A couple of weekends ago the NFL’s New England Patriots held a jersey swap, where owners of the team’s number 81 jersey for tight end Aaron Hernandez could swap the jersey at the team’s pro shop for a similarly styled jersey for another player. This event was held in reaction to the arrest of Hernandez for the murder of Odin Lloyd, a friend of Hernandez and a semi-pro football player in the Boston area. I won’t recap the entire story here, which has transcended typical sports news channels, but if you are unfamiliar with it you can start reading about it here at USA Today. The graphic below was taken from the Patriots Web site.

This unprecedented event garnered many headlines in itself, including this one from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which questioned and challenged the swap event. Where wonder over such an offer to fans is not unsurprising, this story by Kyle Stock missed the main points for why the team may have made such a move, and to a reader who was unfamiliar with the team, story or the league itself, it would give them an incomplete story. After reading it I was compelled to write this post.

Let Me Be Completely Transparent

Allow me to provide my background and interest in writing this, which I believe provides greater context to this story. First and foremost, I am a Patriots fan, and as someone who grew up in Massachusetts I have followed the team since I was a kid. I am also a 19-year season ticket holder of the team, which goes beyond the current ownership of the team by Robert Kraft. My fandom also extends online to the Web site GoPats.com that myself and a friend have run since the mid 1990’s (though it has lagged the last several years, but I digress). All of this said, I have no special insight or relationship to the team. I have met Kraft before, but I don’t even have a picture to capture that moment.

Beyond my interest in the success of the team, I am looking at this jersey swap story from the standpoint of a business owner, and someone who has followed not only the team on the field but the off-field activities of the team, from their then record-setting sale price 20 years ago to the new stadium and retail and entertainment complex that surrounds it south of Boston, and all that went into taking this losing team to 3 Super Bowl championships in a decade.

I have tapped into both of these points of view in the writing of this post.

A Little Pre-Reading

Before you read on I encourage you to read the article from Bloomberg BusinessWeek and this is a link to a PDF capture of the story in the event the article link does not work. I also encourage you to read this article from the Patriots own Web site about the sale – this is a link to the page and this is a link to a PDF capture of it. As well, this is the terms of the jersey swapped, with both a link to the Patriots site and a copy of it here at The Hot Iron.

Let’s begin!

(Re)building A (Patriot) Nation

In the third paragraph of the story a comment is made to the jersey swap having “been lauded by much of Patriot Nation as ‘classy.’” The quote of classy came from a comment posted on the Patriots article page by a reader, but the more important mention is of “Patriot Nation.” Where this may have been written by the author as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Patriots fans, it certainly should not be dismissed as it encompasses all of the reasons for why this jersey swap happened.

Prior to Kraft’s purchase of the team, even despite an appearance in Super Bowl XX, the Pats would rarely sell-out a game and were a regarded lower than the other Boston sports teams. People wouldn’t openly brag about being a fan, let alone a season ticket holder. The efforts made by Kraft and his team both on and off the field were the rebirth of the team, making them the competitor they are today and elevating the team’s value to second among all NFL teams at over $1.5 billion dollars according to Forbes magazine. Fans of the team are proud to call themselves a member of Patriot Nation, whether they are from the US or internationally.

The terms of the jersey swap stated the swap must be in person at the Patriots Pro Shop adjacent to the stadium in the complex called Patriots Place in Foxboro, MA. This move by the team was brilliant, as the pro shop is a gleaming, several thousand foot complex that sells everything from jerseys and hats to furniture with the Pats “flying Elvis” logo. Though I did not see any numbers on additional sales, it would not surprise of any numbers of how many people bought additional merchandise – at full price – when they swapped their Hernandez jersey. The article reference the sales of Tim Tebow jerseys, for the quarterback which recently signed with the team, but this was a pure outsider’s assumption as the top selling jerseys were for veteran players Vince Wilfork and Tom Brady, according the Boston Globe.

The timing of the jersey swap also couldn’t have been any better, as it followed the announcement of the new typeface to accompany the team’s logo. What a better way to move “old” merchandise, especially in the off-season in preparation for the new styles – and typeface – to stock the pro shop.

By The Numbers

The article then gets into justification for why this could be a bad move, first talking about how many players have been arrested – “almost 30” – and the average length of the career of an NFL player – 3.2 years. To begin with, you will never fins a jersey or t-shirt with the name and number of every player. Only the top starts of the team are ever prepared and sold. As of this writing, on the Patriots Pro Shop’s Web site you can get prepared jerseys for 20 players, of which a few are for players who are no longer on the team. Sure you can get a custom-made jersey for any player or number (or your own name) but you will pay a premium for one. If someone is going to the extent to custom order a jersey for a particular player, they really want that player’s jersey and most likely wouldn’t be looking to return it.

Arrests are not the only reason a player’s jersey would be taken off the shelf. Retirement, injuries, free-agency signings and trades come to mind. These actions don’t typically call for a recall of jersey, and in many cases if someone doesn’t want to wear a player’s jersey, they would just leave it in the back of their closet and buy a new one. Another option I have personally seen in the past is putting duct tape over the name over the player’s name.

When considering costs associated with the jersey swap, there is no mention made in the article of actual cost. Does a jersey that retails for US$100.00 cost that much? Half that? A quarter of that? Of course the cost is nowhere near the retail cost. I do not have specific number on the average actual cost of a jersey, but recalling the experience of my Aunt (full disclosure – also a Patriots fan!) who worked in the headquarters of a retail department store for many years, she said there is plenty of markup on all clothing, which allows for plenty of markdowns as well as profit.

Following the jersey swap, the Patriots reported that it cost them US$250,000.00. The report doesn’t include any actual costs, if they were included or not, nor what they will do with the jerseys they collected. I sincerely doubt the team will sell the jerseys on eBay, as the article insinuated, as Kraft did not make his billions by such petty means, plus such an action would completely negate the “classy” goodwill the team garnered from the swap. If you simply take the $250,000 and factor it into the “more than US$3Billion” NFL merchandise market, and it is not a “pricey” percentage. By factoring where that cost of $250,000 will be charged in the team’s accounting – in marketing, merchandise or somewhere else – and the actual loss is not as large as it may appear.

Decisions, Decisions

This is not the first time the Patriots have taken action due to a player’s reputation. In 1996, the Patriots drafted and then released Christian Peter after rape allegations were found out after he was drafted by the team. A controversial move, as well, but one which the ownership felt it had to do.

Over the years I have heard sports team owners say you don’t buy a team to make money. Granted most team owners have other income sources so we should not pity them, but it takes a large investment, time, and granted some luck for a team to payoff. This eventually happened for the Patriots.

At the end of the day, any decision made by a business comes at a cost and some with a benefit as well. In the short term, these costs can have a negative impact, but as long as the overall, longer-term impact is positive, then the business will not only survive but thrive. If it doesn’t, then someone else can take over the business and continue it. This is exactly what happened with the Patriots.

I welcome your thoughts on any of this – the original article in Bloomberg Businessweek, my analysis, the Hernandez case – please leave them in the comments to this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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In this hyper-connected, telecommuting, Internet-enabled, outsourced, offshored, cloud, remote-working world, it is not uncommon to never meet people you work with. In some companies it has become almost the norm, and it is only rare exceptions where people see even a live video stream of someone, let alone meet them in the real world. For many people, this is ok.

As you may have guessed from the intonation of the previous paragraph, I am not one of those people. If anything, I make the extra effort to go out of my way to meet people whenever possible. It’s something I learned early on in my career, and it has worked not only to my advantage, but projects I have worked on over the years as well.

To Utah Or Bust

Back in the late 90’s I was consulting on what I would call the most unique, fun, learning and dynamic project of my career. Put it like this – I had over an hour’s drive each way to work and it never even phased me! Where I could write many posts on that project in itself, the project was my first end-to-end Web and service project, and eventually I was the manager of the entire technical environment.

But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and in this case, the client was closing their business unit I was working at and my project was sold to another company. That company had its own development and technical resources, and my job was to transition everything from knowledge to software to hardware to the new company. To add to the logistics, the new company was outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, where I and the project was south of Boston, over 2,000 miles away.

After the client manager informed me of the changes in the project he paused and asked me what was the first thing I needed to do for the move.

I said, “I need to book a flight to Utah.”

When the client manager pressed me for details, my response was straightforward and convincing. We needed to first ship the software and data to the new company, all over the Internet, and set it up on temporary servers. Then once done we’d literally pack and ship the servers to them, then move the data back onto the old servers. Not only had none of us – the current client, new company, or me – done something like this before, but it was 1997 and not many had done something like this period.

Therefore meeting the staff at the new company that would be on the receiving end of this was crucial. It was my job to ensure that the move went smoothly and we were up and running right away. I had to know what – and who – was on the other end and that they shared my commitment to the project, were capable of working on it, and if there were issues, they shared my dedication to resolving them.

Meeting and Believing

So I booked a flight from Boston to Salt Lake City and spent a week south of the city with the team. Following our initial meet and greet, we got down to business, including touring their facilities, reviewing the project plan and made some changes based on their feedback, and discussed the transition and longer term for the project, namely as I would not be a part of it any longer. We also had lunch together and a couple of dinners and got to know each other better, along with sharing stories of past tech projects. As my flight took off for my return trip to Boston, I felt very good and confident the project would be extremely successful.

When I returned to the client the following week, the client manager asked me how it went. I first showed him a list of everybody’s name, email address, and work, home, mobile and pager numbers. Needless to say he was pleased as I went into further details on the trip and overall plan.

In the end, the transition went off smoothly. We had a few issues, such as the data transfer taking longer than anticipated, but in the end everything was up and running over the course of a weekend. The following week there was an issue with one of the temporary servers on the other end, but I worked with their team and reported back the status to the client’s client to ensure everything was under control, and soon after I reported the good news we were back up and running.

Following the transition of the server environment came the transfer of the software development, and my role on the project came to an end. Where it was bittersweet for me, I was more concerned for the people who worked for the client who were losing their jobs. Another project for me was followed by a job change and onto even more adventures.

To this day I strive to meet the people I work with in person. What worked well in 1997 seems even more important sixteen years later.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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As someone who has worked with computers for more than three-quarters of my life, I can say without boasting that I have a decent proficiency with them. Where I don’t know everything about every piece of hardware or software out there, I can usually get my way around with some analysis and troubleshooting.

The longstanding line, “computers are supposed to make our loves easier” seems more like a fleeting goal for many people. Due to my technical experience, I am often held in a higher regard by those who are more tech novices, namely when something they may not understand or are having trouble with comes more naturally to me.

Don’t get me wrong – ego stroking every once in a while is a good thing! But in all reality it mostly isn’t warranted. Whenever I get a large abundance of praise or witness someone denigrate themselves over their lack of technical knowledge, I usually look at them and smile, then I explain to them the reason why I am smiling.

Why? We all have our place.

My skill and ability with computers overshadow things I can’t and mostly don’t want to do. I can’t iron a shirt without making it look worse than what I started with, I can’t lay tile, I can’t bake, I can’t ice skate, I can’t use a SLR or DSLR camera… and the list goes on. But do I care about these things I can’t do? No. Why? Because others can do them, do them well and I look to them for those tasks and services.

Untwisting Abilities

Years ago I was at a friend’s business, an auto body shop. When I was there, he couldn’t figure out how to do something on his computer and asked for my help. I don’t recall exactly what the task was but I do recall figuring it out rather quickly. When I showed him what I did, he was flabbergasted and expressed how stupid he felt that he couldn’t have figured it out for himself.

Then it was my turn. I smiled and said something like, “dude, we all have our place. I know computers, and you know cars. You can take a twisted hunk of metal and turn it back into a Mercedes. So when you have a computer question you call me, and when I get into a car accident I call you.” He’s a smart guy and he agreed with my logic.

Place Holding

So the next time you feel frustrated over something you don’t know, think about what you do know and what your place is in helping others. Plus I have to admit – I get baffled with a lot of technology issues I run into and completely sympathize with you that many things are not more intuitive.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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The April 18 – 24, 2013 edition of Time Out Chicago, which unceremoniously arrived in my mailbox this past week, is apparently the last print issue of the weekly arts, food and entertainment magazine. As of this writing I haven’t heard it officially, only from other sources, including some of the majority of the staff who were just fired.

For as much as I talk of how I get most all of my news and information online, Time Out Chicago was the sole exception. It was part events calendar, part coffee table book and not to mention part great bathroom reading material. Even if I wasn’t participating in the literally hundreds to thousands of events, shows or restaurants listed, it was a convenient, well-edited and attractive print publication.

And now it’s gone.

Once partially owned by Chicago resident and Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto, it was sold back to its parent company (which published editions in other cities) and it is apparently going solely online. They already have a Web site, though I have infrequently visited it. They also have an iPod app which apparently I could have bundled with my print subscription but when I attempted to do this the last time I renewed my subscription the customer service rep was not aware of this. Though it would have been nice to have it on my iPad, I had the print version, so why would I need another format?

My Idea Too-Late But Worth Mentioning

This idea hit me when I was in a doctor’s office waiting room, looking at the magazines fanned out on a table. Among them were a copy of Time Out Chicago and StreetWise, the latter being a periodical sold on the streets of Chicago by, as described by their Web site, people “…who are facing homelessness.” The magazine is part of a larger social services agency, and you can read more about StreetWise on their Web site. Where I don’t personally know much about the larger organization , I do see the people selling copies of them on the streets of Chicago. I’ll be honest I may have maybe bought 1 or 2 copies over the years, but then again I barely pickup free copies of other periodicals also available around the city.

So do you see my idea? Why not merge or mashup the 2 publications? The much smaller StreetWise would be included in the pages of Time Out Chicago, then the street sales force would sell the combined publication.

Could it have worked? It would have been worth a try! Rather than hearing someone hawking, “Streetwise…” we could have heard “Get Time Out Chicago, with the latest going on in Chicago…” Add to it Time Out logoed-gear to wear, and it would have added more to the sales pitch. The tourists alone would have bought out every issue.

But alas, it’s not to be. With the staff cuts already made, Time Out Chicago is going digital. I don’t know how much the quality will be effected, or even if their Web site has an RSS feed, but only time will tell.

Though it’s too late, I had to share this. What do you think, could it have worked? Are there other mashup opportunities out there that could be such a win-win? Other potentials for for-profit businesses and non-profit organizations to partner? Please share your ideas and thoughts in the comments to this post.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Editor's note: This post was modified from the original to remove a broken link.

A recent article on the Kansas City Star’s Web site by Diane Stafford titled, “Why young achievers don’t stick around” caught my attention, in addition to the fact it was promoted in a weekly LinkedIn email. The topic of team building, motivating, mentoring and leading your team is one that means a lot to me. The article referenced a Harvard Business Review study and research on exit interviews, both of which talked about how young workers will only stay around a company as long as they have opportunities for growth, training and to receive mentorship. Otherwise, they will leave and go elsewhere.

When I read this, my reaction was, “duh!”

The same conclusions of these sources are something I have experienced numerous times in my own career in high technology – as an employee myself, as a manager and as a colleague of other managers who lament over the loss of people on their teams. After reading this, my own beliefs and philosophy in management and leadership were reaffirmed, and I am writing this to discuss this topic and observations I have made over my career.

You Hire A Person, Not Just Their Skillset

Allow me to repeat that, you hire a PERSON, not just their skillset. As obvious as this may seem to some, time and time again I see recruiters and hiring managers looking just at what skillset the person has and how immediate they can contribute to the company, team and bottom like. Of course this is important, however they often overlook the entire person – who they are, what types of experiences they have had in the past, what they do outside of work and what their goals and interests are. The individuals who overlook these important attributes often lack vision themselves, or the manager is more interested in their own goals rather than those of the team.

Many managers are looking to simply make their jobs easy for themselves, expecting their team to just “git ‘er dun” without any regard for their team’s wellbeing and growth. A perfect example of this is the job titles that are prevalent in many Web technology jobs, which include qualifiers like “rock star,” “guru,” and “ninja.” With labels like these employers are looking for the best, but are they also willing to give their best back to the employee, with a positive venue of personal and professional growth?

The True Cost Of Developing Your Team

When management looks at what it takes to give their employees what they need not only to succeed but to grow, they are always fixated on the dollar figure. Many companies have cut back on employee training and other growth opportunities with the justification that once the employee gets this benefit, they will just leave for a new job. Granted that can happen, but they may still leave if the opposite happens and they don’t get growth and mentorship in your company. Where you may have saved on training, conference and time taken for mentoring, you are now spending It on recruiting, recruiter fees and the time it takes to review, interview and vet the replacement employees. In many cases those costs are actually higher but not realized as such as they may be spread over several departments where staff development may only apply to the department they are in.

You Must Believe For It To Happen

In order for people who work for a company to get the growth and attention they crave, management must believe in it. Those managers who do are what I truly call leaders. Sure, some companies may say they do, but if it is not marked against a manager when his staff doesn’t get these opportunities, it truly it not a culture that believes its success is tied to the growth and success of its people.

Like Anything Growth And Mentorship Must Be Defined

In most businesses if it is not defined it will not happen. The same goes for developing your team. To whatever degree you want to do it, write it down, include it in the employee manual and promote the heck out if it. Even small teams can offer budgeted dollars for formal training classes or to attend seminars or conferences. This can include covering either the entry fees and/or the time off from the office. An added feature can be that this budget can be exceeded when the staff is presenting or speaking at such events, where they are a representative – and brand promoter – of your company.

When it comes to mentoring, it should be stated what and how the company looks out for its staff, and what defined meetings or metrics are in place. The challenge here is that not all managers may have it in them to be mentors. In that case, training for mentors can be implemented or mentors from outside the firm who have a vested interest in it (e.g. investors, board members) can be assigned to staff. What better way can there be to ensure of the company’s success than working with its people at all levels?

Strive For Action Not Perfection

If your company doesn’t have a growth or mentorship program or you are a new business, then just start one. Define, review it and refine it with 360 degree feedback from those on the giving and receiving end of the program.

Career Growth and mentorship have always been things I have strived for as a manager. As a small business of 1 person I admit I have not always been the best boss to my 1 employee – me. But if you are to grow, you need to consider the time and cost investment in your people along with everything else you do to bring the on-board your firm.

Agree? Not agree? Not sure? I welcome your comments and questions.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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