Happy Holidays from DWM 

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For more information click here ,and here .

Sunday, December 20^th, was "Super Sunday" in Louisville, KY, epicenter of the UPS global air shipping network. UPS expected to deliver 22 million small packages on December 21^st.For the entire holiday season, UPS plans to deliver roughly 400 million packages worldwide, up slightly from the 2008 holiday season. They're making millions of people's Christmases come true by "playing Santa Claus".

UPS, based in Atlanta, hired about 50,000 seasonal workers to keep pace with the extra volume. The Louisville facility employs about 10,000 people and sorts up to 350,000 packages hourly. Packages rode through a labyrinth of fast-moving conveyor belts that stretch for 150 miles during the automated sorting process. The company's active fleet of 211 aircraft delivered packages to their hubs in Philadelphia, Dallas, Hartford, Ontario, CA, Rockford, IL, Columbia, SC plus a network of international hubs. 

Rival FedEx Corp, based in Memphis, shipped 14.1 million packages on December 14^th. That was the busiest day in FedEx history. The FedEx fleet of 170 airplanes took over the Memphis runways between 10:30 p.m. Monday, December 14^th and 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, December 15^th.  By 6:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, packages were loaded into trucks and the 13 hour delivery of packages began.The confluence of Hanukkah and the pre-Christmas deliveries produced the all-time record for FedEx.

Private companies are not the only ones feeling the crush. The United States Postal Service estimated that Monday, December 21^st would be its busiest day, with 830 million pieces of mail. And while overall mail volume at the Post Office was expected to be down, there has been double-digit growth in Priority Mail Flat Rate boxes and more people were using online shipping services.

It's a hectic pace for all involved. At FedEx, thousands of employees will stretch and flex in concert and gulp holiday-colored sports drinks in preparation for processing 7,000 packages a minute. Others sing karaoke on breaks or wear elf hats. But there's no rest through December 24^th. And, on Christmas? "They all sleep in."

For more information from The Chicago Tribune:  click here.

We all remember the Reader's Digest. Although we may not have realized what a publishing phenomenon it was. It was started in the 1920s by DeWitt Wallace, the son of a Greek and Latin scholar. The deeply conservative Wallace culled articles from the booming world of magazine publishing, mostly for rural readers who didn't have access to newsstands.Wallace's hunches about what the mass-market audiences wanted were dead-on. 

By the 40^th anniversary of the Reader's Digest, there were 40 editions in 13 languages and Braille and total worldwide circulation of 23 million. It was said that the readership of its books and magazines was rivaled only by the Bible. And according to the New Yorker in 1945, that comparison was unfair because "the Bible had a head start".

The profits were great and for decades, the Reader's Digest Association owned one of the world's greatest collections of fine art, hung on hallways and meeting rooms of the company's vast offices, 40 miles north of Manhattan. But, these days, the paintings are long gone. Now, two years after a private equity deal saddled Reader's Digest with $2.2 billion in debt, and three months after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the walls are dominated by inexpensive prints and corporate propaganda. They've been placed there by Mary Berner, CEO, who has been trying to overhaul the company.

Reader's Digest has modernized. It  just won the National Magazine's Award for the first time in its history. Ms. Berner has brought in a coterie of impressively credentialed women to help change the culture of the company. Bye-bye Reader's Digest. Hello, "multibrand media and marketing company that educates, entertains and connects audiences around the world."

Reader's Digest has pared back to 10 issues per year from 12. From a peak in the 70s of 17 million US subscribers, the magazine now has 8 million and next year will have a guaranteed circulation of 5.5 million. They're in the process of moving from the old campus in Chappaqua to a much smaller space in Manhattan. 

Gone are the founders and their "erratic benefice" that drove accountants crazy. With such a lucrative business they were able to do just about what they wanted. After they died, in search of growth, the company went public, stalled and then gasped for life when a hedge fund loaded billions of dollars of debt onto its back. Now, we'll see if Ms. Berner and her team can keep the company alive and transform it as she envisions. It will interesting to watch.

For more information from The New York Times; click here.