Tools to quantify the value of the web.
Finding ways to quantify the impact of investment on-line has become a real challenge for management. A dollar spent on line is a dollar not available to be spent elsewhere, so the need for a quantitative base from which to compare apples and apples is substantial,...
Hamel on Jobs
Of all the eulogising about Apple and Steve Jobs that has been published since his death a couple of days ago, almost predictably, the best one in my humble view comes from Gary Hamel who looks at Apple through his lens of Strategy. Hamel thinks about the development...
Easy cost reduction
A while ago I helped a mate move flats. He had only been there about 5 years after becoming a "bachelor" again after his family grew up, but the significant amount of clutter accumulated was unanticipated, and surprising. All sorts of proposals, manuals, brochures,...
Innovation by combination
Innovating a business model usually is about finding ways to put elements of a service delivery together differently, these days it is usually also about combining technologies to deliver an outcome that would have been impossible without both the technology and the...
Innovators think differently
Nothing new ever happens when the past is just repeated. When Apple was at the bottom of its life-cycle, when they basically ran out of cash, and survival was improbable, Steve Jobs, just reinstated at the company he founded took a step that redefined the persona of...
Poor service encourages customer revenge
Dave Winer, one of the earliest bloggers, prolific web publisher, and a key developer of the RSS technology so many of us use daily, has made many pithy statements worth remembering, but I was reminded of one over the weekend as the silly GASP customer complaint...
How to make Twitter useful
The value of Twitter is still grossly misunderstood by many of my aged peers, whose view is generally from the "why do I need to know what someone I do not know or care about is doing now?" school of thought. Following are some very simple ideas that may make it...
How stupid can they be?
Earlier today, Sunday, about 4.45, just before the League grand final kicked off, I got a phone call on my mobile from Optus. Well, sort of phone call, it was an automated call, some recording telling me they had something important to talk to me about, and it would...
Almost gone
The news that Fosters will be sold to SA Miller Brewing represents almost the last Australian food and beverage business with a global brand has now disappeared. I say almost, as I can think of no other, but some may argue that a few sales in Fiji or NZ constitutes...
The most valuable question
Complexity is strangling us, paralysis by analysis has become pretty widespread, and the paradox is that we are all trying to do more with less. In that context, creating an environment where everyone can contribute to the maximum of their capability seems like a...