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Apple is dead. Long live Apple!

You know how athletes — and definitely professional wrestlers — always talk about being gunned for when you’re No. 1 / the champion? If you want a real-life application of that, look no further than Apple, the undisputed cash-on-hand king… Continue Reading

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Can the Brand Arc, via ZOO and Google, help marketers better understand how to tell their story?

ZOO is an “agency for agencies,” or, said another way — it’s a custom solution for those trying to market/advertise across Google and YouTube. It’s run (essentially) by this guy Eric Solomon, who got a PhD in psychology (a good field… Continue Reading

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Could you apply blue ocean marketing/consumer-type strategies to the idea of leadership?

You might have heard of “blue ocean strategy.” It’s a very b-school term in some ways, but basically it means this: rather than going head-to-head with your competitors on everything, carve out “blue oceans” of untapped market space. It’s all documented… Continue Reading

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Could we be nearing the end of ‘death by PowerPoint?’ (Could PowerPoint itself be dying?)

Here’s a lame story by way of intro: last fall, when I was in my first semester of graduate school, I really wanted a gig at Microsoft. (News flash: I did not get one.) I heard that a recruiter from… Continue Reading

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Can we learn anything from the most popular titles (short-term and long-term) on Harvard Business Review?

In some ways, Harvard Business Review is the gold standard of business-school-associated journalism. One of their former editors went on to found Fast Company (another great business magazine) and is now running for Governor of New Mexico. HBR dutifully tracks — as most publications do —… Continue Reading

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Here’s a good quote regarding the length of the work week in a knowledge-based economy

From here, regarding Sweden contemplating a six-hour workday: As we transition to an economy dominated by knowledge workers rather than assembly-line workers, where productivity is more difficult to both measure and optimize, we haven’t yet figured out the best formula for maximizing output—something that,… Continue Reading

Brief thought exercise: do you find/believe that more people get promoted based on innate talent, personality, or ability to handle politics?

Toss out what you know/think/believe about performance reviews and the ascension of some to the manager level. Think about this one logically. If you’re going to get promoted, that ostensibly means (a) new (and broader) responsibilities and (b) possibly managing others (or… Continue Reading

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Could Smart Simplicity be the business model wave of the future?

Follow the bouncing ball here: 1. The Fortune 500 was created in 1955; since then, you can argue that the business environment is six times more competitive + complex than it was. 2. As the complexity of a business has increased, most management… Continue Reading