Steve Jobs narrates the first “Think Different” Apple commercial “Here’s to the Crazy Ones”. It never aired.
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Tag: consulting
Too soon? WHEN someone dies it is cruel to make jokes at their expense immediately thereafter. However, not just any crackpot loony has the ability to single handedly plunge an entire nation into abject poverty. Well done Kim! Kim Jong Il, who passed away today (in case you missed the memo) will be fondly remembered along with other […]
MICHAEL Porter is the thought leader in the field of business strategy. He has single-handedly shaped the way in which the world’s top business leaders think about competitive strategy and success. And his concepts like “competitive advantage”, “value chain” and “five forces” form the bedrock for management thinking about complex business issues. Unfortunately, his frameworks are often bastardised, misused and […]
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Are you creating remarkable products?
REMARKABLE products are products that are worth making a remark about. Case in point, the latest version of the NAO humanoid robot. Earlier editions have been sold to researchers for more than $14,600. That being said, I only have one thing to say: “I want one”.
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We need you to lead us
You too can put a ding in the universe THERE are three simple steps to being a visionary leader. That’s it. Just three simple steps. To be a visionary leader, you need to: 1) Learn from everyone, 2) Follow no one, and 3) Look for patterns. So simple and easy to remember. Learn always, never […]
A picture says a thousand words BACK IN 1995, which country had the second highest 10 year government bond yield? As Europe’s third largest economy, Italy is too big to bail out. Past performance is not a predictor or future performance. However, if historical bond yields provide us with any insight about the Europe’s future, […]
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January 17th, 2012 #OWS
Things just escalated LEADERSHIP has been described as the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task (Chemers 1997). From a “theory of leadership” perspective, what is interesting about the Occupy Wall Street movement is the absence of any one […]
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US Unemployment Rate Drops: good news?
Recent improvements in the unemployment rate have come from people dropping out of labour force THE unemployment rate in the US has dipped to its lowest level in more than 2 years (source: NYT). Is this good news? Before answering this question, it would help to understand exactly how the US Bureau of Labor Statistics […]
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Monkey Economy
Monkeys learn to use money – what can we learn? ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR of Economics Keith Chen taught a bunch of monkeys to use money. What he discovered was that not only could the monkeys learn to understand the value of money and how to use it, they were also very good at changing their consumption behaviour […]
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Life moves pretty fast
Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it ~ Ferris Bueller THE FRENETIC pace of daily life in Ho Chi Minh City combined with incredible time lapse photography produce a short video that gives you pause for thought (hat tip to Mike Maier for the video). […]
RECENT falls in the officially reported US unemployment rate are an optimistic sign. That said, it is worth remembering that the official US unemployment rate (currently around 9.1%) systematically understates the “real” unemployment rate. This is not a new phenomenon, and occurs because of the particular way in which the US Bureau of Labor Statistics chooses […]
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Death to Pennies
Inflation erodes the value of real currency ECONOMISTS tend to favour a small positive rate of inflation, and there are 4 reasons why this makes sense: Labour market flexibility: inflation allows relative real wages to adjust even if nominal wages do not move. A company that tries to pay workers less money is likely to meet […]
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The Fed is Europe’s new dealer
Europe may not go to rehab before it is too late THE US Federal Reserve took steps yesterday to make it easier for European banks to borrow and lend dollars. The Fed is now providing such cheap money to Europe that the European Central Bank can borrow from the Fed at lower interest rates than American banks. The […]
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Europe: a house of cards
EUROPEAN leaders have tried to characterise the October writedown of Greek debt as “private-sector involvement”. While the writedown would appear to be a default in all but name, efforts to maintain investor confidence have so far been surprisingly successful. Yesterday, US stocks and Asian stocks rallied amid optimism that European leaders are taking steps to […]
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Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds
THE MARKETS have been temporarily buoyed amid optimism that European leaders will find a solution to the debt crisis. Unfortunately, the optimism is likely to be short lived because the problem with Greece is not just that they owe everyone a lot of money. Greek debt is a symptom of a more endemic problem rooted in the […]
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Helping the 99%
WITH the Occupy Wall Street movement still in full swing, we have to stop and think for a moment about the distribution of wealth in the world. One of the slogans of the Occupy Wall Street movement is “we are the 99%”, which is a reference to the fact that the top 1% of households […]
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Greek default in all but name
Whatever you say it is, it isn’t ~ Alfred Korzybski IN OCTOBER 2011, private banks accepted a 50% writedown on Greek debt. European leaders negotiated the writedown to avoid a technical default. It is surprising that ratings agencies did not classify the writedown as a default when you consider that S&P defines sovereign default as […]
ON WEDNESDAY November 23rd, an auction of German government bonds (known as “Bunds”) managed to sell only €3.6 billion out of a total €6 billion worth of Bunds on offer (source: Economist). Germany is one of the most financially stable countries in the Euro-zone, so its failure to sell all of its Bunds is worth […]
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The Hospital Bed Question
THE guesstimate question is a usual type of question that you can expect to be asked when interviewing for a position at a consulting firm. Here is one to test your mettle. The Hospital Bed Question The question is this: How many hospital beds are required in New York city to provide for all of its pregnant […]
IN THE WAKE of the global financial crisis, there has been a backlash against the mainstream school of economic thought, of which Greg Mankiw is a proponent. Mainstream economists did not predict the global financial crisis and notable commentators, including Steve Keen, single out the narrow minded and simplistic ideas put forward by mainstream economists as the […]
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Do you have an app?
Creating an app is not that hard, for a 12 year old DO YOU have an app? Well, do you? … Many leading companies have already jumped on the app-store bandwagon (e.g. New York Times, Twitter and Facebook) but most businesses can still confidently answer this question in the negative: “no apps here.” Given that the […]
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The Road Not Taken
Which path are you following? TWO ROADS diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better […]
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Steve Jobs – farewell
Trust that the dots will connect down the road, love what you do, and remember that you are going to die TODAY October 5th 2011, we received the sad news that Steve Jobs has departed. We are lucky to have lived during the same age as Steve Jobs, a man who has put a dent in the universe, […]
List of economic consulting firms in Hong Kong AECOM Arup Asia Risk FTI Consulting Gallup GHK Navigant 1. AECOM Website: www.aecom.com Address: AECOM 8/F, Tower 2, Grand Central Plaza, 138 Shatin Rural Committee Road, Shatin, N.T. Hong Kong Tel: +852 3922 9000 Founded in 1990, AECOM is headquartered in Los Angeles and also has offices […]
List of strategy consulting firms in London Accenture Alpha Financial Markets Consulting Alvarez & Marsal Applied Predictive Technologies Applied Value Group Arthur D. Little A.T. Kearney Bain & Company BearingPoint Booz & Company Boston Consulting Group BTS Cambridge Strategic Management Group Candesic Capgemini Cedar Management Consulting Celerant Consulting Deloitte Consulting Frost & Sullivan Global Intelligence […]
To be persuasive your pitch will need to contain the right building blocks EARLIER POSTS looked at the elevator pitch and tips for creating an effective pitch. The elevator pitch, as you may recall, is a high-level overview of whatever it is that you are selling and is designed to just get the conversation started. […]
List of strategy consulting firms in Hong Kong Accenture Alvarez & Marsal Applied Value Group A.T. Kearney Bain & Company Booz & Company Boston Consulting Group Deloitte Consulting Forum Corporation Global Intelligence Alliance Hay Group Hill & Knowlton IMS Health Kurt Salmon Associates Lippincott McKinsey & Company Monitor Group Navigant Consulting OC&C Strategy Consultants Oliver […]
Successful businesses use the Rule of Three to help them drive sales or raise awareness PREVIOUS posts looked at the Rule of Three, how you can improve your speeches with the Rule of Three, and a few amusing examples of where the Rule of Three has been used in comedy, storytelling, and the movies. This post provides […]
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The Three-Question Rule
“I Can’t Stand to Be Asked the Same Question Three Times” ~ Mustafa Part 1: The Rule of Three Part 2: Improve Your Speech Writing with The Rule of Three Part 3: The Three Question-Rule THE PREVIOUS two parts looked at The Rule of Three and how you can improve your speeches with The Rule of […]
The Rule of Three can make you more persuasive, memorable and entertaining Part 1: The Rule of Three Part 2: Improve Your Speech Writing with The Rule of Three Part 3: The Three Question-Rule EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION is a skill like any other, and the Rule of Three is a simple tool that you can start […]
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The Rule of Three
Omne Trium Perfectum – everything that comes in threes is perfect Part 1: The Rule of Three Part 2: Improve Your Speech Writing with The Rule of Three Part 3: The Three Question Rule OKAY, you may be thinking, what’s so special about the number 3? Good question. The “Rule of Three” is the name […]
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Who is responsible for your success?
THIS IS an important question because the answer will affect how you feel about yourself, how likely you are to persist in the face of set backs, and how much enjoyment you gain from the things you do. If you have read any of Seth Godin‘s work then you are probably familiar with the idea of the “linchpin”; […]
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Free Money Day
TOMORROW, SEPTEMBER 15th, at various public locations worldwide, people will hand out their own money to complete strangers, two coins or notes at a time, asking the recipients to pass one of these coins or notes on to someone else. The aim is to raise awareness and start conversations about the benefits of economies based […]
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How great are you?
If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don’t. If you like to win but think you can’t, It’s almost a cinch you won’t. If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost. For out in the world we find, Success begins with a fellow’s will. It’s all in the […]
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Hail to the bus driver man!
What do you want to do when you grow up? THIS is a tribute to those people whose actions make our lives possible. Think of an ordinary day of your typical city dwelling person. A school student, university student, office worker or senior citizen. It is very likely that they may need to go somewhere, […]
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Slow Dance
Are you dancing too fast? Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round, or listened to the rain slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight, or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You’d better slow down, don’t dance so fast, time is short, the music won’t last. Do you run through each […]
The Value GROW Model can be used to help people set and achieve goals 1. Background The Value GROW Model is an adaption of the traditional “GROW Model” – a framework used widely for coaching individuals to set and achieve goals. The traditional GROW Model has been used and popularised by various high profile coaches […]
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Biting Off More Than You Can Chew
12.50pm AUGUST 1st and I was trying to make plans for lunch (priority #1). No problem, I’ll just check my gmail account and use Google Maps to find the address. Gmail, Google Maps, Google.com, Google.com.au and Google.com.hk failed to respond (for at least 20 minutes). There is some chance that there is just a problem […]
This guest post is by Rob Ashton, chief executive of Emphasis – a business writing company that runs report-writing courses for consultants. No matter how knowledgeable you are as a consultant, you’re only as good as your last report. Meetings come and go, but reports last. You may meet five or ten people while on an assignment, […]
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To Whom It May Inspire: Persist
Good management consultants follow the scientific method A GOOD scientific experiment will follow 7 steps. The type of science can change: biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computing, management consulting – but the steps remain the same. 1. Aim Clarify the questions that the organisation is trying to answer: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How? For example, the organisation may […]
THERE MAY be a business school bubble for other people, but not for you. Whether you are buying into a bubble depends on whether the cost of what you are buying significantly exceeds its intrinsic value. For most assets, you can find the intrinsic value by looking at the expected return – the more money […]
THANKS to Wil for pointing us towards an interesting HBR article looking at The Business School Tuition Bubble. Is there a business school bubble? Almost certainly, and you can view a scary graph of the higher education bubble here.
TODAY MAY 1st 2011 (US time) the news of Osama bin Laden’s death circled the globe. According to the New York Times, Bin Laden was shot in the head when he resisted capture and his body was later buried at sea. And there was much rejoicing! Bin Laden’s death is a popular outcome for the US and its […]
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Relationships Matter
IN THE English-speaking world, we have issues when it comes to relationships. There is only one word for friend, which begs the question: “are you a friend, or aren’t you?” Facebook has helped us go some way towards solving this problem by providing a new class of friend, you can now have “real life friends” […]
THE advent of blogging during the late 1990s significantly lowered the barriers to entry in the publishing industry. Any person with a computer, a blogger account and a half baked idea could get into the industry, and they did. To shake things up further, the advent of blogging reduced the cost of distribution and the […]
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CEO U
BACK in 1997, Tom Peters talked about “Brand You“. Tom told us that big companies understand the importance of brands and that today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. This is absolutely true, but it is only part of the story. You are not a walking brand, you […]
Consultants make a god damn difference Teachers and consultants are alike in many ways, one of the more striking similarities is that great teachers and great consultants both make a god damn difference!
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Understanding the Competition
“Know your [competition], know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” ~ Sun Tzu YOU are running a company, advising companies or would one day like to be. A company needs to understand its competition, and here are 11 points to help you do that. 1. Identify the competition Who are the […]
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Finding Yourself
THIS post was initially going to be called “finding your competitive advantage”, but I think it goes further than that. Here are 8 factors to get you thinking, and to help find what you’re looking for: Why do you do what you do every day? What makes you tick? What do you believe in? These […]