Here are the can't misses in business blogs for the past week:
Economy, Trends, Change:
The 50K College Club (Paul Kedrosky--Infectious Greed)
Is there a higher education bubble? In an economy where education is more and more important, is it becoming ever more unattainable for most? And is your company positioned for a world in which education again becomes the domain of an elite and where the next, great manager might not be able to go to school? It might be time to give some thought to what the following means for the already displaced workforce: the new list of colleges and universities with an annual tuition in excess of $50,000.00 has been released, and now exceeds 100 institutions, many of which are not what you'd consider "elite" in any sense of the word. Along with the price of gold, this could be one of the top "eye popping" charts of the year.
Leadership, Performance, People:
Three Ways to Make the Workplace Richer in Feedback (Daniel H. Pink--danpink.com)
Is it time for managers to consign the annual performance review to the dustbin of "that used to work," or at least enhance it with new workplace feedback opportunities made possible by technology and a new generation of workers that crave, even demand more feedback? Daniel Pink thinks so. Millennials have been connected their entire lives--they've grown up in a constant feedback loop and expect more than an annual "how'd you do" when they show up for work. In light of technology, annual reviews are a vestige of a bygone time when frankly, offering feedback was more complicated. It doesn't have to be anymore. Feedback can be a regular process, and Pink offers three ways to make it so: "DIY performance reviews, peer rewards, and some groovy new software — to pump a little more feedback oxygen into our employment caves."
Strategy, Innovation, Communication:
Don't Innovate - Steal Ideas and Create Value (Caspar Van Rijnbach--Blogging Innovation)
Anyone with a memory or a few minutes on his hands knows or can deduce that the i-pod was not an original idea, in the sense of being first-to-market. So how did Apple succeed with borrowed technology where others could not, and how can this inform your innovative process? Steve Jobs is a believer in "stealing" ideas and using them to competitive advantage. With i-pod, "Apple combined all the ideas and inventions [that made up the MP3 revolution], incorporated them in the i-pod and i-tunes and did it a little better than anybody else (while making sure to stay ahead in the game). Besides that, the company knew how to market the innovation and how to protect it." Bottom line--you don't have to be Einstein to be a successful innovator.
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