I'm three weeks in to my fitness endeavor already!?

Here's a quick update: I signed up for Chicago's 8K Shamrock Shuffle (anyone else running it?) and am following Hal Higdon's 8K training program in addition to yoga 4-5 times per week. I had an honest discussion with myself and decided that as of now, Crossfit isn't something I want to pursue. I discovered Nike Training Club, an app akin to torture through medicine ball maneuvering (in such a good way). As far as total cost analysis, I'm finding that $120/month and 6-7 extra hours/week of workouts is well worth the time and money: my clothes fit better, I'm sleeping like the dead, and I have a noticeable boost in energy. Thing is, I haven't lost any weight. Not an ounce.

Why? I've been putting anything and everything I want to eat and drink into my mouth. Giant bowls of cheesy pasta. Giant bottles of delicious red wine. My true weakness in this world: ICE CREAM. For now, I'm ok with this: after all, one habit to form at a time, right? But as of February 1, something's gotta change with my eating habits or I'll never see the results I want. Question: how extreme do I want to go, and what will I spend getting there?

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Thank goodness we didn't have to call Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck (or Aerosmith, for that matter).
Asteroid to make near-miss fly-by -- An asteroid will pass by the Earth on Friday in something of a cosmic near-miss, making its closest approach at about 1600 GMT. The asteroid, estimated to be about 11m (36ft) in diameter, was first detected on Wednesday. At its closest, the space rock - named 2012 BX34 - will pass within about 60,000km of Earth - less than a fifth of the distance to the Moon.

UN's plans for giant cocaine party foiled.
U.N. Sees an Unexpected Arrival: Bags of Drugs -- If you are a United Nations diplomat missing 30 pounds of cocaine, it is now in the hands of the New York Police Department. Authentic pouches have the words "United Nations" and "Diplomatic Mail" printed on the outside, as well as the body's logo. But these cheap cotton bags had only the logo. There was no wording, no address, no manifest, no airway bill. They had been delivered from Mexico by the courier company DHL, according to diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the seizure.

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Spend Matters has received an anonymous tip that a new power-player in the field is proving that you don't need Dos Equis to be "The Most Interesting Man in the World." In fact, "The Most Interesting Man in the World" is about to meet his rival: The Most Interesting Man in Sourcing.

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Brussels (Belgium), Jan. 27, 2012 /E-Invoicing Newswire via Spend Matters/ -- Regulators in the European Union and Member Countries passed legislation, officially published in the 7 January 2012 Council of the European Union Summary of Monthly Acts that includes updated requirements for electronic invoicing (also referred to as "e-invoicing") providers serving public and private sector organizations within member countries. Act 2012/421/EU represents Council Decision of 4 January 2012 to regulate e-invoicing transaction tariffs at a nominal value per invoice. Act 2012/422/EU (4 January 2012) regulates the purchase (acquisition) price of network operators and providers.

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Spend Matters welcomes a guest post from Kurt Albertson, Associate Principal, Procurement Advisory at The Hackett Group.

The Hackett Group has long emphasized the need to balance risk and control within the P2P process, leveraging the "optimal" end-to-end channel rather than simply defaulting to the often overly controlled three-way match process. By doing so, organizations balance efficiency and effectiveness within the P2P process, freeing up resources to focus on higher value activities such as sourcing and supplier management.

And while Hackett has long published performance differences between world-class and peer organizations, recent analysis highlights some interesting perspectives when the P2P control environment is compared by geography. These insights come from Hackett's 2011 Purchase-to-Pay and Procurement benchmarks, in which we segmented performance by North American and Western European operations.

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To keep in mind when attending a conference (or visiting Spend Matters) in Chicago.
Only 30 Percent Of Last Year's Murders Have Been Solved -- Murders in Chicago were down last year, but it's a different story when it comes to the number of murders actually solved. As WBBM Newsradio's Steve Miller reports, the murder clearance rate – the number of homicides that were solved the same year – has slipped.

And the reshoring trend continues...
Element Electronics and US TV Manufacturing: The Current Posterchildren for Reshoring -- Turns out a couple Midwestern companies are bucking the trend. A recent article outlines how Minnesota-based Element Electronics and Michigan-based Lotus International are teaming up to make TVs right here in the Midwest. Michael O'Shaughnessy Element's owner-president (and former Polaroid CEO), will employ 100 workers at Lotus' Canton, Mich., plant, producing 46-inch TVs as early as March, according to the article. "100 workers? Peanuts!" you may say; and you'd have a point. But, one step at a time, O'Shaughnessy's approach seems to say: "We are doing this to set an example ... this is the right thing to do," the article quotes him as saying.

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Duncan Jones (Forrester) on why Strategic Relationships Go Bad – part 1 -- Duncan Jones of Forrester has published an excellent and very interesting research paper, titled "Transform Your Strategic Supplier Relationships From Duels Into Duets". You can get it here if you're a Forrester subscriber – I think you have to pay if you're not.

Who owns your supplier? And does it matter? -- Wetherspoons, one of the UK's largest pub chains, reported their results last week. What was interesting was the comment of Tim Martin, chairman and founder, that although their cost pressures were increasing, he didn't think his customers were capable of accommodating increased prices. So he was planning to take the hit on margins, which of course is not what all the shareholders or City analysts wanted to hear. But Martin appears to follow the principle that if you put the customers first, then in time profits will follow, and shareholders will eventually be satisfied.

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This post is the second in a series on looking at sustainable jobs creation in the US. It is based on contributions we have made to Surplus Record, an industrial publication and catalog. Please click here for Part 1 in this series.

To support the future of manufacturing for generations to come in the US, it will be critical to reverse the trend of the US looking more like Europe around environmental policy and restrictions. Arguably, the most dangerous threat to manufacturing in the US is neither the country's Executive Branch (i.e., the president) or the legislature (Senate and House of Representatives), but rather what we once heard described as the fourth, all powerful, branch of government: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Simpsons Movie does a great job positioning the EPA for what it would like to behave as: a sixth branch of the military.

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Last week, Basware announced it had acquired First Businesspost, GmbH (1stbp) , a German e-invoicing supplier network operator and software provider. Peter Smith initially covered the news over on Spend Matters UK/Europe, including calling out some of the highlights of the deal including that 1stbp appears "particularly strong in the automotive sector with customers including Audi, BMW, Daimler, MAN and Volkswagen." And "they've also got a decent customer base in retail," Peter suggests. Yesterday, Spend Matters had the chance to briefly catch up with the Basware team to learn more about the transaction, and we'll be sharing our learning in today's post and a subsequent series follow-up/deeper dive next week. Today, we'll start with some of the basics.

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