Supply chain management: When chimpanzees attack!

I was joking with my wife the other night about the recession. Hey, I know a 10% unemployment rate is no laughing matter, as industries like retail, publishing and real estate get decimated. But you have to find humor where you can. And, in this case, the joke is on us: I work in publishing, my wife and I own a retail store and we’re landlords in commercial real estate. It’s the perfect storm for personal financial disaster.

But first, did you know that worst the chimpanzee attack ever may have taken place on March 3, 2005, when a California man was attacked by two chimps at a private animal sanctuary near Bakersfield, according to Esquire magazine?

Anyway, like many of my entrepreneurial readers in the supply chain, faced with a tough economy and a declining income, I started asking what’s the next big idea that may improve the family fortunes. I’ve read a number of stories about former Wall Street hot shots who’ve turned to pole dancing to make ends meet, including a few male stock brokers. However, I’m 53. Even Speedo doesn’t want to see me in a Speedo. Instead, I thought: Why not blogging? After all, I know how to put one word after another as well as the next guy. Or gal. And, hey, everyone seems to be doing it, just like everyone seems to be Twittering and getting LinkedIn. I’d just cut a deal with Google and collect the ad dollars, as slick as a chimp driving a lift truck.

But first, investigators are still trying to figure out why Travis the Connecticut Chimp attacked a friend of his owner before being shot to death by police in February, according to the Discovery Channel.

The catch, of course, is to find a subject compelling enough to draw traffic to my site day in and day out. I already get paid to blog about materials handling by Modern, so that was out. I have a couple of funny stories about what it’s like to be the husband of a children’s clothing store owner – it’s so cute when the little tykes call me Mr. Dilly – but that cupboard would be bare after a column or two. I worked in Hollywood back in the early 90’s and could spill the dirt about working with Bonnie Bedalia, Rip Torn and Patricia Neal. Problem is, I’m no Perez Hilton. As far as I could tell, Bonnie and Rip were lovely, hardworking actors. TMZ regulars would be bored to tears by my lunch one rainy Sunday with Miss Neal in the dining room of a Ramada Inn in Charlotte (home, of course, to MHIA).

But first, MSNBC reports that a team of four surgeons operated on the victim of Travis the Chimp’s attack.

By now, you’re probably wondering what’s up with all the chimp attack reports. Here’s the deal. My plan to make big bucks as a blogger seemed validated when Mark Penn, a democratic pollster, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “ … more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters.” Penn went on to claim that “The best studies we can find say we are a nation of over 20 million bloggers, with 1.7 million profiting from the work, and 452,000 of those using blogging as their primary source of income.”

As a reporter, I try not to let the facts get in the way of a good story, so I never bothered to figure out which studies Penn was referring to. I just knew I wanted in.

Then I read a column in the Boston Globe by Alex Beam that took issue with Penn’s whole premise. Beam poked around a little and found that while yes, there are a couple of bloggers making money hand over keyboard, the median blogger is making about $120 a year after expenses; those with advertising on their site are showing a profit of about $4,200. “Enough to feed a family of four. Mice,” is the way Beam put it.

Unfortunately, I’m median in most endeavors. Heck, for $120 a year, I can pick up a weekend shift at the 7/11. Or keep blogging for Modern.

But one blogger, the creator of overlawyered.com, shared a secret with Beam: Readers go crazy for stories about chimp attacks. Generating traffic from chimp attack stories is apparently as easy as day trading or flipping real estate in Las Vegas. Well, as easy as it used to be.

So, I thought I’d give it a try. I’m publishing this, the first materials handling chimpanzee attack blog, on the weekend, a few days before my next material handling blog is due. We’ll see what it does for Modern’s traffic.