One-way-sign

CEO Mistakes: What Big Corporations Can Teach Us About Communications

The business press loves to attack big corporations and point out CEO mistakes which cause earnings to slip. I’m cautious about negative hype because journalists know bad news sells better than good news. Yet it’s crucial to pay attention to the CEO mistakes journalists love to point out. When Microsoft, Google, and other huge corporations […]

CEOs of Mid-sized Companies Slow to Use Social Media

I ran across this interesting survey of CEOs of mid-sized companies and how they’re using social media. I’ll share it with you here because no matter what sized company you’re in, social media will become even more important in the coming decade for marketing, customer relationships and product innovations. (Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net) New Survey of CEOs […]

inbound marketing

Marketing Is Dead: Long Live Peer Marketing

If traditional marketing (ads, PR, branding, big corporate announcements) is dying as some proclaim, what’s next? Surely social media isn’t the only solution, or is it? Social media marketing still represents a small percentage of marketing efforts. Not only are the results mixed, but no one can decide on how to measure it. And yet […]

Business Blind Spots and How to Avoid Them

We see what we expect to see. It’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon. We have virtual blind spots that are created by our brains when something appears that is not expected. As business leaders, we become so passionately entrenched in our strategic vision that we can fail to see evolving trends. James Kerr writes about Business […]

Hammer

Business Thinking for the Future: Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog?

Is your business thinking oriented for the future? Do you consider yourself a generalist or a specialist? Are you a fox or a hedgehog? Approximately 2,700 years ago, the Greek poet Archilochus wrote that “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Isaiah Berlin’s 1953 essay “The Fox and the Hedgehog” […]

Sally-Ride-Lessons-in-Leadership

Lessons in Leadership from Sally Ride

What lessons in leadership are left to us by Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut to be launched into space? She died July 23, 2012 at 61 of pancreatic cancer. She was president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she co-founded in 2001 to improve science education for kids, which she called […]

Sam Calagione

Strategic Story: Off-centered Stuff for Off-centered People

In reflecting about our Dogfish Head Brewery tour, I was impressed with everything about the company, down to the creative use of fonts on the utility cupboards. To me, it embodies the essence of small business strategy, marketing, branding, and customer experiences. They live their strategic story. It’s not just the beer they produce. It’s […]

Dogfish Head Brewery: What Happens When You Hire the Right People

About a week or two before our annual trip to the Delaware seashore, my husband starts getting excited. It’s not just the promise of sand, sun, and the boardwalks. You see, he’s a huge beer aficionado with his particular favorite being Dogfish Head Brewery. Dogfish Head Brewery is based in Milton, DE with a great brewpub very […]

Joe Paterno

Leadership and Joe Paterno: “Success with Dishonor”

What lessons can we learn about leadership and Joe Paterno? I’m a Penn State grad. I was a huge fan of Joe Paterno and had looked at him as someone to emulate. Like so many others who graduated from PSU, the Penn State child sex abuse scandal hit me hard. Jerry Sandusky truly deserves to be […]

Social Media Importance

Smart Companies Are Starting to Get Social

Businesses are just starting to use social media as a key strategy for growth. Some are hesitant, however. I don’t think social business is ever going away, although the tools are rapidly changing. Many small businesses aren’t clear which tactics are best for their company, and how to get the most out of their social […]