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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

I was a corps member, then I worked at, Teach for America. Here are a couple of pro/con thoughts.

Quickly before I get going: Justin Meli, in the video above (which has been put on The Atlantic and other places), was actually my roommate during Teach for America’s Summer Institute in Houston, TX back in summer 2003. (Moody Towers, y’all. I… Continue Reading

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Could a Boston-based company called XL Hybrids help change the world (and the climate)?

XL Hybrids is a company out of Boston that, right there on their homepage, will promise a 20 percent reduction in urban fuel consumption. The business media is on board: Fast Company just had them as the third-most innovative energy company in… 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

Beef is now $5.28/pound, the highest since 1987. Is that going to shift habits over the next decade?

Just in time for the summer grill-out season, beef prices are at their highest point since the late 1980s. And here’s the really good news! Everything that’s produced is being consumed, said Kevin Good, an analyst at CattleFax, a Colorado-based information… Continue Reading

At some point, a company’s organic reach on Facebook may hit zero

Back in March 2012, Facebook told brand managers that the organic reach of one of their posts would be about 16 percent of their total audience; if they paid for a post, that could get up to 75 percent. In reality, around… Continue Reading

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The shipping industry appears to be in trouble, environmentally and financially

I’ve seen Season 2 of The Wire — “dead girls in a can!” — which is about the extent of my knowledge on international shipping topics, but I do find it broadly interesting. You could argue (and many have) that shipping is… 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