Links for December 11 2011
- Five Common Strategy Mistakes by Joan Magretta on Harvard Business Review
Quote: But as important as it is to have insight into customers’ needs, don’t confuse marketing with strategy. What the marketing-only approach misses is that a robust strategy also requires a tailored value chain, a unique configuration of activities that best delivers that kind of value. This element of strategy is not at all intuitive, but it’s absolutely essential.
- Why I Hire People Who Fail by Jeff Stibel on Harvard Business Review
Quote: If we hadn’t hired people who cherish failures, my entries on the failure wall would be very lonely. Often when interviewing, I poke around and see if I can get the candidate to acknowledge a failure. It’s a red flag to me if a candidate can’t admit a mistake with a bit of self-deprecating humor. The tendency to dodge direct questions with a Miss America-style answer may indeed be a great asset to someone else’s company, but it’s not a great fit for success at mine.
- Make it Simple By Jennifer Doctor on On Product Management
Quote: In our world of developing products, we all too often look for elaborate solutions. And, worse yet, we put all too many features in our product hoping that it solves all the problems our market may face. What if we simply stepped back and tried to simplify our product instead of building it out to solve many of the world’s problems?
- The trap of social media noise by Seth Godin
Quote: The game theory pushes us into one of two directions: either be better at pump and dump than anyone else, get your numbers into the millions, outmass those that choose to use mass and always dance at the edge of spam (in which the number of those you offend or turn off forever keep increasing), or
- The Social CIO: Texas Health Builds a Knowledge Engine by Paul GIllin
Quote: For Ed Marx, openness to new ideas is a guiding principle. “If you want to expand your influence, you need to be open to other people’s ideas,” he says. “One is too small a number for greatness.”
- Thoughts On Economic Injustice In America by bclund
Quote: But let’s just say for a moment that we solved all the root problems that cause economic injustice; lack of personal responsibility would still be the issue that trumped them all.
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