Tag Archives: USPS

Integrated Marketing – an Imperative for Success Today

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The Wheel of Marketing Choices

The integrated imperative!  That’s where marketing is today.  Heed the headline, or perish. There really aren’t any options.  Over the last several years my clients and I have noticed that marketing has gotten harder to do well, we had fewer choices and those produced good results.  There are more marketing choices, channels and media options than we thought possible just a few years ago.  Choosing wisely and making it work across channels and markets – integration, is what it really driving our marketing world today…and to do it well is hard!

On May 10, Steve McKee, in Business Week, authored the article “Integrated Marketing: If You Knew It, You’d Do It”  He starts with the opening paragraph – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, is such a cliché that it has spawned its own cliché: If it ain’t broke, break it. Unfortunately, that’s just what many companies do unwittingly to their branding programs, playing into the hands of public enemy No. 1 in today’s marketing environment: Fragmentation.

The rest of the article made the case for integrating the marketing, mainly keeping a consistency of messaging across multiple platforms we all endure today.  It is a delightful read, and one that many of his readers commented on in a favorable manner.  For the most part I agree, but the key message he iterates is ‘integrated marketing is hard!’  Yes it is, and this is why so few are able to do it well, if at all.

The boomer generation grew up with tightly bracketed marketing channels.  You bought the best and then hoped for good results.  The good news is that your audience had fewer choices and they were generally on the receiving end – be it newspapers, television, radio or out of home.

That world doesn’t exist today, and everything is hard.  So many choices, and so many places for your audience to be hiding.  The digital world is wonderful with all of its options on both sides, but for the marketer it is tough to juggle all those balls.  Three key channel options for most, have now turned into 8 to 12.  On top of that it is now ‘social’ so your audience can talk back to you…and you better be listening, because they’ll carve you up if you aren’t.  Trust me, I have, and they have left scars for not listening and not responding fast enough.

The McKee article is a good read, and I implore you to look at it.  You should also read the reader comments which come mainly from industry participants, who mostly agree, but they also have their particular bents.  They are in agreement that ‘integrated marketing is hard.’  Yes it is, but there is no choice.  The world we knew was broken, and there is no going back.  Multiple channels, both analog and digital need to be attended to and used appropriately to reach your target ‘audiences’ (emphasis on the plural) if you are to survive.

Many of my clients have long histories, they love their new options, but still talk about how it ‘used to be.’  We commiserate, have a cup of coffee, and then get on with reality and plan how to cover their broad patch of media options.  All of this with careful attention to keeping the message consistent and true to each channel of their multi-faceted customer and target base.  It takes more time, and more money, but it produces better results.  Isn’t that what we are all looking for?  It’s a new world, and I love it!

Love Letters from Washington to the USPS

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Congress - In Action or inaction?In the manner in which it can only do, the Senate has passed legislation aimed at solving some of the problems the USPS is facing.  As only they can do…they punted, and now the House will have the ball for the rest of the game.  On May 15, time will be out so they need to act soon.

What did they accomplish? According to most who care about the issue – not much.  Lots of posturing, and little action.  Retirement incentives for nearly 100,000 postal employees, a ‘study’ of dropping Saturday delivery, a return of $5.5B in ‘overpayments into the retiree health plan along with not having to continue the onerous advance payments they had been conscripted to do in 2006.  They would also allow the USPS to find some new revenue sources like the delivery of wine and beer which they are forbidden by law to do currently.

Wow – study Saturday delivery.  Oh, and they also sent a strongly worded letter to the Postmaster General not to do any post office or distribution center closings, please, until they got back to them.  Our top 100 legislators in the U.S., and this is all they can come up with.  Now it’s on to the House.

The House is going through its ‘due diligence with no due haste of any many.  With their view they also want to punt the issue down the road.  After having asked for bold solutions and suggested that the Postmaster General and his staff run this like a business, they are now saying ‘ wait a minute.’  It is obvious from their public comments that they in the House intend to do just that…for many minutes.

Notes have been passed back an forth Senate to House to USPS in a never ending cycle and now some news is coming out as of today that the USPS has agreed not to close any post offices for now.  The threat of closing many rural post offices was too much for all of the Senators and Congressman.  We’ll effectively deal with that after the fall election.  Surprised, not so much on my part.

The USPS has many problems, but the courage to create a ‘business plan’ that could stem their losses was not one of them.  They came up with one, but it meant pain, and we don’t do pain well in an election year on any house or on either side of the aisle.  Change will have to come in 2013.  But what kind of change do we really want.

It is absolutely true that we communicate differently now than in the past.  Old legacy media and forms of communications are being changed to newer digital forms.  Mail, newspapers, land line telephones are not the key means to reach out and ‘touch someone’ that they used to be.  Get over it, and move on!  We still need all of these to have total access to information and a free dialog that is so important to our way of life.  We need the USPS, but we do need to trim its costs just as newspapers have had to trim theirs to stay alive.  Let’s hope our national legislators have the real courage to tackle this issue and to help place the USPS on a solid footing for the sake of our future.  I’ll be putting out a Mothers Day card tomorrow, and I hope I’ll get a couple of Fathers Day cards next month – we need the cheer that only they can bring when you pull them out of the envelope.

The USPS is NOT a business, it is a real part of the American way of life, and I for one want it to stay, even if I don’t like all the grumpy clerks down at my local P.O. here in Irvine.  Heck, even I get grumpy once and a while.  I welcome your comments, email or even drop me a card in the mail.  Our friends at the post office will appreciate it too!

Postal Reform Now…Will Congress Act to Save or Kill USPS?

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Is the Postal Service going downhill??

“Industries Fear the Ripple Effects of Proposed Postal Service Cuts” – Was the title of the article in by Ron Nixon in the New York Times yesterday.  It is a good statement of some of the key issues that are being taken up starting this week in Washington.  All sides are lined up to help shape the final outcome.  Today ,CCN Money  has picked up the story as well.  It seems that all eyes are on Congress as they take up the issue of “postal reform.”  All this while all the ears are on the Supreme Court as they take up the issue of ‘Obamacare.’  We certainly do live in interesting times.  As the pace of change and disruption our world picks up we must expect many more battles in the future to go along with these two. 

Congress has begun work on their vision for Postal Reform, if reform is what they really have in mind.  All of the various constituencies are lined up on both sides of the issue.  Some want more, and others want the USPS to do less.  On the plus side are the wine and beer lobbies that want to be able to use the USPS to ship their products, something the USPS is prohibited from doing by law.  On the negative side the insurance and banking industries are lined up to ensure that the USPS not move into their fields, as some in Congress has suggested they do to create more revenues.

Like the newspaper business which is also undergoing its own transformation, the USPS is a huge enterprise that employees nearly 600,000.  Beyond that the entire direct marketing field, including mailing companies, printers and direct marketers employees over 10 times that amount.  This is a big deal, and we need to get it right.  As was noted in the article the field supports over $1 trillion in annual economic activity.  It helped to put both of my sons through college, so it is still dear to me.

Nearly every business relies on the post office to deliver packages, advertise services and send out bills. This postal supply chain supports millions of American jobs in fields as diverse as banking, agriculture, media and manufacturing.  This is an urgent issue since the USPS is losing nearly $36 million a day.  As volumes of mail have decreased with former users now going to digital methods of delivery.  Even the USPS has said that it does not expect to get those missing volumes back in the future.

The USPS is also saddled with a Congressional mandate to pre-fund future retirements, the only government agency to have to do so, to the tune of $5.5 billion.  Relief from this mandate would cut the shortfall in half.  A sign that this is a big deal is the nearly $300 million spent over the last three year by those lobbying on all sides of this issue – both the USPS employee unions and industries who work in the direct marketing field.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has proposed closing half of the post offices, approximately 3700 and shutting half of the mail processing centers, 250 there.  Both changes, along with stopping Saturday delivery, would also help to bring down the shortfall.  In a world that has gotten to email and instant messaging for time vital business and personal communications, there would seem to be some wiggle room for printed mail – derisively called ‘snail mail.’  A big question is how fast do we need to be, especially if we want to price reduction, or at least fewer price increases.  And yes, the USPS is also asking for a 50 cent first class stamp.

Postmaster General Donahoe said in prepared testimony.  “If Postal Service were a private company, we would be engaged in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.”  The Senate is beginning the process now, and the House will begin deliberations, probably next month.  A key deadline for consideration is May 15, when a moratorium on closing postal facilities will expire.

Currently under consideration is a bill that passed a Senate committee in November that would tap the overpayment of the future retirement benefits, currently at $10.9 billion to pay down postal service debt (to the U.S. Treasury) and use up to $2 billion for incentives to get a number of long term employees to retire.  The USPS has also planned to open its own health care for employees in hopes of cutting their costs, but there is pretty widespread opposition to that from Congress and the employees.

The USPS is a legacy system with a long history.  Like so many of our other ‘legacy’ systems, including newspapers, they are in deep trouble with the change in the economy in our broadening digital age.  Change is great for some, though it sucks for others.  I live in both worlds, and yes, I still want things the way they used to be.  The question is how much am I willing to pay to have that.  We make those choices each day, and we are making those choices now regarding our postal system.

In the face of the current situation I have to applaud Postmaster General Donahoe and his staff, though that is a strange position for me.  I prospered under the USPS, and endured a lot of petty regulations as well.  They clearly understand where they are today, where the world is going, and have surfaced a plan that will help them to move forward under their current legal and financial burdens.  Congress has the keys to open doors for them to endure and preserve the current levels of service many still desire.  They also have the keys to the vault and say no more.  I compliment the PG for a real and thoughtful plan, and I hope our elected officials will make the right choices.  In the face of the coming elections later this year – this should prove to be good theater, and maybe even good politics.

The Pony Express Collides with 21st Century

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Postmaster General Patrick DonahoeTomorrow, Patrick R. Donahoe, USPS Postmaster General will be addressing a gathering of key postal businesses from throughout Southern California at a Postal Customer Council event at Knott’s Beery Farm Resort Hotel.   The location is fitting since Knott’s was built on framing images of life in the old west, stagecoaches and railroads – just like our vision of our Postal Service.  I think that is a key to our discussion about how to handle the transformation of the USPS in the 21st century. The USPS like newspapers, printers and mailers are in the midst of a major reshaping as increasing numbers of businesses and all people are moving to digital forms of communications.  The world will never be the same as it was when I started my career selling for Xerox in the 70’s.

Facing great change and pressure the USPS has done a good job in creating plans to bring the service in line with the needs of the 21st century, and stagecoaches are not in the mix. The Postal Service drafted its business plan with analysis from Boston Consulting Group and Accenture.  Based on my reading of the plan, they have gotten good advice, though it has not been well received in Congress, though nothing really is anymore…but that is another problem that modernization needs to impact.

In the last quarter of 2011 the USPS lost $3.3 billion.  The forecast for a full year-end is a $14.1 billion loss for the year ending Sept. 30.  The losses will continue, and continue to grow if nothing is done

First-class stamped mail has declined more than 50% in the past 10 years, from 52 billion deliveries in 2002 to 26 billion in 2011. According to an email from USPS representative Sue Brennan, the drop in mail has resulted in significant excess capacity.

Among the recommendations from the USPS, and their consultants in the new plan to cut losses are:

Rate increases – The U.S. Postal Service wants Congress to help it raise the price of a first-class stamp to 50 cents, an 11 percent increase, as part of its strategy to avoid annual losses as high as $18.2 billion by 2015.  The fact still remains for the USPS is that we are the least expensive postal service in the world- we could even say that we are under priced for the service that we deliver. A price increase would seem to be in line all things considered, including real value.

Staff and facilities reductions – Closure of a number of local post offices and half of the larger mail processing centers would save significant dollars, and would also reduce staff by over 35,000.  This would be a tough call in the middle of a financial downturn, and a national election.  Nine states will see eight or more processing facilities closed.  Almost half of the 223 plants scheduled to be shuttered are located in nine states, including mine.  For the most part, these states, which include California, New York and Texas, have the largest populations in the country.

Curtail Saturday delivery – The Postal Service says it would save $2.7 billion annually by cutting mail delivery to five days a week.  Those of us in urban areas are likely to see this as positive, but rural areas have tended to see this a problem.

Manage Their Own Health Care Benefits – The USPS states that they could save $7.1 billion a year by managing their own health-care benefits.  This, along with not prefunding pension benefits, would be significant, but are a large political football for both sides. The USPSwould have lost only $200 million if not for payments it had to make toward the $5.5 billion it is required by law to set aside for future retiree health benefits annually, something no other government agency needs to do.

Our transistion to a post industrial society is hell for those who still provide the bulk of our labor.  The USPS has dramatically changed over the last couple of decades and automation has made it a model for most of the world, but not even that is not enough well production volumes decrease.  Savings from automation aren’t there any more, and now we have to remove some chairs from the table.  Like newspapers, the transition is painful, but it is still inevitable.  The USPS plan is a good business plan, and Congress should adopt it for the most part.

I wish I could hear the Postmaster General tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I have a previous engagement with a client dealing with digital marketing issues and their competition.  Doesn’t it just figure – new media trumping old media once again.  I hope the USPS gets their way in the end.  The plan is real and reflects the medicine we all need to take now.  In an election year this will drag out and become another political football.  Shame on us for allowing that to happen.

Happy Endings to All…and to All a Good New Year!

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I love endings!  That usually means a completion of a task or a goal, and the opportunity to move on to new things.  Year endings are the best.  Close out the old and start with a clean slate.  I think this year will not end so well.  Instead of starting fresh we will be dragging an incredible amount of baggage along with us into 2012.  As we have moved into our new digital age in the first decade of the 21st century, our legacy tools and traditions, and so much of what makes up our business way of life are struggling to advance with incredible pressure being on them to adapt, or die.

One of our oldest tools in the U.S. has been the Postal Service initiated in large part by Benjamin Franklin.  It was instrumental to our overall success for over 200 hundred years.  Today, it is seen by many as a ‘relic’ of the past as new digital tools have eaten into its core ability to facilitate communication.  Hand written letters are becoming things of the past.  Our current generation would not understand the context of the old saw – “keep those cards and letters coming!”  Now we have to warn people about communicating (i.e. – texting) while driving.

I could go on for days about this transition, but I won’t.  I have written extensively about the battle for the future of our USPS and what it means to commerce and personal communication.  The leaders of the USPS have offered solutions – i.e cutbacks, and I have applauded their honesty and candor about their situation and things that must be done to keep the USPS on a sound financial footing given our change in mailing patterns.

The latest salvo against their plan has come from their masters, the Postal Commission – “Postal Service’s Closure Review Process Was Flawed, Panel Says”  They believe that the original plan was ‘flawed’ and did not take into consideration a number of sensitive issues other than just cost.  That is an honest statement, but the overall consideration by the Commission is politics.  The only answer for the USPS is a full and open consideration of what we expect from the service in light of today’s evolving digital world, and what are we will to pay for as citizens to preserve the service as a whole, and how will the prime users contribute to save their unique positions.  This includes the full commercial mailers, and rural users who are the prime drivers of cost.

I await 2012 to see how this evolves.  I expect no real answers until after the election of 2012 which will go a long way to determining how we as a large community will choose to deploy and pay for the resources that we use.

Notes from the Battlefield…

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A funny thing happened on my way to researching the options for the USPS.  I got way laid! I must admit that this happens to me a lot, especially when I have ‘chores’ to do.  This time, no chores, but I found that when I started doing research with all of my friends in the direct marketing field – they wouldn’t stop talking.  I quick discussion turned into a 2-hour meeting.  That was repeated multiple times, but it was well worth my time, and therapeutic for them.  I left them all with the feeling that they had gotten something off of their collective chests.

What did I learn…a lot!  First thing, all are passionate about what they do!  They feel that they are contributing to the big marketing effort to sell goods and services, and that direct marketing is still relevant and vibrant.  The second thing that I learned is that, they are nearly all wondering, what the hell happened, and this can’t be happening to me.

Where do they go from here, and where the heck do I go from here?  More field work I guess, looking for real options that reflect the public mood, and the mood of the users of direct mail and direct marketing.  Meanwhile, the battle continues to be waged in the halls of Congress, where hearings will go on,and talk will flow.  If we could harness the energy from all of the Congressman’s lips, even on this little subject, the energy crisis would be over…tomorrow.

Seriously, this issue on the future of the USPS is real, and everyone is concerned.  The answers aren’t simple, and few agree, today, on what we should do, and what kinds of USPS we should have in the 21st Century.  I will continue my journey throughout December to try to bring some sense to the issues, and to try to shed some light on possible solutions, and probable outcomes.  Now back to the battlefield to interview more wounded warriors.  Roger and Out!

The Battle is On!

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It seems that the battle for the direction and future of the USPS has now been fully engaged.  We’ve had words, and now we have action – or at least the threat of action. We’ve gone from hand wringing, to bluster, and now we have the scheduling of some real action to address the persistent financial problems facing the USPS.  Today we have a real General, albeit the Postmaster General, promising positive steps to reducing costs by changing service levels to reduce costs.

As a direct marketing veteran, 30 years in service, General sir!  I am pleased that Patrick Donahoe has taken some bold steps indicating that he is ready to make the cuts and adjustments that will help bring his USPS back into a balanced financial position.

Over the coming days, and probably weeks, I will write extensively about all of the issues, hopefully from the perspective of all sides, and try to posit some solutions that I think all can live with, if not love.  Our times have changed how we consume our information, more digitally now, and less via print and mail.  This trend is likely to continue and that means adopting solutions that work best for all of us.

Tomorrow – the USPS plans and requests, their solution for the short-term fix to their budget woes.

A Few Stamps Short of a Full Roll

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The Ben Franklin Stamp

Honoring our First Postmaster General, Ben Franklin

The battle goes on, for the life and soul of the United States Postal Service.  Life and soul?  Yeah, that’s what I think.  We are at a cross roads to decide whether we will keep the USPS as we know it, or will cut it down to a botique service used for direct mailers and holiday cards.

I hate to sound so harsh, but I really think that we are at a point of no return.   In all of our budget discussions, and the search for expenses that could be reduced, the long knives have come out against the USPS.  I would not describe the USPS as the most efficient agency of the government, if there are any of those kinds of animals anyway, but they are important to us as a people and we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to solve the issue…right now.

Last Friday George Will waded into the fray will his piece on privatizing the USPS.  A few of his thoughts from the right side of the argument:

“Today, the U.S. Postal Service, whose financial condition resembles that of the federal government, of which the USPS is another ailing appendage, is urging cancellation of Saturday deliveries, perhaps en route to three-days-a-week delivery. The USPS lost $5.1 billion in the latest fiscal year — after serious cost-cutting. Total 2012 losses may exceed $14 billion, a figure larger than the budgets of 35 states.

“The fact that delivering the mail is one of the very few things the federal government does that the Constitution specifically authorizes (Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have power to . . . establish post offices and post roads”) does not mean it must do it. Surely the government could cede this function to the private sector, which probably could have a satisfactory substitute system functioning quicker than you can say “FedEx,” “UPS” and “Wal-Mart.”

“The first two are good at delivering things; the third, supplemented by other ubiquitous retailers, could house post offices. All three are for-profit enterprises, so they have an incentive to practice bourgeois civility — to be helpful, even polite. These attributes are not always found at post offices.”

On the philosophical lefter side of the argument on the USPS, David Lazarus, my favorite gadfly columnist from the Los Angeles Times has also weighed in on the USPS situation.  I’m going to quote him liberally here so we have a little fairness in the argument:

“Richard Maher can’t remember the last time he wrote a personal letter to anyone — and he works for the U.S. Postal Service. That’s how bad things have gotten for the government agency that, in the age of email, Facebook and Twitter, not to mention FedEx and United Parcel Service, announced last week that it lost $5.1 billion in the last year.  And the losses would have been more than double that amount — a record $10.6 billion — if Congress hadn’t allowed the postal service to engage in a little creative bookkeeping and shift an outstanding $5.5-billion payment for retiree healthcare into the current fiscal year.”

Lazarus goes on to say…“As a newspaperman, I know a little something about antiquated business models. Simply put, the postal service can no longer raise the money it needs to do the job it’s required to do. Period. It just isn’t economically feasible.”

“A couple of years ago, after the postal service reported losing a mere $3.8 billion, I asked whether it was time to think about privatizing mail delivery. The problem with that idea quickly became apparent when both FedEx and UPS told me they weren’t interested in the job.

“While both companies might be interested in cherry-picking profitable urban routes, neither wanted the obligation of schlepping mail up and down backwater rural roads. We believe that the government plays a role in terms of ensuring that every mailbox is reached every day,” a UPS spokesman said. “That is not a responsibility that UPS would want.”

“Higher rates are obviously in the cards. A first-class stamp will cost 45 cents as of Jan. 22. Don’t be surprised if that charge quickly grows to 50 cents, or more. But higher fees alone won’t do the trick. That’s why the postal service has also proposed dropping Saturday delivery, closing processing centers nationwide and having the leeway to lay off tens of thousands of workers.”

“But I’d go a step further. Perhaps it’s time to do away with the postal service’s constitutional requirement for universal service. Perhaps it’s time to stop delivering to the sticks. I know, I know: heresy. But think about it. The real problem here is costly rural delivery. So instead of having the mail man (or woman) visit every home everywhere, how about we set a geographic boundary for home delivery at some point on the outskirts of every urban area?”

“Beyond that point, people’s mail would be delivered to the nearest post office, where you could pick it up at your convenience. Or you could authorize someone else to pick up your mail — the neighbor’s kid, say, riding his bike home from school.  For more urgent deliveries, such as medicine or medical supplies, an opportunity would exist for local companies to establish services that would bring mail to people’s homes in a timely fashion. Such services could also address the needs of seniors who may not be able to get to the post office.”

For the last word on the issue let’s turn to the man at the top of the USPS.  U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the two separate bills that have advanced in House and Senate committees “delay tough decisions” and “don’t come close” to giving the Postal Service the flexibility it needs to stem steep financial losses.

The Postal Service has offered a number of solutions, however not everyone agrees with them – mainly Congress, the Postal Unions, and major mailers.  At a National Press Club luncheon, Mr. Donahoe said that neither of the two bills passed recently by House and Senate committees went far enough to help the post office achieve its goal of cutting $20 billion from its annual costs, which are now about $75 billion, by 2015.

Here’s the part that I love to hear, if I had it on tape I would play it over and over – Mr. Donahoe said “We’re in a deep financial crisis today because we have a business model that’s tied to the past,” he said. “We are expected to operate like a business, but don’t have the flexibility to do so. Our business model is fundamentally inflexible. It prevents the Postal Service from solving its problems.”

I think that opening up the discussion to admit that what we are doing today is not sacrosanct, carved in stone, patriotic, or whatever…it is really that the old business model doesn’t work today.  Wow, so many buckets of ink have been spilled to get down to that point.  If we accept that as fact, and I posit that we should then we need to come up with some answers for our future – for the USPS, its’ employees, its’ customers, both senders and receivers – and move forward.

I will be back soon to talk about all of the possible solutions from as many sources as I can find, top them off with me own – and then let this rest.  Like David Lazarus, I’ve spent too many years in the industry not to care, but it is also obvious that the current model doesn’t work and must be changed.

Support Your Local Mail Carriers…Please!

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US Postmaster General Patrick Danahow

Let me make one more point...!

In my search for updates on the current postal service issues I came across a new source of information – PostalReporter.com.  This is a site maintained by the APWU, and I suppose other affiliated postal service unions and workers.  A concise site for all things related to postal issues,especially postal worker issues it was informative and very direct in covering USPS issues today.

In the site I noticed that the USPS has been given until November 18th to come up with a decision on how they will handle the payment to the Postal Pension account that they had earlier defaulted on.  This was the default that set into play the whole mess of what to do with the USPS earlier this year.

After a lot of discussion, angry words on all sides we are now back to looking at the clock.  Tic Toc, but the cupboard is still bare and no real decisions have been made.  The USPS has requested making changes, but the approval to make them rest with the politicians.  Now what?

One of the key leaders in the Congress actively working to help reshape the USPS is Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.  He is quoted as saying…“It is time for the Postal Service to move into the future, to offer Internet service, printing service, and all the other services appropriate for the modern age which are financially viable.”  He has offered his own version of a bill to help save the postal service.  Others have done the same thing, but the big question is can they all come together in this politically charged environment to do something that is forward thinking?  I hope so, but I have real doubts on anything substantive happening in the short term.

One of the things that had been recommended was to sell some of the surplus USPS real estate.  Some is currently vacant, some was purchased in anticipation of future growth.  Some facilities will be available if the USPS is allowed to close a large number of postal facilities – both processing centers and post offices.  Again, this is all subject to political approval in Congress.

To help set this all in motion the USPS awarded CB Richard Ellis a contract in July 2011 to serve as its exclusive provider of strategic corporate real estate solutions nationally. “CB Richard Ellis will provide transaction management services for USPS, including leasing and disposition.”  The website listing USPS properties for sale is operated by CB Richard Ellis Group.

After having watched the series of commercials sponsored by the postal workers unions I thought I had seen them all until yesterday when they came out with a new wrinkle.  Cutting postal workers will cut veterans!  I wasn’t aware that the USPS is one of the largest employers of veterans, and that there was a preference for hiring and retaining veterans since an act of Congress in 1944.

With all of our worries about getting people back to work and our desire to do well for veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan it gave me pause, but then reality set it.  We need to come up with the right focus for our postal system, staff it appropriately to meet our needs and move forward.  This includes looking at the mandate that it should be self-supporting.  I would be the first to say that the USPS should be cost-effective, but to be fully self-supporting I think is short sighted – and we need to apply long term vision for our future now.

“Time to Letter Go?”

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Senator Claire McCaskill, Missouri

Senator Claire McCaskill, Missouri - USPS Letter Writing Campaign Queen

That was the headline recently in The Daily, the first online news product from the Murdoch family of ‘news’ vehicles.  Actually, I added the ‘?’ at the end, because they didn’t.  Their proposal was that it was time to end the postal service as we know it, not whether we should or not.  I know things have gotten a little heated lately, but I think they have gotten a little ahead of themselves. Some of our professional governing class in Washington are also starting to take notice of the issue and have some answers of their own to the revenue shortage and lack of personal mail that is so nice to recieve…especially since it is so infrequent today. Senator McCaskill of Missouri, I love this lady, and would love to have her as my Grandma if I weren’t so old.  In a recent Senate hearing on the USPS she said.  “I really think that there isa longing out there right now, especially in these uncertain times, for some of the things that have provided stability over the years.”  She wanted to have the USPS mount a campaign to send more cards and letters to friends.  Patrick Donahoe, Postmaster General, said he thought that was a good idea and they had plans for an advertising campaign due to hit soon. My other ‘favorite’ Senator Joe Lieberman also voiced his support suggesting, “We should be writing more passionate letters to those we love.”  Wow, no wonder I hold him in such high esteem. There are already TV campaigns running, paid for by the Postal Unions, I think, since they feature so many smiling postal workers…none of which work at my local post office across from the University of California.  I’m an ad guy, and I don’t think they will have everyone rush out for a couple of new roles of ‘forever stamps.’ However, I did search my office, and my secret hiding place for all things paper and found my old stash of engraved note cards and envelopes my LHRG bought for me a long time ago.  The box is nearly full still.  They look great, but the zip code has changed – our fourth in 29 years.  I think I will use them to join the great crusade of Senator McCaskill.  Heck, I’ll even send one for Senator Joe – perhaps even to his office  so he can see that his words actually do have some effect. We have a lot of issues with our postal service.  In the past I have railed against their armed investigation of a local mail processor as being a ‘little over the top’, but these issues are real and letter writing campaigns will not solve them.  We have to define what we want our postal service to do for us, and how much we are willing to pay for it.  Either postal rates should reflect the whole burden of the operational and pension costs, or it should be subsidized, much like we do with nearly every other function of government. We have to choose…I think I’ll write to my Congressman, I think that he can read.  That should be fun since he lives in my zip code and will wonder where the hell it’s coming from with the old zip cade engraved on the back.  That should drive him crazy.  My intentions will be satisfied.