Victor
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If you’ll be in New York at the end of February you should consider attending the Design 2.0 day of presentations and panel discussion on strategy, design, brand, product, service, customer experience, and all things innovation. Also, full-on cocktails. Among the speakers will be Andrew Zolli, of whom I’ve written, “If you ever get a…
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Periodic process renewal
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3 min read
There’s a funny (or cruel, depending) dilemma to improving your work over time. If you don’t do it, your organization becomes less and less valuable over time, gradually failing, and dying an unfortunate death. If you do all the time, you never get to benefit from each change very long and probably suffer from change…
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Employee-Customer mashups
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2 min read
For the sake of innovation, it’s tempting to mash up people internal and external to a company. We’ve seen how important it is that employees be customers, like JetBlue’s employee-centered priorities, and how customers can contribute to companies. This could be one of the most important changes in culture we can bring to companies, but…
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Consumer control and grocery shopping
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1 min read
Another way to illustrate the evolution of consumer control… Shopping in 1920, photo courtesy Theodor Horydczak Shopping in 1960, photo courtesy Country Joe Shopping in 2005, photo courtesy Nicole Gesmondi
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Tell the Truth, part II
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2 min read
So how do we tell the truth? Here are a few ways I found work: Inform the uniformed: Challenging the accepted situation by citing reality may get you sent to Siberia. But it depends on whom you’re talking to. Over time executives become ill informed – ironically – because timid employees avoid giving them bad…
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Tell the Truth
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2 min read
Over time a company’s official history becomes ideology and people need the truth of reality to help them grow. On my first trip to Berlin I toured the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik including a number of museums and memorials describing the former communist state, the Berlin Wall, and life within its boundaries. We’re now well…
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The Bells remind Google who runs the Internet
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1 min read
From the Wall Street Journal today: Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees Large phone companies, setting the stage for a big battle ahead, hope to start charging Google Inc., Vonage Holdings Corp. and other Internet content providers for high-quality delivery of music, movies and the like over their telecommunications networks. Ah, the…
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The Anti-Trend
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1 min read
Springwise offers a handy heuristic for forecasting… Talk about conflicting trends: domestic outsourcing is more popular than ever, yet at the same time consumers are DIY-ing like there’s no tomorrow: as a hobby or to save money. For every trend, there’s an anti-trend!
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Govindarajan on the new innovation
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1 min read
William J. Holstein interviews Dartmouth professor Vijay Govindarajan for the New York Times. Here’s an excerpt: Q. So would you say the chief executive has an important role in making breakthrough innovation possible? A. A tremendously important role. I consider the C.E.O.’s role in the modern corporation to be building the capacity to continuously innovate…
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Work with a partner
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3 min read
There are times when working with a single other person – pair management – is better than working alone or with a team. Some professions such as police have a long tradition of working in pairs. Recently software programmers have started to practice pair programming where two people sit together and alternate roles of writing…
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Work as a team
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2 min read
A group of people working as a team is often the best way to complete a project because teams can generate more work of higher quality than individuals or large groups. Do it now Form a team of people for a project requiring new ideas and more work than one or two people can do.…
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Work alone
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1 min read
There are times when working alone is more productive than working with a partner or a team. Working alone is useful when you need to expand on an existing idea, to carefully synthesize information, or do imaginative thinking. Working alone can also be useful to finish a familiar task quickly without interference. Working alone isn’t…
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Create by designing together
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2 min read
Working directly with other people to design or build something – co-creation – can produce significantly more productive results when creating a product than talking only. Do it now At the next meeting of your team, set a single goal for everyone to accomplish together. Post big sheets of paper on the wall and give…
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Jeep Launches Cellphone TV Channel
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1 min read
Now that’s a headline that made me stop and think… JEEP LAUNCHES OWN MOBILE PHONE TV CHANNEL Axe Deodorant Also Said to be Negotiating Similar Deal with MobiTV SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) — In an effort to harness mobile phone TV as a major branded entertainment medium, Jeep is launching its own mobile phone channel with…
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Call an expert or toss a coin?
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3 min read
Louis Menand reviewed Philip Tetlock’s new book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?†which summarizes a twenty year study of people who make prediction their business. In short, their predictions are “worse than dart-throwing monkeys.” This is good news for strategists using future planning tools like scenario planning: they don’t…