The Strategy Blog.
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Consumer confidence has gone up by 4%.
picture source : www.loanspeed.com This seems to me worth remarking on and even worth celebrating a bit. I know this is still a very low score (-18%). Although bear in mind that consumer confidence has not been positive for a very long time, in fact since 2005. And it is…
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Is a lazy streak essential for visionary leadership?
We are all familiar with segmentation quadrants. Some are based on consumer habits from say TGI which tend to fall into demographic quadrants like older; younger; better off; less well off. Others are based on the life of a brand as in gaining share; losing share; niche; mass. We use…
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Sharing is caring
When I became a working mother for the first time I radically altered my views on work/life balance. Up until that time I tended to work hard, but then cut off from work after I left the office. As soon as I had children I realised that as a mum…
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Reality versus fiction – where are the boundaries now?
PD James, the crime writer, is 90 years old this month. Interviewed on the BBC she commented that society had changed so much in her lifetime that she sometimes thought that reality today was something she’d invented in her fiction. (www.news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8879000/8879894.stm) I know what she means. Technology moves so quickly…
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What is the Future of Work?
MediaCom Career’s conference earlier this month took this as its key topic.. not a small one obviously. The speakers throughout the afternoon ranged from the futuristic (Rhys from MediaCom is still buzzing from the CES in Vegas earlier this year and sees the world in 3d) to the philosophical (Alain…
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Fatigue of the familiar – or you can just flog a dead horse so much
Fatigue of the familiar – or you can just flog a dead horse so much There was a recent cartoon in Private Eye that in the first panel said “Big Brother is watching you” and in the second panel said “You is not watching Big Brother ”…
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20 years – makes a planner think….
20 years – makes a planner think…. I’ve worked for (essentially) the same company for 20 years this month. That’s when I started working with Steve Allan (now global CEO of MediaCom but new business director of TMB back then). Of course the company I…
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Will the internet make us more generous and curious?
On a recent episode of Radio 4’s Infinite Monkey Cage (a humorous science show) Alan Moore – renowned graphic artist and author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta – described a comic strip by Stephen Collins (http://www.collinscomics.com/). A stranger approaches a fortress. He knocks at the gate and asks to…
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Freedom of speech is written into the American Constitution, but apparently freedom to contradict your boss is less enshrined.
President Obama sacked his US military commander in Afghanistan after he was reported in Rolling Stone magazine criticising the administration. Although General Stanley McChrystal apologised publically saying “it was a mistake reflecting poor judgement”, Obama has fired him anyway on the basis that as Commander in Chief he will not…
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To desert the ship or their quarters in battle, was punished with death or marooning
This is one of the pirate articles or rules of behaviour set down in 1720 by the famous Welsh pirate Bartholomew Roberts (pictured above). You can read more about him at ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_code#Bartholomew_Roberts.27_articles). Adam Morgan – who coined the terminology of brand challenger behaviour, uses the pirate articles as a…
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Is Deal or No Deal the best education?
It is really difficult to learn from experience. Whether that experience is a good or a bad one, whether its personal or at work. The reason it is so hard is down to “hindsight bias”. This is the very human instinct to justify what has just happened to you (good…
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England winning the world cup won’t make you happy.
You might be surprised to know that one of my favourite consumer magazines is football monthly When Saturday Comes. Not because I am a particular fan of football (I don’t mind it when it is on), not because it is the best source of footballing analogies which are ever useful…
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