It’s pretty telling that Mark Zuckerberg didn’t choose Beijing, London or Dubai to have the first Facebook overseas town-hall meeting. He chose a place that 10 years ago few people in Silicon Valley knew much about, and much less regarded as a player in technology:...
Excuse me for wanting to stretch Wisconsin’s glorious victory over Kentucky in the NCAA Basketball Final Four into another day. But I can’t resist. There are business leadership lessons for us to learn....
Amazon’s Dash Button paves the way for a home that manages itself. Amazon has a bold new gadget, and it’s a button. It’s literally a stick-on, Internet-connected button that, when pressed, sends a “Bat-Signal" to Amazon to order more dog food, coffee, detergent or other common...
In 1989, the CEO of my global employer allowed me to work from home rather than demand I move halfway across the US to be near corporate headquarters. Two technologies made his decision possible: Overnight delivery and an early fax machine. I was the first...
Grrrrrr….. Are your customer touch points creating frustration or delight? How often have you ended up raising your voice with a customer service representative or an automated voice system? It happens to me whenever the specifics of my situation fall outside a company’s “rules” for its software...
This question re-emerges as organizations complete their initial investments in digital technology. Much of that investment concentrated on applying new technologies to existing products, practices and processes. In that sense digital strategy was much like IT strategy – a process of selecting which technologies you...
Welcome to Costco where you feel you are walking through a yellow page directory. A walk down one warehouse building aisle took me past a Lennox furnace for sale, hanging laundry baskets, snacks and piles of men’s blue jeans, eventually arriving at my destination, top...
2015 will be an extraordinary year; it's the first year that Gen Z, individuals born in 1995 and beyond will begin entering the workforce. At two billion strong globally Z is the single largest cohort to ever sweep through civilization. Hyperconnected, wielding extreme social influence, and...
Marketplaces as physical gathering sites have a long and rich tradition in all economies. There, buyers and sellers meet to exchange goods for money. Public Markets are especially noteworthy. Madison’s Farmers Market, The Milwaukee Public Market, Boston’s Haymarket Square, Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and The...
The terrorists who attacked the Paris satirical media organization Charlie Hebdo hoped to silence its voice. Instead, 3 million issues were printed following the attack, compared to 60,000 before the attack. Welcome to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Is this law a reflection of human...