As faith in our old institutions (government, church, community, commerce, the university, etc) dissipate, we reach out for new certainties, or at least, new pleasures. | Continue reading
The technology you use (and Microsoft’s technology will be world-class and cutting edge) will only be as good as the people, the culture that it’s built on. | Continue reading
According to Sigmund Freud, love and work are the cornerstones of our humanity. Too often, however, those cornerstones shift shape and are ill-fitting. One feels too much, the other not enough. As a result, the whole edifice of our life feels out of balance. | Continue reading
But for all its promise, it never quite got the mass usage down. Instead of being for everyone, it ended up being more for the audience-seeking crowd. | Continue reading
Ideally, *Te* manifests itself when one’s thoughts, words, and actions are in harmony i.e. when you think, say or do something, there’s no disconnect. | Continue reading
A bird is flying around and gets blown by the wind. He doesn’t know why. | Continue reading
“The Gordian Knot.”It was allegedly so complicated, they even had a prophesy that whoever managed to untie it would one day go on to rule of all of Asia. | Continue reading
There’s an inherent tension at the very center of the creative, productive life. | Continue reading
Trust is the main currency of civilization. Without it, Rome burns. | Continue reading
A guy was charged with the task of increasing a toothpaste brand’s sales by 25%. If he succeeded, he’d make a fortune. | Continue reading
Shareholder primacy has been a basic premise of corporate governance since the creation of the concept. Corporations have always been obligated to serve the interests of their shareholders above any other stakeholder. | Continue reading
Over the last five years or so, I’ve had the chance to work on lots of different types of communication both inside and outside of Microsoft. It’s been a brilliant journey, watching how communications, when done well, can affect the culture of a company so positively | Continue reading
To be successful is a lot more work than people think, and often, the juice may not be with the squeeze. | Continue reading
Caesar had a secret ingredient. He loved his men. He had a deep, personal connection with them. It was real, it wasn’t faked, and his men knew it. | Continue reading
Whenever a company “pivots”, they see it as a sign of failure. | Continue reading
Technology has fulfilled many promises from connecting the world, enabling transparency to increase the speed of otherwise slow processes | Continue reading
“Constructivism” is a theory of learning, where the brain creates new mental models in order to handle new data and solve problems. | Continue reading
In other words, stop waiting for some magical being to come along and make your life work out. Stop waiting for your life to turn into a fairy tale. | Continue reading
Out of fear may come comfort, but also out of fear often comes a sense of unfulfillment. | Continue reading
The battle between free-will and determinism is not one that is customarily associated with the marketing or communications industry. Thankfully, it’s more often played out in great art. | Continue reading
It tells us a story as old as time. That whatever culture you belong to (business culture, startup culture, political culture, music culture, etc), there will always be the constant pressure to revert to the mean. | Continue reading
We live in a society that mostly rewards innovation over everything else. Certainly, the stock market would concur. | Continue reading
‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’, as they say. So passeth the glory of the world. Nothing lasts forever, nobody is irreplaceable, not even Jony. | Continue reading
If your life isn’t moving in the direction you want it to go, or if you feel overwhelmed by everything on your plate, then this article is for you.You can apply the methods in this article and see immediate results. | Continue reading
That’s the first thing you notice when you leave college. Suddenly nobody has any time anymore. Especially you. | Continue reading
He starts off promisingly enough- an idealist, an A-List aristocrat, good looking, smart, a father, a husband, a loyal friend, a dashing young officer in the Russian Army, loved and admired by everyone who knows him. | Continue reading
A company that’s seen as ahead of the curve does better with investors than one as seen as behind the times, obviously. Nobody pays top dollar for yesterday’s news. | Continue reading
In any meaningful conversation, where what’s said and what’s heard is equally important on all sides, the truth is rarely heard simply as stated. | Continue reading
What is a superboss? It’s not that they are giants themselves (which they are), but that they hire other giants as well. | Continue reading
The Roman army had three layers: the legionnaires (the rank and file), the centurions (junior officers), and the generals (senior officers). | Continue reading
In Viking times, when young men reached that awkward stage (too old to be a kid, but still too weak to fulfill the duties of manhood), they let them tend the fires in the longhouse | Continue reading
It's always interesting to see how norms change, and how behavior, at scale shifts over time. Here is a story about the ad industry that caught our attention. | Continue reading
Just because folk like us are using say, Amazon more often, doesn’t mean our need for human contact has lessened. To quote Deb Schultz, “Technology changes, people don’t”. | Continue reading
It’s a funny thing about disruptive technology.Sometimes the tech isn’t actually that disruptive. | Continue reading
Let’s assume your company’s product or service is world-class. (NB. our friend Seth Godin thinks there’s no point being in business unless it is, the world is JUST too competitive now) | Continue reading
For the last couple of decades, preventative medicine has been an increasingly big deal. Long-term, it’s much cheaper to stay healthy than it is to get sick. | Continue reading
At some point in our work lives, many of us will find ourselves in the wrong job. Specific fault can be difficult (and likely futile) to assign. | Continue reading
That when you’re trying to manage yourself better, trying to reach a higher point in your own self, it’s nothing new. | Continue reading
Most people reading this will want to be happy and successful, however you wish to define it. Fair enough. | Continue reading
Companies have both “ideals” (prescriptions for how people ought to behave), and what are called “norms” (how people actually behave). | Continue reading
Whether we were making a child smile, or helping out a tourist with directions, or helping an unemployed friend out with the rent, doing something for others is what really made us truly, meaningfully, sustainably happy at a biological level. | Continue reading
Having a strong company culture is certainly a competitive advantage (to paraphrase Napoleon again, good morale is worth fifty thousand men | Continue reading
Culture is key to corporate results. It is what delivers a great product, optimized operations, and powerful marketing. It is the operating system of your business. | Continue reading
Napoleon said it best, to paraphrase: “I can always recapture lost territory. A single second of time, however, never.” | Continue reading
The space between us is the space where leadership and marketing efforts alike need to focus. | Continue reading
Nowadays, pretty much everyone works on a computer, at least part of the time. If not 100% saturation, it’s pretty darn close. Even if you don't have an "office job". | Continue reading
Here’s a question every boss needs to answer:Are you hiring workers, or are you hiring leaders? | Continue reading
Why this policy? Because Ronnie believes that too many flavors ruin the pizza, turns the pizza to gastronomic mush. But one or two toppings are fine. | Continue reading