Innovate or deteriorate

March 6, 2011

Some business leaders say they can’t change because their demographic is 55 year olds and changing would jeopardize their custom. Changing would mean devaluing the offering. Changing would be a risk we don’t want to take. I’ve even heard, “We know our customer base is dying, but the boss wont change anything we’re doing.” We’ve [...]

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Football fantasy island

February 27, 2011

Most of us look at our labour rates.  A restaurant owner will write her rota and give hours to waiters and chefs based on anticipated takings that week – for example 8% of takings will be spent on wages. I’ve been told Tesco store managers aim to keep labour below 5%. Well, if you think [...]

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Is your marketing director for the toilet

February 20, 2011

The Internet has only really been around for the masses since Microsoft brought us Windows 95 and the ever-present Internet Explorer. But over 15 years on, digital and digital marketing still remains a bolt on for many businesses that should really know better. I’m always amazed when strong marketers tell me their marketing director (not [...]

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Linked In tweet up

February 13, 2011

Linked In added the Signal this week. It’s a new product that, “gives you a whole new way to consume information and news that’s most relevant to you as a professional.” Hmm… The trouble is, I fervently disagree with those who hook up their Twitter feed to Linked In. It’s failing to understand that different [...]

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Are answers where the dollars live?

February 6, 2011

Answers.com sold this week for $127m. This coupled with the growing buzz around Quora, highlights the fact that Q&A sites are the poster-boy targets on the web. Added to that firestorm is Mahalo giving up on human powered search and pivoting to answers. Although it looks like they’re going for ‘how to’ queries more than [...]

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Never too early to train

January 30, 2011

Like most UK retailers and caterers I’m avidly watching two TV programmes running at the moment: Mary Portas’ Secret Shopper and Michel Roux’s Service. Secret Shopper Mary Portas is her usual truculent self and she’s right to bemoan retail service – on the whole it’s dire with a capital D. Despite embarrassing some of the [...]

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Tech transfer windows

January 23, 2011

Two of the world’s top tech companies announced overhauls at the top this week. Sadly, Steve Jobs’ health will see him step aside for an as-yet unannounced successor at Apple (Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook will stand in at least in the short term). And Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, surprised most of us by tweeting, [...]

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How to get a pay rise

January 19, 2011

If your firm doesn’t have a robust, progressive appraisal system that will automatically promote you for good performance (unlikely outside a very large organisation), then you need to demonstrate your ability before asking. This lets you knock on the door and say, “I feel I’m deserving because of X, Y and Z,” rather than, “I’d [...]

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Mental boxes

January 13, 2011

Chris Brogan is a business hero of mine. He’s built his own escape velocity in every sense. His blog is great a platform showing a balance of marketing, business, new media and raw advice. This has got him to AdAge’s marketing list at #3 (behind King Seth and the much-overrated Copyblogger). He shares ideas and [...]

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Cancel is still a dirty word

January 6, 2011

January challenge: take a look around T-mobile’s website and try finding the page that lets you cancel your mobile contract. Go on, take a minute. Good luck. If you think call centre telephone systems are a way of companies sending you round in circles, this site was designed with the same penmanship. Not only is [...]

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Free websites

December 30, 2010

A website isn’t a necessity for every single business in existence but few would argue it’s a massive opportunity. When business people ask my opinion about website designers or what type of site they should employ, I say 90% should use a blog. This will usually cause a lifted eyebrow or two as the word [...]

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Marketers stole Christmas

December 23, 2010

It’s rare that I’m in front of the TV as much as I have been this evening and I don’t mean to be a humbug but a couple of things have struck me under the bombardment of advertising: – Many would argue the marketers have appropriated Christmas. On the face of tonight’s TV advertising they’d [...]

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Meeting Mr Microsoft

December 17, 2010

Neil Thompson is the MD of Microsoft UK and Ireland and I recently saw him speak about his 18 years in innovation. He ran through his career in one of the world’s most influential companies; from exaggerating his skills at his job interview to today’s cutting edge. It was a walk down memory lane for [...]

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Communication faux pas

December 10, 2010

Picture the scene: your three-year-old wakes at night screaming as if placed in boiling fat. She is uncontrollable. After 30 minutes without change you call NHS direct and get a midnight appointment for the hospital. There, the doctor can find no accountable reason for the agony, whose only brief respite in noise is because of [...]

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No place for a ninja

December 3, 2010

There are so many experts (perceived and real) out there, that some might feel the need to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Suddenly they’re no longer the consultants or practitioners they once were; they’ve invented self-aggrandising titles like guru, ninja and samurai instead. If someone thinks you’re pretty damn hot at something and they afford [...]

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Harvard MBAs caused all the trouble

November 26, 2010

That’s the headline written and assumed all too often. With George Bush, his Treasury Secretary and the heads of Lehman Brothers all holding MBAs is it any wonder? Granted, the MBA’s graduating now are taught ethics, CSR and Harvard’s ‘Leadership and Corporate Accountability’ course, but they didn’t really exist in the 60s and 70s when [...]

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Retailing depth

November 21, 2010

Seth would say there’s a dilemma when wanting to grow your customer base of going deeper or wider with your product offering. Victor Churchill in Melbourne is a fabulously extravagant example of going deeper. They’re in the meat business but they’re anything other than a simple a butcher’s shop. This store takes things to an [...]

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Characteristics of a manager

November 14, 2010

Close your eyes for a minute. Forget where you work and who’s around you on the organisational chart (and completely ignore what you saw on The Apprentice last week). Now, imagine you’ve a blank sheet of paper and you’re picking a management team. Above, below or alongside you – it doesn’t matter – just an [...]

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TED teaches values?

November 7, 2010

TED is one of my favourite sites on the Internet. The talks are simply magnificent. Watch this one from John Gerzema (photo) of Brand Asset Consulting. He hits us with as many salient blows as is possible in 20 minutes, but one that particularly stood out for me was of values. Our mindless consumerism is [...]

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As seen on TV is back

October 31, 2010

Modern marketers (whatever they are) might well say TV advertising is dead, that it’s a bygone era. I’m not sure I agree. The communications group and advertising giant, WPP sells more than its fair share of TV ads and they’ve just had their best quarter for ten years. According to chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell, [...]

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Free speech (if there’s no revenue)

October 26, 2010

Robert Tyler started the blog ‘I hate Ryanair’ back in February 2007. It really does what it says on the tin by publicising any and all grievances with Ryanair, ‘the World’s most hated airline’ according to Tyler and plenty of his readers. The comment section of his blog extends the frustration and anger further still [...]

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Local hubs are the delivery answer

October 13, 2010

The Beeb ran a piece last week which went along the lines of, isn’t the world a terrible place because we all have to wait for couriers to arrive now that we like shopping online. Well I think there’s a new business model to be had: the new-age home delivery hub. Instead of all couriers dropping [...]

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Ping vs Facebook vs The World

October 6, 2010

Social networking is all the rage with web and mobile usage catching business’s eye with the Web 3.0. Sony launched their cloud-based content service, Qriocity, recently. With their product range and reach, they should get some traction for their downloads. IBM is set to, according to Jeffrey Schick, IBM’s VP of Social Software, “better connect [...]

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