Strategies

An Ideal Marketplace: For-profit Businesses Helping, Not Exploiting, the Poor

Can a company make money from the work of impoverished people in the developing world without taking advantage of them? For Patrick Byrne, the answer is a qualified yes. Byrne believes that he has found a way for his company, Overstock.com, to benefit while it helps developing-world artisans connect with developed-world customers. But for Chuck Waterfield, creator of Microfin -- a software program he wrote for microlenders -- the answer is a qualified no, at least as it applies to Compartamos, a well-known microfinance lender operating in Mexico. Both men spoke at this year's University of Pennsylvania Microfinance Conference.

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You don't create a culture

You don’t create a culture. Culture happens. It’s the by-product of consistent behavior. If you encourage people to share, and you give them the freedom to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If you reward trust then trust will be built into your culture.

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Red Flags for the Decade Ahead

BusinessWeek Columnists Jack & Suzy Welch provide some foresight to the issues which will confront the large and small businesses around the world in the near future. (Audio)

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In Deal-Making, Keep People in Mind

12 MAY 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Corporate deal-making, as we've seen recently, is a lot like dating and marriage. Success forging a partnership has as much to do with propitious timing and mutual attraction as it does with adroit negotiating -- and it's often difficult to predict the outcome.

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Craig (of the List) Looks Beyond the Web

In the face of the expansion of the classified ads Web site Craigslist, its founder, Craig Newmark, is capitalizing on his success to promote causes he holds dear. (Subscription required)

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Ballmer's War Against Google

A behind-the-scenes look at Microsoft's provocative plans to challenge Google's online-ad juggernaut without Yahoo.

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Comcast Mulling Net Usage Cap to Discourage 'Excessive' Use

Comcast is considering putting a formal cap on monthly downloads instead of just calling up users who used several times a typical subscriber's 2 gigs. It's a bid to increase transparency about limits that have always been there on an "unlimited" usage plan, they say. Others say "good luck" putting the genie back in the bottle.

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Meeting on the Right Side of the Brain

30 APR 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

"It’s really hard to have productive meetings in rooms that suck the life right out of you." Now, vanguard hotels seem to have heard Ms. Marquard’s complaints and are offering meeting spaces that look more like lounges than boardrooms, with high-tech replacements for flip charts and yoga and wheat-grass shots on breaks. Such surroundings are meant to stimulate the right half of the brain, which has been linked to creativity, versus the left brain, said to be responsible for logic and other thinking. (Subscription required)

Hat tip: reveries

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Chrysler offers cheaper gas as incentive

Chrysler has announced that customers who buy or lease one of its selected new cars in the next few weeks can lock in lower gas prices for three years. What is it thinking? Amy Scott reports.

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Little tweaks, huge impact

I love reading about little changes that make a big difference. The airline industry seems to be a great example.

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HBS Cases: Negotiating with Wal-Mart

28 APR 2008 from Harvard Business School | Read the full story»

There are numerous media accounts of the corporate monolith riding its suppliers into the ground. But what about those who manage to survive, and thrive, while dealing with the classic hardball negotiator?

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Users Demand Expertise at How-To Web Sites

28 APR 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

Quamut differentiates itself from the long list of how-to sites like eHow, HowStuffWorks.com and, to a lesser degree, About.com (which is owned by The New York Times Company), with a somewhat novel twist: selling downloadable documents of its otherwise free content. For instance, users who want to know how to make sushi can browse through 15 pages of information, like "how to make sushi rice," or can copy and print the information themselves. But Quamut sells a more polished version in a six-page color document for about $3. (Subscription required)

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Google's Surfing Safari

"We feel that we shouldbe a catalyst," Joseph Mucheru says, sitting in his office that overlooks central Nairobi. We, in this case, is Google, and the stout 39-year-old Kenyan heads the company's first outpost in sub-Saharan Africa. About 5% of Africans are online, but the thinking is that as the Internet grows, so will Google.

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The Strategist: Better Ideas to Beat a Bitter Economy

Cutting costs and jobs won't give you an edge in tough times. Try mixing up teams and tearing down your company, for starters.

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Interactive Case Study: Accenture: Scaling Up Fast Overseas

How did the global consulting company respond to the challenge of hiring tens of thousands of workers in India in just six years?

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The charmed life of Amazon's Jeff Bezos

15 APR 2008 from Fortune | Read the full story»

Common wisdom once pegged Amazon and Bezos as goners. But guess what? They're thriving.

Hat tip: Stephen Garner

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The Hard Sell: How to Market Products That Are No Longer Popular

Condos in Miami, traditional music stores, gas-guzzling cars, pharmaceuticals that get unfavorable press, foods made with trans fats: All marketers, from time to time, confront products that, for whatever reason, become difficult to sell. What strategies should companies follow to reposition their products in ways that might attract new audiences, or at least retain existing ones? One answer: segmenting. "There are so many different kinds of customers out there. You just need to find them," says one Wharton expert.

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Hotels court high-tech guests

For years, hotels have tried to provide the best creature comforts and services. And now, many are adapting to the digital age.

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Craigslist CEO keeps focus on service

Jim Buckmaster isn't much interested in maximizing profits. The chief executive of Craigslist says the rapidly growing website's business model is all about the social good. He talks with host Kai Ryssdal in our latest Conversations From the Corner Office. (Audio)

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Buried Resentment

16 APR 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

[I]t turns out burying hexes in enemy territory isn't just for baseball fanatics. It's a common tactic among rivals in the cutthroat world of business, too. (Subscription required)

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Cheaper suppliers now come at a price

American businesses save tons of money buying parts and products from overseas suppliers. But sometimes they're buying worries, too -- from tainted pet food to poisonous toothpaste -- which have led some to work on ethical supply chains. Curt Nickisch reports.

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Activism site ensures participation

Few things are more frustrating to those trying to effect social change than an effort that fails simply for lack of participation. The Point is a new activism site that avoids that problem by giving planners a way to organize fundraisers, rallies, boycotts and other events so that they occur only once enough people have promised to join in.

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Three Keys to Better Web Meetings

Interactive Webinars are imperative for connecting with far-flung customers while saving on travel costs. Here, a few tips to make a virtual event more engaging.

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Starbucks Seeks Jolt From Another Mass Tactic

21 APR 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Howard Schultz insists he's returning Starbucks to its roots, but he's doing it with mass-marketing tactics once anathema to the original brand. (Subscription required)

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How Obama targets nonconsumption

Instead of trying to win over people who love Gantt charts, we built Basecamp to win over people who had never used project management software before. Likewise, Obama isn’t trying to steal a share of "the existing market," he’s trying to create a new one.

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Steal This Idea

The Fast Interview: Author Matt Mason on how the pirating of intellectual property can be a good thing.

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'How About Coffee Cubes?'

Starbucks' CEO is using customers' advice and dedicated software to try out new ideas in a bid to reinvigorate the company.

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It's All About Experience

Companies that try to create holistic experiences by emotionally engaging their consumers are flourishing.

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Dove.com

"You can have extremely relevant information and content but if no one is seeing it, what’s the point?" says Unilever’s Dove marketing director Kathy O’Brien in a Wall Street Journal piece by Suzanne Vranica (4/10/08). Kathy is explaining why Dove is rolling out its new online community for women, Dove.com, on Microsoft’s portal, MSN.com. She hopes that the MSN connection will give the brand "accelerated access" to its target audience.

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How to do business like the Mafia

09 APR 2008 from the Guardian | Read the full story»

The letters of jailed Cosa Nostra boss Bernardo Provenzano are full of insights into his leadership style. The result could be a how-to manual for company directors.

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New Life for Tired Brands

How to discover the dormant vitality in an old product line.

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Something to Yelp About

Jeremy Stoppelman's local-review site is off the business-press radar. That's O.K. He's building credibility, market by market.

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Small Meetings, Big Pluses

At many companies, some 70 percent of meetings consist of 50 or fewer participants. And their popularity is growing nationwide. (Subscription required)

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Solving Wicked Problems

Marty Neumeier discusses workplace problems including balancing long-term goals with short-term demands and attempting to predict returns on innovative concepts. (Audio)

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Whipsaw Pricing

Some supermarkets are promoting lower prices but the reality is that the grocery prices are going up, report Julie Jargon, Ann Zimmerman and David Kesmodel in The Wall Street Journal (4/1/08). Reason is, some supermarkets are promoting lower prices on non-essential items while raising them on staples.

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Citigroup Shifts Corporate Structure

Citigroup confirmed plans to revamp its structure on geographic, not product, lines, as recently installed CEO Vikram Pandit continues to place his imprint on the struggling financial-services company. (Subscription required)

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Saving the Earth? Good for You — Just Be Sure to Watch the Bottom Line.

Toyota relies on sales of gas-guzzling pickups to be the cash cow offseting development costs of the hybrid Prius. Oother companies hoping to reap the benefits of going green face the same Catch-22: Rolling out earth-friendly products attracts environmentally conscious customers, but corporate profits still come largely from doing business the old, dirty way.

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Is Motorola's split a good call?

Motorola is breaking itself in two, but analysts don't agree on whether it's the best move for the company. Lisa Napoli reports.

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The Secret To Google’s Success: Free Beer And Sushi

Google’s original chef Charlie Ayers claims in a new book that much of Google’s success comes from free beer and sushi.

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The Problem with Business as Usual

It seems like a no-brainer, but taking the time to root out stupid routines can mean the difference between a company's success and failure.

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How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong

18 MAR 2008 from Wired | Read the full story»

[B]y deliberately flouting the Google mantra, Apple has thrived. When Jobs retook the helm in 1997, the company was struggling to survive. Today it has a market cap of $105 billion...

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Starbucks Gets Web 2.0 Religion, but Can It Convert Nonbelievers?

24 MAR 2008 from Advertising Age | Read the full story»

Starbucks, after all, is something of a late convert to the customer-listening game, and there's some indication that it hasn't been paying as much attention as it should have. (Subscription required)

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Overseeing More Employees With Fewer Managers

24 MAR 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Business researchers have maintained that bosses optimally should manage about seven to 10 people. But some new research suggests effective managers can oversee 30 or more people by redefining what it means to be a boss. (Subscription required)

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cultural sustainability

08 MAR 2008 from apophenia | Read the full story»

To me, the idea of "cultural sustainability" is about companies whose actions offset the consequences of their presence (or disappearance). For example, when large companies abandon cities that they've been in for years and where the entire city revolves around them, their move has a HUGE culturally destructive force. How do they offset this in a functional way? How does this get considered to be an externality that needs to be factored in? (It used to be through layoff benefits and pensions that kept going no matter what... this is no longer viewed as critical.) Large companies who come into a town and put out of business a variety of different local merchants have another kind of culturally destructive practices. This is why the conversations around Wal-Mart get so heated: capitalism vs. cultural sustainability.

Hat tip: PSFK

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Customer Loyalty That Lasts

Competency and integrity might get customers through your door, but to develop real loyalty, you'll have to do more. Jim Kane of the Brookeside Group explains how small firms can engender lifelong loyalty. (Audio)

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Starbucks Seeks Customer Input

Starbucks said it will introduce new espresso machines that will allow baristas to interact more easily with customers, and also said it plans a new social-networking Web site to gather customer suggestions. (Subscription required)

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The Innovation Engine: The Upside of Recession

Most businesses think now's the time to cut back and cower. Why not see it as an opportunity, the way the creators of some very big brands have?

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When Smart Leaders Do Dumb Things: On Bear Stearns, the Democratic Primary, and Other Avoidable Disasters

How might you and your company avoiding becoming a case study in failure? My one piece of advice is to keep reminding yourself how easy it is to screw up—especially when you’re in a position of great success.

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How Hulu's Design Gets It Right

Hulu, a major coup for Hollywood's Web aspirations, is the latest offering successfully designed for the elusive Gen-Y youth market.

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Siemens CEO Peter Löscher: A Company Is Only as Good as Its Values

It would be hard enough under any circumstances to become the first outsider named to lead a 161-year-old global conglomerate, but Peter Löscher faced a unique challenge last summer when he assumed the reins at Siemens AG -- the German-based engineering and healthcare giant. During a recent Wharton leadership lecture series, Löscher openly acknowledged that his first and most difficult task was dealing with the aftermath of a scandal that included allegations of bribes to foreign governments and union leaders. In his presentation, Löscher emphasized the importance of corporate culture and standards. Corruption, he said at one point, "is not a sustainable business model."s

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Stop & Talk

Turning stores into brands means talking to shoppers and serving their needs. A commentary on a Reveries.com survey by Michael Shinall.

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In the Game of Business, Playing Fair Can Actually Lead to Greater Profits

Tune into "The Apprentice," and you get an all-too-common view of business. Every week, the contestants try to impress Donald Trump by preening, cajoling and conniving. In this world, toughness is the measure of every CEO, and the boss glories in firing people and squeezing every penny out of suppliers. Yet according to John Zhang and Jagmohan Raju, both Wharton marketing professors, and Tony Haitao Cui from the University of Minnesota, many people aren't purely mercenary in their business dealings. They care about fairness -- and they should, the researchers say, because doing so can maximize their profits.

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Can a Toyota Man Fix Chrysler?

Seeking stability, Chrysler turns to James E. Press, a 37-year veteran of rival automaker Toyota. (Subscription required)

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The Future is Web Services, Not Web Sites (Steve Rubel/Micro Persuasion)

The Future is Web Services, Not Web Sites — [E]veryone - including marketers - will need to think of their online brands not as sites but as portable services that can go anywhere and everywhere the consumer wants. Without such appendages, no brand will ever be able to break through the online clutter such unlimited choice offers.

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Marissa Mayer

"I have this open-door thing every day, where for two hours, I just sit at my desk--it’s like office hours--and whoever wants to come by and show me stuff can. I get to see a bunch of the cool and interesting demos, and engineers get quick feedback. We need to move fast, and we need employees to want to move fast, too."

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In Tanker Bid, It was Boeing vs. Bold Ideas

10 MAR 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

WASHINGTON — Just hours before the Air Force announced the winner of a $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling aircraft on Feb. 29, an Airbus plane lumbered off the runway in Getafe, Spain, and climbed to 27,000 feet to rendezvous with a Portuguese F-16 fighter.

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Going to the Company Elders for Help

Hewlett-Packard is trying to galvanize thousands of its retirees into an auxiliary army of senior marketers, good-will ambassadors and volunteer sales people. (Subscription required)

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Commandments of Visual Thinking: The "Lost Chapter" from The Back of the Napkin

07 MAR 2008 from ChangeThis | Read the full story»

Visual thinking is the future of business problem solving. Using our innate ability to see—both with our eyes and our mind’s eye—gives us entirely new ways to discover hidden ideas, develop those ideas intuitively, and then share those ideas with other people in a way they are simply going to ‘get.’

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Look Who's Reviving Chiasso

Christopher Segal, scion of the Crate & Barrel empire, believes in the Web but is rediscovering storefronts.

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The Offline Store

Prescilla Carluccio, sister of Sir Terence Conran, has opened a store that she hopes can’t be replicated online. She admits that many bricks and mortar stores should be replaced by electronic retail because of the poor experience that they deliver - but, as she tells the FT, she wants to create a store with a sense of surprise...

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Cutting the cord for all-you-can-eat wireless plans

Mobile operators are hoping to get customers who are looking to ditch their home phone lines to upgrade to their new unlimited wireless voice plans.

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Building an Online Community of Loyal and Vocal Users

MAR 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Internet marketplace Etsy embraces forums, blogs, social sites to get people to spread the word. (Subscription required)

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Haute Chipotle

Marketing chief Jim Adams says Chipotle wants to change everything. One burrito at a time. An exclusive Q&A interview by Tim Manners.

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Big Blue Goes for the Big Win

IBM's director of research and development is shifting the tech giant's focus—and making a few enormous bets.

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Solve a Company’s Problems, Win Cash

We’ve seen it before: companies turning to the general public to mine ideas for solutions to internal problems. Now there’s a central location for companies to solicit creative ideas from anyone with an Internet connection: Innocentive.com. The site lets "seekers" (i.e., private companies, government agencies, and nonprofits) solicit help from average Joes...

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Boards Behaving Badly

A look at different types of problem directors, and how to deal with them before they disrupt the entire governance process and infect the whole board.

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Hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip

Executives and industry analysts say it has become more important than ever to understand the psyche of consumers and why they pick one phone over another. (Subscription required)

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Bigger isn't always better for business

Commentator Charles Handy says American businesses' desire to keep getting bigger leads to bureaucracy over humanity. Instead, he says, companies should strive to do more with less.

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Trader Joe's Recipe for Success

21 FEB 2008 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

By limiting its stock to specialty products at low prices, Trader Joe's sells twice as much per square foot than other supermarkets.

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Buy toilet paper, save the planet

26 FEB 2008 from Fortune | Read the full story»

You know that green concerns are mainstream when even Procter & Gamble - maker of heavily packaged goods - say they want to be sustainable. But can they really do it?

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A Capitalist Jolt for Charity

Can business extend the reach of nonprofits? To help serve its philanthropic mission, a social business tries to profit. (Subscription required)

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How to Get Workers to Think and Act Like Owners

FEB 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Companies that want to create an ownership culture need to make an explicit effort to teach employees about their stake and keep them focused on increasing stock value, says Corey Rosen, executive director of the National Center for Employee Ownership. To that end, they should give workers the freedom to take initiatives to cut costs and boost a company's bottom line. Companies should "push decision-making down," he says.

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At Toyota, a Global Giant Reaches for Agility

Toyota’s top executives are trying to replicate the company’s success and operating principles in other countries while ceding more control to these new outposts. (Subscription required)

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How business can save the world

17 FEB 2008 from the Boston Globe | Read the full story»

A provocative study suggests that enlightened management philosophies can spread from the office -- and change societies.

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Wal-Mart: The New Washington

03 FEB 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

[A]fter years of running afoul of the United States government on labor and environmental issues, Wal-Mart now aspires to be like the government, bursting through political logjams and offering big-picture solutions to intractable problems. (Subscription required)

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Wal-Mart Eyes Indian Market

Wal-Mart plans to open 10 to 15 cash-and-carry stores in India, hoping to crack the booming retail market without angering the mom-and-pop retailers and middlemen that dominate the industry in the country. (Subscription required)

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Give Me Your Black Sheep

17 FEB 2008 from Bob Sutton | Read the full story»

Bird explained that he was brought to Pixar partly because senior management was worried that the company would become too complacent after three big hits: Toy Story, A Bugs Life, and Toy Story2. To help fight against such complacency on The Incredibles, Bird wanted people to work with people who weren't satisfied with how things were done and so -- to staff the film-- he requested "Give me your black sheep."

Hat tip: Freakonomics

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Unusual Route: Discount Airlines Woo Business Set

19 FEB 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Discount carriers are making a new push for business travelers, adding flights in heavily traveled business routes and even quietly offering companies special deals. (Subscription required)

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Digital Borders

In a bid to differentiate itself from Barnes & Noble, Borders has rolled out the first of 14 concept stores featuring digital centers intended as "a hub for knowledge," reports Jayne O’Donnell, et. al., in USA Today (2/14/08).

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Newspapers launch online ad network

Four major U.S. newspaper chains are combining efforts on a network they hope will attract online advertisers seeking to book national campaigns. Dan Grech reports on this latest attempt to keep newspapers competitive.

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Quirky Conformity

Gary Kelly’s willingness to conform to the quirky culture of Southwest Airlines is a key reason the carrier is “the only consistently profitable company in the domestic airline industry,” reports Jeff Baily in The New York Times (2/13/08). His approach — to reflect the existing company culture versus trying to change it —

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EA's CEO: How I Learned To Acquire Developers And Not Screw Them Up

08 FEB 2008 from Wired News | Read the full story»

In his presentation kicking off the final day of the DICE Summit, the head of the videogame superpublisher acknowledged that his company's previous strategy of acquiring talented developers just didn't work. But these days, even as EA and its competitors swallow up more and more developers in the race towards consolidation, Riccitiello thinks things are working out right with companies like Bioware and Maxis, by letting them keep their corporate culture.

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The Bottom Is Not Enough

12 FEB 2008 from the Technium | Read the full story»

I [Kevin Kelly] wrote a book, Out of Control, heralding the immense power of bottom up systems. You know: smart mobs, hive mind, web power, amateur hour, decentralized webs, network effects, and collaborative work. Twenty years ago Out of Control made a wide-ranging and exhaustive case for the remarkable things which decentralized, out-of-control systems can accomplish in biology, technology, and cultural realms. Two decades later I'm still keen on the untapped potential of emergent bottom-up systems.

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Nice Guys Don't Finish Last

12 FEB 2008 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

It is one of the biggest questions in corporate governance: Is there really any financial payoff for promoting enlightened social, environmental, and ethical practices? Or are companies that get the most attention for doing good merely those that can afford to do so?

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Delta CEO Waives Merger Compensation

13 FEB 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

Delta Air Lines Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson told the airline's board that he will waive millions of dollars in compensation to which he would be entitled in the event of a merger.

The move is the latest signal of the seriousness of the airline's effort to find a merger partner, most likely Northwest Airlines Corp. or United Airlines parent UAL Corp.

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HarperCollins Will Post Free Books on the Web

In an attempt to increase book sales, HarperCollins Publishers will begin offering free electronic editions of some of its books on its Web site on Monday. (Subscription required)

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Publisher Tests Selling by the Chapter

Random House will test selling the digital version of one of its titles chapter-by-chapter. (Subscription required)

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100 Ways to Help You Succeed/Make Money: Part II by Tom Peters

We published the beginning to a very empowering list three years ago— Tom Peters’ 100 Ways to Help You Succeed/Make Money. That list was finished recently, and we now update it here with success tips #51-100 (&1).

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Kraft tries out cream cheese on JetBlue

JetBlue announced that it would work with Kraft Foods to taste test a new reduced-fat cream cheese on some of its flights. But is it a good idea to use airline passengers as captive product testers? Jeff Tyler reports.

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Finding Drucker's vision in all that stuff

Commentator Charles Handy reflects on the philosophies of economist Peter Drucker to figure out what to do when a consumer economy starts to buy less stuff. First in an occasional series of commentaries by Charles Handy.

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Social pizza ordering, with a side of gravanity

Short for Big Fantastic Deal, the BFD Builder lets consumers create the pizza of their dreams—specifying the type of crust, the amount of sauce and cheese, and unlimited toppings—for a flat rate of USD 10.99. A 10-day contest last month even promised USD 500 in gift certificates for the most creative design. What's really interesting, though, is that consumers can name and register the pizzas they design in Domino's BFD database, where they can be viewed and ordered by other consumers.

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Make Goals Not Resolutions

Your dismal New Year's resolution record--and what your business can learn from it.

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Starbucks to Close Stores and End Sandwich Sales

The decision came as Starbucks reported anemic sales growth of 1 percent at stores open at least a year, the worst three-month performance in the company’s history. (Subscription required)

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Note to Eddie Lampert: It’s the management, stupid

28 JAN 2008 from Fortune | Read the full story»

Back in 2005, both Sears and Toys ‘R’ Us were down on their luck and in danger of permanently losing relevance with their customers. Both were bought by financial firms, Sears by the hedge fund ESL Investments, controlled by Edward Lampert, and Toys “R” Us by a group that includes Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Bain Capital and Vornado Realty Trust. That’s where the similarities end.

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Overhaul, Make It a Venti

After more than a decade of sensational buzz, Starbucks is struggling nationwide as it faces slowing sales growth and increased competition. (Subscription required)

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Bridging The Gap Between Online and Offline Shopping

"The Internet hasn't destroyed brick-and-mortar retailing, as many once feared. But has it ever changed consumer behavior. Across the U.S., stores are playing catch-up with shoppers habituated not only to the speed and convenience of purchasing online but also to the control it gives them."

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The Case Against Case Studies

24 JAN 2008 from BusinessWeek | Read the full story»

How Columbia's B-school is teaching MBAs to make decisions based on incomplete data.

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'Framing Contests': When Companies Face Uncertainty, Internal Wrangling Can Lead the Way

After riding a wave of unprecedented industry growth, an established technology manufacturer experiences a sudden market downturn. What should it do? Whereas managers often push for quick, bottom-line analysis when facing uncertainty, Wharton management professor Sarah Kaplan says that the best move might be to encourage employees to engage in "framing contests," in which they champion alternative strategy scenarios. In a new research paper titled, "Framing Contests: Strategy Making under Uncertainty," Kaplan looks at how employees' frames shape strategic decisions, calling into question traditional notions about hierarchy and power in firms.

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Wal-Mart Chief Offers a Social Manifesto

As part of a campaign to upgrade its image by changing the way it does business, Wal-Mart has pledged to cut the energy used by many of its products by 25 percent. (Subscription required)

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Layering

Here's what we used to do: Create ---> Edit ---> Launch Here's what happens now: Create ---> Launch ---> Edit ---> Launch ---> repeat

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EBay’s New Leader Moves Swiftly on a Revamping

In an effort to reinvigorate growth, John Donahoe, the new chief executive of Internet giant eBay, said he would shift the company’s emphasis from auctions to fixed priced listing. (Subscription required)

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Failure Isn't Always a Bad Thing

22 JAN 2008 from the New York Times | Read the full story»

Successful entrepreneurs invariably say that they have learned as much from their failures as their successes. (Subscription required)

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Flagging Sears Plans Shakeup In Latest Bid at Turnaround

19 JAN 2008 from the Wall Street Journal | Read the full story»

In a fresh effort to halt a long decline, Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Edward S. Lampert plans to reorganize the 121-year-old retailer into several businesses with broad authority to shape their own future. (Subscription required)

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Ford CEO keeps both hands on wheel

CEO Alan Mulally has been running Ford for the past 15 months, when he was brought in from Boeing to lead the turnaround of the troubled automaker. In an interview with Kai Ryssdal, he says he's got his work cut out for him.

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From MySpace to YourSpace

A Web blockbuster is evolving to try to stay ahead of rivals. (Subscription required)

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The Right Job for the Right Time: Google’s Director of Other

Google has an intriguing job posting on its website which strikes me as exactly the right job for the right time. The company is looking for a "Director of Other" to explore tangential opportunities, lead the company in new directions, and discover new sources of growth.

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The best decision Scott McNealy ever made

Since turning over the reins to Jonathan Schwartz in April 2006, Sun has picked itself off the floor, staging one of the more improbable corporate comebacks in recent Silicon Valley history.

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Lessons from Etsy on building community

Handmade 2.0 is a long article that talks about artist-entrepreneurs who open up virtual shops on Etsy and eslewhere. The author explores what makes Etsy seem different from so many current efforts to "build community" online. There are some lessons here for anyone trying to build an ecosystem around a product, store, or whatever...

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The Search Party

14 JAN 2008 from the New Yorker | Read the full story»

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, believe that expanding their company’s lobbying operation in Washington, D.C., has become a necessity.

Hat tip: Searchblog

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17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners

15 JAN 2008 from doshdosh | Read the full story»

Twitter can be actively used as a tool to push out messages that capitalize on the attention you’re receiving from other users. Yes, I’m talking about self-promotion and marketing. This involves active user engagement. Apart from its use as a info resource and publicity tool, Twitter is also a communication platform for individuals and their personal social networks.

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can brands cope with consumer participation?

Given how little bandwidth most departments have these days, it's safe to assume that there are quite a few brands out there who risk damaging their reputations because they simply aren't structured to cope with the new era of conversation and participation.

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Trying to Fine-Tune Yahoo

Yahoo’s chief executive and co-founder plans to expand the Internet stalwart to make it "a starting point" for consumers. (Subscription required)

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Attraction method #1

Gather customer feedback. It's anti-sel