by Mark P. McDonald | April 8, 2013 | Submit a Comment
Is Innovation Killing the Soap Business? is the title of a great article in the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Ziobro and Serena Ng. The article talks about the overall market impact of P&G’s new product innovation – Tide Pods. The product that provides precise ‘unit doses’ changes the dynamics of the laundry industry. Compared with pre-pod [...]
Category: Digitalization Innovation Tags: Digitalization, Innovation, product development, product innovation
by Mark P. McDonald | January 28, 2013 | 7 Comments
Automation, communication and brut force describe IT’s relationship with Marketing. Pre-digital information technologies such as CRM, eCommerce Sites, eMail marketing provided new technology tools to perform old marketing tasks. Sure, marketers sought out a 1:1 relationship by substituting traditional coupons for eCoupons, website URL’s for QPC codes and working recommendations into shopping carts and checkout [...]
Category: Customer Experience Digital Edge Digitalization Innovation marketing Technology Tags: customer experience, Digital Edge, digital marketing, Innovation
by Mark P. McDonald | January 11, 2013 | 1 Comment
Computing power has been the measure and the model for how we think about technology. The model was that greater the MIPS, Feeds, Speeds, Capacity etc. the more powerful the technology. With CES going on right now, its interesting to see that the buzz is not about technology as computing power so much as it [...]
Category: Digital Edge Digitalization Innovation Re-imagine IT Strategy Technology Tags: 2013 Planning, Digitalization, digitization, IT strategy, Technology
by Mark P. McDonald | December 14, 2012 | 3 Comments
Today is the second friday in December and time for another question in the discussion series about asking the right questions about IT. Last week’s question “Is the IT organization, as we currently know it, worth saving?” yielded some interesting points. This week the question is: What are the reasons we need IT in the future? Notice [...]
Category: 2013 Economy Innovation IT Epic Journey Leadership Tough Questions Tags: Technology, Technology Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | December 12, 2012 | 1 Comment
Last month I had the opportunity to catch up with Todd Jackson the CIO at the City of Westerville Ohio and received an update on Westerville Ohio’s Community Data Center. If you recall from a prior post, the City of Westerville, located outside Columbus Ohio, decided to build a community data center providing services for [...]
Category: Economy Innovation Leadership Technology Tags: Technology, Technology Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | November 28, 2012 | Submit a Comment
Enterprise Games picks up where Jane McGonigal’s book (Reality is Broken) left off – how gaming ideas and practices can apply to business. This book is a hidden treasure that I would not normally have picked up, but I am very very glad I did. Michael Hugos, the author is an accomplished practitioner and innovator [...]
Category: Book Review Business Process Digitalization Innovation Management Tags: Book Review, Business Management, Business Process
by Mark P. McDonald | November 7, 2012 | 5 Comments
In the Bible Joseph’s interpretation of Pharoh’s dream predicted that Egypt would see seven years of fat, good harvests and plentiful food followed by 7 years of lean times, poor harvests and starvation. The prediction encouraged Pharaoh to save in good times to compensate for bad times. The exact opposite has happened to IT. IT [...]
Category: 2013 Amplifying the Enterprise Digitalization Innovation Strategic planning Strategy Technology Tags: 2013 Planning, amplify, Innovation, Strategy and Planning, symposium, Technology, Technology Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | October 23, 2012 | Submit a Comment
In March of this year Polly Labarre from the Management Innovation Xchange (MIX) opened the Gartner EXP / Management Innovation Lab Hackathon at the Phoenix CIO Leadership Forum. Gartner and Gary Hamel’s Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) have invited a select group of IT leaders to crack a key issue: How IT can help organizations become more [...]
Category: 2013 Innovation Management Strategy Tags: 2013 Planning, Future of Management, Innovation, Management, symposium
by Mark P. McDonald | October 22, 2012 | 1 Comment
Every organization has an edge – a reason behind their future success. Having an edge is great, but customer expectations, competition and technology dull every edge. Sharpening these edges becomes increasingly difficult over time as technology makes it easier for competitors to copy, mimic, reverse engineer your edge. Executives need an edge that is self-sharpening, [...]
Category: 2013 Amplifying the Enterprise Digitalization Innovation Technology Tags: Digital Edge, Digitalization, digitization, Strategy, Strategy and Planning, symposium, Technology, Technology Leadership
by Mark P. McDonald | October 1, 2012 | Submit a Comment
I logged into my personal email account and found one of those infomercial announcements. You know the ones with the pity title that is just begging to be clicked. Well this one was entitled “Five Best Careers For Introverts” and it’s an advertisement for Phoenix University. Here is the list in rank order: Accountant Computer [...]
Category: Innovation Management Personal Observation Tags: IT Leadership, personal musing, Personal Observation, symposium, Technology Leadership
