Calender

July 2010
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Silicon Valley may become Graphene Gulch

Some day you may see a workman replacing a location sign designating Silicon Valley. In its place the new sign could read Nanotube Valley, or maybe Graphene Gulch. That is improbable at best, but could be more accurate. Researchers are anticipating the day when it will be impossible to further miniaturize [...]

Death by a thousand cuts

For about a thousand years prior to the 20th century the Chinese used a form of execution known as death by a thousand cuts. That is an apt description of the consequences of the business as usual practices of many companies facing today’s challenges.For example, many executives function as though they were still in an era [...]

Innovate or miss the recovery

Innovation is garnering attention in the business media, but like crop storage in a grainery it has no value until somebody buys it. The companies are numerous that have come up with great ideas only to see somebody else turn them into business breakthroughs. Equally numerous are companies that are best described as arid innovation deserts. [...]

Branding is a marketing/Internet challenge

Marketing has always been part science and part instinct. The marketing component is the purview of the numbers crunchers. Instinct is the fuzzier realm of gut feel, tempered by experience and judgment. It is often difficult for executives to navigate the turbulent waters of branding, which is part measureable and part elusively ephemeral.One thing is certain. [...]

Clues to future corporate success

The first imperative is to deliberately, consciously wean the organization from excessive control, the methods most executives learned and practice in their profession. The late Peter Drucker explained, “Because the modern organization consists of knowledge specialists, it has to be an organization of equals, of colleagues and associates. No knowledge ranks higher than another; each [...]

Checklist for science and technology advances

Ray Kurzweil

Executives anxious about bridging the gap between business as usual and exponential advances in science and technology have been given a checklist for their attention. These are the technologies recommended by the experts: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Nanotechnology, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Medicine and Human-Machine Interfaces, Networks & Computing Systems, and Energy & Environmental Systems.

These [...]

CEO angst revealed

Chief Executive Magazine asked a cross-section of of CEOs to write about their outlook for the coming year. Editor J.P. Donlon said he was struck by their twin concerns about rising government spending and increasing taxes and regulations, as well as the effect both would have on what they regard as a fragile economic recovery.

Donlon observed, [...]

The Internet is a surrogate sales person

It is not surprising that corporations are struggling with how to budget for and use the Internet as a marketing tool and interface with customers. After all the Internet is a surrogate for sales people, and sales people are a surrogate for the image and reputation of the legal entity called a corporation.

Until accountants figure out [...]

Time for business leaders to get off their butts

Peter G. Peterson

A prominent billionaire business man has issued a call to arms to American businesss leaders to “get off their butts” and go on the offensive and play a leading role in helping solve the nation’s economic problems. Peter G. Peterson, former Commerce secretary, CEO of Bell and Howell, and cofounder of the Blackstone [...]

Muddle in the middle

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Reacting to the tenor of the times, scholars and commentators are focusing on what could be called the “muddle in the middle”. Society seems to be like a child attempting to jump a puddle and instead landing kersplash in the middle. Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kantor writes about change being hardest [...]