Tag Archives: planning

February 28, 2014 · 9:46 am

Pickles And Pizza

At last it’s Foodie Friday Fun time.  Today I want to contemplate pickles and pizza and how they relate to your business.  I’m a fan of each of those foods although I will admit to being rather fussy about the latter.  That stuff they serve in a pan in Chicago isn’t pizza.  It’s good, but it’s not pizza.  I’m careful when I choose to eat one – thin crust, great sauce, and whatever I choose to put on it needs to be fresh and/or of high quality.  I’m less fussy about pickles although I don’t really care for sweet ones.

Since you’re already wondering about the business point it’s this.  Even if you got your perfect pizza and a jar of your favorite pickles, you probably wouldn’t put the pickles on the pizza.  I’m told that in some parts of the country people do but pickles are probably not the first pizza topping that comes to mind.  Business is like that.

We do our best to find the best ingredients – great staff, a fabulous product or service, a superior business model – but we don’t often think about if they’ll go together.  Moreover, there is a tendency that once you realize that you have pickles and pizza to panic.  Maybe even to start over.   I think that’s a mistake in many cases.  Am I advocating a pickle pizza?  No.  I do think, however, we need to broaden our thinking.  Pizza is basically a grilled cheese sandwich with the tomato soup in which they’re often dunked already on the sandwich.  You’d eat a pickle with that, right?

We can also think about the pickle.  One can pickle any vegetable pretty easily – pickling liquid is just a spiced brine, after all.  Why pickled cukes?  Maybe peppers – you have those on pizza all the time.  Or cabbage – kimchi is a pickle and I have seen that on pizza.  That’s how we need to think in business.  How can I change whatever frame of reference has my business not performing optimally?

Business isn’t about looking at pickles and pizza and throwing your hands up in disgust.  It’s about rethinking each piece  – dough, sauce, seasoning, pickle – and finding a way to make it work.  How can I make things or people or markets that just don’t seem to fit work together to make something in which the flavors mesh and everything is balanced?  That’s how I see it.  You?

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February 4, 2014 · 9:46 am

Yeah Yeah Yeah

It’s TunesDay, and today’s story has been a half century in the making.  It was 50 years ago this week that The Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan Show and the world changed.  For those of you who were watching that night (as I was), you know that’s not hyperbole.  It seems kind of quaint now, but here is how that change began:

We’d lost a president a few months before.  America was sort of depressed.  Four young men from Liverpool brought us out of our funk and showed the world that performers could also write their own material (something not very common in pop music to that point).  They were just as impactful off the stage.  Their press conferences were filled with laughs but also with pointed jabs at authority, setting the tone for the tumult of the next decade.  50 years ago, the revolution began with pointy boots and a smiling drummer.  Which is, of course something we need to remember in business.

Everything began to change that February night and yet very few businesses were prepared.  How would you like to have been a barber shop and seen those haircuts (or lack thereof)? The record business was one of singles.  Albums were a couple of hit singles and a LOT of filler material.  The Beatles made the entirety of an album important.  Putting aside that almost every cut became a hit, three years later Sgt. Pepper set a new artistic standard that changed the business.   The cultural changes came faster.  Everyone knows someone who saw that broadcast and picked up a guitar – you’re reading someone who did so now.  Their talent was enormous but subtle and it was easy to think “I can do that.”  Sort of how digital business is 50 years later.

As business people our radar needs to be extremely sensitive to change.  When that radar goes off we need to ask a great number of “what if” questions and pay attention to how things are progressing.  The first PC’s were met with shrugged shoulders.  25 years later the PC in our pocket is more powerful than the computers that took man to the moon.  Facebook is 10 years old and there wasn’t a “social media marketing” requirement many businesses are just learning to fulfill now.

I know – the only constant is change.  True enough, and it’s rare when that change happens very loudly and clearly on a winter’s night with drums and guitars.  It hasn’t been quite as obvious since then and won’t be the next time either.  Are you listening closely enough to hear it?

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January 6, 2014 · 10:56 am

No Success Without CES

The first big event of the new year is under way in Las Vegas.

Consumer Electronics Show

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s the annual CES which used to stand for Consumer Electronics Show but I’m told that since the show has gone way beyond consumer electronics it’s just CES.  As the Wall Street Journal wrote the show

grew up around devices like television sets and stereos sold by distributors and retailers…but it has continually morphed to add new classes of products and companies that don’t fit the classic consumer-electronics description.

“Huge” doesn’t begin to describe it.  125,000 or more people attend and hour-long waits for cabs are common while reservations at most of the better Vegas restaurants are rare.  After a few days, your feet hurt from walking the more than 1.92 million net square feet of exhibit space as does your head from the non-stop loud environment.

I used to love to go despite the drawbacks.  It was at CES I saw my first e-reader and was shown the first “connected” TV in a hush-hush meeting with one of the TV manufacturers.  While both those things are common now, they were brand spanking new business opportunities at the time and got us thinking about how we could grow our business, that of our partners, and enrich our mutual customers’ lives.  The “next big things” this year are supposed to focus on wearable, drivable and mobile-controllable technologies.  We’ll see how that all plays out.

You might be wondering why I raise this.  After all, while you might have a passing interest in CES, for the most part you and your business might have nothing at all to do with curved TV screens or wired cars or toasters that can send you a text.  Fair enough.  CES was always a chance to think out of the box.  What possibilities opened up based on what I was seeing at the show?  My point is this:  the start of the new year is a perfect time to take a step out of the routine and take a look around.  Search out a show or a conference or a meeting of your industry that will let you see something new.  Use what you see to think big thoughts.  After all, much of what is at CES was someone’s pipe dream or maybe even “impossible” not very long ago.

Even though I’m not at the show this year, I’ll read the reports and maybe even watch some of the live streaming taking place.  You can’t spell “success” without using “ces”.  This inquiring mind wants to know more.  Yours?

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