Steiner on Business

Company Culture through Prof Sutton's Lens

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 18:53:00 +0000

Professor Bob Sutton is one of the most colorful business researchers on the Stanford campus, a Professor of Management Science at the Stanford Engineering School with more than 30 years of organizational research under his belt. These snippets from an interview with Melody Stone on Stride provide a toolbox full of insights from his work with companies such as McKinsey, Netflix, McDonald's, JetBlue and more: + Find out what the cultural norms at McKinsey are all about + What drove IBM's most famous change in the company's history + What are the underlying cultural differences between JetBlue and United ...and more... What 30 years of Stanford research tells us about company culture https://www.stride.com/blog/what-30-years-of-stanford-research-tells-us-about-company-culture

Thoughts on Product Design and the Hotel Bathroom Puzzle

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 08:29:00 +0000

One of the most error-prone challenges we encounter in business is product design. How often have you walked into a bathroom at a hotel you'd never been at before, stepped into the shower...and had no idea how to work the darn thing?? Personally I am not ashamed to admit it's happened more times than I care to remember. Yeah, you fiddle with the faucets, or dials, or levers - or whatever tortuous device the manufacturer had come up with and managed to convince the hotel architect to recommend and purchase - but shouldn't showers, and thousands of other products, be designed so intuitively we in our consumers' shoes shouldn't have to think about how to operate them? The "Hotel Bathroom Puzzle" is a classic. Read Alec Nevala-Lee's excellent short treatise on the subject and learn, learn, learn. #failure #learningfromfailure #productdesign #design #Productmanagement

James Dyson on Leveraging Failure to Reach Success

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 21:22:00 +0000

James Dyson talks to Entrepreneur about leveraging failure for success - click here

Business as a Baseball Game...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 20:27:00 +0000

Think about this...

If business were a baseball game, you'd only have to get it right 33% of the time to be considered a "star," "expert," or genius...

Avis ditching "We Try Harder..."

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 19:58:00 +0000

Here's another strange one for y'all -

Avis has been using the "We Try Harder" tag line for half a century - literally since before I was born...it's as strongly associated with Avis as America is with apple pie.

In a strange move Avis has announced it will be ditching one of the most successful tag lines in business history for..."It's your space."

"It's your space."

Huh?

Here's some good commentary from The Blake Project.

Apple losing lawsuit after lawsuit...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 19:54:00 +0000

When Apple wins one over Samsung, the media world is abuzz...I find it strange that when Apple loses lawsuits one after the other to HTC - little is said...

YOUR thoughts??

Apple Loses Another One To HTC

Conspiracy of the apploids??

WSJ Publishes Old News on VC-backed Startup Failures

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 08:36:00 +0000

WSJ published some old news today...according to Deborah Gage, the VC (Venture Capital) secret is that 3 out of 4 startups fail...

News flash: 1 out of 10 succeeds...

Rough VC stats are as follows - for each 1,000 business plans a typical VC sees:
=> VC communicates with 100 teams
...meets with 10 teams for presentations
...invests in ONE single venture

Success stats are approximately:
+ 5-6 fail ... negative returns
+ 2-3 breakeven - living dead etc. ... zero returns
+ 1-2 minor success ... minor returns, in today's climate barely return VC investments
+ 1 raging success ... major returns, finances the whole deal

DO THE MATH - for a single raging success a VC team has to review approximately 10,000 business plans, sit through 100 presentations, invest in ten companies and work with them for periods that can stretch out to ten years and beyond.

It ain't an easy business - even if top firms like Kleiner Perkins and Accel sometimes make it seem like cake.

Kao, Moore, Metcalfe, Gilder - Four Important Laws Demonstrating the Impact of Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:30:00 +0000

Following are four important laws that demonstrate the impact of technology through innovation and creativity:

1) Kao's Law - Creativity - Creativity rises exponentially with diversity; hence, the more diverse a population, the more creative it becomes.
2) Moore's Law - Processing Power - The power of computing will continue to double approximately every 18 months, while the price of computing power will halve over the same period.
3) Metcalfe's Law - Networks - The value of a network is the square of its nodes; applies to social networks as well - hence the disproportionate growth in the power of social networks such as Linkedin and Facebook once a certain critical mass is reached. Also consider the immense power each additional member adds after a certain point...
4) Gilder's Law - Bandwidth - Available telecom bandwidth will triple every 12 months. If we can freely stream video to every household now - what will we be able to do in a decade???

Familiar with any other groundbreaking rules worth mentioning?
Post a comment!

Visualizing the Impossible

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:10:00 +0000

"Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible."

Cheri Carter-Scott

How to Pitch your Idea, Business, Yourself!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:57:00 +0000

Four easy stages to pitch fluently:

1. Take the time to construct a succinct, single sentence explanation of your idea, your business, yourself - whatever it is that you are trying to pitch - this is commonly known as the "elevator pitch"
2. Know your pitch cold, be able to repeat it if wakened from your sleep
3. Show passion when you pitch!
4. Visualize your success!!

What to do with the iPad?!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:41:00 +0000

For those of you who had not had the privilege of coming across George Colony's writings as yet - George is the CEO of Forrester, and he writes a nice little blog "For the Counterintuitive CEO"

Mr. Colony hits the iPad problem right on the head - there is simply nowhere left to put it...position that, eh? :-)

For more Forrester blogs see http://blogs.forrester.com/

Great Blog on Creating Customer Experiences

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:18:00 +0000

Stephanie Weaver has been very consistent in publishing her blog on creating great customer experiences; although the focus is on creating such experiences mainly in museums and other cultural institutions of note - there is a lot here for every marketer and business person to learn from!

Great Examples of Major Product Flops

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Great product flops courtesy of Fast Company.

For some more excellent examples from the dot.com era pick up Philip J. Kaplan's F'd Companies.

But never forget, failure begets success.
Those who don't fail - haven't tried.
Those who haven't tried - never succeed.

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:37:00 +0000

(previously published as "Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part IV" on Raging Academic Notes on... Marketing)

A Brief Introduction to Boolean Search Strategies

The following tips should help improve your search capabilities several-fold, and you can use them on almost all Web and database search engines (e.g. databases available through academic and public libraries such as Proquest and ABI/Inform etc. - typically you can gain access to some of these types of resources from your home PC through a simple Internet connection) - the good news, however, is that if an engine doesn't support these options - it'll just ignore them.

1) Use quotes to specify terms - if you want to search for material about online marketing, for example, search for
"online marketing" (with the quotes)
rather than just -
online marketing (note - without the quotes).

The quotes will guarantee that the engine only returns pages where "online marketing" appears as a phrase, rather than returning every page on the Web or in the database where both "online" and "marketing" happen to appear.

2) Use "And" to further focus your search - for example, say you were only interested in "online marketing" of books - your search should look as follows -

"online marketing" and books

This kind of search will only return sites that include the term "online marketing" and also the word "books"

3) Use "Or" if you're trying to limit a search, as above, but would like to try a few different options - for example, perhaps you're searching for material on wine but don't care if it's red or white - try searching on the following combination -

"white wine" or "red wine"

This type of a search will return any page where either "white wine" or "red wine" can be found

4) Use parentheses to organize and combine searches. Let's return to the "online marketing" searches - say you're interested in online marketing of various types of media. Media can include books, CDs, videos and DVDs (among many other formats). You could structure a search as follows -

"online marketing" and (books or CDs or videos or DVDs)

The parentheses help ensure that your search is executed in the order you would like it to be - just like one would use parentheses in a mathematical calculation if you wanted to ensure that addition is completed prior to multiplication etc.

5) Use a negative sign "-" to exclude sites that include specific words or phrases - suppose for the above search you notice that most of the results in the first few pages are coming from McGraw Hill's site, but you want to get to results from other sites - run the search again, as follows -

"online marketing" and (books or CDs or videos or DVDs) -www.mcgrawhill.com

...and - voila - you should only receive search results that exclude pages from McGraw Hill's site.

In summary...

Search strategies can get a lot more intricate and complicated than the little that we've covered here. But - you've got to start somewhere. Typically successful searches will require some degree of iteration. Stay tuned to this space for more elaborate advice about successful search in the near future - and please don't hesitate to ask for clarifications, and to offer your own hints and tips, by responding to this post.

Steiner's Law of Competitive Survival

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:02:00 +0000

Steiner's Law of Competitive Survival: "The more information there will be out there, the more you will have to differentiate yourself to be able to compete effectively." (C)(big time...)

Google is now listing hotel prices on Google Maps...

Can you begin to fathom what this means for the hotel industry???

Let's get analytic...the competitive effort required to maintain the same position increases with the reach and scope of the network. That means that the effort required to continue to grow increases logarithmically??

Rainmaking...Changemaking...Some Key Tips for Effecting Change and Driving Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:38:00 +0000

Here are six great pointers on driving change, adapted from HBR's Management Tip of the Day (March 25 2010):

+ Connect people who have common interests but don't know each other.
...use Linkedin, Facebook
...make a successful connection and you strengthen your own!
+ Create innovative new business models by bringing together people and resources in new ways.
...almost everything ever created was derived from something that existed before
...try to look at things in new ways!
+ Keep driving forward with your ideas (granted that you believe in them!) until you find success.
...don't necessarily stick to the same idea
...be flexible
...remember that failure begets success!
+ In the networked age, ideas frequently are more powerful than credentials
...don't give up on someone just because he didn't go to the right school...
+ Recruit supporters early on in the change and/or innovation process
...it's tough to go it all alone!
+ Delegate, delegate, delegate!
...empower others to effect change
...provide a safety net

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 11:06:00 +0000

Keeping on top of new developments in the search space

Basically, one Web site, and one newsletter, started by Danny Sullivan, the guru of search, more than ten years ago - should suffice to keep you on top of the search space. The newsletter link will lead you to a page where you can sign up for Search Engine Watch's paid service - or just for the free service. The value-add vs. the free version is not incredibly substantial for those of you not following the space profesionally; analysts etc. will definitely want to for-fee newsletter. There is also a Search Engine Watch blog, of course...

Danny himself has gone on to start Search Engine Land - destined to be a terrific search resource as well, I'm sure. I've been following Danny since back when I was Director of Marketing for Data Research Associates (DRA, acquired by SIRSI spring 2001 - now SirsiDynix), so I should know :-)

Google has its own blog where you can check out what the search behemoth is up to. If you look down the rightside column of GoogleBlog you will see a long list of other Google blogs, as well as a list of blogs and newsletters the Google team finds to be useful.

Google Labs is another wonderful source for new and exciting developments - check it out to see what may become actual product a few months or years hence.

Not to be outdone, Yahoo! has developed its own labs site.

If you would like to recommend any other great search sites, write me! (by posting a comment to this note)
Ragingacademic

Henry Mintzberg on Management

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:37:00 +0000

Henry Mintzberg is one of the top authorities on management worldwide. His personal Web site is quite a resource and offers a lot of material in support of his books, papers and articles.

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:25:00 +0000

Search Strategies for the Web and Databases - Part I
(previously published in 2006 on Raging Academic Notes on... Marketing)

In the next few days I'll be posting, in parts, an edited version of a guide I had been providing my students with since 2002. In this first part I'll try and give you a taste for the type and logic of search resources available to you through the Web. The second part will provide lists of what I perceive to be the best search engines and directories available. The third installment will include tips on how to keep abreast of new developments in the search and research space. The fourth and last installment will include a short tutorial on Boolean searching.

So - What kind of search resources are available on the Web?

Asked to name a search engine, most people would likely come up with either Yahoo! or Google. But Yahoo! and Google are as different from each other as night and day... Yahoo! is a directory - typically, directories work by cataloging entries that Web site owners and other interested parties submit. Therefore, if you don't submit your Web site to a given directory, you don't exist in that directory. But in the case of Yahoo!, even if you do submit your site, you may not appear in their directory... Why? A number of reasons. Yahoo! has cut back significantly on manpower in its directory department, and has built up a several months-long backlog (if not longer...), so they may just about be getting around to approving and cataloging sites submitted mid-year (if that). Some sites, Yahoo! librarians won't approve - or they won't approve them for the classifications for which they were submitted. And, Yahoo! has gotten into the nasty habit of trying to charge everyone for everything that they once happily provided for free (because they used to earn umpteen-hundred million dollars a quarter from Web-vertising! For an interesting perspective on Yahoo's new attitude, see for example Fast Company - http://www.fastcompany.com/online/60/jellis.html).

Google, on the other hand, is a true search engine. To appear in a search engine's results, you don't have to submit your site - in fact, in many instances, you can't. Rather, you need to structure your site in a way that will make it easy for search engine "spiders" and "crawlers" to find you. Spiders and crawlers are softbots (for software robots...) which "live" on the Web and constantly search and traverse Web sites, continuously feeding their "owners" (the search engine companies, typically...) with data. In order to ensure that such softbots find your site, you can employ many different strategies, beginning with well-defined and well-targeted "meta tags" in your html source code. An entire industry has sprung up around the very idea of developing strategies that will improve the chances such engines will find you - and that when individuals go to search for something relevant to you, your site will appear among the very top hits.

Search engines use various algorithms to index the Web - Google uses an algorithm called PageRank (after one of the company's co-founders, Larry Page) - but most engines index only a fraction of it; by some estimates, more than 70% of the Web is never returned in a search, meaning that effectively, unless you know of a specific site or page and go there directly - you'll probably never come across it. Google indexes more of the Web than any other search engine, and indexes it in a more efficient manner, which is why you are guaranteed to get results back lightnin' fast.

To summarize this section, then - there are basically two types of search resources on the Web - search engines and directories. Engines are better when you have less of an idea of what it is you are looking for, and vice versa. For example, if I am trying to locate the Web site for American Airlines, my best bet is probably to head over to Yahoo and search for "American Airlines" - Yahoo pulls the "American Airlines" category directly from its directory; click on it and you will be whisked off to a page that includes several links to "American Airlines" sites. But if I am looking for information about, say, "tropical birds" - I'm much better off heading over to Google - I'll get a much richer and more up-to-date result set. In other words, engines are good for a subject or concept search, while directories work better for "object" searches (company, person, product and so forth).

On writing emails that get read...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:13:00 +0000

I write A LOT of emails...and I'm always wondering what % of them get read, what % get proper follow-up, etc. There are some simple things you can do to increase the likelihood your emails get read - for example, ALWAYS use the SUBJECT LINE (it's truly unbelievable how often I receive emails from people who are supposed to be Net-savvy - yet they fire off email after email without a subject line!)

Here are some more useful tips...

Passionate Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:51:00 +0000

Great comments from Cameron (director) and Jobs (no need...) on passionate leadership - and a passionate discussion to boot.

Average American Worker Wasting >25% of each Workday!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:03:00 +0000

Average American Worker Wasting More than 25% of each Workday!

The average American worker wastes over 2 hours each day.
The internet is the biggest time suck with 44.7% of Americans ranking it as their primary time-wasting activity.
Socializing with co-workers also ranks high with 23.4%.
Why all this time wasting?
33.2% of respondents say they don't have enough work to do and 23.4% say they feel underpaid.

Definitely some things to think about...

Ten Simple and Succinct Tips for Better Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:57:00 +0000

Jon Greer shares ten great tips for better presentations.

http://blogs.bnet.com/pr/?p=184
http://blogs.bnet.com/pr/?p=185&loomia_si=t0:a3:g2:r1:c0.5382&tag=loomia

83-year-old Billionaire Serial Entrepreneur Dishes Out Business Advice

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:18:00 +0000

Mann Power
Los Angeles, California
Smart Business
November 2005

Al Mann, the billionaire founder of Advanced Bionics (cochlear implants), dishes out management wisdom in this profile by Laura Taxel. Mann founded several companies among them Spectrolab (electrooptical systems, 1956 - today a subsidiary of Boeing), Heliotek (semiconductors, spacecraft solar cells), Pacesetter Systems (pacemakers, sold to St. Jude Medical), MiniMed (insulin pumps, sold to Medtronics), Mannkind Corporation, Second Sight, Bioness, Quallion, and Stellar Microelectronics.

Referring to the major elements required to create a successful business enterprise, Mann says, "Capital is most important, I can’t emphasize that enough...The failure of most promising businesses is usually due to inadequate funds for the start-up and early growth phase of the enterprise."

Communicating Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:52:00 +0000

A common vision is the key to a productive, efficient and highly motivated team. But communicating a vision to the team is often challenging. The following story, quoted from Annette Simmons' excellent The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling, helps explain the succinctness of a vision:

A man came upon a construction site where three people were working.

He asked the first, "What are you doing?" and the man answered, "I am laying bricks."

He asked the second, "What are you doing?" and the man answered, "I am building a wall."

He walked up to the third man, who was humming a tune as he worked [not sure why this is relevant, lol...] and asked, "What are you doing?" and the man stood up and said, "I am building a cathedral." (p. 16-17)

The vision brings all of the elements of a project - or of one's work in general - together, providing employees with the roots of their effort. Without vision an employee or team member is much like a tree without roots. I have found the bricks-to-wall-to-cathedral metaphor to be particularly powerful.