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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Will vicious bloggers be downfall of business?

A Forbes magazine cover story has set the techie world ablaze with indignation (www.forbes.com). Forbes, perhaps most famous for its list of the world’s wealthiest people, in its Nov. 14 issue ran a piece by Daniel Lyons portraying Internet blogs as nothing short of terrorist weapons targeting American businesses. In “Attack of the Blogs,” Lyons lists people and companies that were humiliated, brought low, had their share values demolished, or were otherwise savaged by vindictive bloggers. For the uninitiated, “blog”…

Ovation still standing: Electronics retailer faces tough decisions after Chapter 11

Best Buy now sells television sets that cost almost $10,000. Circuit City shoppers can pull a $400 DVD player off the shelves. Wal-Mart hawks “home-theaters-in-a-box.” Add it all up and it equates to a static-filled picture for Ovation Audio Video Specialists, the retailer of pricey electronic gizmos that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month. “We’re starting to see a diluting effect” as box retailers sell more highend merchandise, said Andy Willcox, president of the Custom Electronic Design &…

BULLS & BEARS: Problems look daunting? A lesson from Granddad

Granddad rocked back and said, “The news is pretty tough to read these days. Makes me want to sit on the porch and just watch the leaves turn.” He shook his head and mentioned all sorts of events that made him wonder if the United States could ever bounce back. First, he brought up the battles for control in the Gaza strip and the fierce fighting over Palestinian areas. Then came speculation on how the United States was going to…

Success of Guidant lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson depends on definition of murky legal term:

The fate of Guidant Corp.’s lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson depends on how a judge or jury defines a legal term that escapes easy definition. The suit, filed Nov. 7 in federal court in New York, challenges J&J’s contention that it doesn’t have to complete its $25.4 billion Guidant purchase because the Indianapolis company has suffered a “material adverse effect” from product defects and recalls, among other troubles. The term “material adverse effect” is a bit of a head-scratcher among…

EYE ON THE PIE: Economics and intelligent design

It felt strange sitting before an interim committee of the Indiana General Assembly. The questions were coming quickly and with a decided passion. “Mr. Marcus,” Rep. Rottweiler demanded, “did you teach economics at Indiana University between 1970 and 2003?” “Yes,” I confirmed. “During that time, did you teach the socalled ‘Law of Demand’?” he boomed. “If you mean did I teach that when the price falls, more will be taken, other factors being held constant, yes, I did teach that…

WISH, WRTV look to profit from national TV ratings flip: Local news king, WTHR, deals with lagging NBC ratings

Though television broadcasting is known to be a cyclical business, cycles that turn TV ratings upside down are unusual. With ABC and CBS overtaking NBC nationally, it is an especially interesting-and anxious-time for local affiliates. WTHR-TV Channel 13 has been the local news rating leader the last six years, but WISH-TV Channel 8 and WRTV-TV Channel 6 see this fall and winter as an opportune time to turn the tide. One week into the critical Nov. 2-30 ratings sweeps, ABC…

NOTIONS: An interdependent interaction with Bill Clinton

A few months ago, Butler University announced that former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush would be among the speakers appearing on its Indianapolis campus during the school’s 2005-2006 sesquicentennial celebration. Within hours of the news breaking, my niece, a Butler junior and political science major, sent an e-mail asking if I’d like to join her for the first of these appearances, the one by Clinton on Nov. 8. Having long ago rounded up my fellow neighborhood kids for…

INVESTING: Machinations of stock market frequently defy logic

Wall Street is a tough place to figure out. One minute you’re up 8 percent or 9 percent for the year, the next you’re down 3 or 4. The last five years have been a little crazy. You may want to yell, “Hey, I’m not getting any younger. At some point, I want to retire!” One of the challenging things about stocks is there are few rules you can follow to bring consistent returns year after year. Formulas and methods…

Less empty office space downtown? Don’t count on it: Local market experts cast doubt on national report

A recent report lauding the health of Indianapolis’ downtown office market over the next two years may have caused a few bursts of excitement, but they were likely short-lived. New York-based Cushman & Wakefield cited Indianapolis’ downtown as a leading office market nationwide in a recent report, citing the possibility of vacancy around 7 percent in 2007, down from 13.5 percent now. If that happened, it would signal the healthiest downtown office market since the late 1990s. Few local observers…

Health Care Crusade: Physicians push for universal health coverage in Indiana

ome heart muscle had already died by the time family members coaxed the 50-something uninsured man into visiting Bloomington Hospital a few weeks ago. The patient had suffered severe chest pains two days before his hospital visit but didn’t seek treatment, said Dr. Rob Stone, an emergencyroom physician there. “It was clearly because he was afraid of the bill,” Stone said. By the time he made it to the hospital, the man was suffering a second heart attack. Now he…

Kite flies third plan for Nora project: Developer scales back condos, dangles Whole Foods Market

Developer Paul Kite is back for a third round in his battle with Nora residents to develop a condominium/retail project on the last undeveloped corner of 86th Street and Keystone Avenue. In plans submitted to the city and to neighborhood groups, Kite’s PK Capital LLC has drastically trimmed the number of condo units planned for the 13 acres, but reintroduced the concept of a specialty grocery on the site. PK is working to bring the state’s first Whole Foods Market…

EYE ON THE PIE: Don’t let a little suffering wreck holidays

I drove past the shrine at Clark and Addison in Chicago the day after the White Sox won the World Series. All was normal outside Wrigley Field. There was no evidence of the momentous event in Houston the night before. The White Sox and their fans do not exist for Cubs fans. There is an order to the world. For Hoosiers, people from Kentucky generally rank lower than folks from Pennsylvania. Yet we know Hoosiers don’t rank highly in the…

Could race teams bridge divide without series’ blessing?: Ganassi pushing for IRL-Champ Car cross-pollination

The pull of some Champ Car markets is so strong, it has the owner of a prominent Indy Racing League team talking about launching a cooperative effort with a team from the rival open-wheel racing series. And he’s urging other IRL teams to do the same. Chip Ganassi last month proposed IRL and Champ Car teams partner so they can compete in both series’ biggest races and perhaps even square off for a cross-series championship. Ganassi told Speed TV that…

Butler construction project targeted for fall ’06 finish: Student housing, rec center to join historic campus

The landscape around Butler University’s historic Hinkle Fieldhouse is undergoing dramatic changes not seen on the private campus since the early 1960s. Construction began in May on a $50 million project to build a student recreation center west of the 77-year-old arena and student housing to the east. Both should be finished by the start of the fall semester in August. The construction projects are the largest since Irwin Library, Clowes Memorial Hall and Lilly Hall were built in 1961,…

Sometimes hot growth is not a good thing: Study to explore how to cut cooling expenses

The definition of an “urban heat island” in Indianapolis would be incomplete if limited to, say, the hot air emanating from the Statehouse during the session. To Qihao Weng, an urban heat island refers to how an entire city remains up to 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside. The Indiana State University associate professor of geography has launched a study to learn just how Indianapolis’ concrete jungle heats up in warm-weather months and by how much. His study funded…

Omnicity making inroads among the dirt roads: Rural areas served by wireless broadband provider have grown nearly six-fold

An Indianapolis company that provides wireless broadband service from atop grain elevators, water towers or darned near anywhere the warbler roosts is expanding at a rapid clip and plans to launch Internet-based phone service in early 2006. Omnicity Inc. also plans another private offering to raise cash for its ambitious build-out in rural areas that are underserved by high-speed Internet providers. Improving broadband access has economic development implications in Indianapolis’ remote bedroom communities and throughout sparsely populated areas. Now, even…

NOTIONS: Learning what matters in the ultimate survivor game

When I was 21, I went to work for a mayor. I was an intern. I wrote speeches, letters, news releases and proclamations; took photographs; set up chairs for news conferences; poured coffee for reporters; sipped tea with sister-city delegations; photocopied documents; scheduled guests for radio and TV shows; produced an audio-visual presentation; showed it to scores of neighborhood associations; told them how great the mayor was. Things like that. I made minimum wage, learned from some wise mentors and…

Rehab specialists learn value of flexibility: Historic building projects require contractors who can adjust on the fly

For the ideal construction project, building owners and architects carefully develop a budget and a set of plans, then hire contractors to follow the plans to the letter, the budget to the dollar, and the schedule to the day. But when the building is old-old enough to have been through several owners and multiple uses-throw the ideal out the window, owners and contractors say. Yes, the budget constraints are still there. And the result-new housing, hotel or offices-is the same,…

BULLS & BEARS: Furniture-maker Kimball may be solid investment

It can take a while to rein in investor expectations after a time like the high-return 1990s. As Jeremy Grantham of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo notes in his quarterly letter, “Even today, with long bonds at 4.5 percent and the earnings yield (on stocks) at under 5.5 percent, the assumption for longterm pension returns is still showing its bullish bias at over 8 percent.” So what does an investor do in an environment that requires more humble expectations for investment…