Monthly Archives: August 2010
“How do we define service at this company?” If you were to send that question in an e-mail to the person responsible for operations, the person responsible for hiring, the person responsible for marketing, the person responsible for sales, the head of your company, and a front-line employee (assuming these aren’t all the same person)… would they all respond with the same answer? Same words? Even if the answers are similar… close isn’t good enough if you expect to provide a consistent and quality experience for every single customer. If we were talking about a car part, you’d never expect the designer, the part manufacturer, and the specification manual to differ in their understanding or description of a specific part… It is surprising to me that we let service – a HUGE part of most of our businesses be treated with ambiguity. One of the challenges is that service is … Continue reading
Has your company answered the big small question? If not, it could be a continuing source of distracting consternation. What is the big small question? First, a bit of background, well-articulated by Ridgely Evers in a recent issue of American Express’ OPEN BOOK. Evers headed up the creation of Quickbooks at Intuit, has served as CEO of a number of Bay-area companies, is managing partner of a venture capital fund and is a board member of SCORE. In other words, he’s been around. He says: People think there’s some kind of continuum between the smallest and biggest business – an unbroken line between me and the mouse on my desk and Microsoft – and that there’s some magical moment where you transform from being a small to a midsize to a large business. In fact, research shows that to be very far from the truth. Each form of business is … Continue reading
I had the opportunity last week to attend the Spigit Innovation Summit as a guest of this month’s sponsor – Spigit. The event was held at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay and featured headliners Andrew McAfee, Charlene Li, and Mike Maddock, along with several other speakers from the more than 100 Spigit clients in attendance. The event was very lively and I’ve already shared many of the key insights from the event on the hashtag #spigit10 on twitter, but I’ll do my best to convey some of the things that I took away with me from the event. Andrew McAfee, a professor at MIT and one of those responsible for focusing our attention on Enterprise 2.0, opened the event. His anchor case study was a dicussion of the game FoldIt, created to help tackle the mystery of protein folding. Think of it as man versus computer. Key insights included … Continue reading
If you follow the tech industry you probably noticed Google’s decision to shut down their much-ballyhooed Google Wave after only one year of operation. You might also have noticed the “wave” of criticism from technology bloggers and industry writers that immediately followed. For those not familiar with it, Google Wave is a real-time collaboration tool that combines various forms of online communication. Some industry experts predicted that it would dramatically change the way we communicate and collaborate online. But it never developed the user base that Google anticipated, so they decided to pull the plug on the product. According to their blog, Google will continue to maintain the site through the end of the year, and will extend the technology into other Google projects. But they will cease all development of Google Wave as a standalone product. Many industry writers took Google to task for this decision. Why did they … Continue reading
Where Do I Get My Pass? by Stephanie Susman In the global race for green superiority, China is often seen as a frontrunner. In fact, China recently announced plans to invest 5 trillion yuan ($739 billion) in energy industries including nuclear, wind, solar, biomass, clean coal, smart grid, distributed energy and green autos by 2020. This is good news for the 1.3 billion people living in China who need clean air, jobs and transportation. Unfortunately, according to this week’s Newsweek, “a new study shows that in the first half of 2010, China’s air quality actually deteriorated for the first time in five years.” The reason? “China’s swarms of new cars and industries are damaging the environment faster than the country’s efforts at green retooling can save it.” But, according to NYTimes.com, China’s Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment has a solution: The 3D Express Coach, “a decidedly odd-looking, extra-wide and extra-tall … Continue reading
Virgin & Nike vs. Dell & Sears by Adam Hartung Summary: We are biased toward doing what we know how to do, rather than something new We like to think we can forever grow by keeping close to what we know – that’s a myth Growth only comes from entering growth markets – whether we know much about them or not To grow you have to keep yourself in growth markets, and it is dangerous to limit your prospects to projects/markets that are “core” or “adjacent to core” Recently a popular business book has been Profit from the Core. This book proposes the theory that if you want to succeed in business you should do projects that are either in your “core,” or “adjacent to your core.” Don’t go off trying to do something new. The further you move from your “core” the less likely you will succeed. Talk about … Continue reading
