Thursday 5th Jul, 2012
What do folding sweaters and writing proposals for consulting work have in common?
Monday 14th May, 2012
The narrower your focus, the bigger your audience: it doesn’t sound right, does it? Accustomed to the idea of mass-media, we assume that material with the broadest appeal will be read by the most people. But the internet and social media may invert that relationship: because people can pick and choose what they want to see, they’re more likely to look at material which focuses on their interests than at more generic content.
Friday 20th Apr, 2012
Back in 1998, whilst working for the now ailing Japanese electronics giant Sony (whose ailing, I should point out, has nothing to do with my having worked there and everything to do with my having left), I applied for a sales position. Asked to make a presentation to my erstwhile colleagues I duly delivered what I considered to be a stirring case for us dramatically increasing television sales that year. This would, I explained, be achieved partly as a result of the football world cup in France, but mainly because of my hitherto-untapped brilliance as a salesman.
Wednesday 28th Mar, 2012
It really is a billion dollar question.
Thursday 1st Mar, 2012
In the course of researching our 2012 Management Consulting Market report we've been asking consulting firms how the competitive landscape has changed for them. Specifically, we've been asking whether they're coming up against competitors they haven't encountered before. In all the conversations I've had so far only one consulting firm has ever been mentioned in response to that question: McKinsey.
Thursday 12th Jan, 2012
Watching yet another presentation from yet another social media expert I'm suddenly overcome by a wave of...something. Is it anger? Well yes, in part. Frankly I'm fed up of the consensus being peddled by people who have set themselves up to profit from these things that if I don't get with the programme where social media is concerned my entire business and possibly my entire life, is going to go down the pan. Is it frustration? Yes, it's that, too.
Tuesday 10th Jan, 2012
The news that American TV company Showtime is launching a new comedy series about management consultants, subtly entitled House of Lies makes for a depressing start to the year for anyone working in the consulting industry. But it’s also a timely reminder that any attempts to improve the image of management consultants in the media (clients’ views and would-be recruits into the industry are different) will need to engage people’s hearts as well as their minds.
Monday 12th Dec, 2011
I'm willing to bet that when the marketing departments of consulting firms sit down with their favourite marketing agency to discuss developing a new logo, there's one thing that isn't on their agenda: acquisitions. They'll discuss all the usual stuff, of course: brand values, the way the logo will look on everything from neon to neoprene, and what sort of mood their preferred colour will illicit amongst potential customers, but the issue of acquisitions won't get a look in. I think that's a mistake.
Monday 7th Nov, 2011
Not many of us can claim to have a number named after us, but Robin Dunbar can. He’s the British anthropologist who famously linked the number of stable social relationships in a primate group with the size of part of their brain: the bigger their neocortex, the more relationships they have. Apply that to humans and you get around 150 (although estimates vary between 100 and 230): that’s the number of people you know and can stay in touch with, not simply your passing acquaintances.
Monday 17th Oct, 2011
Leafing through IBM’s chief marketing officer study, published in the last few days, I was struck by one particular chart which compares the reasons companies think their customers follow them via social media sites and their customers’ actual reasons. Interesting in its own right, it’s also – I’d argue – directly relevant to consulting firms.
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