Sacred Cows

I once managed a Colorado dude ranch. My counterpart there, Fred, was the farm-side operations manager. I oversaw the conference center, restaurant, cottages and guests while Fred handled the horse and cow operations.

Smallish, flinty and forever in Wrangler® cowboy garb, Fred could do most anything — overhaul the tractor, drive the hayride team of Belgian horses or patch the barn roof. What he couldn’t do is hold back an opinion, but that’s the cowboy way.

Fred taught me about incentives.

One July day, he dispatched a young cowboy, Earl, to collect a brood cow named Alice. She was an effusive old gal who had birthed many of the beefsteaks our guests had enjoyed in the ranch dining room. Fred had pastured Alice in the south meadow, so as to wean her latest calf. He sent Earl to bring her back.

Earl hooked the horse trailer to the Ford F250 pickup and drove away. Two hours later — tired, sweaty and growling — he returned to the barn. That damn old cow wouldn’t go into the trailer, he said.

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Quicker than a wink, Fred pitched a hay bale into the trailer, told Earl to slide over, got in and drove away. They returned 15 minutes later, with Alice.

Earl told it at supper. For two hours, he’d attempted to chase Alice into the trailer, but, no matter, she wouldn’t go. Oppositely, Fred parked the F250 in the field and opened the trailer gate, ensuring the hay bale rested in Alice’s line of sight; he then stepped away from the truck. Within minutes, dame Alice strolled into the trailer and began eating the hay. Fred walked over and calmly closed the gate.

“Then he gave me a stern look and drove us home,” Earl said.

Webster’s says an incentive is something that encourages one to act; it’s a type of stimulation. In the everyday world, incentives are generally financial – paychecks, bonuses and price discounts – but we also have moral, social, personal and compulsory (lawful) incentives, the latter ones designed to help you drive between the lines.

Generally, we all seize the same incentives, but each to a different degree. For example, I’d walk a mile for a slice of home-baked peach pie, but wouldn’t cross the street to see Tom Cruise.

If you’re a business owner or manager, you’re acquainted with incentives, because various types – paychecks, bonuses, supervision and practical discipline – help you deal with your employees. And, although it’s seldom highlighted, direct-observation supervision produces a compulsory-type incentive that helps business managers control costs and property. Direct observation tunes you in to what’s going on.

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New GPS-based tracking systems are making control tasks easier, cheaper and, because of the reach, better. The systems have permeated numerous industries. For example, it’s now used to steer farm tractors or determine if a graded field is truly level, but navigation, fleet tracking, emergency coordination and theft control head its primary-use list.

Theft recovery

Last December 7, the Edmonton Journal reported a GPS-tracking system helped recover a welding truck stolen from Remote Welding and Oilfield Services (Calgary, Ontario, Canada). The truck was equipped with a FleetLink (Calgary), global-positioning-system (GPS) tracking device – a high-tech, directobservation system.

Upon learning of the theft, the Journal said, business owner Chad Mitchell used his home computer and Fleetlink’s web-based tracking system to determine the $100,000 welder’s location. Within minutes, on the computer’s map, Chad watched FleetLink’s locator icon blink over a wooded site east of Edmonton, Ontario, near Elk Island National Park.

Chad phoned the Royal Canadian Mounted Patrol, and its officers, following his directions, found the truck at a fully operational chop shop. They apprehended the thieves as they were cutting the welder from the truck’s frame. Chad’s tracking device also disclosed two other stopping points, which helped recover sold, ancillary tools.

Tracking violates rights

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One person’s wine is another’s vinegar. Boston Globe columnist Hiawatha Bray recently denounced any action where police would clandestinely attach a GPS tracking system to a suspect’s automobile. He feels it violates a suspect’s rights.

If you’ll recall, the Modesto, CA, police clamped such a unit on Scott Peterson’s vehicle, after the disappearance of his wife, Laci. Its readout helped convict him of her murder. Peterson’s lawyers argued about GPS tracking’s unreliability, but the prosecutor’s mention of U.S. Army use of such systems deflated their claim.

In another case, a judge ruled drivers can’t expect privacy on a public roadway. Meaning that, at this time, and just as the police can follow you by car or on foot without your consent, they can also attach a GPS tracking system to your vehicle.

Many New York City cab drivers would agree with Bray, according to a January 5, New York Sun story written by Annie Karni. She reported city taxi drivers are opposing the new, GPS-based technology the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission plans to install in its fleet of 13,000 cabs. The drivers say GPS systems don’t respect a driver’s right to privacy.

The technological addition would include video-based passenger-information (advertising) screen and textmessaging between drivers and the commission. It would also allow customers to pay fares with debit or credit cards.

But not everyone’s

While some complain of tracking, others pay high dollars for car- and cellphone-based GPS systems that continuously inform others where they are. General Motor’s (GM) OnStar’s onboard systems link GM vehicle drivers with its “telematicbased” OnStar center. Telematics is the transmission of data communica tions between GPS devices and cellphone systems. More that two million GM vehicle owners annually pay $400 or more for OnStar features that include 24/7 emergency service, plus hotel and restaurant recommendations and reservations. OnStar’s tracking system knows where the car is at all times; it often helps recover stolen cars.

Reports show approximately 3.9 million cars were sold with factoryinstalled GPS navigation systems in 2005; in 2008, that number is forecast to reach 6.5 million.

Cellphone tracking

In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered cellphone companies to equip all cellphones sold after 2005 with “E-911” locator tracking systems. The agency’s action spawned from lawenforcement agencies requests – police and emergency-service personnel want the ability to determine where 911 calls originated. Some cellphone companies have complied by offering phone-installed GPS systems while others chose to provide relay-tower triangulation systems. These work well in urban, but not rural, areas.

Cellphone tracking enables targeted, text-messaging advertising from nearby businesses – a discounted latte offer as you pass Starbucks, for example. The systems also allow parents to track their children via their GPS-equipped phones; and employers to track GPSphone- provided employees. One auspicious system allows social networking, meaning, your cellphone will notify you if any listed friends are in your vicinity.

Truck and driver controls

A & E Technologies Inc. (Cumming, GA) offers both the Trackstick and Marcus® EPS-tracking systems for fleets. Trackstick requires PC-based, system-loaded software, whereas Marcus’ information is accessible via any Internet-linked computer. Like Fleetlink, either is acceptable for local or over-the-road trucks.

Trackstick Pro continuously records its own location histories. When combined with Google’s mapping program, it will display a vehicle’s travel histories – date, time, location, speed, direction, altitude, signal strength and temperature – for several months. You can select recording intervals from five seconds to one hour.

Marcus is a GPS-based, real-time, tracking system that provides detailed, vehicle-activity information that you can access via Internet Explorer. Designed for service and delivery companies, Marcus converts GPS data into user-friendly maps and data. It features point-to-point routing with driving directions, dispatch, two-way messaging, automatedreport delivery and vehicle-maintenance reminders.

A & E also offers a 1.5-oz. unit for parents wanting to track their teenagers. The company says you can hide the USB-accessed device almost anywhere in a vehicle or a backpack; it collects and records movements for up to a week.

And, finally, Digital Angel Corp. (South St. Paul, MN) offers a GPS tracking system for cows. Tell Earl.