Traditional consulting is being pressed to offer a meaningful fresh face to its added value. * It’s now almost assumed that creative ideas are what consultants are good at. Clients are no longer excited by mere “idea mills” churning out brainstormed concepts. * The crippled economy, perennial corporate downsizings, and nonstop advances in technology have [...]

Tags: 360° implementation capability, basement creatives, brand-owning companies, crippled economy, displaced impromptu consultants, financial sector, gray matter, idea mills, impact of information technology and communication, manufacturers, perennial corporate downsizing, retailers, The leadership guru Warren Bennis, the value of information, Traditional consulting.

Deep economic transformations – and, we are surely in the middle of one today – shake up the very ingredients that go into a business profit formula. After a routine economic cycle bottoms, companies rebound to make money much the same way as they always did. But, in a watershed shakeup, those few survivor caterpillars [...]

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A big idea sets a fresh direction. A blockbuster idea is somewhat like a deep-space probe. You have no idea what you’ll hear back . . . where from . . . or when. But, a tiny, imaginative flicker on the screen could change the whole course of history. A big idea sets a fresh [...]

Tags: 7 Vital, Big Social Idea, blockbuster idea, Body Building, Burj Khalifa, Carl Sagan, clutch power, cyberspace, deep-space probe, democracy, Dubai, fresh direction, Golden Record, good foundation, high-potential solutions, incubated in the brain, intricate reasoning, label on the package, legions of people, lego, message board, organic, originators, positive energy, posting, provenance, real evolution, simon says, structural robustness, surface area, traction, vibrant ideas, Viral Traits, visual images.

Ideas go in and out of fashion.  Any fool knows that. A far more interesting premise: It’s not just ideas that lose their shine. A certain species of idea may be on the rise or decline. Through the twentieth century, thinkers specialized in A-to-Z idea packages that tied together a consolidated picture of something with [...]

Tags: A-to-Z idea packages, beta-testers, constellations, crowdsourcing, cyberspace, Denis Diderot, Emile Chartier, engaging platform, fashion, iPhone, Jimmy Wales, kaleidoscopic, Keynesian Economics, Larry Sanger, Longitude Prize, Microsoft, modern idea landscape, Nouvelle Cuisine, platinum-grade idea, police censors, political philosphies, simon says, Theory of Relativity, wikipedia, zone-defense football.

Several years ago, Steven Spielberg made a fetching film about the anti-hero con artist Frank Abagnale Jr. Titled Catch Me If You Can, it starred Leonardo Di Caprio. The consummate chameleon, Abagnale’s knack was once celebrated this way: “Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States Treasury, sign it [...]

Tags: anonymity, brand profiling, Catch Me If You Can, Einstein-Russell Mainfesto, Frank Abagnale Jr, identity theft, identity trashing, Leonardo DiCaprio, MENSA International, neutral zone, Nobel laureates, social networking, Steven Spielberg, U.R. Hooked, warrior pioneer.

A couple of weeks ago, Facebook streamlined the nearly 150 options for privacy controls for its 500 million participants. The inevitable step was yet another signal of a game change in our whirlwind romance with the Web. More and more options: How easy it is for systems designers to churn them out! How baffling it [...]

Tags: BBC, Bing, editorial eye, Facebook, Gaming, Google, New York Times, Personal filters, privacy controls, romance with the Web, Social Networks, University of Southern California.

When Copernicus reasoned the earth moved around the sun, he made some bold assumptions. It’s hard to match one for elegant simplicity: “Nothing prevents the earth from moving.” Many marketers have yet to reason that perceptively about consumers. Too often, they assume shoppers are sitting ducks. Well, literally nothing prevents today’s consumers from moving around [...]

Tags: be mobile, BtoB Buyer, call-to-action principles, decision-making tree, Demand Gen's, Googled, Marketing Dynamics, marketing icons, nomads, smart phone, Social Networks, Star Trek-style communicators.

An enticing lure in modern shopping – and you can bet, it will gain prominence – is offering customers the chance to design and personalize the products they really want. Will a top be monogrammed?  Embroidered?  Rhinestoned?  Beaded?  Or, studded with crystal lollipops?     It’s up to you. Sort of. The vision has arrived. We’re getting [...]

Tags: Build-A-Bear, customer-initiated design, customer-initiated world of design, Facebook, Intuit-and DO IT, Jeff Cole, templates for human interaction, The store of the future.

As a society, we’re doing a better job of managing the economics of a better life. That includes taking a sharper look at the price-tag when we want to splurge on upscale things. Reading labels with a gimlet eye has opened the floodgates for house brands and generics helping us to land better value for [...]

Tags: New York Times, Premium utility products, Seth Godin, Starbucks.

Living in NOW has its own very exacting economics. Focus is imperative to getting it right. You have to discriminate between what is important and what is not. This criterion is essential for small businesses wanting to connect with a changing marketplace and a capital pool that has badly evaporated. The NOW world is percolating [...]

Tags: Flip Video Camera, H&M, Ikea, timesharing.