Planning for 2009 – A Different Approach
A Strategic Conversations exercise with employees is an inexpensive way to extract information and benefit from the knowledge that your employees possess. You can ask about how the company can perform tasks faster or better or cheaper, and where there are areas to improve.
Planning for 2009 – Does your staff know better?
With the backdrop of deep global recession, many companies may feel a good way to control costs is by terminating employees. This type of approach indicates that senior management thinks of employees as a cost, not an asset.
Time for a Market Check – early 2008
Do you really know how these changes are affecting your business in the short- and long-term?
Reacting in Tough Times – A DIffernt Approach
You can take advantage of this time in our economy to acquire or absorb competitors, steal their clients, or even their best employees. It takes courage and attitude, but many business owners are successful because they leap at times like this.
Reacting in Tough Times
Nationally, the manufacturers and distributors of high-ticket items like big boats and automobiles will surely suffer. Most small to medium-size businesses will tighten up and try to survive. More than likely, the ones that do will emerge leaner and stronger, ready to take advantage of the inevitable upturn in 2009.
Reading List: The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam
This is a fun little square book with a cover that looks like (you guessed it) a napkin. It’s not the kind of book that you will read carefully, taking notes on each of the little hand-written figures and drawings that appear on almost every page. But you will be inspired by it. And, hopefully, it will influence the way you communicate.
Reading List: Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
This is a great source for anyone looking to plan a Web 2.0 strategy for their own business.
Is it the Recession?
They didn’t rely on the economy to fuel their recovery—they built it from their own strengths.
What You can Learn from the Grateful Dead
Every company has extensive knowledge assets. Knowledge resides in the competencies of your people, your processes, your intellectual property, your brands and your relationships with vendors and other external partners (for more information on the study of this kind of knowledge asset, visit the IC Knowledge Center).
Business Lessons from the Grateful Dead
In the music business, most performers create an album and then go on tour to promote it. The Grateful Dead followed a business model that was completely different from this. Their primary source of income was from touring and from the sales of products like T-shirts. They also condoned the recording of their concerts by fans—something that is strictly prohibited by most artists.
