Month: September 2015
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An Understanding Of All Things Brand: The 10K Foot View
You have to understand that a brand is way beyond a logo now. You do understand that, because the Mad Men paradigm where we cook up Frankenstein in the lab and serve it up to you has been destroyed. In its place is an open kitchen where you can see me cooking, and if I…
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Google’s Tragic Alphabet Soup
ICYMI: One of the world’s most valuable brands has just burnt itself at the stake. In 2004, when the company first went public, a single share cost $85. The cost has since gone up. As the Wall Street Journal reported in August 2014, over the past decade Google has by far outpaced the stock market average in terms of performance: The…
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Amazon.com – Another Triangle Shirtwaist Factory?
On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burned to the ground. Nearly 150 garment workers, primarily women, were killed, because they were locked into the facility, supposedly to prevent them from stealing. More than a century later, the horrific incident is engraved in Americans’ minds as the reason we need both unions and laws to protect workers from…
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6 Leadership Lessons From USAID
Of all the places I’ve worked in my life – and that includes the most demanding environments in the private sector – the United States Agency for International Development taught me how to be a leader. When I started working there, I’d spent seven years as a communicator in a large, well-funded, “command and control”…
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3 Signs Your Brand Is On A Downward Spiral
//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js Branding is a long-term investment. That means you don’t see the results right away, but “suddenly” one day the benefits start happening. When you ignore your brand or mess it up, the bad effects are not immediately apparent. In other words the negative effect is “lagging.” But brands work exactly like human relationships. Screw…
Management Excellence 