Victor
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jetBlue Apologizes, The Others Don’t
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1 min read
Another reason I like jetBlue: they care enough to apologize deeply for their mistakes. Here’s how the email began… We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry. Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue’s seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected…
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Toyota Lovefest
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1 min read
It must have been Toyota Week last week in the New York Times. In addition to the Toyota-in-America story, they published a front page magazine piece on Toyota’s “world domination“. What’s perhaps most revealing is the slideshow of their training program, a reminder of the discipline in their culture.
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For a limited time only you can download the full text of Finding the Right Job for Your Product by Clayton M. Christensen et al. The article itself isn’t revolutionary — they essentially mirror the transition that marketing research has undergone in moving from demographic to affinity customer segmentation. Christensen and his colleagues describe that…
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Spreading the Toyota Way in America
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1 min read
With Toyota about to unseat Ford and GM as the top car seller in America, maybe the Toyota Way will finally be taken seriously among American managers, including those working for Toyota… …analysts say Toyota’s recent and embarrassing surge in vehicle recalls was partly a failure by Toyota to spread its obsession for craftsmanship among…
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Jeneanne Rae Attacks Idea Management
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1 min read
Jeneanne Rae spanks innovation efforts that are little more than idea-management systems… Collecting random ideas may be an interesting exercise, but unless distinct energy is directed against solving a vexing corporate problem or exploiting a complex opportunity, you can count on low-level noise that won’t get senior management very excited. Lack of enthusiasm on the…
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Netflix’s Competitive Advantage
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3 min read
I’m developing a new course, Introduction to Internet Business Strategy, that I’m pretty excited about. Ironically, though everyone in the Internet industry discusses strategy, it’s difficult to find any standard references on the topic. This presents a great opportunity for me to plunge in and synthesize the basics as well as to examine what role…
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CenterNetworks — Business on the New Internet
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1 min read
Just discovered this, and it looks like a good resource: CenterNetworks was relaunched in September 2006 to focus on the “new” Internet. This includes social networking, Web 2.0, and social lending. One of my main goals with CenterNetworks is to help you create better web apps. Not so much on the coding side but on…
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Pens I Can Live With
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2 min read
Late last year I finally became frustrated with using whatever lame pen happened to be on hand. I did some research, tried several options, and corrected the situation. Here’s a summary: On the inexpensive end, many people like the Pilot G2, though I think the Uniball Signo 207 is as good. Both are refillable rollerballs.…
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Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
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2 min read
…that’s the spoiler from Michael Pollen’s Unhappy Meals, in which he expertly dissects the food industry at the personal, commercial, industrial, and societal levels in just a few thousand words, helping us see the problems with Western nutrition are worse than we thought. I’ve been working in this industry lately, and fascinated by the meta-designs…
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The Social Media Bandwagon
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1 min read
So big companies are adopting social media. As they take a shortcut by buying software from BigCo-friendly vendors like Pluck, one has to wonder how long it’ll take before customers experience social media fatigue. And, in the rush to install the software, I wonder if they even think about being in competition with Blogger, Flickr,…
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Lombardy Design Discourse
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1 min read
HBR finally succumbs and publishes a design-is-great article, Roberto Verganti’s Innovating Through Design. Here’s his lead-off argument: If you shop at Target, you may have seen a distinctive teakettle designed by architect Michael Graves. Target’s version is a knock-off (by Graves himself) of his original 1985 design for Alessi, the northern Italian home-furnishings manufacturer. Alessi…
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12 Tenets of Social Media Marketing
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1 min read
The 12 Tenets of Social Media Marketing… I. The public is the Lord thy God II. Thou shalt covet all media III. Ignore not peer-to-peer media IV. Thou shalt think globally and speak in tongues V. Thy communications must pass the “who cares?” test VI. Thou shalt learn to create artful blog and forum comments…
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Time and Service Design
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2 min read
A great outcome of Overlap is that the New York attendees — plus other peeps in our network — have been meeting up and continuing the conversation. Some of the same themes keep surfacing, such as the culture of business consulting firms and design firms, and social action. Another is service design. A fundamental question…
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A New Internet Strategy Course
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1 min read
Though there is much punditry on the topic, I’ve found a paucity of books, classes, and other educational materials about Internet strategy. Guessing Internet practitioners would appreciate a formal review, I’ve created a course called Introduction to Internet Business Strategy and will be teaching it first at the Information Architecture Summit in Las Vegas this…
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Jack Welch on Green Products
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1 min read
Jack Welch and his wife, former HBR editor Suzi, were at the 92nd St Y in New York last night in an on-stage interview with the editor of BusinessWeek. It was great seeing them in person, and Jack’s persona was especially refreshing: large doses of common sense spoken with brutal honesty. One point he made…