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October 31, 2003

Medial Prefrontal Cortex Context

Fast Company first encountered Atlanta-based neuromarketing firm BrightHouse in 1999. So it was nice this past Sunday to catch up with the "ideation corporation" in the New York Times Magazine.

That recent article delves into how products and services can be associated with a self-image or lifestyle -- and how we can be trained to consume in order to complete ourselves. Zack Lynch considers the implications of marketing's reinvention, and the staff of the Internet Time Group approach the article's lessons in terms of training and development:

• Emotion trumps reason.
• Build your internal brand.
• If you have Pepsi-quality training, repackage it in Coke bottles.

That last piece of advice makes me want to teach the world to sing.

Starting Monday, I'll be contributing to FC Now live from the floor at Ad:Tech, a conference designed for marketers and agencies focusing on interactive, integrated marketing. I'll be reporting on sessions focusing on branding, viral marketing, mobile technology, the future of television, and other topics. I hope you'll join me!

Posted by Heath Row at 5:40 PM | 5 Comments

Hotel Me No Secrets

Kate Pierson, singer for the buoyant band the B-52's, recently opened a boutique motel in the Catskill Mountains. Perhaps taking a page from Chip Conley and Joie de Vivre's high-design themed hotels, Pierson has packed Lazy Meadow with scads of mod and space-age design elements, including '50s-styled kitchens complete with vintage Frigidaires. Looking at the photos makes me want to schedule a "business" trip to Mt. Tremper soon. Besides, each room is stocked with toiletries Pierson collected from every hotel around the world that she's stayed at while on tour.

Posted by Heath Row at 2:44 PM | 1 Comment

Song Sung New

I thought the days of the company theme song were over. Apparently not. Europe-based electronics manufacturer BenQ announced last month the recording of "BenQ, I'm Crazy for You" by a Taiwanese "young siblings pop group." I like to think this might be a joke. But I also like to think it might not be. Either way: "BenQ is, Together for Enjoyment!"

Posted by Heath Row at 10:59 AM | Add Comment

Intrapreneurialism? II

Early results in a recent Fast Company poll don't bode well for large companies' innovation and creativity. Since we first asked whether FC Now readers think large companies can be entrepreneurial less than 24 hours ago, almost 300 people -- or a few very eager people voting hundreds of times -- have weighed in. And the results are bleak.

98% of FC Now readers think large companies cannot be entrepreneurial. How now? If you voted more than once, shame on you. Play fair.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:47 AM | 2 Comments

Being the Best II

In response to an entry yesterday, FC Now readers are offering their own advice for people striving to become -- and remain -- the best. Among the ideas so far:

• Mentor an individual or group. "One who teaches another learns twice." -- John Driedger
• Never be afraid of failure. It is from failure that you will learn life's true lessons. -- Larry Ossei-Mensah

What advice would you offer?

Posted by Heath Row at 10:38 AM | 3 Comments

The Loneliness of the Long Haul

In August, Christine Canabou investigated how a hard-charging learned to shift gears while training for a bicycle race. Track coach John Smith trains the world's fastest runners how to run even faster. And today in London, Sir Ranulph Fiennes completed the London marathon, his fifth marathon in as many days.

Wait. Five marathons in five days? You read right. And if all goes well, Fiennes will complete two more before the weekend is through -- one in Cairo and one in New York City. That will make seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. And he ran the London leg in four hours and 41 minutes, so it's not like he's slacking.

Fiennes' amazing goal makes me think of dedication, discipline, and focus -- laudable traits in any setting. When running seven marathons -- when running just one marathon -- every step counts. Every breath matters. Sometimes being a long-distance runner can be lonely. But are you in this for the long haul? Or are you built to flip?

Posted by Heath Row at 10:24 AM | 1 Comment

October 30, 2003

Deja Vu All Over Again? III

More fodder for FC Now readers' consideration of social software and its potential business benefits: BusinessWeek recently took a look at Friendster's success.

Posted by Heath Row at 1:45 PM | Add Comment

Intrapreneurialism?

During the boom, I saw two trends converging. On the one hand, small, startup companies sought the scale and stability of larger, more-established traditional organizations. On the other, larger firms coveted the creativity and flexibility of their smaller, New Economy counterparts. Before the bubble burst, I thought we might be nearing the intersection of those two vectors, and even now, I think we're closer than we've ever been. Theoretically.

Recalling that boomtime thinking, the staff of Emory University's Goizueta Business School's Center for Entrepreneurship and Corporate Growth recently interviewed Erich Reinhardt, CEO and president of Siemens Medical Solutions. They asked one key question: Can large companies be entrepreneurial?

The conversation addresses Siemens' approach to encouraging entrepreneurialism within a large global company, fostering risk taking, inspiring innovation, and collaborating between business units. It can be argued that size is not a strategy, but Reinhardt's ideas might be useful.

That said, let's turn the question to FC Now readers: Can large companies be entrepreneurial? How? Take the Fast Company poll.

Posted by Heath Row at 12:54 PM | Add Comment

Agnosticism, Ad Agencies, and End Runs

Two articles in today's New York Times highlight relatively new approaches to advertising. In the first, Melody Petersen takes a look at how medical device manufacturers are making an end run around doctors and appealing to consumers who may be in need of particular surgeries -- and related medical devices. Taking a cue from pharmaceutical companies, which have increasingly targeted patients rather than healthcare providers, the device makers are raising some eyebrows among patient advocates. Why? Device manufacturers don't have to follow the stringent advertising rules the FDA imposes on pharmaceutical companies.

Secondly, Fara Warner profiles Bay Area-based boutique ad agency Eleven that has survived and thrived throughout the dotcom crash. By focusing on what media works best for a given client -- instead of going for the big-buck ego easers such as television all the time -- the "agnostic" agency is able to reap rewards without risking resources. Seems like a sensible -- and simple -- strategy.

Registration is required to access New York Times articles on the Web.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:40 AM | 3 Comments

Being the Best

The October edition of Ideas!, an email newsletter by staff of the Sonoma Institute, offers 11 tactics and tips from going from good to great at the individual level. How can leaders become -- or remain -- the best?

• Define your standards
• Define your industry and focus
• Identify the standards for being the best that are common and consistent throughout your industry or community of focus
• Decide whose assessment matters
• Recognize that you can only be the best within a relatively narrow range of focus -- you are and become what you practice
• Being the best means having discipline and rigor
• Embrace change as a gateway to innovation
• Recognize that, at the end of the day, it is all about relationships
• Be willing to step outside your history and comfort zones to repeatedly declare yourself a beginner
• Manage commitments and energy, not time
• If you want to be the best, have a vision, walk your talk, be authentic, and have courage

What advice would you offer leaders looking to become the best? What have you done yourself?

Posted by Heath Row at 11:09 AM | 5 Comments

Deja Vu All Over Again? II

As Fast Company's erstwhile "social capitalist" and founder of the magazine's readers' network, the Company of Friends, I feel the need to defend my friends working in social software.

While the business model for several of the services has yet to be proven -- with Meetup, whom I visited during last year's CoF Roadshow, seemingly solid -- the potential and promise of social software is clear. Particularly the more business-oriented services such as Ryze and Ecademy.

Business 2.0 recently ranked social network applications as its technology of the year, and Seth Godin's November column in Fast Company introduces Joi Ito, who's made ample business use of social software and related online technologies. (Until the entire November issue goes live at the end of this week, check out a recent Wired profile of Joi.

I'm sure we'll see some shakeout in this space soon -- and I'm sure we'll see some services change as they adopt the best practices of competitors. But for now, if you search almost any of the above networks, you'll see that I'm a member. And I encourage FC Now readers to experiment with the services themselves!

This month's Business 2.0 newsstand Web access code is B2NOV1256.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:32 AM | Add Comment

Fashionable Food

Sometimes, fast food feels so, well, slow. So it's no surprise that several fast food and chain restaurants are experimenting with more elite eatery concepts.

For McDonald's, the attempt represents itself in a Cajun-themed location that comes complete with chandeliers and a French-style bistro in South Florida. Boston Market is retooling to discourage take out and encourage sit-down dinners. SoCal's Ruby's Diner is moving beyond burgers for fancier fare. And Cheesecake Factory, which is not the dingiest of dining halls already, is rolling out a series of Grande Lux Cafes.

Fingers crossed that the changes include better food and service as well as more design-conscious decor and niftier names.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:15 AM | Add Comment

Deja Vu All Over Again?

The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Friendster, the wildly popular social networking site that's a people version of Napster (that's right, post your friends on the Web and pass them around), snagged a $13 million investment led by... guess who? Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers! Yes, the same firm that all but fueled the 1990s boom.

The Journal goes on to report that it's not just Friendster that has secured funding. Similar operations (dare we call them that?) like LinkedIn, Tribe Networks, Meetup, Emode, and Ryze have also met with funding good fortunes.

Why are all these places attracting investments? No, not because their revenues are zooming up. It's because they're getting lots of traffic. (Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?)

So what the hell is going on here? Are we starting to fill another bubble up with air? Or have we wiped the slate clean of old worthless dot-coms, allowing bold, innovative, new competitors to emerge?

Posted by Ryan Underwood at 10:11 AM | 1 Comment

Internship, Ahoy!

Now that school has started up again in the U.S., internship season is largely over, but in today's USA Today, Joe Eaton shares some success -- and struggle -- stories about the intern experience. While I can't find the main feature online, a sidebar does share some appropriate advice for people interviewing for internships. An internship counselor at UCLA recommends that applicants ask the following four questions:

• What will my duties be?
• What unique experiences does this company offer interns?
• How much will I be paid?
• How many hours will I work?

Simple as they are, those aren't bad questions for any job applicant. Here's some additional tools to help FC Now readers interview like a headhunter, get inside the head of the hiring manager, and solve problems posed during interviews.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:06 AM | Add Comment

What Do You Do When You Procrastinate?

I listen to music. I watch "The O.C." I surf the Web. (Clearly, I procrastinate a lot.)

Tonite, in mid-surf (and only after satisfying myself that no, Marissa will not be going to a mental institution in San Diego), I discovered that some people are much more creative with their procrastination time than I am. Shades of Scott Kirsner's recent piece, "Five Technologies That Will Change the World", the New York Times asked 11 "prominent men and women" to riff on what their ideal gadget of the future would be.

Pat Russo, CEO of Lucent Technologies, wishes someone could combine the 15 different devices she normally carries into one all-purpose gizmo. Football commentator Cris Collinsworth wants TiVO that he can take on the road. Moby wants recreational drugs "that aren't bad for you and that aren't addictive." As he reminds us in the story: "If they can put a man on the moon...?" Check out the article to find out what Donald Trump, Margaret Cho, and others hope the technology of the future will look like.

My ideal tech trick: a temporary clone who could make my story deadlines for me while I uncover more useless facts about my latest TV obsession (did anyone else notice that the actress who plays Marissa was in Notting Hill with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant when she was a little kid? Yeah, well, that's what I was watching while procrastinating last night...)

What do you wish for?

Posted by Alison Overholt at 1:54 AM | 2 Comments

October 29, 2003

Would You Hire This CEO?

There's been some concern raised by readers of the "Would You Hire This CEO?" Fast Talk in the November issue. Several people have asked why Joel Ronning of Digital River does not include front line employees in his entrepreneurial council. HE DOES. They're included in a separate group from the one described in the piece. In fact, many of the employee-driven suggestions that have been implemented at the company have come from those on the front line. So keep that in mind when you vote whether to Hire or File!

Posted by Ryan Underwood at 5:40 PM | Add Comment

The Limits of Synergy? II

Alison, I'm sooooo glad you posted that piece about Fox Entertainment and Fox News. Who knew synergy had such a dark side? Anyhow, the disputed material in question is just too good not to pull out and highlight. Here it is:

"The episode of the Simpsons in question showed a rolling news ticker at the bottom of the screen, which read: 'Pointless news crawls up 37 per cent... Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com... Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer... Dow down 5,000 points... Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple...'"

Posted by Ryan Underwood at 5:31 PM | Add Comment

The Innovation of Tradition

In a New York Review of Books essay published earlier this month, Charles Rosen explores the role history and tradition play in innovation and creativity. In the piece, he considers short-sighted business strategies in the light of tactics necessary to secure long-term sustainability -- and success.

If the market does not grow fast enough, the most common commercial policy is not to try to sustain the level reached, but to cut back drastically. Canceling a respectable project if it does not promise a fast return is the easiest road to take. Educating a future public would have meant planning in longer terms than the habits of thought of the modern business world are comfortable with.

By analyzing classical music and literature -- particularly Machiavelli -- Rosen looks at the role of a canon and suggests that tradition can be faked.

A sensible opportunist will therefore fake a tradition when he has to. The appeal to tradition is useful both to sustain the system in power and to destroy it. Returning to one's origins in a moment of crisis will alter the origins, and literally transform the past to fit a new sense of desperation or hope. The essential paradox of a canon, however, is that a tradition is often most successfully sustained by those who appear to be trying to attack or to destroy it.

Fascinating stuff. If you reread Robert Townsend's 1970 book Up the Organization, you'll see some of the language used -- and ideas shared by -- Fast Company since our launch. The same goes for Fortune during some of its livelier years. And I like to think of the similarities less as rehashing -- and more as reminding.

Which is why I think John's spot on when he says, "There is no greater power in the world than the force of a great idea." It doesn't matter where the idea comes from -- or whether it's a new idea. Because sometimes, we look into the future for those great ideas -- and as Rosen indicates -- sometimes we look to the past.

Posted by Heath Row at 4:32 PM | Add Comment

(News)Standoff II

In yesterday's edition of Women's Wear Daily, the following item appeared in the Memo Pad section:

John Byrne wrote 57 cover stories for BusinessWeek before bolting last April to edit Fast Company, but it seems he's still giving his old colleagues ideas. Last week's BW featured hip-hop/apparel entrepreneur Russell Simmons on its cover with his face cloaked in shadow beneath the brim of his ubiquitous baseball cap. He's holding the same pose in the opening spread of FC's cover story on Simmons in the November issue -- which began arriving in subscribers' mailboxes a week before BW's profile closed. "The curious thing is, they did have access to our issue," said Byrne, "and it's curious that this BW alum would leave and -- bingo! -- all of a sudden we seem to be in competition."

BusinessWeek had to know what Fast Company was up to -- the former's photo shoot with Simmons was scheduled two weeks after the latter's, according to Simmons' spokeswoman, and both stories share sources like Donald Trump. BusinessWeek may have had its story in the works before Fast Company shipped, but, Byrne said, "I know that [editor in chief] Steve Shepard and crew had our cover by the ninth of October, and they closed their issue on Oct. 15 and then it came out on the 17th and 18th."

Maybe so, but a BW spokesman said the magazine completed its Simmons story a few weeks before FC broke and its rival's story didn't have an impact on BW's coverage. As for influence, the spokesman said, "I know they have a Wal-Mart cover story coming, and we had one a few weeks ago. Who knows? They might be inspired."

Posted by Heath Row at 3:14 PM | Add Comment

The Limits of Synergy?

According to The Guardian newspaper in the UK, Fox News threatened to sue Simpsons creator Matt Groening over a spoof of the news channel in a recent episode of his popular cartoon sitcom -- which runs on sister channel Fox Entertainment. The offending episode included a fake Fox News ticker running across the bottom of the screen with phrases such as "Pointless news crawls up 37 percent" and "Do Democrats cause cancer?"

Quoting from an NPR Radio interview, The Guardian reports Groening saying, "Fox said they would sue the show and we called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself." Though the lawsuit never materialized (and Fox News employees apparently deny the threat ever happened), The Simpsons may no longer run fake news tickers in any of its episodes, "because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news," Groening says.

On the surface, this may look like just another example of Fox News' decided lack of a funny bone (see its dismissed lawsuit against liberal satirist Al Franken, which first hit FC Now in August), but there may be a larger business issue at stake: Is this further evidence that "synergy" is a rotten concept? Does the integration -- or at least, interaction -- of different divisions of large corporations interfere with the ability to do their individual jobs well? If Fox News can meddle with the creative product of Fox Entertainment, how can we be sure that some other division of Rupert Murdoch's corporate empire isn't meddling with the news?

Posted by Alison Overholt at 12:15 PM | 1 Comment

Blue-Light Specialty

Sean D'Souza's recent article about what he terms the "customer stampede" shares some interesting ideas. Think smart mobs, flash mobs, and viral marketing. Businesses often think about marketing in terms of encouraging purchase and transaction activity. How can your company or team make your customers move?

Posted by Heath Row at 10:57 AM | Add Comment

Dysfunction Junction II

Is your company dysfunctional? Joanna Krotz offers three indicators that your organization is maladjusted. They are:

• You've got leaders who fake it. The discrepancy between what leaders say they want and what they really want often causes company dysfunction. You can't ask employees to do anything you're not willing to do yourself.
• You've got bosses who like to point fingers. The remedy is to put your trust in the people you hire and give every employee sincere responsibility. Hands-on, my-way-or-the-highway entrepreneurs won't find this easy. But that's how the business gets better.
• You've got a CEO who doesn't set priorities. Company leaders must set the mission and the agenda. A hands-off policy can only go so far.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:47 AM | Add Comment

Better Business Blogging Bureau

Michael Hanscom was fired from the MSCopy print shop earlier this week because he posted a photograph of Apple G5's being delivered to the Microsoft campus in Redmond. Word is that sharing that Microsoft was all over the new G5's wasn't an issue -- but identifying the building in which Hanscom worked was. It was a security risk.

It was certainly a job security risk, and increasingly, running blogs on the side can be seen as grounds for termination.

That seems relatively short sighted. Microsoft has hundreds -- if not thousands -- of active bloggers among its ranks. And if companies are at all serious about incorporating blogs into their business activities, they'll need to do so in the spirit of the exisiting blogging community to some extent.

In June, Microsoft Watch reported that Microsoft was considering a corporate blogging policy. If one isn't already in place, it seems like the company should get one organized soon.

Does your company have a blogging policy in addition to its Net usage policy? Does your company have a policy addressing how employees interact with people outside the company?

Because that's what this is really about.

Posted by Heath Row at 10:34 AM | 3 Comments

October 28, 2003

What Are CEOs Really Worth?

The Economist this week turns its very sharp eye to corporate leadership, asking, How important is the CEO to a company's overall performance? The answer (like all good things): It depends on how you look at it. On average, a leader accounts for about 14% of a company's performance, according to work undertaken by Nitin Nohria and colleagues at Harvard Business School. Not impressed? An earlier study by Anita McGahan and Michael Porter indicated that the industrial sector in which a company operated explained 19% of its profitability. Translation: The choice of a CEO matters nearly as much to a company as the sector it's in.

Posted by Ryan Underwood at 5:56 PM | Add Comment

Humility Ability II

There's nothing quite like answering your own question. No sooner had I posted the previous entry than I read an article in the current issue of Executive Update about self-promotion strategies that avoid being a blowhard or braggart. The author, Nancy Graham, offers these 12 "tooting tips" for bragging:

• Be your best, authentic self
• Think about to whom you are tooting
• Say it with meaningful and entertaining stories
• Keep it short and simple
• Talk with me, not at me
• Be able to back up what you say
• Know when to toot
• Turn small talk into big talk
• Keep bragalogues and brag bites current and fresh
• Be ready at a moment's notice
• Have a sense of humor
• Use it all: your eyes, ears, head, and heart

FC Now readers might also find Peggy Klaus' book Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It useful.

Posted by Heath Row at 1:06 PM | 1 Comment

Humility Ability

Yesterday, I posted an entry about an interview in which Lorin Maazel, music director of the New York Philharmonic, mentioned humility as a key leadership trait.

In the October issue of Harvard Business Review, social psychologist Roderick Kramer encourages CEOs to "keep your big head in check." Among his advice to leaders:

• Keep your life simple
• Hang a lantern on your foibles
• Float trial balloons
• Sweat the small stuff
• Reflect more, not less

Deposed Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, whose trial continues apace, would have been well-served to follow the above advice. Not only are prosecutors charging Kozlowski with stealing $600 million from the company, but a four-hour video tape captures scenes at a birthday party in Sardinia that Kozlowski billed to Tyco. With trappings such as chariots, men dressed as gladiators, a Jimmy Buffet performance, and a birthday cake shaped like a woman's upper body, the party seems anything but humble.

Self-confidence is one thing. But how can leaders better balance confidence and pride with humility?

Posted by Heath Row at 12:29 PM | 1 Comment

Spare Change?

While I was unable to participate in Pegasus Communications' Systems Thinking in Action conference, Changing Our Organizations to Change the World, earlier this month, I'm glad that the organization has made the mind maps of the plenary sessions publicly available.

Among the highlights:

• Peter Senge discussed how individuals and organizations can shift the ways in which they engage with others in order to reach new levels of effectiveness in their industries, communities, and the world
• Adam Kahane, founding member of Generon Consulting, shared a framework for talking and listening that has helped multiple stakeholders in South Africa and Guatemala come together in the wake of horrific violence
• Leaders from Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies, described how their organization attained double-digit growth in a sluggish industry by implementing transformational leadership development practices, including reflective conversation
• Staff from Roca Inc., a Massachusetts-based human development and community-building organization, shared how they "show up differently" with key external partners, such as the social services and criminal justice systems, to create extraordinary relationships and in turn effect profound change in their community

Not all of the text is legible, and the mind maps don't offer the depth that a transcript or fuller report might, but this is a good way to catch up on some of the recent thinking about business systems.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:52 AM | Add Comment

October 27, 2003

(Orche)Strategy

In today's edition of USA Today, Del Jones interviews Lorin Maazel, music director of the New York Philharmonic, about leadership. The two touch on success, delegation, discipline, and motivation. Among Maazel's advice for leaders:

• Earn respect
• Balance confidence and humility
• Don't be nice to curry favor
• Speak only when you have something valuable to say
• To lead, energize
• Demand passion instead of perfection

The interview's a useful read complementary to Fast Company's features on Ben Zander, Roger Nierenberg, and Orpheus.

Posted by Heath Row at 2:00 PM | 3 Comments

Managing Your Clients

The October edition of Strogoff Consulting's newsletter Negotiating Strategies offers some useful project management advice that's applicable while working with clients after a contract has been signed. Even though the newsletter is aimed at people working in architecture, design, and engineering, these steps might help FC Now readers stay a step ahead:

• Start the project with a client kick-off meeting
• Educate your client about changes that could likely arise
• Review your client's expectations as project conditions or assumptions change
• Have a single client representative present at all client meetings
• Educate clients throughout the project
• Tell clients what they need to know, not what they want to hear
• Make clients aware of the ramifications of their decisions
• Obtain client approval at key points throughout the project
• Inform clients about pending additional services
• Rehearse client presentations ahead of time

The fourth and seventh items are particularly interesting. The article expands:

Don't try to navigate your own way through a client's conflicting priorities. Insist that your client appoint one person on its behalf to provide continuity, keep the other client stakeholders informed of competing interests, and give you the guidance needed to make timely decisions.

Tell your client if a decision might delay your work, increase your scope, or impact whether you can achieve their initial goals. Then give your client the opportunity to reconsider its decision in light of these ramifications.

Posted by Heath Row at 12:56 PM | Add Comment

Workplace Weirdness II

Chasing Daisy's Office Dare System is an interesting adjunct to the stealth disco phenom. File under: Unproductive, but fun.

Posted by Heath Row at 11:40 AM | Add Comment

Tools You Can't Use

First, the Concorde. And now this!

The humble slide projector is on its way to becoming a dead technology. In June, the Eastman Kodak Co. will stop manufacturing its lines of the one-time office supply-closet staple.

The reason for the RIP? Digital photography and projection..

Posted by Heath Row at 10:00 AM | 1 Comment

Retail Details II

Shades of Julian Dibbell's entrepreneurialism in the Ultima Online gaming environment, the executives of There Inc., maker of an online gaming environment by the same name, are encouraging commerce among players.

For $1, There players can buy almost 2,000 Therebucks, which can be used to purchase a variety of products and services, even virtual rental property. And offline companies are getting into the game, too.

The virtual world presents marketing opportunities for real-world companies. Levi Strauss & Co. is offering jeans and jean jackets for avatars, and players can buy sneakers by Nike Inc. that allow the avatars to run faster.

Huh. It's new-school product placement online.

Posted by Heath Row at 9:55 AM | 1 Comment

Transportation Celebration

On this day in 1904, the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), the first rapid transit subway system, opened. Today in New York City, commuters kick off a year-long centennial celebration.

Posted by Heath Row at 9:44 AM | Add Comment

Shelf-Esteem

Since the Dummies and Idiot's guide publishing niche first emerged in 1991, two publishers have cleverly capitalized on people's need to know -- now. The Dummies series has sold 100 million copies, and the Idiot's series has sold 20 million copies. With 1,250 titles between the two series, the books are available in 38 languages.

When I was a little boy, my mother once told me that there was a fine line between being smart and being a smart-aleck. I said, "Yeah, it's a hyphen." All jokes aside, the Dummies and Idiot's phenomenon begs the question: What does your company help people learn? How can you more immediately meet customers' and partners' needs?

Posted by Heath Row at 9:37 AM | Add Comment

October 24, 2003

Generation... Huh?

Back in 1998, Fast Company suggested that it was high time 20-somethings and 40-somethings stopped warring -- and started working together. In actual fact, I thought we'd moved beyond the whole Baby Boomer, Baby Buster, Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Next thing.

Now, I know the generations have their differences, but is it anything new to say that people of different ages need to listen to each other? The editors of HighGain Inc.'s online newsletter, Sssh! Listen up!, seem to think so.

Even though I question the importance of hinging the issue on a perceived generational divide, the end result of their roundup of generation-related listening, learning, and leading tools is good advice regardless of people's age:

• Act on what you hear; don't react.
• Repeat what the speaker said in your own words to make sure you understand.
• Create a listening environment to make it harder for biases and barriers to arise.
• Be empathic and open minded.
• Take differences into account.

Posted by Heath Row at 3:51 PM | 4 Comments

Work-Life Balancing Act II

It's not an accident that today was selected as Take Back Your Time Day. On this day in 1940, the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Posted by Heath Row at 12:45 PM | 2 Comments