T-Mobile & AT&T!  Oops…just kidding around about the network thing, honest!

Apple has certainly inspired a lot of imitators. Among them a series of ads in the "I'm a Mac / You're a PC" vein basically insulting AT&T's network coverage.  Oops.  And worst of all, they can't even pull the ads - once its out there on the Net it never goes away.  Hey, was that Verizon smirking in the background...?

Share this article:      

• Posted Rita McGrath on March 20, 2011

Expanding role for Finance Chiefs - utterly predictable

The Wall Street Journal last week published an article on the expanding role of CFO's and financial people generally in corporations.  Well, it's a trend I've been watching for a while, and it isn't going to go away.  But it does reflect a significant underlying shift in the way strategy gets made in today's corporations.  It used to be the strategy guys would figure things out and toss the playbook figuratively over the transom to the finance people who would work out the best way to line up funds for what companies wanted to do.  No more. In today's hypercompetitive markets, your financing structure and your strategic decisionmaking have to be tightly aligned.  For one thing, you don't have time to lose. For another, the value of your company, as reflected in its stock price, is going to derive in part from how well you navigate these issues.  So what can we expect?

More and more, finance people are likely to be on track to become general managers.  And a lot of other functions - from IT to operations - are going to have to start treating those bean-counters with a little more respect.

Share this article:      

• Posted Rita McGrath on February 07, 2011

Advice for would-be media darlings - A hilarious YouTube series

I ran across some truly hilarious examples of desperately awful speaking to the media on YouTube.  The series is a set of short clips, beginning with Media Coaching Example #1, in which a beauty contest competitor answers ... well, tries to answer...a question about poor educational standards in the United States.  It's deliciously ironic that although she is talking she makes no sense.  The advice?  Be prepared.  Media Coaching Example #2 shows how long, rambling explanations can lose one's audience. The advice?  Keep it simple.  The third example, Media Coaching Example #3 had to be developed by an engineer - it shows a highly technical person showing off his product by referring to impossibly arcane features of a bit of machinery.  The advice?  Avoid jargon!  Media Coaching Example #4 (this can't be real, can it?) features a newscaster who loses it when his TelePrompter gives trouble.  Suggestion here - stay cool!  The fifth suggestion, take your time, is illustrated by a serious-sounding gent trying to explain what a digital marketplace is.  And the last one, Media Coaching Example #6 shows an executive at a shipping company awkwardly defending the quality of his ships in light of a maritime misadventure. 

It was particularly interesting to see the actual poor practices the author advises against illustrated.  A good takeaway for any of us who have to do public speaking!

Share this article:      

• Posted Rita McGrath on February 07, 2011

Fantastic story about learning from failure at Best Buy

My friends over at Strategy + Innovation published a remarkable - and very honest - story from Brad Anderson, the former CEO of Best Buy.  In the article, he describes the misbegotten acquisition by Best Buy of a chain of music stores known as Musicland.  It's a cautionary tale of how wrong one can be when making assumptions, but also how even devastating disappointments can create productive learning.  Onward with "intelligent" failing - which will be the subject of a forthcoming article to be published in the Harvard Business Review.

Share this article:      

• Posted Rita McGrath on January 31, 2011

Brilliant reflections on skunkworks

Ah, skunkworks.  Those small, agile units beloved of large organizations looking for the Next New Idea.  I've written about them in the past - and outlined some of the pitfalls of setting them up and expecting great things to happen without having some way of re-integrating them back to the core business.

 

I ran across this really interesting blog post this morning that adds a lot of rich texture to the subject of skunkworks and pulls together some really interesting examples.  For instance, I didn't know that the originator of "let a thousand flowers bloom" idea was Chairman Mao!  Definitely worth a look. 

Share this article:      

• Posted Rita McGrath on July 31, 2010

Search: