A Scion Drives Toyota Back to Basics

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Norihiko Shirouzu & John Murphy:

Toyota Motor Corp.’s incoming president, Akio Toyoda, has a sobering message for the giant company founded by his grandfather: It has gotten too fancy for its own good.



On Monday, three top executives who helped lead Toyota the past four years — including Mitsuo Kinoshita, one of the primary architects of the company’s global expansion — announced their retirement. The departures clear the way for Mr. Toyoda’s planned makeover of the world’s biggest auto maker.



He is expected to focus, most of all, on abandoning kakushin, or “revolutionary change,” current president Katsuaki Watanabe’s term for changing the way Toyota designed its cars and factories. It spawned technological advances, but led to cars that were often costlier to produce.



The 52-year-old Mr. Toyoda is also working to fix a pricing strategy that put the company at odds with some U.S. dealers, who felt its cars were getting too expensive, according to people familiar with the situation.

108 Road Trips from Southern California

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LA Times:

There’s nothing quite as all-American as a road trip, especially in the West, where a wealth of culture, natural beauty and excitement unfolds before you. Coyote Buttes awaits in Arizona. General Grant Tree beckons from the Sierra Nevada.



To help you tap the region’s cache of getaways, we’ve compiled a list of 108 road trip spots. Distance to each destination is one-way from downtown Los Angeles. Cost of gas is for a round trip.*

An Interview with FedEx CEO Fred Smith

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SF Chronicle:

Frederick W. Smith, the founder, president, chairman and CEO of FedEx, built the first overnight express delivery company in the world, starting in 1971. Today, FedEx, based in Memphis, has service in more than 220 countries and territories.


Like most other businesses, FedEx is encountering economic turmoil and is operating by Smith’s belt-tightening orders. He cut his own salary by 20 percent.


Legend has it that Smith, 64, outlined his concept for FedEx in a paper in an economics class at Yale University for which he earned a C. (He corrects the record in this interview.) At Yale, he was a friend and fraternity brother of former President George W. Bush, to whom he believes history ultimately will be more kind.



In the Marine Corps in Vietnam, Smith received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts as a platoon leader and forward air controller. It was there that he observed military procurement and delivery procedures and thought he could improve on them.



Smith is unwavering in his belief that U.S. corporate tax policy must change, but practical enough to know that the new administration and Congress will not go along with the idea. He still believes one aspect could be enacted – accelerating the expensing of capital investment that would put money into corporate hands sooner.

Recovery.gov is Web 1.0; Stimuluswatch.org is Web 2.0

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Larry:

President has signed The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which includes $7.2 billion for broadband access. You can see a brief summary of the bill here.

As we have seen, the Obama administration hopes to use the Internet for transparent, two-way communication with the public. To this end, they have launched the Recovery.gov Web site, which will be continuously updated, telling us “how, when and where” the recovery funds are spent.

As of today, Recovery.gov is definitely a Web 1.0 site — it summarizes the Recovery Act, requests comments using an email form, and asks us to check back frequently for data on spending. They don’t even have RSS feeds.

Contrast that with Stimuluswatch.org, a Web 2.0 site. Stimuluswatch began by importing a database of “shovel ready” projects that was posted by the US Conference of Mayors. Users can search the database by city, keyword and project type, and view the project descriptions and estimated cost and number of jobs created.

Federal Government Contracts: Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District

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USASpending.gov:

Top 5 Contractors
Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation $161,241,933
Didion Milling, Inc. $28,254,732
University of Wisconsin System $21,021,695
Facility Leaders In Architectural/Engineering Design, P.C. $20,405,886
Metastar Inc $19,600,777

Complete list of 2nd Congressional District contractors.

Top 5 contractors: State of Wisconsin:

Top 5 Contractors
Oshkosh Corporation $1,481,203,487
General Electric Company $248,269,326
The Manitowoc Company Inc $178,329,866
Wisconsin Physicians Service Insurance Corporation $161,241,933
National Presto Industries, Inc. $125,773,563

Complete list of 2008 Wisconsin contractors.

BMW Art Cars on Parade

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Mark Vaughn:

They won’t be racing but BMW’s famous Art Cars will be back on display. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will feature four of BMW’s 16 art cars until Feb. 24.


Among the four are some of our favorites:


— Roy Lichtenstein’s 1977 Group 5 320i with its wild wing and body work.



— Frank Stella’s graph-paper 3.0 CSL.


— The 1979 Group 4 M1 that Andy Warhol painted with a brush.


All three cars raced at Le Mans with their new paint jobs.


Robert Rauschenberg’s 1986 6-series was not a race car and, with its more conventional bodywork, seems far more restrained than the rest.

A Comparison of the House & Senate Stimulus/Splurge Bills

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Josh Tauberer @ Govtrack.us:

One of the concrete benefits of open government data is that third parties can use the data to do something useful that no one in government has the mandate, resources, or insight to do. If you think what I am about to tell you below is cool, and helpful, then you are a supporter of open government data.

On my site GovTrack, you can now find comparisons of the text of H.R. 1, the stimulus bill, at different stages in its legislative life — including the House version (as passed) and the current Senate version (amendment 570).

The main page on GovTrack for HR 1 is:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1
Here’s a direct link to the comparison:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1&version=as2&compareto=eh&view=side:

Comparisons are possible between any two versions of the bill posted by GPO. Comparisons are available for any bill.

If you find this useful, please take a moment to consider that something like this is possible only when Congress takes data openness seriously. When GPO went online and THOMAS was created in the early 90s, they chose good data formats and access policies (mostly). But the work on open government data didn’t end 15 years ago. As “what’s hot” shifts to video and Twitter, the choices made today are going to impact whether or not these sources of data empower us in the future, whether or not we miss exciting opportunities such as having tools like the one above.

(Thanks to John Wonderlich and Peggy Garvin for some side discussion about this before my post. GovTrack wasn’t initially picking up the latest Senate versions because GPO seems to have gone out of its way to accommodate posting the latest versions before they were passed by the Senate, which is great, but caught GovTrack by surprise.)

Josh Tauberer