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I'm Mounting A Takover Bid For Christmas Inc
Posted By: stevea on 12/25/2006 9:53 AM (CST)	2006 Points
Firstly a Blessed and Merry Christmas to each and all this year! Inspired by the antics of our family banker (Alex Masterly) http://www.alexcartoon.com I have decided to head up a takeover of Christmas Inc. (Also known variously as Christmas Ltd, plc, SA, etc. ad-nauseam) from it’s sole proprietor S. Claus of The North Pole. The owners of Alex’s Bank, Megabank, which is another private concern, are Charles Peattie & Russell Taylor and although I have not contacted them, I can’t imagine that they will object to me gate-crashing and ripping off their idea. After all, Alex does it all the time. Initially, I was a little worried about the religious implications of this audacious bid, but last night, a chap called Archangel Gabriel dropped a letter down one of our many chimney’s (A most unusual means of communication, I must say) to say that his boss didn’t give a tinkers about THAT aspect of Christmas, so I guess that I can proceed with a clear conscience. It would appear that Christmas Inc is hopelessly out of date, as exposed by Alex in his ruthlessly satirical business column in the Daily Telegraph. Let’s face it, a single over- weight old bloke; abusing both reindeers and the laws of general relativity to deliver 3 billion presents worldwide down often non existent chimneys on a single night is hardly cutting edge 2006 business practice, is it? Also, all those elves working under Scandinavian employment law must be ridiculously over-paid in comparison to hiring 8 year olds working in sweat-shops in third world countries. My questions for our group are threefold: How can we market the takeover in a positive light so that we don’t end up by upsetting 1.8 Billion children of all ages? After all, in 2007, they certainly won’t be getting their deliveries for free, and we don’t want to offend future customers. Next, how can we maximize our income from managing the franchise to manufacturers and retailers? At the moment, non-elf originated products are using the Christmas brand totally for free. This will be stopped by our lawyers, but we will offer licences to use things like Xmas and other seasonal horrors to the likes of Wal-Mart, Hasbro, et-al. Likewise franchising out delivery to UPS and others would make sense as there appear to be no single companies which can guarantee simultaneous mail-drops in excess of one billion on one night. Lastly, we will want to sell the Christmas Inc toys under our own brand in order to maximize profit margins. Whilst we do not rule out distribution arrangements, I thought that a website offering home delivery, from, say, July onwards, coupled with a massive advertising campaign from June onwards. So little change there, except that Christmas Inc would get all the dosh (UK word for Moolah, Money, Greenbacks etc!) I’d like to seek your advice on the sales, marketing, HR and legal aspects of this deal. I’ve already checked out the religious aspects – the archbishop is quite happy to see us screw up Christmas Inc, but he has indicated that should we succeed in making it work, he’d be looking for a small royalty on the basis of original intellectual copyright, to fund Christian Charitable Works. Sound OK to me, whatever this Christian and Charitable stuff is or might be. Your thoughts please! Steve Alker Unimax Solutions Hedge- Fund Venture Capitalists Ltd

Posted by: Sans Prix	Accepted Answer
12/25/2006 1:37 PM (CST)
Ho ho ho Dec 20th 2005 From The Economist print edition Santa Claus transformed Christmas. Can he also transform investors' perceptions of it? THE man who created the world's most valuable brand remains an elusive figure when not in his grotto, often shielded by the tinted windows of a personalised executive sleigh that serves as his mobile office. Friends say that money is not his motivation, even though he is apparently seeking now to sell off all or part of his privately held empire. Talking to the elves, seeing the children smile, guiding the creative side of Christmas, these are the things that drive him, he says. Yet the owner of the trademark beard and belly-laugh is also a man shrewd enough to have grasped the money-making potential of Christmas when nobody saw it as a commercial enterprise at all, and many thought it doomed to merge with New Year. Santa Claus, a former bishop from Asia Minor, thought differently. He did not invent Christmas, he likes to say now, but he did re-invent it. Probably nobody has ever seen the link between reindeer and revenues more clearly. “Besides”, says one high-ranking elf, “he throws great parties.” Santa's quirky management style, combining large quantities of mulled wine with a tight grip on the reins, has turned the ho-hum into the ho-ho-ho. Once just a two-day affair in churches and private houses, Christmas is now the biggest-spending item in most western countries after health care and defence. The logistics of that success require Santa to be in thousands of malls by day and down millions of chimneys by night. Advisers say he relies on a series of proprietary algorithms derived from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which allow him to be in an infinite number of places simultaneously so long as nobody believes he is really in any one of them. Of course, Christmas has to grapple with the fundamental uncertainties affecting all modern industries. They include globalisation, the spread of the internet and the pervasive power of Wal-Mart. All of these seem to be working, for the moment at least, in Christmas's favour. Global warming may pose a long-term risk. The ageing of the population in many of Santa's major markets is less of a worry. Even if it means relatively fewer children, whether naughty or nice, it may also mean more indulgent grandparents. But the biggest question overhanging Christmas is one of succession. What if some accident sleighed Santa tomorrow? Christmas would probably survive as a religious festival, economists say, but spending patterns might never recover—throwing much of the world into a perpetual mid-winter recession. That, says Santa, is the main reason he now wants to involve outside shareholders and professional managers, or, as he calls them, “subordinate Clauses”, in the owning and running of Christmas. Some analysts think the man in the red suit has simply spotted a good moment to sell. With liquidity booming around the world, Santa can hope to get a fat price for all or part of his franchise from “sledge-funds” run by rich private investors. Kris Kringle, owner of snowbiz.org, a Santa-watching web site, believes that Santa's decision to bring in outside managers also reflects the failure of his past attempts at diversification using in-house elves and Lapps. A British health-care subsidiary, the National Elf Service, lost money and was taken over by the government. The Lapp-Dance chain of folk clubs in Scandinavia was sold to a trade buyer who relaunched them for an adult audience. There has been speculation, too, that Santa wants to cut back on his business commitments in order to launch a political career in one of the many countries where he could claim citizenship, possibly Canada. After decades of being told that government was “no Santa Claus”, commentators say, voters would welcome a government that was, indeed, Santa Claus. Still saintly Santa himself denies any such plan, insisting that Christmas will remain his top priority. If he does ever get more free time, he says, he will do more good works. He rarely uses his official title of Saint Nicholas, but it clearly rankles with him that the Catholic Church demoted him in 1969, by making observance of his feast day (December 6th) optional—a move he blames on “pro-Easter” forces in the Vatican. He is also a saint in the Orthodox Church, he points out, and enjoys worldwide acceptance as a patron saint of children, thieves, bankers, prisoners, sailors, unmarried girls and pawnbrokers, not to say Greece and Russia. All that means quite a backlog of problems, some of them going back to medieval times. Whatever the motives for a Christmas sale, the prospectus, if it comes, will be much in demand. With the Arctic as its home and a fat man as its trademark, the business looks, says one potential investor, “like a cross between the Alaska purchase and Kentucky Fried Chicken”. The assets will be almost all intangible, but “what do you expect—it is the season for goodwill”, says another. The more pressing question will be whether the trade marks and copyrights assembled by Santa can guarantee real effective ownership of Christmas worldwide, and for how long. A banker close to the deal says the small print here will be reassuring. He says that Santa quietly bought up a lot of outstanding rights and licences after a bid to “steal” Christmas, by the Grinch, came dangerously close to succeeding in 1957. This same source also plays down worries about the size of the health and pension benefits owed to the elves and reindeer. Outsiders have wildly over-estimated the scale of Santa's toy-making operations, he says. They require only a tiny workforce. More than 99% of Christmas gifts for children are bought in shops by parents, and are merely “co-branded” by Santa at the moment of giving. The real key to the deal, this banker concludes, is whether Santa sticks by his promise of continued involvement. For Christmas to go on working, he says, “you just have to believe in Santa Claus”.

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/25/2006 2:25 PM (CST)
Dear Jon I’d never read or heard of that article, but boy does it show up the gutlessness of the Economist. If that bunch of academic no-hopers had the balls to seize the initiative, they would have mounted a bid, just as I am and just as Alex is currently trying to do. Also the Elf and safety issue is one which we have considered. They are of small enough stature to be re-trained as chimney sweeps – Victorian style. I am an occasional reader of The Economist and by and large I like it, but my opinion of their ability to influence opinion by doing something decisive is that they couldn’t start a fire in a phosphorus factory, even if they were equipped with flame throwers. Now what are your views on the bid, rather than theirs? Regards Steve Alker Unimax Solutions Capitalist Bstrds Ltd.

Posted by: mgoodman	Accepted Answer
12/25/2006 7:31 PM (CST)
I'm not sure your proposition will fly. It's way too complex and has a target audience that is so unfocused that it's almost impossible to reach efficiently. However I think there might be an opportunity to package the deal in a way that will attract lots of interest from the venture capital community, and then we can divvy the money up and run. (It's done all the time, I hear.)

Posted by: darcy.moen	Accepted Answer
12/25/2006 10:07 PM (CST)
There is another opportunity for spin off that I think you have over looked. One of the most coveted but undervalued services of S. Clause is his information gathering network. He knows when you go to bed, he knows when you're awake; he knows if you've been bad or good. How much companies pay to know so mcuh details about their customers, their potential customers, and their competitor's customers? I think one could spin off the 'intellegence gathering' division and easily form a highly profitatable market and customer research division, selling information about customer habits and customer's patterns. Sell off, off shore, or out source manufacturing and shipping, but you might want to keep the information division in house and simply rent access to the information gathered. My two cents. Darcy Moen Customer Loyalty Network

Posted by: Sans Prix	Accepted Answer
12/25/2006 10:55 PM (CST)
Steve, Obviously The Economist haven't got round to doing it yet. I've diarised to check if you get round to it this time next year. Maybe then, we'll have a definitive answer on the first mover vs second mover debate. In the meantime, things may not be so "Victorian" for the elves... Chimney sweeps under fire: Brussels targets a quaint German monopoly GERMANY'S chimney sweeps—hallowed as bringers of good luck, with their black top hats and coiled-wire brushes—are under attack. Last week the European Commission's directorate for the internal market revived proceedings against an antiquated German law that protects sweeps against competition. The country's chimney sweeps enjoy a near-perfect monopoly. Germany is divided into around 8,000 districts, each ruled by its own master sweep who usually employs two more sweeps. Although this is a private enterprise, the maintenance and inspection service provided is compulsory and prices are set by the local authority: sweeps cannot stray outside their district, nor can householders change their sweep even if they loathe him. This rule cuts both ways. “There are some customers I can't stand either,” says one Frankfurt sweep. The rationale is simple: chimney-sweeping and related gas and heating maintenance in Germany are treated as a matter of public safety. Annual or semi-annual visits are prescribed, keeping the sweeps busy all year round. For centuries, chimney-sweeps in Europe were a wandering breed. But in 1937 the chimney-sweep law was revised by Heinrich Himmler, then the acting interior minister. His rules tied chimney sweeps to their districts and decreed that they should be German, to enable him to use sweeps as local spies. The law was updated in 1969, leaving the local monopolies in place but opening up the profession, in theory at least, to non-Germans. But in practice few apply. Four years ago a brave Pole qualified as a master in Kaiserslautern, according to a fellow student, and this year an Italian did so in the Rhineland Palatinate. But he, like most newly qualified German masters, will spend years on a waiting list before he gets his own district. The European Commission would like to see a competitive market in which people can choose their own sweeps, just as they choose builders or plumbers. It first opened infringement proceedings in 2003, and the German government of the time promised to change the law but failed to do so. And despite the huffing and puffing from Brussels, the government is still reluctant to dismantle its antiquated system on safety grounds. The number of deaths from carbon-monoxide poisoning in Germany is around one-tenth that in France or Belgium, claims the Frankfurt sweep. So Germans are likely to be stuck with their neighbourhood Schornsteinfegers—whether they can stand each other or not—for some time to come.

Posted by: rjohnni	Accepted Answer
12/26/2006 2:46 AM (CST)
Steve, There are issues to grapple with before you delve further. Are you buying the right brand. There is a Nomenclature issue here. Red herring clearly says Xmas Inc. is also religious. With Asian countries growing and consuming countries like China and India having sizeable growing populations of Christianity, chances of Christianity growing in the world gets extended to another 50 years or so. And the balance of depleting Christian layers in the west to the populated, slightly grwing Asia will match. Or slight tilt towards Christian Christmas. Also social trends and studies talk of the growth of this religion with the influx of the terror or so called terror. People are worried and they can't consume more to alleviate their fears of the future. So taking over Christmas is still not within the controlling realm of the Arch Bishop's fancies. Its gonna be hostile. Is Santa Xmas? Pop Xmas is a brand owned by stakeholders across the globe, including at some level in Mid East. And the brand enthusiasts are media Giants, Parents and marketers. And of course consumed by children. Though of late western adults after going through boring revolutions and liberalisation with their adult home made videos are trying to play and topple even this special, children oriented, last standing propreitories into adult muses by having Sexy santas, Swim with santas et al...and taking it all away. So the chances are Santa may cease to become Xmas and becomes the royal mascot for Winterval (which as a Briton you might be aware of). Grinch presence is a great example. if Xian church gets threatened, even Gabriel can become a mnemonic to be fought with! Trademark issues Santa ain't owned by anyone. How can one take a differntiator to the Santa, which the rest of the non brand owners can fight tooth and nail and disclaim. Even if you create serious character differentiators, the kind of support required to own the new fad, the cult status, can be achieved over a longer period only Have I become too serious???? Thanks

Posted by: telemoxie	Accepted Answer
12/26/2006 9:01 AM (CST)
Actually, venture capitalists have floated this idea for some time. Back during the gas crisis, a group of investors tried a hostile takeover, hoping to take the "Flying Sleigh" technology to market, and to spin off the world's largest and most accurate marketing list... but Santa was ruled to be a "natural monopoly" and immune from such actions. More recently, one of the larger US Systems Integrators reopened the issue, hoping to market the "Naughty or Nice?" technology to the US Department of Homeland Security (especially for airport screening). They have tried a direct appeal to Santa's investors... but have been frustrated so far since most of the documents are written in "old elvish".

Posted by: Positive Thinker	Accepted Answer
12/26/2006 3:53 PM (CST)
Steve, Thank you for your witty and thoughtful "question". I couldn't come up with something nearly as clever or as enlightened as the others but found this quote from someone who served as rector at your alumna (didn't know she was from your alma until I came back to your question and reviewed your bio!). Katharine Elizabeth Whitehorn (born 1926) is a very quotable British journalist, writer, and columnist known for her wit and humor and as a keen observer of women in their times. She was educated at Roedean School, Brighton and Newnham College, Cambridge. She worked as a columnist for The Observer in London from 1960 until 1996. She also served as the rector of the University of St Andrews from 1982-1985. Since 1997 she has written a monthly column for Saga Magazine. She was married to novelist Gavin Lyall from 1958 until his death in 2003. They have two children. Her book Cooking in a Bedsitter (originally Kitchen in the corner: A complete guide to bedsitter cookery), first published in 1961 and a classic of its kind, remained in print for thirty-five years. Quotes "From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it." I thought you would find it appropo. Cheers from New York. Positive Thinker

Posted by: Positive Thinker	Member Response
12/26/2006 3:58 PM (CST)
Spell-check -- didn't work quick enough... apropos PT :)

Posted by: KathySmithFilms*	Accepted Answer
12/27/2006 11:25 AM (CST)
You guys are the best!!!! Here in Tinseltown Celebrities recommend planting a new tree to help the CO2 so marketing trees and positioning that with a celeb will send you straight up and vertical leaving Christmas intact. Fake trees are the solution. During these holidays, in many streets, stores' windows and houses are decorated with tinsels and fairy lights. In churches you can discover nice illuminated cribs. At home, children like drawing figures on the windows and decorating the Christmas tree. I read that the first description of the Christmas tree appeared in Alsace, in France during the 16th century. The tree was set on the plaza of the City Hall which is usually near the church in France, and on the Eve of Christmas, people danced around the Christmas Tree that was decorated with apples. Then the people adopted the tradition of having the tree in their homes and this then was exported to Canada and to the United States. The objects that decorated the tree were home-made with ribbons, candies, cakes, paper flowers, candles etc., before being manufactured. The apples were replaced by colorful balls, the paper flowers and ribbons by tinsels and the candles by electric bulbs. Industrialization has come and it sounds like nothing can stop it! I can't stop thinking that industrialization might have taken away part of our traditional habits. Santa Claus has become a commercial symbol: we can find him everywhere, especially in the stores' windows and on TV. Formerly, Santa Claus was a part of the children's dream and not a commercial tool. My mother told me one day that when she was young, all the children received an orange and a piece of chocolate as their only presents! Today, these types of gifts are not highly valued but at that time children considered them to be good presents. A lot of things have changed these last 20 years but anyways, what nobody, and certainly not industrialization and marketing, can take away from us is the joy of being together for this particular celebration and the magic of a child's smile! Whatever your traditions are, have a Merry Christmas! And for digital telepathy on Santa this is the Blog: http://blog.dtelepathy.com/search-engine-marketing/where-in-the-world-is-sa...

Posted by: bigstarnow	Member Response
12/27/2006 12:19 PM (CST)
This is a joke

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/27/2006 1:43 PM (CST)
Sorry about the short delay in communications. It’s my fault for getting into the right mood (Stanislavsky approach to method acting) by getting my staff to copy out all your responses, by hand, onto paper and then post them down a chimney. I never know which fireplace they’ll come out of, so I spend hours wandering from turret to turret and room to room looking for the damned things. The good news is that I haven’t received any threats to wage a jihad or holy war on my buy-out venture and I won’t if people read the question properly! Michael (mgoodman), how right you are. It is enormously complex, that’s why I posted a question. As to it being way too difficult to reach the audience, well, Santa in his current manifestation has been managing to do it for free, for over 190 years and as he is an American concept, I wouldn’t have expected you guy’s to wimp out. OK, his predecessor St Nicholas was much less ambitious in his gift delivery services, but he also managed to rescue sailors tossed in the storm and he’d been doing that since about AD 280 until replaced by Santa Claus in about 1809. The point is that if the modern-old-fashioned Santa does a stupendous job for free on old technology, why shouldn’t we be able to do it better for a small fee on the new stuff? After all, from such small and free beginnings was the internet born. As to the unfocussed bit about the audience – yeah – right on. After the barrel load of hooch most celebrants consume over the “Festive” period, it’s a wonder that they can stand, never mind focus. Now scamming the venture capital industry is something I hadn’t contemplated, so thanks for the idea. It is a good one. As I was looking to staff the takeover from our MarketingProfs ranks, I’d hoped that you might be available. Would you be prepared to do two jobs? A marketing role is yours for the taking, but you’ve got to define it. In the meanwhile, I’ve just created the position of Getaway Car Driver. Are you on? Darcy. The client list and customer demographics is a brilliant idea and it probably adds about an extra ten billion to the value of Christmas Inc, but not to the cost of the bid, as S Claus has not even mentioned it in his books which we have now had a quick look at as part of our due diligence exercise. I’ve taken preliminary soundings from a number of supermarkets and the CIA about parcelling this out, but curiously enough I got a hard cash offer from the Readers Digest without even contacting them. On that basis, my gut feeling is to keep the info in-house and rent it. Or not to rent some of it, depending on who you are and what you’ve done that only Santa knows about. Rental and blackmail revenues could exceed $2Billion per annum. Would the position of Director of Information Marketing interest you? The remuneration is negotiable, but you’d get a fully expensed sleigh and eco-friendly reindeers. The challenge is that as far as I can see, the list is detailed, but hand written on vellum, in ink, on about 348 Million pages and is not likely to be receptive to Optical Character Recognition techniques were we to scan it. Thus, it will be a gargantuan task to transcribe it onto my IRM system (Idiot Relationship Management System) in time for Christmas 2007. A possible solution to this is the fact that Bulgaria is joining the European Union on Jan 1st 2007 and that will leave 7.5 million people who all speak English better than you or I with nothing to do, due to all the stupid EC regulations they will have to follow. They’d make great temporary data entry clerks, as long as we offered them some future career possibilities to look forward to, so that they could make use of the fact that they’ve all got degrees in nuclear physics. More later Steve Alker Unimax Solutions Christmas Cracker Division

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/27/2006 2:09 PM (CST)
Jon Diarise away – the question is “How will you know?” The buy out is private and some joker or other is apparently always making up stories about taking over Christmas, but not Christmas Inc, Ltd, SA, Xmas etc. Having read this lot, you can be sure that imitators will follow, long after the bid is in the bag. Actually, I knew all about the German Chimney Sweeps – we had to contend with their medieval rules and regulations when I was taking the Kane May Combustion Analyser to the world number one slot in the 1980’s. (That was Ferrari number one) It resulted in doubling the cost for no discernable benefit in order to protect indigenous German manufacturers. So much for the European Free Market. Mind you, their specifications were a cinch in comparison to Switzerland, where they doubled the size of the blasted thing and quadrupled the cost. Still, as a digger up of arcane information, you would be a useful asset to our team. How does VP of our Analysts Division grab you? Best wishes Steve Alker Unimax Solutions, Office of the VP of Fruit and Nut-Cake

Posted by: Papadoc (Steve)*	Accepted Answer
12/27/2006 3:23 PM (CST)
While marketers always have something to say about something and even occassionally lots about nothing, we seem to have forgotten that it's the Who's in Whoville that you primarily need to concerned about. As all good marketers know, concentrating on your target population is essential but only Whoville contains an adequate and diverse enough sample for you to take seriously. And being that they have been subject to about 30 some-odd years of grinchyness, you can be sure that crummy ideas aren't going to get a pass. No getting away with watered down eggnog there. Run your ideas through that marketing mill and once successfully vetted, success is all but guaranteed. I personally happen to be in favor of keeping the whole organization in tact, but licensing out the technologies to non-competitive concerns. Agreed that the Naughty but Nice system would work well at airports for screening people, but short of investing in lump of coal mines, I am not sure how this would be inspirational in the real world. I mean seriously - there have to be consequences for naughtiness and generally not being nice. Also any system that can generate as many plates of cookies and glasses of milk should easily be able to revamped to put out red beans and rice and maybe even an occasional plate of chili cheese fries, thus eliminating world hunger. And as we know, and as Santa proves, people who aren't hungry tend to be far less grumpy, even to the point of being jolly. Try this out for yourself - after a big Thanksgiving turkey dinner, anyone here feel like fighting? Heck no! More like a nap. One technology that can offer both and end to hunger and jollyness (and therefore world peace) truly deserves further scrutiny. Just think how far the rest of this could go. Man - - I shoulda thought about doing this first.

Posted by: darcy.moen	Accepted Answer
12/28/2006 12:21 AM (CST)
hmm, Director of Information Marketing has a nice ring to it, AND expensed sleigh with eco-friendly reindeers is simply the candy cane on the tree. Blackmail was an unexpected spin off, brilliant! Naughty and Nice list used for Homeland Security is also another fantastic application. With the Elves facing the issue of downsizing, perhaps their union would cover 50 percent of retraining costs from toy manufacture to Vellum transcription services. Heck, wrap it and present blue collar manufacturing jobs that you plan to out-source as a mass promotion to mid level white collar secretarial jobs maintaining the naughty and nice list. You could pick up a trained transcription team locally at a lower cost. Sounds win-win-win to me, and the Union can claim that they 'saved' numerous jobs that could have disapeared over-seas. Suprisingly, no one has thought about the Stealth technology S Clause deploys. Anyone considered the military applications of a hypersonic sleigh? Norad can track S.Clause, but F-16's and Migs never seem to catch up to it. The sleigh can carry a huge payload, and still out perfom the best aircraft it encounters. Surely there is a despot somewhere willing to pay top dollar for the technology, and then again, invest in companies that will develop defenses against a weaponized sleigh and ride the run up in the market. What about the personal transport from outside of buildings, down chimney's into living rooms activated by placing a finger against the side of the nose? With a little deveopment, range could be extended from rooftop to living room, to perhaps include Tahiti and Hawaii. It could revolutionize the airline industry, or replace it. Ho, ho ho! Opportunity abounds in this take over bid. Where do I sign? Darcy Moen Customer Loyalty Network

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/28/2006 4:10 AM (CST)
Darcy, great ideas, of which more later. In the meanwhile, watch your language. Downsizing Elves? They are already, in modern HR correct parlance, “Challenged with Vertical Issues” so downsizing is not a desired term. Lord Almighty, the last time I went onto the toy-shop-floor and commented on an apparent “Elf Shortage” or were an Elf Short” at a particular bench, I was sent on a 3 day gender and disability awareness course. They will, if necessary be “sacked” as befits Santa and by Santa. Suing someone for unfair dismissal will be impossible at this time of year as the court papers won’t get delivered to the North Pole until next November, by which time he’ll be long gone. And if mgoodman has his way, so will we. Regards Steve Alker Unimax Solutions D

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/28/2006 1:14 PM (CST)
Rjohnni, or can I call you Rajesh? As you asked a question at the end of your posting the answer is yes, you are (Being too serious), but you are being too serious about the wrong things. I’m not mounting a takeover of Christmas as I’ve got a strong feeling that a few billion Christians, Hindu’s, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Baha’is and Zoroastrians (Sorry if I omitted any other people of faith) would strongly object to that. It’s Santa and all that money making which rides on the back of the 25th of December which I’m gunning for. So it’s got sod all about what Christians really believe in, wherever they live. Now let’s attend to your points. On the nomenclature – Red Herring is exactly what it calls itself, on this issue at least. Xmas Inc has nothing to do with religion, except that it has borrowed a holy festival, corrupted the spelling and turned it into an unholy blow-out. Can you imagine the reaction if commercial enterprises tried to usurp the holiest of days for other faiths? It doesn’t happen because there would be riots in the streets and directors of toy companies strung up from lamp posts. You have a point about China though. As most of our presents in the West, from Socks to Plasma Screens are now made there, 3.8 Billion of them at the last count, they have a huge stake in the consequences of Christmas Inc and don’t pay Santa a penny towards it. This will stop. How, you might ask, especially in a monolithic totalitarian state which until recently didn’t give a fig about international property rights, copyright, royalty payments, human rights and so on? (Especially as they still repress most religions and insist on having their own sanitised “Catholic” Archbishops and the odd “Un-Dali” Lama) Well, now that we’ve looked at the technology division of S. Claus, we’ve discovered some incredible stuff, which although he’s been using them for 200 years are very much 23rd Century technology or beyond. The thing is that he’s hardly even started to explore the potential for this sci-fi gear. We, on the other hand have. (See posts by Darcy, Telemoxie, papadoc (Steve) etc) The way he can be almost everywhere at the same time whilst knowing simultaneously both who he is visiting and if they are nice or naughty, clearly contravenes Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal. Being everywhere at once is achieved by travelling at the speed of light, whilst the knowledge part is sorted by engaging quantum entanglement with the client list. The principal of quantum entanglement is well developed in physics but requires a lot of high level maths to understand it. To simplify things, I’d refer you instead to the author Philip Pullman and his best seller “His Dark Materials” which is scientific tosh, but still a brilliant read. Quantum entanglement means that we can access the bank accounts of all these foreign corporations, wherever they are, because – guess what – they are on the nice or naughty list! So we can extract our royalties at source with the only channel of recourse to justice being through the UN, for breaching their human rights. And that would be a bit rich for China! Gotcha!! “Is Santa Xmas?” No. Xmas was created for those too indolent to spell out Christmas and for those who were afraid that Christmas contained the word “Christ”. I.e. Lazy secularists and boorish oiks, so I don’t give a fig about offending them – as long as I (sorry, we) get our hands on their money. As for Winterval that misguided attempt at political correctness was Local Council inspired and aimed at “Not causing offence to non-Christians” As usual with things the governing elite do with our money, it only succeeded in offending everyone, so we will take great delight in stinging councils whether they partake in Christmas inc or not. To be really perverse, if they celebrate “Real Christmas” with a crib and all that stuff, we’ll let them off all charges. Sure there are loads of people, who think that they are stakeholders, but they don’t pay a cent and fat old Santa has never tried to assert his own intellectual rights. That’s why were going to do it for him, or for ourselves, as by that time, S Claus will probably own an island in the Bahamas and be wearing his red fur trimmed swimmies. That they also don’t hold any documentary proof of brand ownership will also count against them as in a few days time (The bid target is now the 6th of January – work it out!) we will have all the legal Dooh-Dah’s to say that we actually own it. Finally let’s turn to the trademark issues. We’ve looked at the fighting tooth and nail problem and decided against using the courts. Did you know that the sleigh fleet is armed with writ-seeking missiles? Probably not, but if you try to interfere, you soon will! If you can come back a bit more positive, we could still find a role for you, but at the moment, I haven’t envisaged a VP of Being Serious. Best wishes Steve Alker Unimax Solutions Department for Strategic Warfare

Posted by: darcy.moen	Accepted Answer
12/28/2006 9:02 PM (CST)
Hmm, looking deeper into the real root of Dec 25th, history shows us that the ancient romans (pre-Constantine) celebrated the feast of Mythrus long before there was a St. Nick, Saint Nicholas, Santa Clause and the Coca-Cola version of Santa. Perhaps Mythrus should be the one exerting intellectual property rights to the entire event? Or maybe even Constantine (or his estate)could lay claim as it was by his decree the winter solstice was named as THE date (and later St. Nicolas birthday was rolled into it. when the church tried to reduce the influence of 'artifact' enthrallment) Its not that Christmas exploded onto the scene propelled by faith based initiatives as much as other peoples, creeds and cultures have failed to capitalize upon commercialization of other events (I've seen the Druids Summer Solstice Celebration - YAWN!). With a little exposure on Network TV with a clever storyline and an accurate laugh track, Festivus rose out of relative obscurity to leap above other creeds and cultures celebrations (Good Show Seinfeld, perhaps you can consult for other celebrations in need of increased exposure). Sorry about the 'down sizing' comment. I TOTALLY relate to how one slip can trigger serious sensitivity re-training. Would 'Elf Force reduction' be perhaps more apropros? Darcy Moen Customer Loyalty Network

Posted by: carrie77	Accepted Answer
12/29/2006 7:28 AM (CST)
Steve - We at MP can see huge potential for your venture. Not only can you take over the gift manufacture, marketing, and distribution, you can also take over all the ancillary products associated with the gift-giving spree. Why settle simply for gifts, why not S Claus approved trees, wreaths, lights, etc. In fact, in most suburban areas, there are those who illuminate the skies for weeks with their holiday lighting displays. Why not offer them a S Claus seal of approval? There would, of course, be a license fee, but heck, these folks pay thousands on the lights and electricity, what's a measly 100 bucks to them? Then, we could start charging people who came to see the displays. And, just to show Santa is green, we would give discounts if there were 4 or more persons in the car. Why not set up a series of discus ion Boards (like this one) where S Claus could begin to tout toys that are cheap to make and expensive to sell? We will share our technology for a cut of the action. Heck. I'll even moderate it if you don't mind snippy answers. Carrie

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/29/2006 1:07 PM (CST)
Dave (Telemoxie) that bid by venture capitalists was doomed from the start. Being evil and on the Naughty List, Santa would have known about their intentions long before the bid and a few tons of gold, delivered, out-of-season to the private chimney addresses of the jurors and judges from the International Court of Justice naturally swung the “Natural Monopoly” judgement. This was not a rare example of Santa being corrupt, just exercising influence by being in two states of morality at the same time. We are not having the same problem as we have always been in the top quartile of the Nice List. I don’t help to run one of the most advanced CRM consultancies in the world for nothing, though I have to hand it to you, our Technical Wizard (Colin) had a bit of a job hacking into those 348 million pages of vellum and eventually had to get assistance from one H. Potter of Hogwarts School of Wizardry. Yes. We are to an extent repeating history with our intention to rent out the list to Homeland Security but we are also including MI5, MI6, FSB (Successor the KGB) and SPECTRE. The problem with old elvish documents has been overcome these days as the last bid was pre-“The Lord of The Rings” films and to get a nerd who would translate cost nothing apart from the indignity of everyone on the bid team having to dress up as Gandalf, Borrowmere etc, pretend that the berk was Aragorn and refer to him as “My Lord” which was just too much for most 1980’s merchant bankers. These days, most UK merchant bankers can read elvish. At least they think that they can after a good lunch. I was rather hoping that you would accept a role in the new company – but I realise that owning that list might take some of the fun out of your job. However, just look on the bright side – you’d be able to totally naff-off everyone else in the telemarketing industry by being able to phone people who actually want double glazing and want it now, 100% of the time. I’m not suggesting that you would want to do this for a living, but it would be worth it just to see the looks on your competitors’ faces. Then there’s the other possibility of using Sana’s, “Being everywhere at the same time technology” I’m sure we can come up with a “Phone everyone at the same time” machine, which combined with the previously mentioned science of quantum entanglement would mean that even if they put the phone down on you, there would be an 99.99% chance that you would still stay connected to the recipient, at least until the end of your pitch as well as allowing you to work the phones for only 0 seconds a day. So how about accepting the joint role of Director of Telemarketing and VP of Showing off? Regards Steve Alker Unimax Solutions, Office of Telepathy Sales

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/29/2006 3:23 PM (CST)
Lori (Positive Thinker) Apropos is a spy-ware Trojan as well as meaning pertinent, so re our bid – I hope that you are not up to something or I’ll set Rudolph on you! As I used Katharine Whitehorn’s book whist at St Andrews, I might take the quotation you mentioned and change it around a bit and say that if she hadn’t written Cooking in a Bed-sitter, it would have been necessary to starve. She was to all accounts a great Rector. As you are into history, here’s a bit from St Andrews. The holder of the office of Lord Rector chairs the University Court, but they are elected by the students. That’s very 21st century for an 800 year old institution. They can only be removed by the Queen or King, which is a good old 12th century protection mechanism. All the proceedings and the minutes of the Rectorial are in Latin. Not many people know this, but I served on the Student Representative Council as Executive Treasurer and Senior Vice-President and had the honour to work with Rectors Alan Coren (Editor of Punch) and Frank Muir (Humorist, Author and Broadcaster). A previous Rector was John Cleese who was in the chair at an acrimonious Court meeting where two professors were arguing semantics. He called them to order and was told to “Keep out of it as he was only a comedian” So he drew himself up to his full 6 foot 7 inches, standing on the Rectors Throne and in his finest Monty Python voice, bellowed “Bloody Shut UP!” He apparently never had a problem with meetings again and went on to use his experience at Court to found Video Arts, a commercial training company, making videos for sales training, marketing, HR and surprisingly, “How to run meetings” I’ll drop him a line and see if he’ll accept the position of Hon President of Christmas Inc of he’ll chair the Bored (sic) Meetings. Meanwhile, the position of Director of Interesting Trivia is available. Are you interested? Stevanus Alkerus ad Unimaximus Solutions. Sic Nomen Domini, Salvatorum Nostrum. Amen

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/29/2006 6:27 PM (CST)
Kathy (kathysmithcasting) I hadn’t considered the CO2 aspects of taking over Christmas Inc, but you have engendered a spot of shame on the home-front. I always suspected that getting our hardwood Christmas tree flown in from the Amazon rain forest on our private jet, (It’s specially selected from an endangered species) might be a bit brazen and just a tad environmentally unfriendly but I thought, what the heck – venture capitalists do naughty things all the time. As the CO2 emissions from this could put me on Santa’s wrong list, I promise never, never, never, ever to do it again. Honest, cross my heart and hope to die. Instead we’ll revert to the 14th century practice our family used to adopt at our Castle in the North of England (See, we can always pre-date anything you guys from the New World can dig up!) where we used a locally grown spruce, decorated with the colourful heads of peasants that had been executed. Sorry, I got carried away with historic detail there and if I’m not careful I’ll be forced into making a public apology for my ancestor’s antics. It was a typo and I meant “Colourful heads of pheasants” Honest. You’ve hit on one of the many things which we can restore to a child’s perception of Christmas and that is their sense of the “Wonder and Awe” of it all. They’ll soon be really appreciating those presents when they realise just how much we’ll be making mum and dad pay out to get them delivered next year and I’m sure that as a Tinseltown professional, you will understand the dramatic impact of replacing “Wonder and Awe” with “Shock and Awe”. Our new Director of Delivery Debt Collection, a Mr Rumsfeld (We also try to give jobs to the unemployed) has a neat idea of using stealth bombers to extract payments from the recalcitrant. Maybe you could make a film about it to promote our people-friendly policies along with our tag line – “Remember, we know where you live, so if you don’t want your house bombed back into the Stone Age, pay up or stick to oranges for presents” Catchy, isn’t it!!! Actually, apart from offering you the job of Director of Directing for this bid, you could also assume responsibility for casting (we call it employment) as it would appear that the lunatics are in danger of taking over the asylum at this end. Could I ask a favour, perhaps? Your film studio on your website looks fantastic. I used to do stage lights at an arts centre theatre and at university. Any chance I could have a go again? Best wishes and thanks for the ideas. Steve Alker, Really, Really Penitent Division, Unimax Apologies Department Honest!

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
12/30/2006 5:04 AM (CST)
Dear bigstarnow Now that I’ve caught up with our postings, I thought, “What a curious one from someone with a curious name.” Is it intended to be a statement? If so, is it a comment on my intent or a description of your own one liner? If it is the latter, I agree. Your comment is a joke. If it refers to mine, how can you possibly know? Isn’t it rather up to me to decide if what I’ve posted is joke or not? Or perhaps you are offended by the question and this is an interjection. That would be understandable only if you hadn’t read it, if you thought that we’d offended your religious principals and if you didn’t work for Dodier and Company whose home page alludes to the Pearly Gates and Heaven and offers proximity to both with the alacrity of a 17th century Catholic Priest flogging off dispensations. Or perhaps it was a question and you just got the words and the punctuation a bit mixed-up. “Is this a joke?” would make more sense and reminds me of the old chestnut in the Philosophy Paper: Q “Is this a question” A “Yes, if this is an answer” So the answer would be, “No, it’s not a joke, but it’s still terribly funny.” This is deadly serious and having now had full sight of Santa’s Nice and Naughty list, I can tell you which one you are on. Can you remember what you did on 22nd of November 199-? At 3.09pm EST? It’s still not too late to write to him and own up for free, because after the 6th Of Jan, getting off the wrong list is gonna cost ya! With tons of love and best wishes Steve Alker Unimax Dispensations

Posted by: stevea	Author Response
1/6/2007 5:09 PM (CST)
As twelfth night is now over, it’s time to close the bid. I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed and to comment on the last couple of posts. Papadoc (Steve): We were going to outsource the consequences of being nasty to those who rent the list! As to the ability to put those billions of mince pies, glasses of milk and tots of sherry to work for good, that was a brilliant idea and though it does not fit in with the over-arching sense of capitalistic money-grabbing morality we had to adopt to get into the mindset for the bid, just doing it would let us sleep more easily in our beds. Sadly the Red Cross and Oxfam have said that they have neither the storage facilities not the logistic to ensure timely delivery. Several Governments have contacted me to say that if they could be converted to armour plated limos, ammo and rocket launchers, they could distribute them directly to third world beneficiaries (For the relief of the poor, of course) Carrie: I’d be delighted to open a “Discus Ion” board with you as moderator as you suggested, but respecting your pun, would it be restricted only to members who can use a “Plasma Screen” on their PC! The bid has been made, but a last minute counter bid has trumped us and we should have seen it coming. A strange sounding Mr D. Vader of the Galactic Empire, offered us as many Imperial Star Destroyers as we wanted and the odd Death Star to help us to beat off any competition in exchange for a prior look at the list. We doubted his motives as he appeared to be a fictional character, so we turned him down. Last night, his consortium annihilated the entire N. Pole operation and made off with parts of the copy of the nice list. Strangely, only the pages with the details of Leia Organa (Princess) and Luke Skywalker went missing before the rest were atomised. Apparently he just wanted to give them an early Christmas present. Hey ho, you win some and you lose some. S. Clause survived and he’s told me that Hollywood have already offered to re-build the entire Christmas inc. Centre as they want to be able to continue to produce prequels and sequels for ever, so no change there, I’m afraid. Happy New Year everyone and I hope that you’ve now taken down all your decorations. Steve

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