The Kmiec Ramblings

I’m a life long BMW fan. I worked on BMW while at Fallon. I’ve owned a BMW. I tell anyone that will listen that they should by a BMW over a Mercedes, Lexus, etc. I think BMW should give me a new M3 Sedan. By doing so they’d be making money on me. Don’t believe me? Let’s do the math.

In looking at the math, we’ll use rough numbers, and only look at things that I can quantify easily. So what does that mean?

1. I offer BMW 1 blog post per day, 10 Twitter updates, and 10 Facebook Statuses. I can’t even quantify the verbal offerings This means BMW gets 21 touch points from me per day.
2. Over a 365 day year, they’d garner 7,665 touch points.
3. This site gets about 1,000 visitors a day
4. My Twitter stream is seen by about 4,000 people a day
5. My Facebook status is seen by 100 people
6. So that means my reach (not including overlap) is 5,100
7. That means 5,100 people would be exposed to 7,665 messages for a total of 39,091,500 impressions.
8. Using a VERY conservative $5.00 CPM, BMW would be getting $195,457.50 in paid media
9. Let’s round up the cost of a M3 to $70,000.
10. With a $70,000 investment, BMW would net $125,457.50

That’s the deal of the century because not only would make money on the deal, you’d have an owner for life, and possibly a bunch of new owners…that of course depends on how persuasive I am. For those of you that know me, you know how persuasive I can be

I decided to test my theory and sent a note to BMW.  I’ll eagerly be awaiting their call.

I love watches.  I don’t do jewelry, but I definitely do watches.  I don’t collect them for collection’s sake and I don’t buy based on brand.  For example, it’s doubtful you’ll ever see me with  a Rolex.  My latest pickup is The Oris Artelier Skeleton.  I wanted a skeleton watch for some time, but finding one that looked good, told good time, and was under 10K was pretty damn tough.  There’s really only 3 choices:

1. Corum Bubble Skeleton
2. Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece
3. Oris Artelier Skeleton

I’ve had a Corum Bubble on my list for a while so I didn’t want to kill two birds with one stone.  I actually prefer the look of the Maurice Lacroix more than the Oris, but not 3X the dollar amount more

Just scored this shirt at Macy’s last Thursday.

I’m a sucker for Beatles shirts, but this one takes the cake, because it serves up a little bit of historical reference.  This shirt is part of a new branding/licensing effort by Rolling Stone to generate some cash.  What a great idea!  Keep the covers/shirts coming.

I generally try to read a few books at a time.  My former manager Kevin Doohan recommended that I juggle a “business” book with a easier/more enjoyable read.  I’ve taken his advice to heart.  I’m just about done with, “Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America” which I received as a gift from my dad.  While I’m nearly done with that back, I did just finish reading, “The Breakthrough Company” by Keith McFarland.

Christine Fruechte, our CEO & President, shared her copy with me and asked me to give it a read.  I’ve read Blue Ocean and Good to Great, both of which are similar to Breakthrough Company.  This isn’t overly surprising when you consider that Keith is quite tight with Mr. Jim Collins.  It’s an interesting read and something I recommend to anyone trying to figure out how to win and make changes.  As noted here, this quote gives a great overview of the book’s main point, “When a leadership team realizes that strategy is really the single most important opportunity for learning within a company, it is free to drop some of the more cumbersome trappings of traditional strategic planning.”  Personally my favorite concept that McFarland shares is that leaders need to CROWN THE COMPANY instead of themselves.

Think about it.  We’ve all been at companies where we fundamentally believe the upper 10% are more interested in giving themselves fancy titles and larger bonuses instead of doing good by the company.  The concept of crowning the company is all about putting the company first and yourself second.  Not a bad philosophy at all.

Give it a read.

Hell I want it…it’s amazing. Cora played around with it at Sam’s Club this weekend and was just in love with it. In a few years we’ll have one.

This is just wonderful. If not for the insane price, I would seriously consider purchasing these.

I can’t believe it. I seriously can’t believe it. Should be here, by end of week. I don’t feel too empty on the inside though since I’ll be installing Vista on it

I had my first sip of this the day after Cora was born. At $1400+ a bottle, I think I forced myself to like it more than I probably did. Talk about a classic case of buyer behavior. Independant of the taste, the thing you have to admire is the packaging. The details paid to the packaging are amazing.

A great write up on the packaging can be found here. For those short on time here is a quick quote from the site, “the packaging of Louis XIII shares almost as much history as the Cognac itself. The idea for the glass came from an old bottle found by Emile Remy Martin on a Jarnac battlefield. Since then, the carafe has evolved into its distinguished shape, manufactured by Baccarat since 1936. A solid gold collar encases the neck, which is adorned by a signature fleur-de-lys crystal stopper. Its Baroque-style glass and design may have been the inspiration for the name Louis XIII, a French king who ruled during the Baroque era.”