BLOG OF ADAM HARTUNG
Data is overrated – Scenario planning and global warming
Most businesses have multiple analysts who spend day after day accumulating, analyzing and displaying data. Financial analysts, marketing analysts, IT analysts - they are all over the place. Then businesses will hire consultants who bring their own...
The problem with lists and awards – and best practices
We all love awards and lists. Who doesn't like being rewarded for their accomplishments. At the same time, we have acquired a strong taste for lists "The best..." Another verification of success. But both can be harbingers of...
New Solutions Emerge – Apple, Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu
Most people misunderstand evolution. They think that changes happen slowly. Imagine an animal with a 12 inch tail. Every generation or so it's imagined that the tail gets a little shorter, then a little shorter, then a little shorter until...
Swim with the current – Newspapers, Facebook, YouTube
Over the last week everyone has heard stories about how Facebook, and Twitter, became primary communication conduits for people with connections in Haiti. Telephone and slower communication vehicles simply have not been able to connect family and friends in...
Use Disruptions, not Goals, to Succeed – GM
Many people think the best way to grow is by setting big goals - even Big Audacious Hairy Goals (BHAGs). But increasingly we're learning that goal setting is not correlated with success. At AmericanPublicRadio.org there's a partial text, and MP3...
Overcoming metrics to grow – Motorola, Xerox, Kodak, Six Sigman, TQM, Lean
Do all good ideas originate outside the organization? Of course not. Motorola understood all the critical technologies for smart phones, and taught Apple how to use them in a joint development project that created the ROKR. That's just one...
Sacred cows – Google and Nexus One
So out of the blue I got called by a reporter asking me what I thought of Google posting an advertisement for the new Nexus One on its homepage. It was an easy question - the Google homepage isn't sacrosanct. Like everything, it needs to be used in a...
Listen to Competitors Rather than Customers – Google, IBM, Tribune, Cisco
Leadership Listen To Competitors--Not Customers01.06.10, 03:10 PM EST The accepted wisdom that the customer is king is all wrong.That's the start to my latest Forbes column (Read here.) Think about it. What would Apple be if it had listened to its...
Who to follow in 2010? – Amazon, WalMart
Happy New Year!As we start 2010 the plan, according to The Financial Times, "WalMart aims to cut supply chain costs." Imagine that. Cost cutting has been the biggest Success Formula component for WalMart for its entire career. And now,...
New Decade – New Normal
HAPPY NEW YEAR!We end the first decade in 2000 with another first. In ReutersBreakingViews.com "Don't Diss the Dividend" we learn 2000-2009 is the first time in modern stock markets when U.S. investors made no money for a decade. ...
Planning for the future – 2010 – Facebook, Linked-in, MySpace, Pepsi
As we enter 2010, is your business expecting a very different future - and have you started planning to implement new approaches based upon a different future? For example, how do you plan to acquire new customers, employees and vendors in 2010 and...
HBR -The Decade’s top Performing CEOs – Apple, Cisco, Amazon, eBay, Google
I was intrigued when I read on the Harvard Business Review web site "Do we celebrate the wrong CEOs?" The article quickly pointed out that many of the best known CEOs - and often named as most respected - didn't come close to making the list of the top 100 best...
Why acquisitions often don’t work – MySpace and NewsCorp.
The business media get really excited about acquisitions. And it is clear that many executives still think acquisitions are a good way to grow - especially when wanting to enter new markets. Even though all the academic research says that acquirers...
Innovation Budget 2010? BusinessWeek, GE, P&G, Google, Apple
In "The Year in Innovation" BusinessWeek has offered its review of innovation in 2009. And the report is grim. Most companies cut innovation spending - including R&D. Even the pharmaceutical industry, historically tied to long-term...
Old White Men and changes at GM
Great blog today at MidasNation.com. Rob Slee is a book author and blogger focused on privately held companies. And today he took on "Old White Men" - or OWM - in his blog "Why 60 Year Old White Men are Killing America." ...
No sitting still, you grow or die – Yahoo, AOL, Blockbuster v Google, Facebook, Netflix
In a tough year like 2009, many business leaders want to jump in a foxhole and focus on survival. The goal becomes maintain, and then try to grow again sometime in the future - when the economy gets better. They cut marketing and sales costs, stop new...
Implementing Market Shifts – Google, Android phone, eWallet
"The Google Phone, Unlocked" is a Seeking Alpha article detailing the early release of a Google phone planned for market introduction in 2010. Will this be successful or not? Legitimate question - given the success of Apple's iPhone. ...
Go where the growth is – Sara Lee, Motorola, GE, Comcast, NBC
If you can't sell products, I guess you sell the business to generate revenue. That seems to be the approach employed by Sara Lee's CEO - who has been destroying shareholder value, jobs, vendor profits and customer expectations for several years. ...
Plan for the future – not from the past — Forbes column
In "Uptick Catches Entrepreneurs by Surprise" the Wall Street Journal points out that defensively-minded entrepreneurs are unprepared to undertake hiring or business expansion. Simultaneously, the Washington Post reports "Obama Preparing New Push...
Planning to Succeed using White Space
My last blog highlighted a new book describing the need for White Space if a business is to implement innovation and grow. But lots of people still have questions about what White Space is, and how to get it working.Here's the chart from Create Marketplace...
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