Companies are really good at job creep, but when was the last time your boss took something off your plate?
Companies Need to Get Better at Subtraction
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Independent Thinking Blog
Workforce
7 Key Takeaways from Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trends Report
Mary Meeker's 2015 Internet Trends Report is out. Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins (yes, that Kleiner Perkins), annually drops a large deck of trends and statistics for us to ponder. This year's report is arranged into six main sections covering population and...
2014 Digital Trends, Un-trends, and Other MAM Summit Highlights
The Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit is one terrific conference. And I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to conferences; a lot of the time I find myself in sessions doodling or diving into my reading backlog, or outside walking the halls talking with other stragglers. In...
What Trends Shape the Future of Work?
From 24/7 access to digital ubiquity, the ways that we find information, process data, learn, and make decisions are rapidly changing -- transforming us and our relationships with screens and with each other. It's also changing how we work. A new article looks at five...
Roses, Rulers, and Cubicles
A colleague of mine is about to move offices. Or, more precisely, her company is about to move her office across town. This has prompted mass angst (not including her) about office space and what the new digs will look like. Which got me thinking about how stupidly...
The Problem with the NFL
Is your business incentivizing employee collaboration? The NFL does not have guaranteed contracts. This means that you can negotiate your multi-year deal, but if your get injured, sneeze the wrong way, or otherwise lose your marketability, then you end up on the...
Should Your Klout Score be a Deal Breaker?
When a friend of mine turned 40 her sister told her that she had better take care of herself because she was competing with 20-year-olds. My thought: Why would you want to date a man who wants to date a twenty-something? I feel the same way about Klout. There's a long...
What Is Wrong With IBM?
IBM has a female CEO. IBM sponsors the Masters, an event held at Augusta National, a private club that does not allow women to be members. Which means Virginia Rometty can't join the club that her company pays to prop up. This isn't a new story (or a new controversy)....
13 Ways to Wow Your Customers
Sometimes the best customer experiences happen by serendipity. I recently pooled my Amazon gift cards to purchase the complete 5-DVD collection of the Best TV Show Ever. When it arrived, I put disk one into the DVD player I rarely use with huge anticipation. Then....
Don’t Cheap Yourself Out of a Customer
I've been trying to get "free" checks from PNC Bank for six weeks. Free, apparently, is a very relative term. PNC Bank has lost a lot. Here's a brief chronology of what happened: 1. Mid-March: Call 800 number to order more checks. On hold, on hold, on hold, automated...