rethinkchronicles » change

Death by a thousand cuts

Editor — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:33:05 +0000

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 [...]

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Death by a thousand cuts

Innovate or miss the recovery

Editor — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:44:17 +0000

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. [...]

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Innovate or miss the recovery

Branding is a marketing/Internet challenge

Editor — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:43:42 +0000

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. [...]

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Branding is a marketing/Internet challenge

Accurate forecast for 2010

Editor — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:03:37 +0000

Forler Massnick

It is time for the annual rite of attempts to forecast what will happen in the new year. In his book Rethinking the Corporation, Forler Massnick quotes Winston Churchill’s complaint, “The future is one damn thing after another.” Peter Drucker put an academic spin on it, “”Forecasting is not a respectable human activity and [...]

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Accurate forecast for 2010

CEO angst revealed

Editor — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:55:08 +0000

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, [...]

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CEO angst revealed

The Internet is a surrogate sales person

Editor — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:00:01 +0000

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 [...]

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The Internet is a surrogate sales person

Muddle in the middle

Editor — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:53:16 +0000

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 [...]

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Muddle in the middle

Today’s certainties become tomorrow’s absurdities

Editor — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:44:20 +0000

In an age in which the average tenure of CEOs has shrunk to about five years, and theories about how to manage successfully through economic turmoil have the lifespan of a tsetse fly, it is interesting to reflect on the amazingly prophetic writings of Peter Drucker who died nearly four years ago at the age of [...]

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Today’s certainties become tomorrow’s absurdities

Artificial intelligence breakthrough

Editor — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:28:21 +0000

Professor Leon Chua

There is a new word lurking in the arcane language of electronics that may describe a breakthrough in the science of artificial intelligence. It is “memristor”.The more familiar elements of electronic circuits are resistors, capacitors and inductors. An electronics engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, Leon Chua, was convinced there was a [...]

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Artificial intelligence breakthrough

Marketers grapple with Web 2.0

Editor — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:35:31 +0000

Tim Berners-Lee

Is Web 2.0 a distinctly different application of Internet technology or, as Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee described it a “piece of jargon”? This is a serious question for marketing executives grappling with issues about where to spend advertising and promotion dollars in puzzling economic times.Initially the Web was used as a way of publishing [...]

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Marketers grapple with Web 2.0