Future Success Stories in a Painful Economy

I have been involved in politics and business for decades and I have not seen a situation like we are in today since the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is simply a challenging time and people are having a difficult time determining what to do next.

The Stock Market is now worth less than half of its all time high and unemployment is on its way towards double digits, with the number of people filing for benefits swelling by over 500,000 in just a few months.

One of the earliest and biggest problems of such rough times is the focus of news and other business information from what works and what is positive, to some of the most negative content you can find. An excellent recent example has been the laying off of Donny Deutsch by CNBC. The reason why? The network decided that people don’t want to hear success stories (a big focus of his program) in such a dismal economy. I think they could not be more wrong. The reality is, CNBC was in financial trouble and laid off several hundred employees (including Deutsch) in a money saving effort. People don’t merely want bad news and negative information. They are demanding inspiration. I am planning on providing more such positive information on the Price of Business show in the months to come.

The reality is we are going to have some excellent things come from the currently hard times. This country is made up of entrepreneurs and many (if not most) of the 500,000 who recently loss their jobs will be providing future success stories of people who brought new products and services to the market place. They will choose entrepreneurship instead of wallowing in their difficult circumstances.

Do you have a success story? If so, I want to hear from you. Send me an email and tune into the Price of Business every weekday at 11 am on CNN 650 and on AOLRadio.com (central time).

This article originally appeared on CNN650.com, part of the CBS Radio Network.

Kevin Price is a syndicated columnist whose articles frequently appear at ChicagoSunTimes.com, Reuters.com, USAToday.com, and other national media. Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at PriceofBusiness.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.

CNBC's Fox Business Channel Survey

According to MediaBistro.com, CNBC wants to know what Fox Business viewers think about the new company:

In what appears to be one of that newest CNBC viewer surveys, the network wants to know what you think of the competition. A screengrab posted yesterday on Inside Cable News by way of the Reportercaps message board showed a CNBC survey asking respondents to rate the CNBC and FBN personalities, in a rating from excellent to poor, or unfamiliar.
Some of the Fox Business anchors on the list were David Asman, Alexis Glick (formerly of CNBC), Dagen McDowell and Cody Willard.

It is interesting that news of such a survey comes from the CNBC camp rather than Fox. I expected to see such long before Fox Business was launched if, for no other reason, to know how to posture themselves in this new environment.

If I have said it before, I have said it many times, I like both CNBC and Fox Business. In fact, I'm watching The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch while working on this. But if I'm CNBC, I would be worried about Fox. The network is much more personality driven than CNBC, in my opinion and I believe most people find that attractive. It will be interesting to see how the battle between these two networks progresses.

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Ms. Dewey Isn't Worth the Wait

One of my favorite shows is the Big Idea with Donny Deutsch on CNBC. Tonight they discussed several innovative ideas including a "dynamic new website" called "MsDewey.com." The primary attraction to the site is suppose to be the lovely Ms. Dewey (see photo), who provides an interactive approach to search engines.

The site is the product of Microsoft and the lovely Ms. Dewey (played by actress Janina Gavankar) invites people to put a search item in, comments on your subject, entertains herself and the user while you scroll the results, and simply offers a unique approach to searching.

The site is suppose to challenge Google and other search engines with its unique interaction and beautiful model. I don't believe any of Ms. Dewey's competition are losing sleep. The concept seems like it would be attractive -- combine entertainment with searching. However, I think it fails on several fronts:

* It is extremely slow in its initial loading.

* It is very slow in its searches.

* It makes several mistakes. It does such often. I searched for several items that came up with thousands of responses on other search engines and turned up nothing on Ms. Dewey.

In my opinion, Ms. Dewey will not work because I believe people do not want to combine searches with entertainment. In my case, I will forget what I was looking for if I am sidetracked by entertainment. Mixing the two is very frustrating. Worse still, Ms. Dewey isn't that interesting. I find getting the exact information I want quickly to be far more enjoyable. I think most search engine users will agree.