Lower price? OK, use it more…
on Nov 16 in Strategy tagged Analysis, Selling by KeithIt’s been a really busy few months, and what we’ve loved is that much of the work has been really creative.
Our bread and butter is helping businesses dig into how they do what they do, and looking for how we, they and their staff can make incremental improvements. Very satisfying.
The work we really love though, is to look at the situation and help an organisation come up with fabulous new stuff - great, unexpected, (positively) disruptive ways of doing things.
We came up with a really intriguing business model for Qton Solutions (a favourite client of ours because of the idea-storms we generate together!) to consider. Read More
This month’s reading…
on Sep 20 in Strategy, Understanding tagged Future, Strategy by KeithI’m re-reading a couple of my business books this month, both of which I felt it was worth mentioning. Both are thought-provoking, and full of practical things to try, even if you don’t agree with everything in them.
First up is “What Would Google Do?” by Jeff Jarvis. Not just an interesting manifesto/thought piece, but also interesting to look at 2009’s predictions through 2011’s lens!
Second is “Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion” by Goldstein, Martin and Cialdini, which never fails to give me ideas for new things to try and new ways to look at old problems.
If you’ve not read them, give them a try - I’d love to know what you think of them.
Talentropy?
on Jul 04 in Blog, Strategy, Understanding tagged Action, Analysis by KeithWe’ve been playing with words, images, emotions, icons and so on for some branding work we’re doing on a new offering. Something that fell out of this was a word that I just liked the sound of:
Talentropy
Then I thought a bit more about it - the flow of talent. This seemed like quite a useful concept to me.
As business owners, managers and leaders, there are two crucial concerns - creating value for stakeholders (owners, shareholder, staff, investors, communities, etc.) and finding and keeping good people for our teams. Value and Talent. Read More
Unbreakable Business
on Jun 15 in Planning, Strategy, Understanding tagged Future, Strategy, Unbreakable by KeithKeith Shering, MD of Critical Action, was one of the speakers at the recent, very well received ”Creating An Unbreakable Business” event, held at NetSupport in Market Deeping, and organised by The Business Club, Peterborough.
As well as coordinating the speakers, Keith was one of eight subject matter experts giving business owners and decision makers quick-fire, thought-provoking 15-minute talks on what can break businesses, and what we can do to make strong, resilient businesses that survive and prosper - making businesses more unbreakable. Read More
The Idea Trampoline
on Feb 13 in Blog, Strategy, Understanding tagged Action, Analysis, Future by Keith
The what?
The Idea Trampoline. You know, where you can bounce your good ideas and your perplexing challenges back and forth, up and down, tumbling them around. Boing one way then another to see if the idea comes back looking any different, any better, still viable.
Sound interesting? Read More
Reboots, Puppies and Business Continuity
on Dec 15 in Blog, Strategy, Taking Action tagged Action, Planning by Keith
Time for DR?
Today’s lesson is that when you are using bootable media in the drive of a host, and attaching it to one of the guest VMs, remember to remove the media (or change the boot settings) when you remote reboot the host after updates… :) This led to thinking about disaster recovery and business continuity. Read More
Microsoft Online Services
on Nov 19 in Blog, Strategy tagged Microsoft, Streamlining by KeithCritical Action has today qualified to sell Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services.
The award of this accreditation is part of a project we have to develop a new product for our SME customers, aimed at streamlining the management of lots of the basic, fundamental information that our businesses rely upon. Read More
Future History
on Sep 25 in Blog, Strategy tagged Strategy, Workshops by KeithSetting your strategy for the future is always tricky, as of course, none of us really knows what’s going to happen.
Just look back 5, 10 or 20 years to see how far we’ve come. Who hasn’t said to themselves “if you’d told me 10 years ago that I’d be [insert amazing thing we take for granted now], I’d have laughed at you!” Read More
Envisioning the Future
on Jul 21 in Strategy, Understanding tagged Future by KeithThe latest round of Microsoft Labs “envisioning” videos have been getting quite a bit of press lately (sadly I didn’t get to this year’s Worldwide Partner Conference to catch the latest “live”).
Click here to see them (in a new window). Some are quite thought provoking, which is, I suppose, the intention. Read More