Something old is new again.
It is a bit ironic to think that in the midst of the information revolution that is surrounding us, that we are in some ways reverting to the ways of pre-agricultural humans. Bit of a stretch? Just think, pre-agricultural humans lived by what they knew, where the...
Small business is wary of social media
They are.. Just look around at what they are doing. I wish I had written this post.
Microsoft’s challenges with Skype
It will be worth watching the way Microsoft goes about leveraging their $8.5 Billion (should have paid Aussie dollars?) purchase of Skype, there will be a swarm of lessons to be learnt: Integration of a "free" service into a product/profit business model. This...
Lean and 6 sigma revisited
In a recent conversation I again found myself between two smart blokes, one who was a black belt 6 sigma consultant who believed the problems of the world could be fixed by some aggressive, numerical focus on process improvement, and an exponent of Lean, who was of...
The process of developing solutions
We humans like to do things in a consistent manner, each time we do something, it is comfortable to do it the way we did it before. This is great if the way we have done it delivers the optimal outcome, but presents difficulties when the outcome is sub-optimal, and...
Thinking about cloud computing?
Last week I attended a seminar run by www.Salesforce.com a very impressive dissertation on the capabilities they and their partners can bring to bear on the CRM challenges faced by all businesses. Obviously, the objective is to sign you up, and the challenge for non...
Re-inventing management
This video of Gary Hamel discussing the evolution of management is seriously worth watching.
Blind-flying.
I have been surprised a couple of times recently when I realised that two B2B businesses I was working with really had no idea how their ultimate customers used the products they bought from us. In both cases the products were sold through distributors, whose ...
Budget blathering whilst manufacturing dies. June 13 update!
Amidst all the blathering following the federal budget Tuesday night I have not seen one comment, political or otherwise that points out the crisis in manufacturing, particularly food industry related manufacturing. Sure, lots of puff about how hard it is for...
How to “outcompete” Apple and Google.
Pretty big aspiration, to outcompete the two businesses that have consistently demonstrated the power of innovation as the core competitive tool over the past 10 years, and have reaped the rewards by creating and redefining markets and then taking all the gravy. The...