In the 80s, the word Vaporware became a bit of a tech industry insider’s joke. The word was used to describe products that were announced to the public, but failed to materialise – or turned up years behind schedule. Early…
By now, the whole world knows of Volkswagen’s attempt to cheat US environmental tests. When the cheat hit the fan, the CEO resigned. He claimed he had no knowledge of the installation of the software in question. However, he acknowledged…
For someone whose business and passion is creativity, I have come to a sad, even distressing, realisation. Most business owners don’t want creativity. They don’t value it. They don’t know how to put a price on it. They don’t know…
In the 1990s I worked for one of the world’s great advertising agencies, Leo Burnett. I worked in the Sydney office. I worked in the Mexico City office. I made frequent trips to the Chicago office. I visited the Taipei…
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality claims to “have devoted a significant amount of effort in institutionalizing “Big Picture” thinking into our processes and our staff”. Whether or not the Department has been successful in this, I don’t know. Whether…
A staff member has gone above and beyond expectations. You want to reward her. You call her into your office, tell her how pleased you are with her work and hand her a raise. She thanks you and leaves your…
Businesses lose clients all the time. Most losses aren’t noteworthy. If you’re going to become famous for losing clients, you can’t learn anything from these. However, there are plenty of well-documented and spectacular client losses. Each one is unique in…
According to some insiders, one of Bill Gates’s favourite ways to encourage innovation at Microsoft was job swapping. He’d move an employee into a totally different part of the organisation for a while just to see what happened. What he…
During World War 2, there were quite a few posters like the ones reproduced here. As you can see, some had quite grizzly reminders of the consequence of careless talk. Have things changed? Apparently not. A few years ago a…
You need do just 2 things to engage your staff. Unfortunately both are easier said than done. Do them, however, and you’ll have a team of passionate brand ambassadors, you’ll attract the best job candidates in the market, you’ll save…