by Mark P. McDonald | May 26, 2011 | Submit a Comment
Donald Sull’s Why Good Companies Go Bad And How Great Managers Remake Themrepresents a clear and actionable examination of the core of successful business – the making, managing and delivering commitments. The idea of commitment what they are, how they are made, how they work and how they can be used to transform the enterprise. [...]
Category: Book Review Management Tags: Book Review, Management, Tools
by Mark P. McDonald | May 25, 2011 | 2 Comments
What is my job? How do I/we create value in the increasingly global and competitive world? What is my role in the whole? These are all questions we face as individuals, teams, business units and entire organizations. These questions have a new and urgent meaning in a world of unprecedented choice where the supply of [...]
Category: CIO Leadership Re-imagine IT Strategic planning Strategy Tags: CIO Leadership, Operational Leadership, RE-imagine IT, Strategy
by Mark P. McDonald | May 23, 2011 | Submit a Comment
Competitive instability happens when one player in a market releases a series of capabilities that constantly change the terms of competition. In geo-politics, Ronald Reagan creates competitive instability via US defense policy in relationship to the Soviet Union. Creating competitive instability involves creating a stream of discontinuities that exploit near term market opportunities and then [...]
Category: Leadership Management marketing Re-imagine IT Strategic planning Strategy Uncategorized Tags: Business Strategy, competition, Economic Recovery, Marketing
by Mark P. McDonald | May 20, 2011 | 2 Comments
Obliquity by John Kay refutes the idea that complex systems can be understood in enough detail to be actively managed no matter what the experts say. John Kay’s point concentrates on the folly of control and the hubris of those who believe that they can directly architect, direct and dictate changes to achieve their goals. [...]
Category: Book Review Management Strategy Tags: Book Review, Business Management, Strategy and Planning, Tools
by Mark P. McDonald | May 18, 2011 | Submit a Comment
This weekend a dear friend of our family passed away. She had been battling cancer for almost a decade and it finally claimed her life. She, her husband and children live in our neighborhood. They are about the same age as our family and we all grew up together. Yesterday was the calling hours and [...]
Category: Personal Observation Tags: Personal Observation
by Mark P. McDonald | May 16, 2011 | 2 Comments
The nature of business and therefore the nature of technology are changing in ways that alter the fundamentals of business and IT. Now I cannot argue which goes first, business or technology change. The world is just too complex to provide a definitive answer. It is clear that business momentum is required to drive a [...]
Category: Innovation Leadership Management Re-imagine IT Strategy Technology Tags: Business Leadership, Business Management, Business Strategy, IT and Business, Strategy, Strategy and Planning, Technology
by Mark P. McDonald | May 13, 2011 | Submit a Comment
The Open Innovation Marketplace is the book for people who want to really understand how open innovation works and what it means for organizations. Innovation is a topic that lends itself to overpromising, over simplification and over reliance on advice that says – just do it right. Bingham and Spradlin, founders at InnoCentive, give you [...]
Category: Book Review Innovation Leadership Tags: Book Review, Innovation
by Mark P. McDonald | May 11, 2011 | 11 Comments
I was in a meeting last week where people were talking about the evolution of what we now call IT. At the start it was called Data Processing, then it evolved into Management Information System (MIS) and now we call it Information Technology (IT) or Information Management (IM). I would like to raise the question [...]
Category: CIO Leadership Management Re-imagine IT Strategy Tags: Business Strategy, IT strategy, RE-imagine IT
by Mark P. McDonald | May 9, 2011 | 1 Comment
Last week’s events and the general reaction to them reminded me that for every achievement there is a criticism of that achievement. Reach a goal and rather than celebration or satisfaction there is criticism and analysis from just about everyone, even your friends. You should have done it sooner, you should have done it this [...]
Category: Leadership Management Personal Observation Signs of weak management Tags: Business Management, Leadership, Management, personal musing, Signs of weak management
by Mark P. McDonald | May 6, 2011 | 3 Comments
It has been a little less than two months since the iPad 2 came out, so now it is about time to begin hearing about people who just got an iPad. My boss just got an iPad. Those six words are increasingly being heard as the iPad and other tablets go mainstream. As a card [...]
Category: Management Technology Tags: iPad, personal musing
