objectives
The Double-Edged Sword That Is Social Media
There’s been a lot of talk about social media being something companies must engage in. The dramatic increase in people who label themselves as social media experts/gurus has been ridiculous. Often times, they are also the ones clamoring that social media is the ultimate solution for companies to market themselves. Except, it isn’t. Social media [...]
A Little More Conversation And A Little More Action Please
It’s good to listen to consumers and it’s good to talk to consumers, both online and offline. But as they, talk is cheap. The conversation factor can have a positive effect on your brand image, but it doesn’t always drive the bottom line (and consequently shareholder value). If you don’t know why you’re entering the [...]
Good To Great To Gone: Circuit City
For those who have read Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” (Amazon link), you’ll remember that Circuit City was used as one of the select examples of “good to great” companies. If you haven’t read the book, I can definitely recommend it. Circuit City basically dominated the stock market—beating average performance by 22 times at [...]
Combining Long-Term Thinking With Real-Time Action
The growing challenge that companies face these days is the real-time stream. News, information, developments, feedback, et cetera are increasingly available and confronting you in real-time. Real-time information often requires real-time action, but how does that affect long-term planning? Long-term strategies—or strategies in general if you will—have always focused on achievements, objectives that needed to [...]
Protect The Future
Last month I had the opportunity to visit a presentation and Q&A session with Jeff Immelt. Jeff talked about numerous subjects such as the presidential elections, the economic downturn, corporate social responsibility, and—of course—life as the CEO of General Electric (GE). He also mentioned “protecting the future”. Every major business decision and business activity was [...]
Exit Strategies
Things stop working. Your TV for instance. That’s when we move on and buy a new one. Similarly in business, products/services stop working. Not everyone can be a Coca Cola, living off the success of a single, unchanged concept for decades. Products/services come to an end for a multitude of reasons. Most common ones include: [...]
Let Your Goal Be Your Pilot
Frequently, pilot projects are initiated to test new products/services. When the pilot is successful, companies prepare the product/service for wide-scale launch. However, there are also instances where the product/service is killed after the pilot wasn’t successful. Re-evaluate. Re-adjust. Re-think. Re-design. What went wrong to warrant a pilot failure? Was the concept thus flawed that an [...]
Good Design Is More Than Good Looks
Good design is often underrated or undervalued. People focus a lot on what something looks like and whether they consider it to be user-friendly. However, user-friendliness is not the same as usability. Design encompasses so much more than aesthetics. Design sits at the core of everything: aesthetics, user-friendliness, usability, functionality, scalability, flexibility and level of [...]
