CorporateIntel

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

This creates a Legal department, an Art department, an Engineering department, a Finance department, a Sales and Marketing department, and the like. They place multi-disciplinary groups under a generalist manager who is often more “cat herder” than boss.

CTO 46

CTO Creativity Product Development Management 46

CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 30, 2012

The lesson here is hardly isolated to politics , it is a story of marketing at large. Great products and services have no substitute, but as a former boss taught me long ago, good marketing helps bad product fail faster, and bad marketing can undermine the best of innovation.

Data 40

Data Strategy Strategy Marketing 40

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? But organic fair-market nine-grain soft crust, probably a fad. Maybe they are all fads, but let’s separate the fad of stock market performance from the fad of consumer adoption as two separate issues.

Creativity 40

Creativity Culture Marketing Trends 40

CorporateIntel

APRIL 26, 2021

In product development, it might be an innovative, competitive technology solution that is worth marketing because it will surprise and delight customers. In a services business, it might be customers. In an e-commerce business, it might be secure uptime.

Product Development 118

Product Development Ideation Course Project 118

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. Was anything really lost if this was just a merger? What went wrong?

Underperforming Technical Team 40

Underperforming Technical Team Creativity Innovation Analysis 40

CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 3, 2018

Remember that every successful idea has a life cycle, and a bad idea yesterday might be reformed under changing market forces as a good idea tomorrow. Question the potential interpretation of every collected data point. You haven’t always done it that way.

Brainstorming 64

Brainstorming Technical Review Creativity Study 64

CorporateIntel

APRIL 13, 2015

I received via snail mail a stock market overview newsletter from one of the largest financial services companies in the world. The five-pager won. Inside was the business card of some guy I have never met. There was no note, no signed cover letter, not even a form letter.

Conference 40

Conference Project Competition Comparison 40

CorporateIntel

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

I might tell you that no one on the market has anything like this , but before you’ll hear me utter those words, I have done the homework to assure myself this is worth defending. Steve was told there would never be a market for something as intimidating as home computing. I study product features like I study word choices.

Innovation 40

Innovation Creativity Comparison Study 40

CorporateIntel

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Choice 2: To overcome market forces and prevail over our competition! Is it the business leader’s job to respond to market forces and win market share from the competition? Is it the business leader’s job to make her or his department more efficient and profitable? Do we really need to ask?

Leadership 40

Leadership Handbook Resources Competition 40

CorporateIntel

APRIL 1, 2012

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. You don’t hear that one too often. A bug killed an IPO?

Underperforming Technical Team 40

Underperforming Technical Team Software Review Technical Review Software 40

CorporateIntel

MAY 24, 2013

I have already begun discussion of a follow-up book and may bend your ear on that, and of course I want to include you in the sales and marketing journey as my first book comes to market in paperback and eBook. Mostly I just want to thank you for being friends, listeners, readers, and clever people who tell me things I need to know.

Course 40

Course eBook Creativity Exercises 40

CorporateIntel

MAY 20, 2012

Timeline makes little sense as a consumer experience, perhaps it’s meant to be something else, a comprehensive framework to compile marketing data, I don’t know. It was late to market, and the user interface appears cobbled together. The Facebook mobile app is not very good. Data I/O is slow and cumbersome.

Software Review 40

Software Review Innovation Technical Review Marketing 40

CorporateIntel

OCTOBER 30, 2012

Credit markets need to flow. All of this underlies the free markets we cherish. Government services have to be provided so we don’t bump into each other. Taxes need to be fair and they need to be paid. The economy needs to function. No candidate should ever take your vote for granted, you award it as your precious right.

Collaboration 40

Collaboration Policies Leadership Innovation 40

CorporateIntel

JULY 8, 2015

My life became focused on technology, marketing, sales, finance, and team leadership. Shortly after that I moved to the business side of the computer software publishing model, only occasionally penning a bit of dialogue here and there for a certain Carmen Sandiego.

Software Review 40

Software Review Technical Review Creativity Groups 40

CorporateIntel

JANUARY 4, 2016

One of your most promising managers has just led a two-year late-to-market death march on a brand extension that has launched and failed. You have lost market share, customer service complaints are up, and your own boss is pissed off. The team that worked on this product is angry and exhausted.

Leadership 40

Leadership Learning Management Innovation 40

CorporateIntel

APRIL 11, 2013

Shameless, I know, but I am officially in the pull marketing business effective immediately. Daniel Steyer is a venture capitalist at the top of his game, looking to go out huge with the deal of a lifetime, but market forces have other plans. That’s not the order in which you will meet them, and you’ll find out why.

Meeting 40

Meeting Creativity Study Marketing 40

CorporateIntel

JANUARY 7, 2015

A must read for all creative executives.”. ? Christopher Keefe, Chief Marketing Officer, Omidyar Network. “In The conversational narrative is an easily accessible device for Ken to share the secret of his success.

Creativity 40

Creativity Creative Process Management Innovation 40

CorporateIntel

NOVEMBER 29, 2013

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.

Software Review 40

Software Review Brainstorming Software Innovation 40

CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 14, 2015

We can all dream up big ideas, but few of us can bring them to market. When your team identifies a product concept that is worth pursuing, leadership becomes the championing of execution over the touting of an idea. Those who can almost invariably need some form of stewardship to hold the team together through unending punch lists of details.

Leadership 42

Leadership Product Innovation Innovation Culture 42

CorporateIntel

MAY 13, 2015

.” If you think those are just broad, sweeping, generic statements of advice from the elevated dais, stop here and go read someone else’s reflection, or perhaps today’s stock market results. On the other hand, if you’re like me, copy those words onto a Post-it and put them in plain sight for the next decade or so.

Roadmap 40

Roadmap Innovation Learning Report 40

CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 22, 2014

Does the goal of that have to be the annihilation of those who currently populate a market segment? There’s nothing wrong with being competitive, embracing ambition, and wanting to do the impossible.

Innovation 40

Innovation Creativity Disruption Brainstorming 40

CorporateIntel

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

It becomes too much like a sporting event, the candidate is coached and the marketing team fuels the public rivalry. Unfortunately our human leanings get in the way of that, and rather than carefully analyzing the particulars of a candidate’s expressed ideas, we get drawn into the contest. We begin to root.

Leadership 40

Leadership LEAN Competition Innovation 40

CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 9, 2013

Third, an undifferentiated commodity without sufficient scale will not stand solo long in a consolidating market (MetroPCS). Second, a confused brand strategy results in a confused product strategy (and vice-versa) and swinging at that with pricey tactics doesn’t clear the confusion (Current TV).

Creativity 40

Creativity Video Strategy Strategy 40

CorporateIntel

JULY 9, 2012

It’s supply and demand, free-market capitalism, 100% free speech, no law against it. Yet I can’t miss her, she’s everywhere. Why does anyone care? Why do we feed Piers Morgan’s hunger for this flavor of anesthesia by subscribing to it? Nope, don’t want to regulate it. Nope, don’t want to restrict it.

Innovation 40

Innovation Change Marketing Learning 40

CorporateIntel

MAY 15, 2014

If all we are worried about is whether the stock market is due for a correction, then we are wasting brain cycles on an inevitable head fake we cannot control, so why bother? Why write about Elon Musk? In this never-ending discussion of whether we are in a tech bubble, I have grown weary of broad generalizations.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO Technical Cofounder Technical Review Innovation 40

CorporateIntel

JANUARY 14, 2013

But when you wake up in the morning you’ve got to be on the phone with the folks in your studio, talking about a $200 million picture that’s going to cost $300 million and the star who’s not showing up at work and the marketing plan that’s going to cost you $100 million world-wide.

Company 40

Company Creativity Underperforming Technical Team Culture 40

CorporateIntel

JULY 9, 2014

When you break a business promise, you undermine the brand.

Creativity 42

Creativity System Company Competition 42

CorporateIntel

OCTOBER 28, 2013

Andy Grove calls it the Strategic Inflection Point , the change in market forces that happens and you miss it, and then it’s too late to course correct. Then a hairline fracture becomes a crack, and the crack ripples outward like a spider web, and then the ceramic whole flies apart.

Innovation 40

Innovation Course Company Conference 40

CorporateIntel

JULY 8, 2013

Well, sure, I’ll give you that.

Leadership 40

Leadership Innovation Management Company 40

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.

Creativity 40

Creativity Training Company Innovation 40

CorporateIntel

DECEMBER 23, 2016

Naturally I have a few conditions: 1) Following the swearing-in, I must get an offer to become the President’s head speech writer at market rate with full Congressional retirement benefits when I am fired. I will not be a disaster. I will not let down my nation.

Creativity 45

Creativity Competition Innovation Groups 45