Category: Management

Stephen Johnston writes:

s people insulate themselves from marketing messages and are influenced more by what their friends say than what expensively produced marketing materials say, the trick for companies to shift their wares is to convert current customers into their evangelists. All very Cluetrain 101. However, what strikes me odd as how badly companies manage their current customers, preferring instead to focus on non customers.
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Advertising for new customers is not as effective (depending on product, geography yadayada) as it was, but the simple key proposition to is to manage and delight the current customers. However, the current tools that we’ve got for companies to manage them are pretty minimal. In particular those tools that allow customers to interact with brands using their mobile.

Here. Michael Mauboussin’s Strategy pieces are a must-read.

[via Anish] Excerpts from an interview of Cisco’s John Chambers by USA Today:

The great leaders of the future will absolutely know technology. Not from a geeky perspective, but from a practical business approach.
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I’m talking about developing the strategy, recruiting and developing the people to implement strategy, developing the culture and communicating all of the above. Those are the four things a CEO does.
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The point I’m making is that what gets an executive into technology is not a love for the technology. That’s the exception. It’s understanding what technology can do to achieve personal or business goals. Any CEO who is goodwill grasp what technology can do to enable their business strategy, achieve their productivity goals, their cost savings, enable their movement into new markets. They’ll absolutely use it.

Guy Kawasaki writes:

If you manage any people or if you are a parent (which is a form of managing people), drop everything and read The Effort Effect. This is an article about Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck. It examines her thirty-year study of why some some people excel and others dont. (Hint: the answer is not God-given talent.)

The article postulates that people have two kinds of mindsets: growth or fixed. People with the growth mindset view life as a series of challenges and opportunities for improving. People with a fixed mindset believe that they are set as either good or bad. The issue is that the good ones believe they dont have to work hard, and the bad ones believe that working hard wont change anything.

WSJ writes how understanding the ‘why’ of decisions makes employees more likely to embrace changes:

Management gurus agree that employees are most likely to get on board when they are involved in the decision-making process. In the many cases when that’s not possible, the next-best thing is to make employees feel as if they were involved, consultants say. That means telling workers not only what was decided, but why and how, says Phillip G. Clampitt, a consultant and communications professor at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.

In a study last year, Mr. Clampitt found that employees are more likely to support decisions when they are told about the rationale. The study surveyed roughly 300 managers and employees at more than 100 U.S. employers, asking what they knew of decisions and how supportive they were of them. Mr. Clampitt says employees of companies that explained decisions more fully were more than twice as likely to support those decisions as workers who got less information.

Knowledge@Emory writes how defining a firms capabilities, purpose, and niche creates competitive advantage:

Is it so different for the leader of a company to ask, What is this company capable of? than it is for an individual to wonder, Who am I? Not according to at least one presentation given at the third annual Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference held at Emory Universitys Goizueta Business School.

Joey Reiman, CEO of the ideation company, BrightHouse, and an adjunct professor in marketing at Emorys Goizueta Business School, contends that its not competitive advantage a company should seek, but distinctive advantage. Finding this distinction, like finding the meaning of self, requires going within.

In a panel discussion entitled, Recognizing Distinctive Advantages Within Companies, Reiman told participants he advises company leaders to look inside their firms to find capabilitiesnot outside. The best way to find ones own capabilities is to ponder on themgo deepernot wider, says Reiman, who has advised company leaders at firms like The Coca-Cola Company and The Home Depot.

Nicholas Carr writes:

A recent paper by three business-school professors – Sunil Gupta, Carl Mela, and Jose Vidal-Sanz – offers a new approach for estimating the value of nonpaying, or, as the professors term them, “free,” customers. The authors created a mathematical model of a hypothetical firm, with a business similar to Monster’s, and used it to calculate how much every new buyer joining the company site is worth and how that value changes over time.

Some of the results were fascinating. The professors found, for instance, that the value of each nonpaying customer (buyer) was actually slightly higher than the value of each paying customer (seller) – even though there were far more buyers than sellers in the company’s marketplace.

[via Yuvaraj] Bob Sutton writes:

Perhaps the best description Ive ever seen of how wise people act comes from the amazing folks at Palo Altos Institute for the Future. A couple years ago, I was talking the Institutes Bob Johansen about wisdom, and he explained that to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward they advise people to have strong opinions, which are weakly held. They’ve been giving this advice for years, and I understand that it was first developed by Instituite Director Paul Saffo. Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people arent inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to see and hear evidence that clashes with your opinions. This is what psychologists sometimes call the problem of confirmation bias.

InfoWorld writes:

Sun marks its 25th anniversary this week. To the outside observer, however, there may appear to be little to celebrate. Sun’s stock price languishes in the single digits, not even matching its performance of five years ago. Although the company’s product portfolio is brimming with innovative technologies, it seems unable capitalize on them. Sun stands poised at one of the most critical moments of its history, yet its ability to shape its own future seems doubtful.
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There’s no doubt that Sun has superior technology. In the real-world IT market, however, superior technology doesn’t always win out. (Some of Sun’s competitors in the Workstation Wars can testify to that.) But the other card Sun has in its hand, after all, is sheer staying power. And as it marches onward toward its thirties, let’s not think of it as a company approaching middle age. Rather, it’s simply growing into maturity. As long as it carries on the cause of open source and open standards — both in name and in spirit — there will always be a future for it in the market, no matter what its shape.

Business Week writes: “It’s time to remember that advertising needs brands more than the brands need advertising. A good product creates its own relationships.”

Understanding what the consumers want and bringing solutions that will inspire them is the most powerful way to support any business strategy. Putting consumers and the product at the center of the equation is fundamental to a brand’s success. Design then becomes the message and the advertising, as it’s proof of a company’s commitment to people and to innovation.

A relevant and well-designed product will make its way into the world, will be spun across the blogosphere, will be sought after and endorsed in the most emotional fashion as a reward. Indeed, advertising needs brands more than the brands need advertising. When the commercial becomes more popular than the product, you really have a problemnot least that it doesn’t serve your brand long-term.