Evolving Excellence

Recharging Aloha

Yes it happened again.  Just like last March and the prior July, it was time for a break.  Fast.  You see, I'm one of those types that will run hard professionally, personally, emotionally, and physically... right up to a wall.  And then realize the instant before hitting the wall that I better change course.  At least I'm lucky I realize the need to swerve.

It happens quick.  Last year you'll recall that I took my seemingly semi-annual Hawaii Recharging Trip on literally two hours notice.  The year before it was almost long-term planning: two days.  This year was about the same.  Over the past weekend I started to crack a bit, and decided it was time to get out of Dodge.  The complicating factor was a board meeting I had to present at in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

So I flew to Vegas and presented to my board.  They knew something was up as the background of the slides in my presentation was a collection of beach scenes.  Very nice, tranquil beach scenes.  Then they immediately ushered me out of the meeting and put me on a plane to Hawaii.  Somehow my email volume immediately goes off a cliff, so I have a sneaking suspicion that someone on the board also orders my staff to leave me alone.  Sounds like a full-fledged breakdown, doesn't it?

Not really.  I'm perfectly fine.  I just know when I'm getting close to that point, and I know some time on a peaceful beach is the perfect cure.  Sleeping with the windows open to hear the surf and the sound of the wind through the palms, the smell of ginger, hibiscus, and jasmine.  Alone, by the way, which is something a lot of people don't understand.  It is interesting what others say... my wife's female friends all say "why would Kevin want to go on vacation alone without you?" and all my guy friends say "how did you pull that off and can you give me the secret?"  Ahh... vive la difference!

A typical day is getting up whenever, heading down for some breakfast, eating very natural, a quick run along the beach, catching up on reading while on the beach, taking a nap during the high sun hours, a dip in the pool, and a margarita or two or three while watching the sun set in the evening.  Then a few hours of catching up on some of those personal projects that never seem to get done.  No TV, no watch.  Repeat four or five times.

Aloha may mean both hello and goodbye, but it is also a spirit.  A spirit of being at one with the world, at peace and at harmony.  Every now and then you have to stop and recharge your inner aloha.

Do You Truly Know Your Culture?

One of my real jobs is running a medical device component manufacturer with a few hundred employees.  A fun job in a thankfully still-growing industry.  When I started a few years ago the culture was one of top-down decision-making... really top down.  In fact, pretty much every decision was made at the very top, and no one else, even senior managers, decided anything.

That had to change in order for lean manufacturing have the slightest prayer, so I slowly began to expect people at all levels to stand on their own two feet.  I knew that we had a group of very talented people who were fully capable of making decisions, and I also knew that there were very few decisions of such significance that we couldn't recover from one that was poorly made.

It worked.  With rare exception the group stepped up to the plate, and along the way the overall leadership competence of both managers and individuals increased dramatically.  Quite honestly I feel like a proud papa.  We've made some incredible changes, created excellence in many areas, and mutually raised the bar.  The exciting part is that it continues to accelerate, and part of my job has become the "throttle" so we don't get ahead of ourselves.  I have become aware that there is an optimum rate of change, not too fast that it collapses like a house of cards and not too slow that it withers.  Building a solid solid foundation is critical.

One side effect of our invigorated leadership is that we have become very good at discussing issues.  Perhaps too good.  We passionately point out problems, opportunities, and new ways of doing things.  We debate long and hard.  We're master debaters.  Well, maybe I should rephrase that.  The debate sometimes slows down decisions, and we need to work on that.

I didn't realize how much this passioned debating had become part of our culture until the other week.  We recently hired a top notch manager who is creating dramatic change in his organization and really taking the overall company to a whole new level.  We're all thrilled with what he's doing.  Then I receive an email from him worried about all the "ruffled feathers" he's creating and wondering if he truly fits in.  I was completely blind-sided.  Where the heck did this come from?

Then it hit me.  He would suggest some improvement, and immediately a whole bunch of people would reply with "how about this other way" or even more directly, "I don't like that, but this other way might work."  That's how we operate.  It can require a thick skin, and I consider it a positive when difficult conversations are out in the open instead of fermenting in a hidden cranny.  In our environment we would eventually sort out the various ideas through vigorous debate, and in the end we'd implement an improvement.

But think about it from an outsider's perspective, even one with thick skin and years of leadership experience creating obvious competency.  A bunch of people always second-guessing ideas?  I can completely understand why it would appear to be "ruffled feathers."  After a bunch of explaining, the situation has calmed down and I hope he engages us as much as we perhaps overly-engaged him.  We need to be challenged in order to improve, and outsiders bring a fresh perspective that can add fresh challenge.

It can be tough, especially if you've been entrenched in it a while, but be aware of the culture you've created or that has evolved.  Even if it is positive, how is it perceived by a newcomer?

Back to Basics at Toyota

The first statement in yesterday's Wall Street Journal article summarized it well:

Toyota Motor Corp.'s incoming president, Akio Toyoda, has a sobering message for the giant company founded by his grandfather: It has gotten too fancy for its own good.

That's often a death nell for most companies.  Bloated bureaucracies, inefficient execution, convoluted decision-making, wasteful resource transfer... wait... that's starting to sound like the government.  The difference with Toyota is they are recognizing they have a problem, and they're taking action.  Action that doesn't require additional spending, raising taxes... or raising prices in their case.

Akio Toyoda is going back to the basics, and he started by going back to a basic concept that should be practiced on an ongoing basis in any organization: going to the gemba.

Akio Toyoda has long preached a traditional Toyota practice called genchi genbutsu, a leadership maxim that boils down to get out of your office and visit the source of the problem.  For the past year Mr. Toyoda has been practicing genchi genbutsu to quietly collect evidence that the company had strayed, according to people familiar with the situation.

So what did he find?  Features that have questionable fundamental value for the customer for one.

For example, the new Prius, launching this year, has an option for a solar-powered ventilation systm designed to keep the interior cool when parked.  Gizmos like these helped lift the car's retail price to an estimated $28,000.

And even the vaunted manufacturing operations had projects of debatable value.

Then there's the shabu shabu paint system.  To replace the traditional system of slowly dragging a car through a 115-foot-long bath of anticorrosion undercoating, Toyota engineers came up with a new process in which a part gets picked up by a robot arm, then swished around in a pool of paint, cutting the length of the line.

However, the new system costs roughly four times as much to set up as the traditional process, while producing what Mr. Toyota felt were minimal improvements in the quality of the paint job and its efficiency.

Perhaps most importantly is the pricing model, where Toyota taught us to price based on value, which is set by the customer and market and not the manufacturer.

Toyota executives reasoned American consumers would be willing to pay a premium for a Toyota - a change from a long-held strategy of pricing cars at a value.  Two years ago, Toyota started raising prices on an array of models including the redesigned Corolla, launched in early 2008.

When Mr. Toyoda got wind of the slow Corolla sales, he flew to the U.S. to meet with dealers and investigate for himself.

Once again, genchi genbutsu.  It now appears the pricing strategy will go back to one based on value.  Compare that to the pricing strategies of GM, Ford, and Chrysler, where the price is based on a mark-up, then discounted, then discounted further because the vehicles aren't moving fast enough.  What is the true value of that vehicle? 

But the key points are to recognize a problem, visit the source of the problem to see for yourself, and then fix it.  Not ask for a handout or bailout or "investment" by the taxpayer that simply prolongs the problem.  That doesn't create long-term competitive ability.

"We are not gods, we are not infallible," says Shoichiro Toyoda.

Toyota, already a company that can outcompete most others, is recognizing a problem and rapidly changing course to further improve.  Are you? 

Preserving Talent

Layoffs are rampant these days, but even so the negative consequences of this recession are taking shape differently than in the past.  So far.

There are no comparable data from earlier recessions. But Laura Sejen, director of the strategic-rewards practice at consultant Watson Wyatt Worldwide Inc., says companies are trimming costs in more ways than in previous downturns, when they relied more heavily on layoffs.

What other ways?

Prompted by slackening demand for consumer electronics and automobiles, chip maker ON Semiconductor Corp. will cut 1,850 jobs -- nearly 13% of its work force -- and close four fabrication plants by early next year. But that's not all. ON is also suspending bonuses and raises, cutting discretionary spending, idling factories for as many as 12 weeks and requiring managers to take as much as six weeks off without pay.

Employees at ON and elsewhere are learning that in this recession layoffs are only part of the pain. Many companies are also cutting the pay, hours and benefits of those who survive.

What is driving the change from the pure layoff strategies of the past?

She [Laura Sejen] and other experts cite two principal reasons for the shift: The speed and depth of this recession is forcing employers to cut costs steeply, and many also worry about retaining enough talented workers. When the economy recovers, "those may be heads you wish you hadn't cut," Ms. Sejen says.

A recognition that talent means something, and attempts should be made to preserve it.  What a revelation!

Broad-based trimming allows executives to "keep your options open" amid uncertain business conditions, Mr. Colvin says. "If you want to do it all through layoffs, than you have to decide ahead of the game what your future business is going to be," he says. Right now, that's "a difficult call to make."

Some companies have a very defined strategy for holding onto key knowledge workers as long as possible.

At Corning Inc., that means deploying "rings of defense" to cut costs as sales dip, says James Flaws, vice chairman and chief financial officer. Last summer, the Corning, N.Y., maker of glass for flat-panel screens froze hiring and cut discretionary spending. In the fall, it shifted many employees to four-day workweeks and began eliminating 1,400 temporary and contract workers.

In January, Corning implemented its third ring, cutting 3,500 jobs -- about 13% of the work force -- consolidating factories and freezing salaries, Mr. Flaws says. If sales continue to fall, he adds, "we might have to do more," including selling assets or cutting pay, benefits and research-and-development spending.

Unfortunately the problem is that many companies have already effectively hit that "third ring"... if not the fourth.  This is going to be a painful year in many industries.

5 Questions - Meet Bob Emiliani

Several readers have asked for more information on some of the lean manufacturing and business transformation thought leaders that we occasionally reference.  So beginning today we'll be doing a roughly weekly feature called "5 Questions" where we'll introduce you to some of them via a similar short series of questions:

1. Who are you, what organization are you with, and what are some of your current lean-oriented activities?
2. How, when, and why did you get introduced to lean and what fueled and continues to fuel the passion?
3. In your opinion what is the most powerful aspect of lean?
4. In your opinion what is the most misunderstood or unrecognized aspect of lean?
5. In your opinion what is the biggest opportunity for lean in today's world?  How can that be accomplished?

Yes I know that's more than five questions, but you get the picture.  I've sent the questions to several people and have already received quite a few responses.  So to begin the series, here's how frequent Superfactory contributor and Shingo Prize winning author Bob Emiliani responded:
-----------

1. Who are you, what organization are you with, and what are your current lean-oriented activities? 

My name is Bob Emiliani. I am the owner of a business established in 1998 to teach executives Lean management and how to lead a Lean business. The scope of activity is limited to training, which I always personally deliver, and I write and publish books about Lean management focused on leadership and the history of Lean. I’ve authored or co-authored seven books and over 30 papers. I am also a professor at Central Connecticut State University where I head up the Technology Management Master’s degree program and teach courses on leadership, supply chain management, and a unique course in which we formally analyze failures in leadership and decision-making using a modified A3 report format. There is no other course like it anywhere.

Currently I am continuing my research into the life and work of Frank G. Woollard, the forgotten pioneer of flow production, whose 1954 book I re-published in January 2009. I am uncovering amazing new details about his work, some of which will appear in future articles.

2. How, when, and why did you get introduced to lean and what fueled and fuels the passion?

I started by reading Masaaki Imai’s book Kaizen around 1992 when I was in engineering working on new product development. I found the book in the corporate library and thought it was interesting. Then in 1994 I became a business unit manager in manufacturing and was trained in Lean by Shingijutsu consultants. It was that experience established my passion for Lean. I left the corporate world after 12 years to teach and continue developing my research on Lean leadership. Nobody was studying Lean leadership at the time because Lean tools were consuming academics’ and practitioners’ interests – and still do, unfortunately. While there has been greater interest in leadership in the last few years, the concepts and methods that trainers use today are more than a decade behind me.

My focus since the mid-1990s has been exclusively on Lean leadership. Certain unanswered questions fueled my passion for Lean. For example, I wanted to understand why top leaders and their organizations have such limited success with Lean management and why Lean usually goes away when there is a change in leadership or ownership of a company. My studies have yielded several unique contributions, much of which is reflected in my books. My leadership training course is unlike any other in its scope of fresh ideas and new Lean concepts and practices, all of which have been validated in the real world.

3. In your opinion what is the most powerful aspect of lean?

By building on the work of others and adding their own important ideas and inventions, Toyota created a beautiful management system, one which is conceptually simple but very challenging to understand deeply and practice correctly. The reason is because there are so many subtle nuances and interconnections between Lean principles, practices, tools, and methods. These contribute greatly to making Lean work, but which few very people truly understand. That includes leading training organizations whose approach to Lean is tool-based (e.g. value stream maps, A3 reports, policy deployment, etc.), and leading companies whose executives understand Lean as nothing more than a set of tools for the manager’s tool kit. That, unfortunately, is how Lean-Sigma and other unnecessary and confusing variants of Lean management were created.

4. In your opinion what is the most misunderstood or unrecognized aspect of lean?

People do not understand that Lean management must be practiced in a non-zero-sum manner; that the intent of Lean is to improve competitiveness and grow a business without marginalizing the interests of key stakeholders: employees, suppliers, customers, investors, and communities. Marginalizing their interests undercuts teamwork which severely limits what can be achieved. Lean is not a cost-cutting program or tool to lay people off; that was never its intent, but that is how 99% of senior managers understand and practice Lean. This misunderstanding is pervasive throughout the history of progressive management since the 1880s, driven by executives’ unrelenting desire for quick gains in profitability in classic zero-sum style – certainly at the expense of employees, and usually suppliers and others as well. For this and other reasons, Lean management is very difficult to establish let alone sustain.

5. In your opinion what is the biggest opportunity for lean in today's world? How can that be accomplished?

In the history of progressive management, of which Lean is the current best example, executives have almost always focused on continuous improvement – the tools – and ignored the “Respect for People” principle (or its equivalent in earlier times). Ignoring the “Respect for People” principle comes at a great cost because people (the stakeholders) will he hurt by Lean instead of benefiting from Lean. Executives who forgo the wonderful opportunity to learn how “Continuous Improvement” and “Respect for People” are interrelated can access no more than 20% of the benefits of Lean management. They leave the other 80% behind, and also create a lot of inconsistency and confusion that is difficult to overcome.

The opportunity is clearly to learn Lean as it was intended: a non-zero-sum principle-based management system. How can that be accomplished? Through hard work, of course. Committed executives will study Lean management, participate in kaizen, and apply Lean principles and practices in the execution of their own daily activities. The secret formula for learning any craft, and Lean management is indeed a craft, is to engage the hands and mind.

We need many more examples of Lean done right, and a whole lot fewer examples of Lean done wrong. That is where I can be a big help.

Factory Tour of the Week: Ozone Power Kites

This week we visit a kite factory in Vietnam. Not just any kite!

New at Superfactory - February 2009

Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.

New content in February includes:

The featured article is from Bob Emiliani and is titled Frank Woollard: The Forgotten Pioneer of Flow Production.  The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

The historical record of the origins of Lean management centers almost exclusively on Ford Motor Company in the 1910s and 1920s and Toyota Motor Corporation in the 1950s through the 1970s. There is no mention of the British automaker Morris Motors Ltd., the pioneering production work of Frank G. Woollard in the mid-1920s, or their possible influence on Toyota Motor Corporation in its formative years. Woollard’s groundbreaking work has been forgotten, overlooked, or ignored. That now has to change.

The featured book this month is Principles of Mass and Flow Production by Frank Woollard and Bob Emiliani.  The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.

Principles of Mass and Flow Production is a 55th Anniversary Special Reprint Edition of Frank G. Woollard's long-forgotten book published in 1954, and includes Woollard's amazing 1925 paper "Some Notes on British Methods of Continuous Production." Both are presented as unabridged digitized images of the original works, and include commentary and analysis by noted Lean management practitioner, author,and educator, Bob Emiliani, Ph.D.

We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:

• PowerPoint Presentations: Over 50 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, quality, enterprise, and safety concepts.
• Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
• Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
• Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
• Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.

For all you LinkedIn junkies, we have created a LinkedIn group for Superfactory.  Join the group to  network with other Superfactory enthusiasts and to show our logo on your profile.  If you haven't explored LinkedIn, check it out to see why over 17 million professionals use it for networking.

We are always looking for new articles and other content.  Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.

Mr. Bloom to the Rescue?

Yesterday at 5pm GM and Chrysler submitted their turnaround plans required as a result of accepting a partial bailout (oh, sorry, "loans") from the government several weeks ago.

General Motors and Chrysler LLC said Tuesday they could need an additional $21.6 billion in federal loans between them because of worsening demand for their cars and trucks.

The two firms, in documents submitted to the Treasury Department, also detailed plans to cut 50,000 jobs worldwide by the end of the year. GM said it plans to close five more plants in the next few years and confirmed it will drop some of its weaker brands.

A newly-appointed auto panel will review both plans and determine by March 31 if GM and Chrysler can be viable in the long run. Specifically, the Treasury Department is looking for details about the progress of negotiations with creditors and the UAW.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a statement late Tuesday saying that the panel would be reviewing the plans and that "We appreciate the effort that these companies and their stakeholders have made."

Egads.  And dream on if you think that's really all it will take.  Evan Newmark has another option, one we've occasionally promoted ourselves.

The great Detroit bailout debate is here again. And now you have a chance to do the right thing. Forget about throwing billions more of taxpayer money at Motown. It’s time for you to destroy Detroit, so that the rest of America can live.  Mr. President, it’s time for the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler.

Now that may seem harsh. But you really have no choice. Look around you. Everybody in America has his hand out — California and the movie industry, New York and Wall Street, homebuilders and the millions of mortgage deadbeats.

You need to send a message to all America — and fast. No more Mr. Nice Guy and no more money. Reinventing America doesn’t mean bailing everyone out. It means stopping those things that just don’t work anymore. And Detroit makes a great showpiece.

Harsh?  Perhaps.  And it will be expensive.  But not as expensive as ongoing and increasing subsidies.  However there's another player now in the picture, a guy by the name of Ron Bloom.

President Barack Obama's administration appeared to be turning up the pressure on GM and Chrysler to carry out tough restructuring measures, possibly through the use of the bankruptcy court.  The administration stepped back over the weekend from naming a "car czar," as it had planned, to oversee the restructuring. But according to people familiar with the task force, it named former Lazard Freres & Co. investment banker Ron Bloom a key adviser.

Mr. Bloom is no ordinary investment banker.

Mr. Bloom, who made a name advising U.S. steelworkers to accept major concessions in several bankruptcy cases, is expected to take the task force's lead role, a senior U.S. Treasury official says.

People who know Mr. Bloom expect him to be tough on the auto makers, the United Auto Workers and other parties involved in their restructuring. "The management of the Big Three are probably not going to like what Ron Bloom has to say; the UAW is not going to like what Ron Bloom has to say; and certainly the stockholders and creditors will not like what he has to say," said Michael Psaros.

That's not all.

Mr. Bloom, a Harvard Business School graduate who spent 10 years at investment banks before joining a team advising the steelworkers union, is seen as one of the chief architects of a consolidation of the steel industry that has involved about 35 bankruptcies over several decades. He's known as a blunt communicator.

In a 2006 speech at a corporate turnaround conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., he described his approach to restructuring as "dentist-chair bargaining," in which the patient "grabs the dentist by the b -- and says, 'Now let's not hurt each other.'"

Under Mr. Bloom's guidance, the United Steelworkers gave up pay, job security and benefits in a bid to help the industry recover. In some cases, thousands of steelworker jobs were lost when union leadership agreed to large-scale reductions in restructured companies.

So what is he likely to do?  Here's a hint:

Such solutions could also come into play at the automakers. Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor who worked closely with Mr. Bloom in restructuring the steel industry, credits him with being tough on companies without being destructive. He "probably saved the jobs of 100,000 steelworkers," Mr. Ross said, while also saying Mr. Bloom "negotiated a totally different contract that simplified work rules" and other union provisions.

Exactly.  We talked about the arcane and costly work rules in a post several weeks ago.

And with the undemocratic absurdity of "card check" legislation eliminating the secret ballot, that is bound to get worse.  The big impact of unions is not pay, it's work rules.  Rules that favor seniority over real experience and knowledge, and rules that often overwhelm common sense.  These nonsensical rules are what kill productivity and create inefficiency, making the Detroit 3 uncompetitive.  Implementing real lean manufacturing in an environment with strict and narrow functional boundaries is basically a non-starter.

To put it bluntly, the UAW takes the hard earned money of the best workers and spends it defending the very worst workers while tying up the industry with thousands of pages of work rules that make it impossible to be competitive.

More money is not going to solve the problems in Detroit, only prolong the pain to those companies and especially the taxpayers.  And those auto companies simply cannot change while hamstrung by ridiculous work rules.

It's time for much more fundamental change.  A managed bankruptcy, albeit painful, may be the only way.

Inventory Hoarding vs. Just In Time

It's always a pleasure to see an article make it's own point... especially when it is contradictory to the premise of the article itself.  Take, for example, a recent article on how companies are trying to streamline inventories in the face of the economic downturn.

The economic downturn is hitting companies so hard and so fast that even those that have made huge strides implementing inventory-control systems haven't been able to react quickly enough to avoid a costly buildup.

After falling sharply for a year, U.S. inventories shot up by $6.2 billion unexpectedly in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the latest U.S. Commerce Department figures. The surge underscores the rapid demand decline that is hitting large and small manufacturers.

"The system went from full speed ahead to stop," said Ronald DeFeo, chief executive of Westport, Conn., mining and construction equipment maker Terex Corp.

The impact both cascades and amplifies the problem.

The upshot is that companies up and down the line are slashing prices and throwing the brakes on new production.  As they rush to clear away the excess, their actions tend to magnify slowdowns already underway.

Nothing really new, but then comes the couple of lines that piqued my interest.

Part of the problem is that many companies built stockpiles last year in the face of surging prices for items such as steel and plastics.  That goes against the principles of just-in-time production, which dictates holding minimumstocks of raw materials.  But such hoarding makes sense when prices are rising.

Wait a minute... didn't he just say that the increase of inventory "in the face of surging prices" was "part of the problem"?  Then how does the exact same thing, hoarding, "makes sense when prices are rising."?

The answer is that it doesn't.  Remember a few months ago when we were talking about the foresight of Southwest Airlines for locking in fuel at a relatively moderate price point?  Now a few months later their competitors are eating their shorts thanks to a precipitous reduction in fuel costs, and Southwest is now locked in at higher than market levels.

There's a global supply chain component as well.

Another factor making inventory management more difficult has been growing globalization.  Red Wing Shoe Company Inc. in Red Wing, Minn., produces in three U.S. plants, but also outsources some lower-priced lines to Asian factories.  Chief Executive David Murphy said he has been able to quickly curb production at his U.S. plants as demand slowed, but his inventories of imported shoes have swelled, in part because those orders were placed far in advance of the downturn.

The bottom line?  You need to either believe in the power of just-in-time, commit to it by absorbing some occasional swings in raw material pricing and demand, or just give up.  Long term competitiveness is truly based on a long-term commitment and mindset.

Advertising Gone Nuts

So there I was, minding my own business while fueling up the car, when I happened to notice the tattoo on the leg of the guy across from me.  He was gassing up a beat up old Honda Accord, and the tattoo was a... flaming Honda logo.  Yes, really.

Tattoos are rather common here in California, but a flaming Honda?  That warranted some further investigation.

Safely back at home I cranked up good old Google and discovered there's an entire subculture revolving around corporate logo tattoos and, even worse, branding.

For starters, here's a video of a seemingly normal looking kid getting the logo of a software company tattooed on his forehead.  From what I've been able to discern, that company is now defunct... bummer, dude.

And how about this, where Dunlop found over 50 people that would get its logo tattooed into their flesh for life in exchange for a set of tires.  And another guy sold the back of his neck for $7,000.  Yes, there's an entire market for such craziness, including TatAd, which touts itself as where you c an "bring your advertising to life."  And why stop at logos?  How about some road signs?

Sorry, it's a bit too much for me.  A shriveled up Honda logo on my aging body thirty years from now wouldn't exactly make me proud.  And the Chinese company that has probably purchased the remains of Honda by then probably wouldn't be overly thrilled either. 

If I decide to sell even more of my soul to corporate America, I think I'll stick with t-shirts.  This guy will make about $80k this year, for about five minutes of work a day.  That's more my style.