Archive for May, 2008

In a week of bad to so-so news from the banks, one story stands out. Ed Clark, CEO of TD Bank, today announced he will exercise some $20 million in options, keep 15 per cent for himself in bank shares, give away $8 million to charity and use the rest of the money to pay for the cost of the options as well as taxes owing.

Of all the definitions of leadership that I’ve ever heard, this ranks with the best.

Clark started his working life as the most reviled bureaucrat ever to offend business. As a public servant in the Trudeau government, he was blamed for being the author of the 1980 National Energy Program.

For us nationalists, the NEP’s goals seemed eminently sensible: energy security, redistribution of wealth and more Canadian ownership of the oil and gas sector. Business leaders and Alberta fought over who hated him the most. Clark won the Outstanding Civil Servant Award.

Next stop in Clark’s unusual career path was Merrill Lynch, followed by president and CEO of Canada Trust. TD Bank bought Canada Trust, Clark in tow, and he was soon running the bank.

When TD and CIBC proposed a merger in 1998, the published list of officers-to-be had Clark in the top role. For CIBC it wasn’t so much of a merger as a succession strategy. Only Matt Barrett, among recent Canadian Big Five CEOs, has run two banks. Clark almost became the second to cross that chasm.

And now this. Red Ed, his foes called him in the NEP days. In their minds he was a socialist. Well, it turns out they were right. Ed Clark has found a new way to redistribute wealth.

May others follow his lead.

We’ve been back from Florence for a while, but when people ask about our time there, we no longer talk about what we saw or who we met, we’re more likely to describe how the experience changed us.

Sandy discovered that her creativity knows no bounds, that she has her own unique artistic voice, and can create beauty from wire, paints, plaster of Paris, charcoal, screening, beads, bottle bottoms - anything she chooses. For my part, I learned that I can easily live without the public profile of my picture on a newspaper column or my byline on some magazine article that the world will little note nor long remember.

We learned the importance of keeping family close, honoring the work of others, and constantly being curious about the world around. We learned not to envy anyone, to cultivate friendships, and to spend time each day on tasks that have intrinsic value. We learned to treasure the Italian way of life that marvels in the moment, celebrates youth and age alike, and treats strangers generously and with respect. We learned that taking risks in life can offer great rewards.

But most of all, we learned that while we do not require as much as we previously believed by way of living space or material possessions, we do need each other. On our anniversary, we two high school sweethearts bought a small brass padlock, wrote our initials and the date on it with a black marker, and secured the lock with the dozens of other similar sentimental statements on the wrought iron railing beneath the statue of goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini on Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge across the Arno, the one lined with modern-day jewelers and goldsmith shops. The tradition is relatively recent. Couples have been declaring their love for each other in this manner and at this location for about ten years. Once the lock was in place, we threw the keys into the Arno. Until death us do part.

Florence is a city that celebrates all the seasons. In May, the weather moves immediately from the high spring of April to high summer. Daytime temperatures soar to 27C and stay there.

Right now, on the gently sloping hill around Piazza Michelangelo, with its spectacular views of the city, there is a glorious iris show. The annual event, first held in 1957, showcases thousands of specimen plants. Stone pathways lead past mounded beds exploding with the familiar blue, white, purple, and yellow blooms in various combinations but there’s also black and chocolate and a triple iris that’s as big as the late Queen Mum’s hat.

The prize-winners from other years have lyrical names - Honky Tonk Blues, Kilt Tilt, Babbling Brook, Spun Gold, Sable Night, Shipshape, Dream Lover, Before the Storm, Silverado, Pink Taffeta - from an alphabet of countries, Australia to the United States.

But there aren’t just iris. There’s also redbud and roses, a pond of pink water lilies, unusual orange poppies, bridal wreath, deutzia, columbine, wispy French tamarisk, and white rock cress so thick and prolific it almost forms a hedge. This is a garden that appeals to many senses: the sight of the colors, the smell of their perfume, the sound of trilling blackbirds, and the touch of warm sun and a light breeze on the skin.

Other smaller sites also offer their beauty. In the city, wisteria falls over walls and in the walled garden at the Palazzo del Vivarelli Colonna, there are lemons in abundance, purple and yellow pansies as well as azalea bushes in pink, red, and orange.
We enjoyed our stay in Florence and we’re happy to be home, close to family in Canada. But at times like these, when overnight temperatures fall to 4C and frost threatens our Toronto garden, you pine for Florence and its carefree climate.

It was Dan Quisenberry who famously said, “I have seen the future. It looks like the past, only longer.” I hate to quarrel with the ace relief pitcher for the Kansas City Royals, whose submarine-style delivery dominated the 1980s, but the future is getting shorter all the time.

Fifteen years ago, when I was working with Don Tapscott on the best-seller The Digital Economy, Don said the most important message in the book was for people to get on the Internet. Now, the web is ubiquitous.

Ten years ago, Research in Motion - the subject of my next book - went public. The Waterloo-based maker of the BlackBerry had 198 employees. Now, RIM has 8,400 employees, 5,800 of whom work in Waterloo. The company’s market cap is $80 billion, making it Canada’s biggest company.

Five years ago I signed up for my first Google Alert, which today brought me the news that my book about Edgar Bronfman Jr., The Icarus Factor, had been mentioned in yesterday’s issue (or was it tomorrow’s?) of The Nation, published in Bangkok, Thailand. I didn’t have to do a thing, the information just showed up.

Quiz was wrong. Another sports figure, Washington Redskins coach George Allen, had it right when he said,”The future is now.”

There is no longer any today, just a smatter of nostalgia and whatever happens next.

What is it about Canadians that we are so smitten with American celebrities we will sit agog, listening to their canned remarks?

When David Gergen came to town last week much was made of Gerry Schwartz, Chairman and CEO of Onex Corp., arriving late and having no seat - such was the drawing power of Gergen, advisor to four American presidents. A chair was found for Gerry, just another rapt member of an audience who could have known all of Gergen’s profundities simply by watching CNN where he appears on late-night panels so often that he must have a cot in the studio.

When we’re not listening to them, we’re reading their books. Gerry’s wife, Heather Reisman, CEO of Indigo Books & Music, features so many books by Big Name Americans that she might as well be running Barnes & Noble. Current Heather’s Pick is the Barbara Walters autobiography, replete with tear-jerking stories about her abysmal upbringing that somehow managed to make her the successful woman she is today.

A while back, I attended one of those day-long events with motivational speakers geared to hype sales types to new heights. I forget who was supposed to speak at lunch, but they cancelled. The last-minute replacement was Larry King, who removed his jacket to reveal his suspenders and began by rattling off a few Yogi Berra lines.

You know the ones, “No one goes to that restaurant anymore, it’s too crowded.” “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” The bromides evoked such hearty laughter he didn’t even bother delivering his usual patter, he just regaled the group with Berra bon mots and one anecdote about another time he gave a speech. The audience lapped it up and then Larry got back on his jet for Washington, D.C.

Bill Clinton, who I used to think was a great president until the South Carolina primary when he showed his mean side, is another favorite. He has become unavoidable. Hardly a week goes by that he isn’t entertaining some Canadian audience with his tired tapdance and collecting another $150,000 toll gate payment for his services.

Enough already.

In case you missed it, here’s a link to the online version of the ad promoting Fantasy in Florence that ran in last Saturday’s book section in The Globe and Mail. This marks the first anniversary of publication and a suitable time to celebrate the book’s position as #1 in books about Florence.

I have just three words to those folks at Sears who are considering a relaunch of the Eaton’s catalogue: Don’t do it.

When I wrote my 1998 book, “The Eatons: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Royal Family,” I discovered a whole new market who’d never before bought my books: sixty-year old women. Put me in front of an audience of 200 retired school teachers, and after my speech, I’d go to the back of the room and sign 150 books sold by a local bookstore, unheard of levels of interest.

These women of a certain age had shopped at Eaton’s, many of them had also worked at Eaton’s. Eaton’s was an integral part of their lives that they wanted to read about.

But these women aren’t the fashion-conscious upscale buyers Sears hopes to attract with a new Eaton’s catalogue and online presence. The plain fact is that there are too few such shoppers in Canada to make this idea fly. Dozens of U.S. retailers have migrated to Canada in the last fifteen years, but the list is dominated by the likes of Wal-Mart and The Home Depot. Why not Nordstrom, Neiman-Marcus, or Bloomingdale’s? Because the demographics don’t exist in Canada for high-end retailers.

Canadians don’t even like catalogues that much. During the 1990s, when we lived in Washington, D.C., hardly a day went by without an unrequested catalogue arriving in the mail. Other than L.L. Bean, I can’t recall the last one I received in Canada.

And if the folks at Sears, who own the Eaton’s name, think they’re going to appeal to the younger crowd, remember this. To be alive today and remember the Eaton’s catalogue, consumers have to be at least forty years old and even then they’d regard it as a place to buy dolls and train sets, not Blahnick shoes.

Remember, too, that Sears has already tried to relaunch Eaton’s with half a dozen stores carrying chic goods. The brand had been so besmirched by bankruptcy that nobody came through the doors.

Finally, why would anyone shop from an Eaton’s catalogue when the previous incarnation was finally put out of its misery in 1976 after losing $100 million in the last eight years of its existence?

There are too many whys for the wise.