http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:28:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Fellow business blogger Dave Jung at B2Blog alerted me to this tell-tale tempest at American Airlines. To summarize, blogger Dustin Curtis took American Airlines to task for a terrible website (cluttered front page, poor user interface, etc.). Remember, customer experiences take place at points of contact. Every interface, every ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/branding/american-idol/ “Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.” (Doug Larson) As my career wound down, I found myself becoming wiser in the ways of office politics and less willing to tolerate them. It is remarkable how much energy is wasted by ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/management/the-body-politic/ I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to say it, but Wayne Turmel is not really cranky. Feisty, perhaps. Persnickety at times. And he can bite when he has to. But, at the end of the day, Turmel is just too humorous and too caring to be really cranky. Turmel is the ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/management/all-cranked-up/ Early in my career, I was sent on a problem-solving course offered by Kepner-Tregoe. Best I can tell, Kepner-Tregoe has been around for near ever, and deservedly so. Through consulting and training, it helps clients implement strategies by improving their problem-solving, decision-making, project execution and issue-resolution skills and processes. My ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/management/houston-we-have-a-problem/ Andy Eklund is founder and Managing Director of Aqus, an Australian-based consulting organization that facilitates creative thinking, be it for strategic planning or corporate communications. He has worked with over 500 clients around the world. And he has seen, all too often, sticks poked in the wheels of creativity, stopping ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/management/where-ideas-go-to-die-five-ways-to-kill-a-good-idea/ Scandals at companies like AIG over bonuses and some inexplicable and indefensible extravagance by executives from a company receiving $85 billion in bailout money brought the subject of executive compensation and perks to the forefront. Again. Princeton University provides a wonderful definition of profligacy that is particularly appropriate here: dissolute ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/management/monkey-in-the-middle-the-life-and-times-of-middle-management/ A few weeks ago, in a Marketplace Mores column, Matthew Lynn of Bloomberg News published a piece that declared, “If you want to be wealthy, it helps to be rude to people”. He cited research conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, on students from various socio-economic backgrounds. The wealthier students ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/management/three-times-the-charm/ As a starting point in leading my former company’s strategic plan exercise, I laid out a series of guiding principles, along with a process which we would follow almost to the letter. Included in the set of principles were 10 for product development and portfolio management. I offer these for ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/strategic-planning/ten-guidelines-for-a-successful-product-line/ A former boss of mine once opined that a point of view is worth 50 points of IQ. If you have a vision, stick to it. Build your enterprise around it. History shows that consistency and good execution of an imperfect strategy will usually win out over an excellent strategy ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/strategic-planning/points-of-view/ I always liked factor analysis as a strategic tool. To begin with, statistics were never a strength of mine. Factor analysis is different; there is nothing arcane about it. It is simply a method of observing linear combinations of attributes or factors. They may or may not be accurate measures ... http://www.viewfromthecorneroffice.com/book-review/outliers-tells-a-different-truth/