CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 3, 2018

It’s December. For those of us who make our living in any form of consumer business, that usually means two things: We have made it through Black Friday and Cyber Monday , with our projections now being evaluated against actuals. In less than a month it will be a new year, where we can either make the same mistakes again or invent new ones. That leads to two takeaways I would like you to consider before the year ends: Customer behavior tells us almost everything we need to know to be succe

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CorporateIntel

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

Let’s start with what needs to be said before all else: I am an enormous fan of Elon Musk. I think he is quite likely the most important and visionary entrepreneur today leading the way in technology, business, and innovation. He walks in the American continuum of Edison, Disney, Gates, and Jobs. I wrote as much in a post dating back to 2014. So when a guy as brilliant as Musk goes sideways, I start to ask myself some questions.

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CorporateIntel

JULY 18, 2018

This month our nation celebrated its 242nd birthday. As I was sitting in the stands at Dodger Stadium on July 4 watching a spectacular and patriotic fireworks display (following a wonderful midseason win) something quite obvious but strange occurred to me: I have been alive for over 20% of our nation’s history. That may not seem curious to you, but it does to me.

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CorporateIntel

JUNE 2, 2018

From Nothing , my third and most personal novel, has moved from my ownership to yours. I hope it will mean something to you. It certainly has been an odyssey for me. The book is rock and roll, the process of performing it no less so. As I write these words, I am preparing a number of public book talks, thinking about what I want to say about this story beyond letting it speak for itself.

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CorporateIntel

APRIL 9, 2018

I used to like AOL. Back in the day we called it by its full name, America Online. Prior to the broad penetration of the Internet, it was how we connected with each other. It was the company we paid on a subscription basis for both access to digital connectivity and content. For the ownership of AOL, it was a very, very good business, so explosive that it frightened the old guard in media and was merged into an even bigger entity, AOL Time Warner.

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CorporateIntel

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Teddy Roosevelt — who legend has it never wanted to be called by that name — is back in the news, at least to the extent that we are finding reason to quote him of late. In response to an earlier post of mine, a friend who had a challenging year sent me the following quote from Theodore Roosevelt: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

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CorporateIntel

MARCH 5, 2012

In his absurdist play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead , playwright Tom Stoppard invents any number of ways for the courtiers to pass the time while Hamlet comes and goes: Rosencrantz : Do you want to play questions? Guildenstern : How do you play that? Rosencrantz : You have to ask a question. Guildenstern : Statement. One – Love. Rosencrantz : Cheating.

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CorporateIntel

APRIL 1, 2012

The recent “failed IPO” of BATS has to be a cautionary tale. This wasn’t just a deal that didn’t price or trade according to plan. A software bug caused it to be withdrawn. You don’t hear that one too often. A bug killed an IPO? There is no argument that we live in a world of staggering speed, where competitors race to meet customer needs and time to market matters.

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CorporateIntel

MAY 20, 2012

I bought a small amount of Facebook in the IPO. It was a flyer. It was unscientific. It was counter-scientific. It wasn’t meant to be a life-changer either way. It was kind of like a lottery ticket, with a long time until the ticket would be drawn, and at the worst some remainder value on my ticket if I lost. I really like Facebook. I’m addicted.

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CorporateIntel

JUNE 13, 2012

About a year ago I wrote the following article at the request of ACM Computers in Entertainment for the debut of their redesigned site, which launched last week. It is a bit longer than my usual posts, but for those interested in the topic, hopefully it will inspire good thoughts and discussion. Here is a link to that article on the ACM site, which can also be found in the CIR Library , with the full text below: “Why Did Edutainment Become a Bad Word?

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CorporateIntel

JUNE 22, 2012

“Uncovering hidden supply to meet pent-up demand is the magic behind some of today’s most exciting start-ups.” I read that opening phrase in a Heard on the Street WSJ Article by Rolfe Winkler last week and it stuck with me. It’s not a particularly new idea, but it is elegant, simply stated, and true. At its core, the internet in many ways is a giant marketplace—a shared global space for socializing, exchanging ideas, buying and selling goods and services, hanging out, obs

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CorporateIntel

JULY 9, 2012

I have been agonizing for weeks whether to write about Rielle Hunter. The notion of a single additional millisecond consumed by the public on this media danse macabre peels the skin from my typing fingers. Still I need to share a few words, less about what’s happened, more about how troubled I am with our inability to look away from the body.

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CorporateIntel

AUGUST 14, 2012

If you went to elementary school circa the 1960s, you remember that one of the few times TV was brought into the classroom—likely a dusty, early model, enormous 21-inch Zenith B&W CRT with bent rabbit ears, strapped to a prison issue, grey steel rolling wheel cart—was for the Apollo lift offs, splash downs, and moon walks. During those turbulent years of hard-won civil rights and compounding economic expansion, you might have dreamed about growing up to be the next Mick Jagger, but it is eq

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CorporateIntel

AUGUST 27, 2012

As an investor, can you ever know for certain if that newfangled gizmo come to market is the real deal or a fad? Let’s try it a different way—perhaps everything is a fad, until it’s proven otherwise. Bread, most likely not a fad. But organic fair-market nine-grain soft crust, probably a fad. Cars, probably not a fad. But eight-cylinder 130 mph muscle mobiles with no back seats could be a fad.

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CorporateIntel

OCTOBER 5, 2012

I try hard in this blog to leave out my personal politics, which isn’t all that hard to do since I consider the topic of business innovation and its various threads to be about as nonpartisan a subject as there should be. Business enterprise and creativity are as fundamental to a shared sense of values as I can imagine, and where we may often disagree on the “how” I hope we don’t much disagree on the “why.” Together we create our economy, our opportunities,

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CorporateIntel

OCTOBER 30, 2012

Last week more than eighty corporate CEOs signed and published a manifesto, agreeing that our nation needs both spending cuts and revenue increases to move forward. It was a simple, clear statement, meant to advise Congress and our soon to be elected President that it is time to break the stalemate. Here is the text that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2012 , reprinted for convenience: “Policy makers should acknowledge that our growing debt is a serious threat to the eco

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CorporateIntel

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

It has been over a week now since our Presidential Election, a good time to reflect. A broad consensus would seem to exist that it is good the election is over — on this we can all agree, and hey, that’s a start. If the numbers tell the tale correctly, slightly more than half of us are pleased with the outcome and slightly less than half not so much.

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CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Frequent readers of this blog know that I am obsessed with the concept of creative destruction , the intangible but daunting market force where an invention that is vital takes out that which has become defunct, and the nascent replaces the established. For those of you just stopping by, you will find any number of mentions of creative destruction as you page through my posts on innovation—it represents for me all that is true and real in deploying creativity to survive in business, perhaps best

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CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 30, 2012

All week I have been trying to devise a clean getaway post for the year 2012 and it has been a struggle. Then performance on demand, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan did the heavy lifting for me in this weekend’s edition of her column, Declarations. Because I can’t say it any better than she does, here is an extended excerpt from her article on what she got correct and wrong in covering this year’s Presidential Election, in particular, what she got quite right: In

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CorporateIntel

JANUARY 14, 2013

One of my final posts of 2012 memorialized the brands we lost last year, and inspired the question, how do so many companies so often and so badly miss the boat? It’s even more perplexing when they know where it’s docked, what time it leaves, and who the captain of that departing ship is. Seems they are just too busy to make their way to the boarding gate.

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CorporateIntel

JANUARY 30, 2013

Why do companies with big brands and tremendous momentum go out of business ? One reason often discussed here is lack of innovation, which is often opaque, quite difficult to grasp when it is happening because you are in the midst of it, even enjoying a final gasp of success. Another is much easier to understand and very definitely within control—when you stop loving your customers.

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CorporateIntel

APRIL 11, 2013

I have mentioned now and again that I have been working on a novel for a few years. It’s time to share a few more details. First of all the title: This Is Rage. You will discover why I called it that if you read the sample excerpt on my teaser site and other fine channels we will be utilizing in the coming months, like Amazon or Barnes and Noble , where you can currently place your pre-order that will be shipped when the book is officially released on October 8, 2013.

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CorporateIntel

MAY 24, 2013

It’s hard to believe this is my 100th post on Corporate Intelligence Radio. I started this blog over two years ago, about the time I committed to writing my novel , which I announced last month. Soon after I started the novel, it became clear that it was going to be a very long time before anyone read a word of it. Initially I was okay with that.

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CorporateIntel

JULY 8, 2013

In the Executive Coaching Workshop I co-lead with John Vercelli for Coaches Training Institute , we discuss early in the curriculum the pervasive epidemic of Bad Boss Syndrome. It is jaw-dropping how many employees reflect on the lack of leadership and vision they receive from those who manage them, how starved they are for inspiration, and how little it takes to turn a bad day into a good day.

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CorporateIntel

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

One of the themes I explore in my forthcoming debut novel, This is Rage , is the notion of motivation. This is a subject I hold dear, and one I focus on a great deal in the executive coaching workshop I co-lead with John Vercelli. If all a mission statement is meant to do is fill a half page in your human resources handbook, it is probably not worth the time to write it down.

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CorporateIntel

OCTOBER 8, 2013

Experiments are the fuel of innovation. Creative risk is the path of reinvention. Writing a novel is just weird. This week my first novel, This is Rage , is being released to the public by my wonderful publisher, The Story Plant. I have to admit, it’s a little eerie. Over the years I’ve had the amazing good fortune to chase many unconventional pursuits, but this one feels different.

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CorporateIntel

OCTOBER 28, 2013

Apple unveiled a bunch of new products last week, including numerous options in shape, size, and price point for a fuller line of iPads. Many of these products are desirable and will make great holiday gifts, but none comes close to pioneering a new category of experience. These are known as brand extensions, variations on a theme for already desirable existing successes.

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CorporateIntel

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, it’s time again to take a step back from our daily grind and consider the rejuvenating goodness that dots the landscape all around us. Last year I kicked off my own blogging tradition with a post that featured 16 Things I’m Thankful For. Here in reasonably simplicity that speaks without much preamble is my itemized, non-prioritized, yet still incomplete version for this year: 1) I can stop saying someday I am going to write a book.

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CorporateIntel

NOVEMBER 29, 2013

A few decades back, before I became a software and media executive and long before I returned to writing, I wrote the “screenplay” for a succesful computer game called Wings. That “interactive movie” — as it was marketed — was a World War I flight simulation that followed the lives of the very first fighter pilots, trying to make combat sense of fragile biplanes curiously equipped with machine guns.

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CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made a spectacular impact recently when he went on 60 Minutes the day before Cyber Monday and gave us a glimpse at the future—a fleet of small delivery drones he branded Prime Air. It was a bold statement, and whether intended or not an incomparable public relations move that got much of the nation talking about his online retail company at precisely the most important time of year for consumer purchasing.

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CorporateIntel

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

I started writing for The Good Men Project in its second year of life, offering to share some of my thoughts on business, creative leadership, and management also published on my own blog. In its third year I joined the board of directors and became a strategic advisor to the CEO. As we embark now on its fourth year, I continue onward, helping to accelerate our growth, invigorated by what our CEO and team have accomplished in driving, “The Conversation No One Else is Having.” What is

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CorporateIntel

MAY 15, 2014

I don’t know Elon Musk. I wish I did. This guy knows stuff. He’s the real deal. If there is a possible next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, it could be him. He’s not goofing around with thin stuff that’s going to come and go. He already did consumer software engineering as his opening act as a cofounder of PayPal. With the massive payday he got from eBay for the sale of his company — a company that continues to operate as such an important platform it could someday be spun off

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Innovation Study Disruption Resources 40

CorporateIntel

JULY 9, 2014

I get called frequently to help companies with their brands. Usually this involves helping identify the competitive advantages in products and services, articulating the unique selling proposition around innovations that constitute a customer promise, and then devising a sustainable communications strategy around that promise. That’s the hard part.

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CorporateIntel

NOVEMBER 24, 2014

Some people focus on dreaming. Some focus on doing. The ones who find a way to bridge the gap make change happen. Every once in a while, as Steve Jobs would say, they put a dent in the universe. Many people elicit feedback. A few of them take something away from that feedback and apply it to what they are dreaming and doing. Yet too many solicit the feedback and then bat it away, a check mark on their roadmap to convince themselves they are not building in isolation.

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CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 22, 2014

You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to be an innovator. Becoming a startup CEO may not be your thing, but changing the world is always within your reach. There is a frenzy of late among those longing to lead business startups, and that is exciting. Entrepreneurs are a special breed, and while the successful ones are rare, no one really knows who is going to be successful in advance.

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CorporateIntel

JANUARY 7, 2015

Endless Encores. Repeating Success Through People, Products, and Profits. A Business Parable by Ken Goldstein. Published in 2015 by The Story Plant. As difficult as it is to have your first big success, most people find it exponentially harder to repeat success. So many of us, after “bringing the crowd to its feet,” worry that we’re going to get booed off the stage with our next venture.

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CorporateIntel

MARCH 18, 2015

As noted by the title, t his post is meant to announce the forthcoming release of my second book, Endless Encores. It will be published by The Story Plant on September 22, 2015 in hardcover and as an eBook. Since that is still several months off and I have at times already mentioned the book is coming, let me come back to that in a moment. I often get into the discussion of whether corporate mission statements matter.

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