Out of touch Telco Managers and my colleague Tom Stewart’s response!
"Shocked, Shocked" says my dear friend Tom Stewart of a recent report in the New York Times that Telecommunications operators felt "out of touch" with their customers.
What do you mean? That call to a robot in which you are asked to enter your customer number, only to reach a real person and be told to enter your customer number?
The completely incomprehensible pricing models for wireless data plans?
Being charged for services you never bought?
Being completely unapologetic about lackluster coverage, dropped calls and generally unreliable service?
Wanting to sell you a new phone and then (true recent experience) when I finally got to the web site retreating in complete confusion.
Any interesting stories to tell?
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- Posted Rita McGrath on July 12, 2011
Talent flows - Silicon Valley Style
This neat article offers a snapshot of who is winning and losing the talent wars in Silicon Valley among the big players (Microsoft, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.). It offers a great graphic to spark interest and debate. One of the interesting points it makes is that Facebook is a net winner among people moving around various jobs in the Valley. Check it out.
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- Posted Rita McGrath on July 10, 2011
Interesting application of options idea to “Green” Energy programs
A colleague of mine drew to my attention an NPR story about the Federal government's plans to develop green technologies. In many ways, the approach echoes options reasoning:
Many small bets
Substantial upside if the opportunity is successful
Less concern about the rate of failure than the cost of failure
Genuine uncertainty
A pretty interesting approach.
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- Posted Rita McGrath on June 13, 2011
Tata Awards for Intelligent Failure
This blog post offers a nice description of Tata's awards for intelligent failure. Under the rubric "Dare To Try" the company encourages people to be willing to take intelligent risks. It's one of many company practices that seek to make the most of failure!
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- Posted Rita McGrath on June 10, 2011
Forget college and change the world?
PayPal founder Peter Thiel thinks he has found a new way to change the world. A recent article describes how his foundation has created $100,000 grants for young superstars to put their college plans on hold, and under the direction of a mentor, work on really difficult problems that require scientific and technical innovation. It's another interesting example of how entrepreneurs give back, and how private money can be used to try to solve major social problems.
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- Posted Rita McGrath on May 30, 2011
