends to be very focused about the time for pay.

We're involved on a daily basis with lawyers agents putting together the contracts of what this team now and going forward will be. But at some point when we step on that that field for the first time in training camp it's my job from that point going forward to get these players to understand. All right now it's time for play. Whether you like your contract don't like your contract with you think it's fair or not fair however we got there this is how we're going forward. And now it's time to suspend all that vested self interest about what you make and what and about you in general and bring it together in a team environment and you do that by basically trying to get them to understand that whatever it is they want. It is apt to be better served by the good of the whole rather than than the individual. You've also had some experience probably more experience than you would like in dealing with individuals employees with personal difficulties of various times various kinds. You've made a very high profile show of support for a number of individuals I'm curious about that and anything else you've learned about

helping people who are working for you when they have difficulties. No you have that obligation we deal with a very young group of individuals that are not very high profile industry make a great deal of money that automatically puts them in a very predatory environment. So you've got to school these young people to a certain degree to understand the environment that they're now in. And many of them will come from circumstances that they don't have a lot to draw on by way of mentoring or people they grew up with that can explain to them more thoroughly understand the environment that they're in now and so we try to help them all that we can when we support people like a Ray Lewis a Cory for we don't do on a whim. We don't just say we're going to support this guy regardless. We do a great deal of soul searching. We look at ourselves and the individual is this person worth supporting because you just can't arbitrarily do that simply because maybe they have a value to the organization. It is about them as a person. And those people in particular are a lot

now currently. These are good people of high character. Yeah they've maybe made some mistakes along the way but these are good people that we feel like we have an obligation to get them through whatever difficulties they have because they are good people and they're worthy of that support. In addition to helping out people who are having some difficulties you have an opportunity to work with a lot of young people and curious if there's any advice you find yourself giving over and over or maybe something that that echoes advice that you got at one point in your career. You know there's a lot of things that you want to impart on young people I remember people trying to counsel me that way and now you know the tables are turned and you begin to sound like your father or your grandfather. But the number one thing I rule that I give to my players it's real simple. Don't do anything detrimental to yourself. Now that seems awful simplistic but when you think about it in the way you conduct yourself on a daily basis if you will keep in mind that you don't want to put yourself in a situation where you leave yourself at risk. And if you have to think for a second

is this right or wrong it's probably wrong. And you need to rely on those instincts. Lastly let me ask you. With everything that you've written and accomplished in business I'm wondering and you also talked about the turnover in coaching I wonder if there are any career opportunities any challenges that you see out there that some day. I don't know how far in the future you would like to take a stab at. I just turned 51. And and so for a long time I was like any young whippersnapper that I was going to this forever. But now I'm 51 I recognize that there is apt to be a life for me after football. They may say you can only do this job for so long because the pressures I enjoy what I doing I love the people I work with I work in a great environment. When I get to the point where we talk about passion and accountability that the wear and tear on this job puts me in a position where I don't have that passion for it. I'm not ready to step up that accountability. There will be time for me to move on something else. I

enjoy interacting in the corporate environment. I enjoy my writing. It was I don't want to stay here just because I don't see any other challenge for me someplace else that wouldn't be fair to this organization. But if something were to captivate me in that way and I found that my passion for what I do here begins to wane as it does just like all the players and that some point you can't do this job anymore as a player the physical skills have diminished to the point where you just can't do it. If I find I get to that point hopefully I'll be able to find a challenge in one of these areas that will preoccupy my time. Doesn't look like that's any time soon. I hope now they keep trying. I get asked that question I keep thinking people are trying to push me out as just a little prematurely hopefully I'll be 0 for a long time. Coach thank you for making time for straight here and coming up on business connection the expanding business of barcoding plus two community colleges duking it out over tuition. You're watching business connections. And the first. Thing.

In the morning. To the violent and extreme. Join us for this special interests. Looking back at the most. Wildlife scenes ever recorded. Join. With. Me. Sunday night at 7:00 on MPE. For complete coverage turns a Maryland Public Television public squares team coverage will take you from the swearing in ceremony to Martin O'Malley's first speech as governor all the way through to the gala celebrations. Starting at a special time Wednesday at 11:55 a.m.. Antiques Roadshow is coming to Baltimore. And we're looking for a few large pieces of furniture if yours is selected it will transported to and from the show. If you live within 50 miles of Baltimore send photo an item history to Antiques Roadshow. One twenty five Western Avenue Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 3 4.

Board to submit online. Visit our website at PBS dot org slash antiques. Greetings from the PBS science labs. For viewers like you are helping us select the next great PBS science series. I hope you enjoyed our first two programs wired science and science investigators. If you missed either one watch them any time at PBS dot org. Our final show. Twenty second century. Look for it Wednesday night so tune in. Log on to help PBS select the next great science series. Thank you. In tonight's business headlines a fight over tuition between competing community colleges and what business leaders expect from the Maryland legislative session. Heather Harlan from the Baltimore and Washington Business Journal has those stories and more. Thank you Jeff. If federal prosecutors have their way the former CEO of Maryland's injured workers insurance fund might never see his $400000 plus

severance package. Thomas Braun will faces trial on federal charges of fraud and racketeering in March. The organization known as i with said last month that Broadwell would step down from his position as chief executive at the same time he was promised the severance package equivalent to two years of his salary. But court documents show Federal prosecutors are trying to seize that money. Bramwell is also the former head of Maryland's Senate Finance Committee. And at the 2007 Maryland legislature got underway this week. Many leaders question just what would be accomplished in this year's session with Governor elect Martin O'Malley and forty five new lawmakers learning their way around the state house. It is unlikely that many new initiatives will gain traction. This session experts say will be about relationship building. Even still some lawmakers believe they will get some health care reform passed in an effort to help the 750000 Marylanders without medical insurance and other business news it may not be as intense as college football rivalry but two community colleges are duking it out over whether one should

be able to offer discounted tuition to out-of County students. Howard County Community College wants to make its degree programs an entrepreneurship open to all students in Maryland for the same tuition paid by in County students but an around Community College says not so fast. That Fall 2006 tuition rates an entire sixty two credit associate's degree program will cost about sixty eight hundred dollars for income to students compared to 12000 for others. Finally American city business journals the parent of the Baltimore and Washington Business Journal's lost a true friend and colleague this week John Macallan editor of the Washington Business Journal passed away. He was 38 McCalla joint American city as a reporter for its Philadelphia paper in 1998. He was named managing editor of the Washington Business Journal in 2001 and elevated to the top editorial spot this past September. He was considered one of the company's brightest young editorial stars. He will be missed for business connection I'm Heather Harlan with the Baltimore and Washington Business Journals.

Back to you Jeff. Heather thank you Will 2007 be the year new technology finds its way into your workplace. Joining us now in the studio is Jay Steinmetz president of barcoding Inc. It's good to see you. It's good to see you too. We have some show and tell that we can get to but I want to ask first just a business climate question as we start a new year to the people you're talking to your clients seem like they're in the mood to spend money. You know I think there is some trepidation in the market you know. I'm seeing some coast companies feel that things are you know softer and doing major capital investments can be a dangerous thing. When you feel that way so we kind of we've seen it both directions and there are some companies that feel that in order to stay effective I mean the return on investment is so great that they need to do this quickly so they can get the kind of r to keep competitive. And yours is a business where you're you're so we'll talk about the specific technology you're really selling efficiency. That's an upfront cost but a payback.

And it's not immediate. And sometimes the efficiencies are immediate. You know there is a paradigm change I mean we've got new technology that a limit needs. You know if you go to like a target you know you'll see they get the inventory scanners and sometimes they even have a walkie talkie. Well why have two separate devices. You know we've come out with software that embeds the walkie talkie in the wireless LAN technology so it's supported to work great on your hands. Got one yeah. Let's take a look at this device right here you know it's a barcode scanner so I can scan the barcode but I can also use it to push to talk so I can talk to people within the environment of the wireless network that exists and. That immediately means less batteries. So you don't have to have a second set of batteries. That means not a second set of chargers not a second set of capital equipment to maintain to lose especially walkie talkies because it can be a consumer device also. You were exhibiting it in a big retail show coming up. This is one of the items you will be showing your push to talk solution and that's what we call it in the National Retail Federation show

which is at the Javits Center on Monday and Tuesday. In New York let's let's talk about the the big items you're going to when we talk about barcoding ink everybody knows what a bar code is but we don't know the purpose the purpose of that barcode is to identify a piece of inventory right and to know where it is. So license plate OK. And what we have here is one step further it's it's an RFID system. In this particular case it is the first ever in this particular model is the first ever what's called Gentoo compliant item level RFID system that's kind of a lot of words are if ID is like a radio tag it's radio frequency identification. Each of these books DVDs Zip disks has a tag a small. Tag rate there where you have the RFID tags in there. And we use what's called Near Field proximity where if I took out a book like networking for Dummies you know a lot of times

in a retail environment somebody wants to take a book they want to read it. And then they put it on the wrong shelf. Well if I wanted to get networking for Dummies which is probably appropriate. And if it's not there because somebody put it somewhere else you know I can't buy it from the store. So the idea here is that this system will track you know which items are here which ones are not. I can promise you that just came up red on the on the screen came up red because the item was missing and on shelf one which this is shelf once you know they'll put it on a shelf to the system is a multiplex system in the way it works is it's made up of multiple sets of antennas and one or the reader I can set up this one or if I the reader to set up to hit 64 sets of bookshelves each bookshelf like this is actually intended this is this bookshelf is made up of multiple intents and that one of the reader is reading here and it's reading here but it's really here and it's really here and so it kind of goes along so now I can take it and I can put it back.

And you know as he gets to it it will find it is OK you put it back in its right place if it's not there. Over a period of time it will then send a message you know to the inventory clerk you know this is disappeared. If you're a POS or point of sale doesn't show that it's been sold then maybe it's somewhere else. Maybe it's on another shelf maybe it's stolen. We talked once before about the really neat idea from a consumer standpoint that some day you can go through the store put some items in a cart and go straight out the door without stopping to get scanned anywhere but that was impractical for some reason. Right. Well I mean with this type of solution see the best part about this is these tags are what are called you know they're made to read up to 30 feet in distance. So they've never been able to successfully use an item level because how are you supposed to read a 30 foot tag Otherwise I'll be reading the books over there from over there and well we've designed this isn't the only reason it's called near field only have to be six inches away. That being the case you should have better accessibility to

put them all in a car and to walk them through and to be able to read them all. So what's the cost if there's a business owner watching us tonight who thinks we're losing a lot of stuff and we know customers can't find it or we can't find things in the warehouse. What's the investment. Well thanks to the compliance of Wal-Mart and the deity in the tag prices have dropped they're going to be 10 cents. Right now they're not I mean you know you 25 cents 18 cents I mean different there's a little it's like a paper thin electronic chip in it and it has an antenna in its battery or no that's the big difference between a passive and active RFID this is a passive earth ID system it has no power. It uses the power of the shelf to power the chip that's on the ball so it works a little bit like if anybody has a smart tag for you what do we what we call those right through you know he has for driving through a toll booth. Sure I don't think there's a battery in that either. Well I tore mine open and yes it does there is I don't have I guess it lasts a long time. It doesn't last for many years because of how often you use it.

Are you surprised at all by is this one of those technologies where the end uses of it the application surprised the developers that we come out with this and and you know it'll be a cool bookshelf but then if it gets on the market you find that there's you know Homeland Security Apple sure or something like that 100 percent I mean we're finding that people are wanting to use this to check in and check out you know very high dollar items. You know you want to know the moment somebody takes a whole bunch of. Expensive jewelry out of the jewelry. You just want to know when you can time it to the cameras so you know we know exactly when they pulled it off the shelf so maybe we need to look at the video camera time video for when you pulled it off. Where does this leave your core business of bar coding or bar codes obsolete or do they make sense in certain situations. Oh good let's hope not. I have to change the name of a company. Bar coding is definitely here and the reason why is because it is still less expensive I mean the RFID is an engineered solution.

It's a fantastic solution if you can afford it because it doesn't require you to be involved in doing inventory the shelf will tell you what it has on the shelf. The art of the bar coding requires an individual to scam each book and so I have to leave it there. Thanks for being with us. Dot com is the Web. Thanks again and thank you for watching. This is connection We're back tomorrow with state circle with the latest from Annapolis. Now for all the talk and thanks for watching and have a good day. The University of Maryland business your.

Business and all of our diverse community by the support of our members. Thank you.