Dan Pink’s new book, A Whole New Mind, introduces so many important ideas that I’ll be doing a series of blog entries on it. Consider the next several posts your cliff notes! Dan’s premise (and the subtitle of the book) is that we are moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. The Information… Read More
I’ve been struck recently by how easily you can join just about any conversation. In the last several months I’ve been connecting with people I barely know, commenting on blogs, and writing this one. I am interacting with people all over the country and I’m more in tune with colleagues now than when I went… Read More
Purple Cow has really gotten me thinking about compromise in product development. As Seth Godin writes, “Compromise is about sanding down the rough edges to gain buy-in from other constituencies. Vanilla is a compromise ice cream flavor…But vanilla is boring. You can’t build a fast-growing company around vanilla.” Well, the problem is that you can’t… Read More
In my last post I advocated forgetting irrelevant rules and making your own decisions. That might sound a little ridiculous to some, but consider this: Only you are responsible for your actions. Sure, doing what you’re told might give you a great excuse, but does it absolve you from your responsibility to use your brain? … Read More
Rules replace thought. If you know the rules, you always know what to do. Rules are comfortable. If you know the rules, you never have to stretch too far. Rules are safe. You probably won’t get fired for following the rules. Unfortunately, you probably won’t make much progress either. Rules work when the rate of… Read More
A couple of weeks ago in a posting on Tom Peters’ blog (look in March archives for the entry “Refine to Simplicity”, March 10th), Steve Yastrow proposed that customers are: Anyone whose actions affect your results In an information creation and management organization, how differently would you treat content providers (authors) if you considered them… Read More
I recently read Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow. Generally speaking, cows are brown or black and they basically all look alike. What if during your drive through the countryside you saw a purple cow? Now, that would be remarkable! Purple Cow is about actually BEING remarkable – not just having a great marketing plan or… Read More
Did you ever need to get something done (even something relatively small and simple) and have to go through an organizational gauntlet to get it started? Next time, don’t wait for permission – just do it. Spend the money or start the project or whatever it is you need to do. Why? Because if you… Read More