JOHN DANIELS - IN MEMORIUM 1980's

John was a pleasure to visit and transact business with during the mid 1980's. At this time he was the MIS Director of a prominent N. Miami mail order company, that did a huge business on a IBM mainframe. He later became a programmer at American Express, when he fell out of favor. One day I found out he passed on from lung cancer. Sadly he loved cigarettes.

John was originally from France and during the Vietnamese conflict he was in the French military as an observer, who hid in the jungle tree canopy and observed without anyone knowing he was there. What I remember especially about John is that it was always a treat to call on him. We could talk about anything from family to cuisine and technology, as well as politics or programming.

I always have felt that business is about relationship, and should always be a civilized experience. Today people live behind filters, the more prominent or important, the greater and deeper the layers of filtration, from voice mail, to e-mail filters, to executive assistants.

The Corporate Aristocracy of today, or 'Big Machers' have a suite of "Executive Assistants", in call centers or offices even miles away from their corporate offices, who hardly even know their CEO or President, other than they stop in, on rare occasions. Unless you have a letter of introduction or a friend to introduce you, they are not easy to meet.

In the sales world, a horrifying concept is "Supply Chain". It means, good luck trying to become one of our vendors and breaking in to their system. Metaphorically it may mean, if you get close we will try to beat you away with our chain. Supply chains lead to complacency,and risk adverse
corporate behavior. It makes it too easy to just click a mouse and order.

It is a term that purchasing people can use to hide behind, play safe and not take any risk. A retired CIO friend once told me that you have it take calculated risks to move forward in the corporate world. He also defined CIO to mean , "Change Is Often", and "Career Is Over".

In the Early 80's there was no voice mail, no e-mail, just a phone and assistants. Today business has become a bit too Darwinian, where people hide behind filters. They often believe their corporate ethics do not apply to vendors. Fortunately there often is the exception.

John Daniels deserves to be remembered as an excellent manager, and all around good guy.