Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 15

1. mm rn WW THE CLARION-LEDGER JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1995 New stops just waiting on Amtrak Passenger trains will stop in Greenwood and Yazoo City on new route. i i Mies cafes uw mum By Hue Ha Clarion-Ledger Business Writer I DO Ttw MI! feu Rising medical costs make a 6.8 percent average increase on premiums necessary, officials say. The Associated Press Mississippi motorists who have insurance with State Farm Insurance will receive a notice soon that their premiums have increased on average, 6.8 percent "Basically, the cost of medical care is one of the main reasons for the rate increase, as well as the number of claims of personal injury being filed," said Sonya Gong, a State Farm spokeswoman in Birmingham. State Farm policyholders also will pay more to protect themselves against drivers who have no insurance.

However, the company's discount for drivers who have not been at fault in an accident in three years will increase from 5 percent to 10 percent. Those who have been accident-free for six years will receive a 15 percent discount. Even figuring in the discount and reduced costs for some of the company's 10 types of coverage, rates will increase on average 6.8 percent in Mississippi. The exact rate of increase will depend on where the policyholder lives, what types of coverage he or she has, how the car is used and what kind of car it is, Gong said. In 1993, Mississippi automobile insurance rates were the 28th highest in the country.

It is the first time State Farm has raised Mississippi rates since 1992. Since then, the company's average annual payout per car for injury liability coverage has increased by 28.6 percent, Gong said. i 1 I yZr Special to The Clarion-Ledger The leadership qualities demontrated by the character Jean- Next Generation have inspired a new management book. Pi-Luc Picard (center) on the television show Star Trek The card is played by Patrick Stewart. Book beams up leadership style To Glo Baker, the address of Yazoo City's new train depot sounds At 222 Broadway, "there's a 22-by-22 raised platform with a roof on it, kind of like a gazebo," said Baker, director of programs for the Yazoo Chamber of Commerce.

Amtrak will be making its first stops in Yazoo City and Greenwood Sunday, when the City of New Orleans the passenger service's New Orleans-Chicago line runs along a new route between Jackson and Memphis. Illinois Central Railroad constructed Yazoo City's "gazebo depot," and refurbished an existing freight depot in Greenwood to handle passengers. Amtrak will no longer stop in Canton and four other cities between Jackson and Memphis because of an operating agreement with the IC. Amtrak couldn't afford to pay for a $50 million to $60 million upgrade required for passenger service along the old route. In the stretch between Jackson and Memphis, the train heads north everyday, except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

It heads south everyday, except Wednesdays and Thursdays. While cities along the old route will lose the passenger service (some for the first time this century), Yazoo City and Greenwood will be gaining passenger service for the first time in years. "We haven't had (passenger) trains since back in the 40s," said Greenwood Mayor Harry Smith. The mayor said since the train will only stop long enough for people to get on or off, the economic impact will be small. "But it's always nice to have something like that added to your town." Yazoo City hopes to draw the riders who took the trains in Canton and Durant in 1994.

Baker believes travelers will shop in town, with the depot located downtown near several convenience stores. "Maybe people who are rid- ing the train would be coming early enough to grab something to eat." The new depots will not have ticket windows. Tickets can be reserved through a travel agent or by calling Amtrak at 1-800-872-7245. "Or you can get on the train and pay the conductor," Baker said. Each chapter begins with a Star Trek episode seen through Picard's eyes.

"Seems kind of odd you'd take leadership lessons from a TV show or a movie it's based on fiction." Brian Briskin, a part-time graduate business student By Farrell Kramer AP Business Writer er people. However, it is important that you tolerate your differences with them." "It is every officer's duty to freely exchange his knowledge, not by way of expressing intellectual superiority, but as a means by which one helps others solve problems and improve decisions." "An officer who is routinely true to himself and others is one who can be trusted and relied upon in a crisis situation. This is also true of other members of the crew." Roberts, who has served as a U.S. Army officer and worked as a human resources executive, says using Picard to convey his leadership points gives them more staying power moreso than if they'd been derived from the experiences of particular companies. "The more precise you try to get and the more hard-hitting you try to get, the more ethereal your books become," he says.

Kathryn Rudie Harrigan, a Columbia Business School professor, says while the book may not be considered a serious business manual like those of Tom Peters and other renowned management authors, Picard exhibits many valuable leadership qualities. "He's more of what the modern leader has got to be: He's got to delegate and he's got to have good subordinates, people who will come up with good ideas and be able to implement them," she says. NEW YORK Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek The Next Generation attempts to go where no management book has gone before. While many volumes on how to motivate people and manage large organizations tend to be dry affairs, a Salt Lake City-area psychologist and a New Orleans TV executive have plotted a new course. Drawing lessons from the hit TV series, Make It So allows readers to learn about leadership and management directly from Jean-Luc Picard, the stern but diplomatic captain of the starship Enterprise played by actor Patrick Stewart.

Whether readers will buy Picard's adventures as relevant to real-life corporate situations is, of course, the challenge. "I don't see how they can do it," says Brian Briskin, a part-time graduate business student shopping at a Barnes Noble book store in Manhattan. "Seems kind of odd you'd take leadership lessons from a TV show or a movie it's based on fiction." But that's exactly what the two authors have done. Bill Ross, a station executive and Star Trek fan, came up with the idea and Wess Roberts, author of Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, wrote the book using management precepts he's developed. Star Trek fans will probably enjoy the volume.

Each of its nine chapters begins with a series episode rewritten to be seen through Picard's eyes. They are compelling stories and each is chosen to depict an aspect of leadership, such as initiative, urgency and intellectual honesty. Following each story comes conclusions, the crystallization of each chapter's lessons. As a leadership book, this is the punch. It may also be the volume's weakness.

Readers may find these sections somewhat general. A few examples: "To be an effective communicator, you do not always have to agree with oth ISCANLESl iMemphis Windows 95 store sales show sharp drop in 2nd week However, demand still outruns any previous software program. The Associated Press NEW YORK Sales of Microsoft Windows 95 fell sharply in stores during its second week of availability, analysts and executives said Thursday. But demand continues to outrun any previous software program, despite the decline from its debut in a global publicity blitz for Microsoft that filled computer stores with shoppers at midnight "No one expected to have that type of business continue," said Larry Mondry, executive vice president of merchandising for CompUSA, one of the nation's largest computer retailers. "You wish it would but know it couldn't" Through retailers, Microsoft sold $30 million worth of Windows 95 on its first day, Aug.

24, according to PC Data, a software market research firm in Reston, Va. That fell to $7 million by the following Sunday, rose again last week and fell to $5.5 million last Sunday. At roughly $85 per copy, the volume of sales in stores through the first 11 days reached 1.63 million copies, said Ann Stephens, president of PC Data. "I am being a little conservative," she said. "But for August, a very large chunk of total software sales is going to be Windows 95." Last week, Microsoft said it sold 1 million copies through retailers on the first four days.

PC Data estimated about 900,000 copies in that same period. Microsoft did not have new figures this week and a spokeswoman said it would not regularly disclose sales for Windows 95, which is the first major update in five years to the main program that runs a personal computer. Windows is used on eight out of 10 PCs, more than 100 million worldwide. Several hundred thousand more copies of Windows 95 have been installed on personal computers sold since Aug. 24 and millions more are in PCs now in the hands of distributors.

In one indication of a slowdown in the Windows 95 frenzy, Microsoft said phone calls from people needing help installing or using the new software were down sharply. With the exception of some call spikes at night there was virtually no wait to reach a technician during Labor Day weekend. Busy signals and waits of up to an hour were common the previous weekend. Busy signals are triggered when Microsoft's phone lines have a wait of more than 15 minutes. 0 20 I TENN.

i MISS. Holly a Springs i i i Oxford Worker productivity shoots to 9-year high ARK. I Helena Clarksdale I I New route Cleveland 1 Batesville Old 'route Greenwood Grenada i Winona i i inaianoia a New stopsl I much of the recent gains to business investments in high-tech equipment and to the restructuring and downsizing that many companies have undergone. The report also said unit labor costs, typically two-thirds of the cost of a product, fell 1.2 percent during the three months ended June 30. It was the biggest drop since a 2.5 percent decline in the final three months of 1993 and nearly erased a 1.6 percent increase in the first quarter of 1995.

In a separate report Thursday, the Labor Department said the number of first-time claims for jobless benefits fell last week by 10,000, to 339,000. The drop was the first in five weeks. Kahan said part of the decline was due to the Labor Day holiday, which produced a shorter workweek in which to file claims. nation's living standards and business competitiveness. Increases mean companies are making their goods more efficiently and at lower costs.

"The fact that it is up so steeply is encouraging," said Samuel D. Kahan, a Chicago-based economist. "Usually toward the end of a business cycle, productivity tends to decline because resources have been exhausted. "But we're now into the fourth year of the recovery and we're still getting solid growth," he added. "It rivals what we had in the 1950s and is considerably better than the '70s and '80s." Productivity increased more than 2 percent annually during the 1950s, but slowed to 1.5 percent in the 1960s and 1970s and to less than 1 percent in the 1980s, Kahan said.

Kahan and other economists attribute The Associated Press WASHINGTON The productivity of the American work force posted its best quarterly performance in nine years, an efficiency that helped drive down labor costs. The Labor Department said Thursday that nonfarm productivity shot up 4.8 percent at a seasonally adjusted annual rate from April through June, even stronger than its 3 percent initial estimate last month. The increase was the biggest since productivity defined as output per number of hours worked jumped 7 percent in the first three months of 1986. It was much larger than the 3.5 percent improvement that many analysts had expected and followed a 2.5 percent gain in the latest January-March quarter. Productivity is a key measure of the Durant fl) i Kosciusko Yazoo uuy Canton i -fl)Vicksburg Jackson Readers of The Clarion-Ledger MARKETS REGIONAL QUOTATIONS 39 30 25 47 TimeWa UPlntr WalMart Weyerh AMEX now nave immediate access to a wide range of financial information available by fax machine 24 hours a day.

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