George Bernard Shaw no doubt said many wise things in his life but unfortunately it is a stupid phrase from Man and Superman which has stood the test of time. I refer, of course to “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” The problem with this phrase is that…
The problem with market research is that it attempts to find out what the customer wants, but the customer can only answer based on experience. As such, the answer to the question is market research really effective to find solutions in an innovative world is no. We have already looked…
For most organisations the necessity to have people working in the old way of turning up at a certain hour, doing work for a certain number of hours and then going home at a certain hour has gone. This is even true in many areas of manufacturing where prior to…
David Allen the author of Getting Things Done famously said “your mind is for having ideas, not holding them” and this is how to effectively use Evernote to solve that problem. During the day (and often at night as well) we are bombarded by ideas, some useful, some just interesting…
We have / are all guilty of it. The six and seven day working week, the 50, 60, 70 or more hour week. The funny thing is that if you ask almost anyone to describe to you the Law Of Diminishing Returns they will be able to do it. The…
It’s important to understand what your customer really wants and not what they say they want or even worse what you think they want. Take books for example. I am a huge fan e-readers. For me, my Kindle is just about perfect. It’s small enough to carry anywhere with a…
Nearly everyone you meet will describe themselves as busy or too busy, but business is not the objective. What we want is the most effective way to get the work done in order to achieve our objective. That’s why deep work is effective work. In his book entitled Deep Work:…
The days of being a big fish in a small local pond are gone, never to return. Whether as individuals or organisations our competition is worldwide thanks to the joy of the internet. If I want to buy goods then suppliers across the world are just a click away. When…
Getting more customers is easy. Just cut prices until people buy from you because you are the cheapest. Many businesses use this as a strategy and it works so long as you keep in mind two things. Firstly, there will always be someone cheaper than you. How many times have…
I’m a huge fan of zero inbox email. Also, when used effectively I’m a great fan of email, but email efficiency is not the same as email effectiveness. Let me explain. In the past, I have been guilty of worshiping the great god of email efficiency. Email efficiency involves quickly…