Good Lessons included
Archive for the ‘management’ Category
How great leaders inspire action
30
May
It is reasonably easy to say well – ‘duh’ – when you watch something like this. The hard bit is transforming it into action. Take a few minutes out of your day to watch – and see how it might work for you.
Passed on – with thanks to : Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com
WRONG
13
May
While I one hundred percent agree with Guy Smiths’s analysis on Sandhill, in particular – when he raises this one …
Content is King, and Jobs wants the crown.
To control content, Jobs must own the means of distribution. Hence, pesky interlopers like Flash must be eliminated. Flash connects the content provider directly with the content consumer, cutting Apple out of the loop, which for someone who sold 10 billion songs is clearly unacceptable. Thus Apple acolytes are assaulting Adobe. You can have the cool new gizmo, but you can’t have Flash.
- absolutely.
More recently – this thought and thinking seems to have been removed from the media reporting – history has been ‘rewritten’ – and while I do think that there are a lot of other reasons that get recited that ‘explains’ the lack of flash … this one makes the most sense to me. (and not just because no one talks about it.)
All that said - I one hundred percent disagree with his predictions and to see this as ‘the demise’ of Apple is – IMHO – nuts. I quote :
The marketing issue at hand is never to deny your market. Apple will eventually suffer if they keep content from customers. After all, we own gizmos to achieve things, be it making phone calls, watching movies, playing games, or impressing the cute red head at the bar. Fail in this fundamental mission and the market will eventually turn to vendors that deliver. Flash is only one instance where Apple’s “our way or else” mentality may be its long-term undoing.
Erecting barriers never works in the long run. Walled gardens are more wall than garden, as everyone who escaped AOL will attest.
I guess he is covered- because he does actually say ‘if’ – but – and though I am a fan – I am actually a VERY slow adpoter. Steve is running a business. If what he is doing starts not to work – he will adjust course. But only then- not before. And actually – really – most people don’t care about open – they don’t. they don’t think. they just want it delivered – simply. that’s what steve does. And that’s what the reat of the tech world still are not thinking through.
Marketing Myopia (An HBR Classic)
11
Apr
Friend Tom Alexander reminded me of this article last week. Hadn’t realized what it was called, but when I read it, recalled my early Marketing Case Studies around Faber Castell – who defined their business as a maker of slide rules – not machines to calculate with – and as a result – they missed out completely on the electronic calculator revolution that took ‘slide-rules’ out pretty close to over night …
Marketing Myopia (HBR Classic) – Harvard Business Review
“The railroads serve as an example of an industry whose failure to grow is due to a limited market view. Those behind the railroads are in trouble not because the need for passenger transportation has declined or even because cars, airplanes, and other modes of transport have filled that need. Rather, the industry is failing because those behind it assumed they were in the railroad business rather than the transportation business. They were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented, product oriented instead of customer oriented. For companies to ensure continued evolution, they must define their industries broadly to take advantage of growth opportunities.”
Passed on, through Tom A – with thanks to : Harvard Business Review
The Internet of Things is Here
17
Mar
This makes for a really interesting read. I love it when the internet web thingy and the real world (as we at least perceive it to be) come together. Hopefully meeting part of the network next week. When I found out what he was doing – and where he wanted to go – I couldn’t resist. The stuff is not the same as described here. But its stuff (good stuff – sorry – can’t be more precise) – and there’s money to be made.
It’s the same story as BandN v Amazon – compete on your terms – not theirs!
Connect the dots. Make the jumps. Find the Blue Ocean. It’s just a small leap of thinking that can create a giant leap of change.
The Internet of Things – McKinsey Quarterly
… the predictable pathways of information are changing: the physical world itself is becoming a type of information system. In what’s called the Internet of Things, sensors and actuators embedded in physical objects’ from roadways to pacemakers’ are linked through wired and wireless networks, often using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet. These networks churn out huge volumes of data that flow to computers for analysis. When objects can both sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for understanding complexity and responding to it swiftly. What’s revolutionary in all this is that these physical information systems are now beginning to be deployed, and some of them even work largely without human intervention.
Passed on – with thanks to : McKinsey Quarterly
The Brand Gap
15
Feb
One of my colleagues lent me ‘The Brand Gap’ a couple of weeks ago, A very good – highly recommended read – thankyou David. I had a prod around the ‘interweb thingy’ – and discovered this slideshare presentation – that will provide you the full 411 as a background. But PLEASE – this is not instead of reading the book !!!
Assumptions Of Management Consultants
24
Jul
Now – I am not sure of the source for this – but will continue to seek it out … however; According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the
Professionals they tested got all the following questions wrong, but any preschoolers get several correct answers.
So what does that say about
1) Anderson Consulting
2) Preschoolers
3) Me
So, to the questions
Question 1
How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.
This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.
Ok, so far so good
Question 2
How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?
If you answer that you ‘Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator?’. you have answered incorrectly
The ‘correct’ answer is to open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door.
This apparently tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.
Which means that a refrigerator that can hold a giraffe OR an elephant – cannot hold both …. my belief is that there is an assumption here about fridge size that directs you down a specific path.
Question 3
The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend except one. Which animal does not attend?
Again, the ‘correct; answer is that the Elephant doesn’t attend, because it is in the refrigerator, because you just put him in there.
This seemingly tests your memory.
I had a quandary, if only one animal couldn’t attend, it could have been either the elephant or the giraffe. Why am i being penalized for having a large refrigerator – it is energy star rated.
4th ( and final) question
There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage to cross it ?
Well apparently you just jump into the river and swim across, because all the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting.
And this supposedly tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.
Just jumping in a river and swimming ? Personally, I would establish how deep and fast the river is and might use either the giraffe or the elephant (taking one of them out of the fridge first), using the giraffe for height or the elephant for strength.
Creativity Through Collaboration
24
Jul
I am not usually one to promote someone’s PR – however the thought of the promotion of Creativity Through Collaboration stopped me for a couple of minutes to even read the piece.
At Aedas, designers and architects work in an almost continuous stream of communication, snapping images of designs, models, and construction sites with the camera on iPhone and then sending those photos—along with emails, text messages, and documents—around the office. It’s a highly collaborative process, enabled by iPhone.
