Archive for April, 2008

Secret Simple.ology

Friday, April 18th, 2008

First there was The Secret that created a massive worldwide following in the area of success / destiny mashup. What used to be a series of isolated personal development movements can now be aggregated into a single offering for a much greater impact. It is happening on YouTube (who thought running into fences can be a national pastime by now?) and it is happening across all content types. The interesting thing is the massive co-authoring of these ideas (The Secret had dozens of virtual contributors) is becoming similar to the open source movement. So here comes yet another idea - Simple.ology that already has more online spinoffs than its Amazon sales would indicate. This time it is the linkage between personal improvement, Getting Things Done and wealth creation that brings three evergreen bestselling topics together.

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The value proposition of the story is attractive: Most people have great ideas but how do you actually follow up and deliver on your dreams and do it half the time… The online community has been very active on this ever since it came out in a book form. The book is great read despite the usual skepticism that creeps in when you are reminded of things. More than once. Persistently. We all know the basics:

  • Set goals you are passionate about
  • Take action every day towards them
  • Always do what you say you'll do

Maybe Simple.ology can motivate us to do more of what we know we should do.

Technorati Tags: GTD, Simpleology, success, wealth

Growth and Efficiency Cycles

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

It is interesting to watch how companies go through growth and efficiency cycles and how that changes behavior internally. In many companies big ticket projects have a lot of financial scrutiny in times where efficiency (cost reduction) is king and secondary when the company is in a growth mode and many initiatives become "strategic". Most managers tend to hold off on their pet projects until growth times instead of facing the scrutiny of the CFO when all spend is being monitored. In recent years many industries experienced great growth, massive investment in infrastructure is taking place and huge structure changes are shaping up from industry consolidation to international expansion. The economy is on a tear. This was visible in metals, oil & gas, real estate, telecom and others. Many of these projects have the strategic intent of the CEO behind them as their main fuel. Most will not be great investments. As this holds true in entire economies and it certainly is visible in companies. Corrections will happen and tough questions get asked about value of past investments, returns or lack thereof. And the cycle continues. In my work I see companies in different industries co-exist where one is in a growth mode and one is in cost containment. Going from one meeting to another is like crossing some wormhole between parallel universes where each company would find the other's management totally out of touch with reality. One group launching projects one after another, integrating acquisitions while the other group is shutting down factories and downsizing. All in the same day. The same year. The same country.

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Technorati Tags: Acquisitions, Boom cycles, business growth, investments, business cycles, Strategic Planning