business901

Most people want ideas and applications that I would propose before we start working together. I equate that to starting on the right side of the A3 (with the answers in layman terms). So recently I have developed a structure that makes more sense. I leave the customer determine the price and budget for the encounter. I believe in creating a Lean Marketing system. You can’t write and teach Lean Sales and Marketing. It is a Learn by doing approach. What I do is provide you a platform for co... Read Full Story

“Man, they said we better Accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative Don’t mess with Mister In-Between No, do not mess with Mister In-Between Do you hear me, hmm?” The music was written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and it was published in 1944. You wonder why it has taken organizations this long to start considering this approach.  My podcast guest, Sara Orem , co-author of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change (Jossey-Bass... Read Full Story

The AT-ONE project headed by Simon Clatworthy at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design produced a set of service touch-point cards for the Nordic Service Design conference. I was curious about the cards and contacted Simon and he was kind enough to send a pack for me to review. To learn more about them, I encourage you to read Simon’s PDF on the subject: Service innovation through touch-points: the AT-ONE touch-point cards or watch his presentation: Service Innovation through touch... Read Full Story

In this weeks Business901 Podcast, my guest will be Sara Orem , co-author of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) . Our conversation centered on the Appreciative Inquiry approach. From Wikipedia: Appreciative Inquiry (sometimes shortened to "AI") is primarily an organizational development method which seeks to engage all levels of an organization (and often its customers and suppliers) to renew, change and improve performance. Its... Read Full Story

If anyone has followed this blog for anytime they know that Nancy Duarte is a favorite subject of mine. She passionately pursues the presentation development and design niche. Her two books, Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences and slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations are two of my most dog-eared marked up books that I own. My only disappointment is that I do not follow her advice more. In this TEDxEast video, Nancy draws lessons on how to make... Read Full Story

Value Stream Mapping has been a practice that was first introduced in the book Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Add Value and Eliminate MUDA by Mike Rother and John Shook. This groundbreaking workbook, which has introduced the value-stream mapping tool to thousands of people around the world, breaks down the important concepts of value-stream mapping into an easily grasped format. Dan Jones and Jim Womack followed that book with Seeing the Whole Value Stream which took the mapping... Read Full Story

Design Thinker, Arne van Oosterom, Partner at DesignThinkers in Amsterdam was my podcast guest recently. This is a transcription of the podcast. Arne is also a lecturer and chairman of the Service Design Network, Netherlands. He works with a broad range of associates around the world, and in a network allowing them to be extremely flexible to the customers’ demands and up to date with the latest design and design thinking methodologies. One of these latest design thinking methodologies is... Read Full Story

I am honored to be included on the same agenda with noted author, speaker, and lean pioneer Bill Waddell . On April 17th, Bill will be presenting Aligning the Entire Organization to Achieve the Sales Strategy . He   will show you how to devise a sales and marketing strategy built around creating the most value for your customers; how to set prices strategically, rather than on the basis of standard costs, assuring that prices will not cause you to lose a sale. We will align the entire... Read Full Story

My initial interest for this podcast was the perspective of Design from an Architect’s viewpoint. How does it differ from an industrial engineer or even an industrial designer, or other Design fields such as marketing? What makes an architect thought process different? I was surprised not in the answers that I received from my guest, Zachary Evans , an architect and partner at Kelty Tappy Design, Inc . What did surprise me is the lens that they looked at things. In musical terms, they were... Read Full Story

We accept that Architects have an ability to design pleasing structures. I feel another part of their repertoire is equally as important; It is the ability to visualize the change needed between current and the future state and to successfully chart the path for evolving to it. You may believe that these traits are common in organizations through engineering, project management and operations but Architects do it a different way. They do it through the lens of design. How do Architects... Read Full Story