Jan 07
I simply love it. This book is great and I’ve been waiting for such a book for so long. As a matter of fact, my wait was so long that I was starting thinking “I should write it”. I’m happy to see that Grant McCracken has done it, because this is a much better book than the one I could have been writing 
This book is about business, but more than simply business, is about the role culture is playing in the way we do business.
I’ve been working for 20 years for some of the most successful corporations (Microsoft and Cisco, just to name two) and I’ve experienced the CEO role and the owner role in some much smaller (and less successful) companies. Despite the differences in the roles I’ve covered during my recent life, I’ve always thought that there was a fundamental gap between the culture (*), as Grant McCracken defines it in his book, and the corporate culture as I’ve seen it defined, and sometime enforced, by many enterprises.
If, like me, you have ever got the feeling that there is something fake or missing in the corporate culture message of the company you work for, than this book is a must have. You will see how culture is the place you go for innovation and for granting your business a competitive advantage.
If, like me, you’ve seen some of your best work poisoned by “death by committee” than you’ll enjoy reading this book. You’ll learn how some CEOs have managed to liberate good ideas from bureaucracy.
If, like me, you think you have to do something in your company to grant there is a methodical approach in culture understanding and leveraging , than this book is going to be a great companion for your journey. You’ll learn how your company can minimize risks by embracing culture as a vital piece of a business model design.
To Grant McCracken I can simply say: Thank You!
(*) In the Introduction to his book, this is the definition Grant McCracken gives of culture as he uses it: “By culture, I mean the world outside the corporation, the body of ideas, emotions and activities that make up the life of the consumer”.
Jan 05
2009 has been the year almost all the big enterprises have discovered the importance of having a social media presence on the net.
2009 has been the year we all have seen plenty of events dedicated to debate the importance of executing on a social media strategy.
2010, maybe, will be the year some companies will start paying for badly implementing such strategy or for still beeing questioning the importance of having one…. maybe….
For those still unconvinced check the latest Domino’s Pizza adds ( thx to Budd Caddell to pointing it out ).
Dec 03
According to a research by Personal Presentation Ltd, “Office workers waste 52 minutes per day in meetings”.
Now, this is near to 11% of the overall available time. Massive! Even if I think is optimistic.
What Julia Goodman, founder of the UK firm is suggesting, to sort this issue out, is to train people in more effective communication (this is what they sell), so that they can better contribute to meetings and not waste time.
In my personal experience, there’s a much better solution: cut your meetings by 20%, 50% or, why not, 90%. The only meetings a company truly needs are those with customers.
The 2.0 communication tools can easily handle the majority of the remaining internal interaction opportunities.
Have you ever experienced that nasty feeling, when you enter a shop and you see that the employees keep talking one each other about their personal stuff instead of asking you: “what can I do for you?”.
This is the analog of internal meetings in big corporations held while customers, out there, are meeting with their competitors.
Nevertheless, in many cases, most of the questions that arise during an internal meeting would require the presence of a customer to get an answer. Sounds familiar?
I think that if we want to speculate about the future, a god guess is to look what boys and girls under 14 are doing now. Looking at the way they communicate (IM, SMS, email, twitter,…) you can see the pattern for new corporations, where there will be much less meetings and much more communication.
Sorry, I’ve to go. I’ve a meeting starting in 3 minutes….:-)
Oct 14
As I’m approaching to the launch of my new activity, I’ve to recognize that during the last few months, in many occasions, I’ve felt burn out. This is when the size of the task you are at looks BIIIIIIG. Fortunately, I’ve found help in a little tip for handling my neverending to-do-list.
When you build a to do list, usually you do it to get better organized and to be shure you do not miss something you think is important. Now, when that important thing is done, you simply click on “completed” and … puff … it’s gone. The all effort done to accomplish your goal simply disappear from your sight.
When we feel tired, and our target looks moving at our same speed, we should simply dig in our list of completed tasks. Taking few minutes to look at what we’ve already accomplished is a great way to heal tiredness and gain back the energy needed for the next step. And, if we’re lucky enough to share our effort with someone else, we shouldn’t forget to celebrate.
Oct 12
This video is brilliant. Looks like Volkswagen is up to something in leveraging viral marketing as, when I saw it, the video had almost 1.5 million hits.
Enjoy!
