Business and Life: Trends

What else is there?

Curated Brands

Curated Brands Posted on June 7, 2013 by kathrynatkins When is a post not a post? Hah. This post popped up on Twitter, but has yet to drop here.  It’s a mystery. Here it is today in my blog, and I hope it’s not a repeat for my followers. Until now,  I did not tend to […]

To achieve

To achieve great things, two things are needed: A plan and not quite enough time. ~ Leonard Bernstein I heard this Bernstein quote yesterday, but it didn’t sink in until the subconscious pulled it up to conscious. It’s plain awesome that this great American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer and pianist knew the value of […]

Tesla Motors, Autopilot Cars, You, Me, and Them

  For starters, if you want to find out more about Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, head over to the TED Talk for a recent interview. Otherwise, stand back to witness the future unfold before your very eyes.   I hear you from all the way over here in my blog […]

IBM makes a movie!

Did you read that IBM has made a movie? It’s called “A Boy and His Atom” and it’s a 90-second tribute to science, creativity,  and (re)invention. IBM was the lumbering pachyderm star from the book Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. written over eleven years ago now. The book was a […]

Publish… or Perish

Paul Nicklen, photographer for National Geographic, states in his TED talk of March 2011 that National Geographic reminds him quite frequently, “We publish pictures not excuses.” As business people, we can only sell our products, not excuses. We can only sell our services, not excuses.   The growth and survival of our companies depend on […]

Plan B

What is a Plan B, besides a morning after pill? It’s a backup. It’s the spare tire. It’s what you should have behind your Plan A. Plan B’s are scary because we rarely even have a Plan A.  Why not? Companies usually have Plan A’s. Or Plans. Do they have Plan B’s? Shouldn’t they? What […]

Mismatched Socks and Marketing

It might have started with Helena Bonham Carter (HBC) at the 2011 Golden Globes. OR before. HBC rocked the fashion world by wearing OMG mismatched shoes!  Clearly on purpose, she chose one gray, and one red.  Not to be confused with the time I went to work with one navy blue, and one black leather […]

Big Brother Google

Did you catch the allusion to  George Orwell’s 1984? Here we are, almost 30 years later, and the novel’s themes sniff at our heels. Someone or something is controlling what we see and hear. Does it concern you that what you see and what I see are entirely different? Big Brother Google, in its best […]

Tribes

I love the notion of tribes.  It’s a gut-level ancestral haul back to ancient times. It’s also hot right now.  Seth Godin, marketer extraordinaire, extols tribes as key to effective marketing. We all want to belong, fit in, be a part of. David Logan, co-author of Tribal Leadership and The Three Laws of Performance, breaks […]

User Experience UX/Customer Experience CX

Some people argue that UX and CX are different. I don’t think so really. Whichever you call it, CX and UX may be the latest rage, but they are not new. It was called customer-centered business back in the 50s(!) as “invented” by Peter Drucker.  They called it TQM (Total Quality Management) or Six Sigma […]