Rebooting the car biz

I've always believed in a sort of Bushido code when it comes to any business. "Always prepare for death, and make it a good one." Which sounds pretty down, but turn that into something cool like, "Always win!" or something and you've got a flavor-of-the-month managerial book. But the idea is the same: you're born, you die. It's true of business as well as any living thing. Ford and GM sound like they're in trouble, but business can be reborn.

It happened at Apple. It might happen at Microsoft (when is the question). A renaissance in the auto industry? It could happen.

Chris Whittle was once asked what he would do to advertise a car company (this was when Chrysler was on the rebound, I think?). He said he'd SPONSOR the Olympics. The whole damn thing. At least the US TV rights. Pretty interesting idea. Every sport, every ad brought to you by Ford. Now have Ford subsidize real anchors, real "citizen journalists" at EVERY sporting event (hello IPTV Mr. Gates!), broadcast it live 24/7, with a constant crawl of Autoblog, with ads in-between posts, or something to that effect... well, you've got an interesting shiny thing there.

So rebooting the auto industry in a substantial way is trickier. More on that later.