Boxes and Arrows

JULY 2, 2013

'Back in Part 1 , we looked at how the emotions expressed by people and products communicate personality traits over time. We also learned that customers are attracted to things that have an aesthetic personality that’s similar to their own, 1 but they prefer products that take on a complementary role during interaction. 2. In Part 2, we’ll look at how relationships are formed when people interact with products over time, and we’ll explore how people experience the emotion of “love.

Design 95

Design Examples Learning Marketing 95

Bill Fischer

JULY 4, 2013

'The future has often been built by those who are a bit out ahead of the rest of us; not afraid to dream, and perseverant enough to ensure that their dreams are realized. In the process, we all move forward as well. This is how change occurs, and this has been particularly well-illustrated in the accomplishment of man''s dreams of flying, as seen in the successes of such larger than life characters as: the Wright brothers; Billy Mitchell; Eddie Rickenbacker; Frenchman Louis Blériot (1872-1936,

Change 90

Change Company 90

Xplaner

JULY 6, 2013

'Connected Company webcast for O’Reilly media. From the description of the webcast: “It’s getting more and more difficult for companies to handle complexity: increasing customer demands for more customization, more convenience, lower costs and faster innovation. At some point the machine breaks down and companies just can’t handle it.

Company 44

Company Video Design Learning 44

Innovation Leader

JULY 24, 2013

Is there a duller environment than the typical airport gate? See how San Francisco-based Benefit Cosmetics is trying to shake things up with its new vending machines.

40

40

Speaker: Jady West, VP of Hospitality & Chris Bennett, Head of Sales & Engineering

The modern hotel room is no longer just a place to stay—it’s an experience to remember. Today’s guests expect seamless connectivity, personalized comfort, and high-tech convenience. From AI-powered smart room controls to keyless entry, in-room entertainment, and app-based services, technology is redefining hospitality from the inside out. In this new session featuring industry pros Jady West and Chris Bennett, we’ll explore how high-speed, high-bandwidth connectivity powers the innovations that

Innovation

Harvard Business Review

JULY 30, 2013

'Good writing: Businesses claim to practice it, support it, and value it. But more often than not, their money isn''t where their mouth is. Poor grammar and jargon-riddled writing are rampant. We''re great at inventing terms — the instruction manual for my toaster refers to the lever that pops up the toast as the ''Extra-Lift Carriage Control Lever'' — but poor at communicating what we actually mean.

Handbook 15

Handbook Company Software Engineering Tips 15

CorporateIntel

JULY 8, 2013

In the Executive Coaching Workshop I co-lead with John Vercelli for Coaches Training Institute , we discuss early in the curriculum the pervasive epidemic of Bad Boss Syndrome. It is jaw-dropping how many employees reflect on the lack of leadership and vision they receive from those who manage them, how starved they are for inspiration, and how little it takes to turn a bad day into a good day.

Leadership 40

Leadership Training Survey Management 40

Innovation Leader

JULY 18, 2013

Nicolas Petitjean talks about DBApparel Group's "extra light" structure for managing innovation, his budget, and the challenge of creating a true culture of innovation.

Innovation 40

Innovation Culture of Innovation Culture Groups 40

Xplaner

JULY 6, 2013

Connected Company webcast for O’Reilly media. From the description of the webcast: “It’s getting more and more difficult for companies to handle complexity: increasing customer demands for more customization, more convenience, lower costs and faster innovation. At some point the machine breaks down and companies just can’t handle it.

Company 40

Company Design Learning Innovation 40

Harvard Business Review

JULY 29, 2013

'"I want your help developing my direct reports into stronger leaders," John* the new CEO of Fasseni, a $350 million technology company, told me several years ago. Initially, I approached the request like any consultant might. First, I asked John why he wanted my help. He told me that Fasseni had stagnated. They had been hovering around the same revenue point for years and their competitors were gaining market share.

Underperforming Technical Team 15

Underperforming Technical Team Leadership Report Meeting 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 8, 2013

'We need a new generation of leaders. And we need it now. We''re in the midst of a Great Dereliction — a historic failure of leadership, precisely when we need it most. Hence it''s difficult, looking around, to even remember what leadership is. We''re surrounded by people who are expert at winning — elections, deals, titles, bonuses, bailouts, profit.

Leadership 15

Leadership System Examples Change 15

Speaker: Kevin Burke, Founder & Managing Director at Digital One and AI & Automation Consultant

AI and automation are currently transforming the way sales and marketing teams operate. Generative AI crafts personalized outreach at scale, while conversational AI bots are engaging prospects in real time. Robotic process automation streamlines manual workflows by triggering tasks the moment a prospect takes a key action, and advanced AI analytics surface hidden patterns in the pipeline, improve forecasting, and help teams make data-driven decisions with confidence.

Marketing

Harvard Business Review

JULY 4, 2013

'Among men of high economic status, the greater the self-reported circumference of the flexed bicep, the greater the opposition (on average) to measures that would redistribute wealth to the poor. But among men with low economic status, bicep circumference is associated with greater support for such measures, says a team led by Michael Bang Petersen of Aarhus University in Denmark.

Report 15

Report Study 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 11, 2013

'It''s dismaying how easy it is to screw up college. I don''t know exactly when, why, or how it happened, but important things are breaking down in the US higher education system. Whether or not this system is in danger of collapsing it feels like it''s losing its way, and failing in its mission of developing the citizens and workers we need in the 21st century.

Study 15

Study Competition Learning System 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 1, 2013

'Research participants were nearly twice as likely to give the correct response to a complex decision-making problem if they were distracted by a simple three-minute number-matching task before being asked for their answers, says a team led by Marlène Abadie of the University of Toulouse in France. A more-demanding distraction had no such effect: Participants had a 75% chance of giving the right answer after the easy task, but just a 40% chance after a tougher task or if there was no distractor

15

15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 26, 2013

'Virginia was ready to pull out her hair. Why wasn''t anyone responding to her email? As the director of training for a global professional services firm, she''d recently sent out a note explaining important changes to the summer training schedule and asking office directors to respond with their preferred locations. But only a few had done so. Training was a huge priority for her firm, so why were they ignoring her request?

Training 15

Training Collaboration Groups Competition 15

Speaker: Jason Cottrell and Gireesh Sahukar

Retailers know the clock is ticking–legacy SAP Commerce support ends in 2026. Legacy platforms are becoming a liability burdened by complexity, rigidity, and mounting operational costs. But modernization isn’t just about swapping out systems, it’s about preparing for a future shaped by real-time interactions, AI powered buying assistants, and flexible commerce architecture.

Roadmap

Harvard Business Review

JULY 15, 2013

'Imagine crafting a sustainable career for yourself. Year after year, you perform work that makes full use of your skills and challenges you to develop new ones. Your work not only interests you, it gives you a sense of meaning. You enjoy opportunities for learning and development. You work with people who energize you. You are confident that your skills and competencies make you valuable and marketable and that you can access opportunities through your network.

Industry 15

Industry Learning Marketing Management 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 12, 2013

'Even a brief interaction can change the way people think about themselves, their leaders, and the future. Each of those many connections you make has the potential to become a high point or a low point in someone''s day. Each is a chance to transform an ordinary moment into a touchpoint. What is a touchpoint? A touchpoint is an interaction with one other person, a couple of people, or a group that can last a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, or a couple of days.

Groups 15

Groups LEAN Management Policies 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 24, 2013

'It''s now been about six weeks since all Yahoo! employees had to start showing up at the Internet giant''s offices every day. The company-confidential but widely circulated memo that banned telecommuting stressed the importance of physical proximity for preserving the creative culture that new CEO Marissa Mayer had been trying to build. Many commentators criticized Mayer for limiting her employees'' autonomy and signaling that she didn''t trust them.

Survey 15

Survey Study Creativity Report 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 23, 2013

'When most organizations try to increase their innovation efforts, they always seem to start from the same assumption: "we need more ideas." They''ll start talking about the need to "think outside the box" or "blue sky" thinking in order to find a few ideas that can turn into viable new products or systems. However, in most organizations, innovation isn''t hampered by a lack of ideas, but rather a lack of noticing the good ideas already there.

Underperforming Technical Team 15

Underperforming Technical Team Innovation Creativity Groups 15

Speaker: Yohan Lobo and Dennis Street

In the accounting world, staying ahead means embracing the tools that allow you to work smarter, not harder. Outdated processes and disconnected systems can hold your organization back, but the right technologies can help you streamline operations, boost productivity, and improve client delivery. Dive into the strategies and innovations transforming accounting practices.

Generative AI

Harvard Business Review

JULY 30, 2013

'One of the most common complaints senior executives have about disruptive innovation is its seemingly snail-like pace. How is it, they wonder, that it takes us forever to pursue ideas that promise to create new markets when the world seems to be innovating at a dizzying pace? This frustration is compounded by the fact that the usual levers senior executives use to get things to go faster — creating tight deadlines, flooding the project with resources, checking in more frequently — d

Innovation 15

Innovation Technical Review Disruption Resources 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 31, 2013

'Throughout our careers and lives, the big decisions we have to make usually lead back to a single, overriding concern: What really makes me happy? Too often we try to answer these questions without knowing or understanding the real data from our lives. Our self-analysis devolves into speculation or wishful thinking. Over the past month or so, I''ve been collaborating with Harvard Business Review to develop a quick self-test to determine individual readiness for understanding your own data throu

Analysis 15

Analysis Exercises Data Technical Review 15

Harvard Business Review

JULY 10, 2013

'The topic in the Executive Committee meeting turned to Europe. The technology company, Alentix*, was doing well and growing annually at the rate of about 15%. But its European division was struggling. It had been five years since the region turned a profit. Yet no one had addressed that issue. Jean, the head of the Europe office, had been with the company longer than anyone else around the table — he had strong ties with the board — and the topic seemed untouchable.

Leadership 14

Leadership Underperforming Technical Team Meeting Training 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 22, 2013

'It''s tough to find examples of successfully challenging the boss, even tougher to find stories of leaders who specifically ask to be challenged. The most common is a tale of Alfred P. Sloan at General Motors. During a meeting in which GM''s top management team was considering a weighty decision, Sloan closed the meeting by asking." "Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here?

Underperforming Technical Team 14

Underperforming Technical Team Brainstorming Innovation Policies 14

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Innovation

Harvard Business Review

JULY 18, 2013

'McDonald''s and Walmart, the two biggest private-sector employers in the U.S., don''t pay their workers much. This more or less eternal truth is making one of its increasingly frequent appearances in the news this week. McDonald''s is catching flak for a " sample monthly budget " for employees that sets aside $20 a month for health insurance and no money at all for heat.

Comparison 14

Comparison Marketing Analysis Trends 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 9, 2013

'Many people seem to feel that if the market can''t offer them a brilliant job, there''s not much point looking. But you don''t need a perfect job. Every job is a compromise between what you want to get out of life and what an employer wants to get out of you. Keeping this reality in mind will help you challenge perfection-focused thinking and increase your options.

Marketing 14

Marketing Meeting Learning Strategy 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 16, 2013

'UX, as user experience is known, is the new black in business culture. Most of the executives I meet with, regardless of their industry, now promote UX as key to their product strategy. That''s a big change from only five years ago, when UX wasn''t on anyone''s radar outside the tech world. For a designer like myself, it''s easy to recognize which executives know their products intimately, and which manage from a spreadsheet.

Leadership 14

Leadership Design Product Development LEAN 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 5, 2013

'In her recent HBR article " Transient Advantage ," Rita Gunther McGrath describes how "fast and roughly right decision making will replace deliberations that are precise and slow." While most leaders couldn''t agree more, the challenge is how ? How do you know the difference between "roughly right" and "not at all right"? And just how much time can elapse before "fast and roughly right" becomes "precise and slow?

Exercises 14

Exercises Software Competition Meeting 14

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Incorporating generative AI (gen AI) into your sales process can speed up your wins through improved efficiency, personalized customer interactions, and better informed decision- making. Gen AI is a game changer for busy salespeople and can reduce time-consuming tasks, such as customer research, note-taking, and writing emails, and provide insightful data analysis and recommendations.

Generative AI

Harvard Business Review

JULY 15, 2013

'Does your team have a difficult time making decisions that everyone supports? If so, you may be suffering from a lack of curiosity. Try this: Next time you''re in a team meeting, count the number of times you make a statement and the number of times you ask a question. If you''re like most team leaders, you''ll find that you make many more statements than ask questions and some of the questions you ask aren''t really questions.

Meeting 14

Meeting Learning Project Collaboration 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 4, 2013

'There''s been no shortage of media coverage on Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the past year. Universities have touted the value of free on-line courses offered to millions of learners from all walks of life. Some MOOC critics have argued that the "MOOC revolution" has been characterized by the Gartner Hype Cycle and that 2012, the Year of the MOOC , has given way to a new trough of disillusionment.

Course 14

Course Case Study Creativity Strategy 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 31, 2013

'There are conversations taking place about your company or brand 24 hours a day, seven days a week in social media. Are you a part of these conversations? Or are you hoping that if you don''t hear them, they don''t exist? Social media offers a variety of opportunities for brands to understand and participate in those conversations. While participating in social media is not without risk, not participating might prove to be the greater risk — especially to reputations.

Technical Review 14

Technical Review Meeting Engagement Data 14

Harvard Business Review

JULY 1, 2013

'When I made the transition two years ago from working with a 100 year-old organization — one I had called home for almost eight years — to working with companies sometimes less than 100 hours old, I assumed I would see tremendous differences. In my early career, I had experienced the textbook definition of outdated management thinking that centered on hierarchy and lack of trust.

Handbook 14

Handbook Policies Culture Entrepreneurship 14

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