Reality can be harsh, particularly when it shatters imagery we’ve valued. There is imagery and perceptions that are aligned with the beliefs we’ve
Read More
The 9.0 earthquake that devastated northern Japan continues to have severe aftershocks. They are shocks in what clever physicist would ascribe to a type of space-time. It’s not about Star Trek stuff, or the time travel that fantasies love to use, but rather how one type of event starts a whole series of other events along a different type of path, affecting a different space at a different time, but connected. These types of other events are very real “butterfly effects” where a small change in one place can cause a whole bunch of changes downstream. Believe it or not, that earthquake has changed our lives, our businesses, and our collective futures.
Read More
What’s in a name? How about the three R’s: recognition, reputation, and revenues? What’s the value of a brand? BRANDZ has just published their evaluations and valuations of global brands. It’s a measure of just how valuable the commercial brand is and supporting insight into the whys and wherefores. The shifts and changes in their rankings are a barometer of how our choices of who delivers value are manifested in our buying behavior. It’s not an opinion poll, but rather an evaluation that incorporates business results with analysis inclusive of some subjectivity.
Read More
For many years we’ve been helping our clients sort out how to create and sustain value for their customers. Few would argue that the Voice of the Customer is essential. We all too often find that the Voice of the Customer collected and reported is more about the organization, how well they are liked, or opinions on performance (not real performance), rather than those that focus on the customer’s world. Hearing and understanding the actual Voice of the Customer has too often been interpreted from gathering data that feed survey instruments, reports, dashboards or scorecards. By searching for and producing data that can be rolled up, opportunities for critical insight are lost. Feeding the tool or report can become the goal and by the time the report comes, the customer might be gone. Are we missing something? “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. Count Leo has a point.
Read More
Over that last couple of years, we’ve highlighted the evidence and perspectives that our business world is increasingly more dynamic, interdependent, highly networked, dangerously complex, and managed by tools and traditions built on much more stable process experience. Business models and algorithms, control systems, enterprise tools and performance improvement technologies derived significant power from the likelihood that behavior repeat sufficiently to enable the power of statistics to improve decision making. I many cases, that stability and value remains and I expect that that will go on beyond any horizon I can conjure. In fact, Dr. Deming encouraged us to look at the world through the lens of Plan, Do, Check, and Act, and his truism remains eternal.
Read More
Best in Class! How often do we run into the term? I don’t believe it’s a term that has lost much meaning. I suspect that overuse, or selective playing around with what “class” we pick, or the unreliability of rating organizations render it useless too often. In the world or process improvement it is applied to a goal setting step for evaluating how large a gap there is to close and subsequently chartering projects and resources to close that gap. There are some pitfalls to the approach
Read More
2010 was a year where much of our attention and anxiety were held captive by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a sobering reminder of our dependence on fuels that support our lifestyle, commerce, defense, and essentials to life today. Moratoriums on deep water drilling ensued followed by hearings and probes into why it happened and who we need to blame and subsequently seek a means of exacting some comforting justice. It’s been months since the topic has had front page coverage, almost forgotten much like the devastation and impacts of Katrina, the earthquakes in Haiti, China, and Chile.
Read More
Many great cities over developed for one important reason. They were at crossroads, or at bays, river crossings, or safe harbors. Some were near resources to be harvested or emerging roads, tracks, or caravan routes. They grew because they were or would become markets. Markets towns enabled trade, commerce, and exchanges that enabled value creation. Agriculture, mining, cattle, diamonds, forestry … all types of enterprises emerged, so that exchanges could be made, with money or barter as instruments. We could get and sell stuff. For most of human history, markets were visible, tangible, and somewhere we travelled to buy or sell. This tangible requirement and the transportation linkages determined life or death to commerce and the development of cities. Ask the railroad towns that were bypassed by the interstate highway system or mining towns that had no metals or minerals left to harvest. Our conquest of time and space over centuries has shaped this dynamic.
Read More
How often do we say “OK, I get the picture” when someone is explaining or trying to make a point? There is a lot in that phrase. I believe that often a thousand words can be worthless, yet a picture can be priceless. The picture can be priceless because we are wired to understand patterns and for some communications we can see and understand more from a picture than we can from what we read or hear. Imagine having to get from here to somewhere we’ve never been to and having the choice of listening to directions that may involve twenty or thirty turns and changes, versus written directions, or a map. Say that map also had pictures of what to expect along the way. I’d pick the map.
Read More
Last Wednesday, October 14th, H.R. 946, or in plain English, the Plain Writing Act of 2010 was signed into law. It’s a refreshing intent to align the language of government with the language and understanding of the people governed. For centuries, our law has been written in codes that require specialists to interpret and often serve as combatants in a system wherein the consequences are typically borne by others. Granted, it does not address doublespeak in contracts and service agreements, but it is a good directional beginning. Specifically, “plain writing” in the new law is defined as writing that is “clear, concise, well-organized and follows other best practices.” Perhaps now the governance battle moves to decide what best practices are.
Read More
Your couch. It is mine.
Im a cool paragraph that lives inside of an even cooler modal. Wins
×