“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out; but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”

 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Author of “On Death and Dying”

 How Gladwell Does It (and you can, too!) 

“Marketing with content” is the prevailing norm today…but one writer says it’s not enough and suggests we look at the work of the perennially successful Malcolm Gladwell, whose approach to “content” starts where most leave off. Find out why your company may be following “the single worst piece of marketing advice”

A Dozen Kinds of Stupid

In the movie “Forrest Gump” the phrase “Stupid is as stupid does” recurred throughout the movie. Marketing guru Seth Godin turns this on its head and suggests that “stupid is something we do, not something we are.” Psychologists tell us there are many kinds of intelligence. Godin suggests that there are at least a dozen variations on stupid. That’s the bad news. The good news? We don’t have to choose them!

Amazon’s Next Amazon

Most people first came to know Amazon first as a purveyor of books …and then just about everything else. But many are not aware of the extent of Amazon as a provider of cloud computing services; nor how far along it is to becoming a monopoly according  Robert X. Cringely’s  technology blog, “I, Cringely.”

The former columnist for PC World and PBS Technology Guru offers a brief but illuminating summary of Amazon’s efforts to dominate the cloud. To some degree we’ll all be living in the cloud for both our personal and business computing activities, if we’re not already. This is a great business case study with lessons for all…and it will no doubt affect all of us. Take a few minutes to become educated on ‘Amazon’s next Amazon’….. a monopoly being born.

Econ Recon

Light the Candle!: Friday’s jobs report surged over 271,000 bringing the unemployment rate to 5%…the stock market is once again knocking on the door of 18,000 on the Dow (after dropping to 15,666 in August). Economist Brian Wesbury compares the economy and the stock market to a quote from an astronaut waiting on the launch pad:  “Light this Candle”!

Automation Fables: The concept of productivity is absolutely fundamental to understanding economics; automation must figure prominently in any discussion thereof. Many believe that increasing automation will result in mass unemployment; optimists see technological progress as ultimately creating more jobs than are admittedly destroyed.

The late, great Peter Drucker sees a middle way to the above extremes in a recap of his thought on the topic of automation by a presenter at the seventh annual Drucker Forum. As to personal productivity, you’ve heard that the “internet of things”(IOT) will become so ubiquitous as to be invisible; it will be in all devices everywhere. It will also be with you in the workplace.  This Fast Company article looks at how IOT will change YOUR  life at work.