Working Wider

In a prior post, I offered a new corporate citizenship model that replaces heroic management and reflects our world’s growing capabilities and challenges. Today I’d like to turn this lens outward and introduce a parallel new concept: the “citizen-customer”. The citizen-customer reflects the wider set of criteria customers use to make decisions as well as Read more

I’ve been cycling in the French Alps and Provance.  In 9 days, we climbed over 57,000 feet on mountain roads often featured in the Tour de France including Mt. Ventoux, Alpe d’Huez, Croix de Fer, Mont du Chat and more.  Over 435 miles of riding, I saw the world from a wider and higher vantage Read more

What’s the most critical challenge facing CEO’s in 2010?  According to 1,500 CEO’s interviewed for IBM’s 2010 Global CEO study, the answer is instilling creativity into their organizations. I’d suggest they consider creating an attractive platform that potentially accesses  thousands of creative people from outside their organization. By shaping their businesses around an attractive platform, Read more

Apple and Google stand out as two highly successful Silicon Valley gorillas at the top of their game. In the past, their products were complementary but they’re now doing battle in mobile phones, mobile search, digital books and the new tablet market.  Both companies target individuals over corporations yet how they grow and reach wider Read more

How do you convince business colleagues to try something new?  At a minimum, you’ll have to answer three questions: Is it better? Will it work? How much will it cost? When trying something new, these questions are reasonable but difficult, if not impossible to answer definitively.  We live in a time where “If you can Read more

Coming out of the Great Recession we’ve entered a period of deleveraging and belt-tightening that some call the “New Normal”.  Clearly there have been fundamental changes in the global economy but changing economic conditions alone understates what constitutes the New Normal.  There’s a wider New Normal to consider. First, the projected GNP growth for developing Read more

I get nervous when companies get excited about benchmarking.  I understand why they do it.  If you’re lagging, benchmarking defines a target and improvement path to catch up.  But that’s exactly why I get nervous.  At best, benchmarking helps you get to where others already are, and more often, where they’ve been.  It paints the Read more

I look forward to receiving The Economist every Friday.  By far, it is the best written and most informative magazine per page of any business periodical.  In the spirit of Working Wider, here are six bits from this week’s issue that illustrate why dreaming, thinking and working wider is important. Harnessing the U.S. Immigration Network Read more

Technology influences economies at the same time economies point to the next technology that can be monetized.  In The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves (Free Press, 2009), Brian Arthur goes a step further suggesting that economies are defined by and structured around technologies. He argues that the daily encounters between Read more

Recently General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre attended a meeting to approve the next generation of GM cars and trucks. Before the presentations began, he asked why they were having this meeting in the first place: “Y’all have checked all this out pretty thoroughly.  I imagine you’re not going to approve something that’s bad or unprofitable, Read more