| The Dumbest Idea In The World: Maximizing Shareholder Value and M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All |
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Imagine an NFL coach, writes Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, in his important new book, Fixing the Game, holding a press conference on Wednesday to announce that he predicts a win by 9 points on Sunday, and that bettors should recognize that the current spread of 6 points is too low. Or picture the team(TM)s quarterback standing up in the postgame press conference and apologizing for having only won by 3 points when the final betting spread was 9 points in his team(TM)s favor. While it(TM)s laughable to imagine coaches or quarterbacks doing so, CEOs are expected to do both of these things.Imagine also, to extrapolate Martin(TM)s analogy, that the coach and his top assistants were hugely compensated, not on whether they won games, but rather by whether they covered the point spread. If they beat the point spread, they would receive massive bonuses. [Read the full article] Just as cloud computing is a game-changer for many companies, it is also changing the nature of jobs " not only within the information technology department, but in other parts of the enterprise as well.For senior-level executives, especially chief information officers, the changes reflect the more strategic role IT plays in the direction of businesses. For the business, it introduces more reliable and predictable supporting technology.For a long period of time, IT was in that Wild West mode, Greg Shields, partner and principal technologist with Concentrated Technology, recently told Jason Helmick of Interface Technical Training. We were making up the rules as we go. But companies and their IT leaders recognize that the best and most cost-effective solutions are those that may have been built and tested elsewhere. You don(TM)t grow your own food. You don(TM)t raise your own cows anymore for meat. [Read the full article] Treat yours customers as if they were newspapers reporters; this is the new mantra for savvy companies of all sizes.As consumers, we’ve become disenchanted with advertising and marketing of all sorts, having being duped, tricked or made to feel foolish on more than one occasion. The last true medium that holds sway is referrals from friends, colleagues, or online reviews from the likes of Yelp, AngiesList or TripAdvisor. According to a survey by the American Marketing Association, 90 percent of consumers trust peer reviews and 70 percent trust online reviews. It’s the last, true, medium that many consumers turn to when faced when inundated with choice, and confused by similar-sounding sales pitches.Perhaps it is because reviews are the last sacred ground, that a flurry of outrage spread like wildfire across the Internet when news leaked that Reverb Communications (a PR agency) was paying interns to write positive reviews on iTunes for their clients Apps. [Read the full article] 
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