Blog Yes & Know

12 Ways of Emotional Intelligence

I give this talk on “having a seat at the table” where i talk about bringing our full self, full values to work. Because, of course, complex decisions require way …

Art of Innovation

My hero. Every time I read an article about Ideo, read their book, read an article about them, I get goose bumps. Ideo is to Innovation what I aspire Rubicon …

Blue Ocean Strategy

An incredibly popular (1M sold in the first year) book with a title I just love. Blue Ocean represents untapped market space. Written by a BCG guy, it’s a good …

Good to Great

I couldn’t start this library section without talking about Good to Great. Jim Collins writes this book to define the ways good organizations can become great. He led a team …

Ask the Question: What do you Read

Want to know who someone is, how insightful they are and what they really care about? Then stop listening to their self-promotion pitch inclusive of the mckinsey-harvard pedigree*, or reading …

SCU Talk

There’s a great conference that the SCU does every year. I’ve wanted to actually go and participate because of the range of topics and speaker quality. A client of mine …

Pay it Forward: The Valley Ethos

Before the holiday break, I met the founder / chairman (and former CEO) of a consumer electronics company to talk about what the future might hold and what was next for him. It’s a classic Silicon Valley tale: he founded a cool company, got it funded, built the product, and then hired a CEO to take it to the next level. And, for various reasons, it became clear it was time for him to step back and attempt to guide the company from the Board.

What is this Strategy thing?

Because all the “right” strategies in the world could be applied to any business but what makes it right for them is really about leveraging their core strengths today. So it’s about discernment certainly to figure out what is a company’s strength today. And what are they clearly not able to do. And then to look at that clearly, without bias to think about what makes sense. I suppose in some way it’s the role of a parent to a child or a teacher to a student. The parent or teacher sees things the child or student doesn’t. Not because the child is stupid or the student ignorant, but both are learning and are too close to the situation themselves to have some perspective of what true gifts / strengths / abilities they should place their leverage.

Making Marketing Matter

Let’s face the facts.
Marketing isn’t what it once was. The pall cast by the Web 2.0 era where consumers are the beginning and end and marketers are no longer leading the brand, the demand creation process has gone awry, and to the point that corporate confidence has eroded for marketing’s function as a performance driver.