When inflated beliefs about future value come into conflict with actual underlying value, conditions are right to create a bubble. Housing prices will always go up! Having a dot.com in your name will always increase… Read more »
Archives for 2024
If you want a guarantee, buy a refrigerator!
The concept of purpose has been having quite a moment – from books heralding its importance to claims that it holds the key to the hearts and minds of Gen Z workers to claims from… Read more »
Welcome to the world, SparcHub!
After 8 years since founding Valize, 4 changes of software approaches, more than 50 iterations of my Columbia Executive Education program “Leading Strategic Growth and Change” and 5 books, the software designed to make managing… Read more »
When you miscalculate the value of brands – a rare cautionary tale from Warren Buffett
Some things in strategy are thought to be eternally valuable. Among them? Big global brands with years of mass-market advertising and great name recognition behind them. But as investors 3G and Warren Buffett have learned,… Read more »
Beyond the doomscrolling – movement building for positive change
Some additional thoughts from the Powershift conference that took place in February in California – guests included artists, business leaders and even some legends (hello, Ed Catmull of Pixar fame)! This post touches on Peter… Read more »
The Drugs Have Won and the Smart Money Knows It (credit to Jake Novak for this great line)
What do you do when your most visible and notable spokesperson basically declares that what you’re doing is ineffective? We’re about to find out how WW (formerly Weight Watchers) navigates. The rise of Weight Watchers… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – February 2024
Leap year is an apt metaphor for what we must navigate now – exponential change in a world designed for linear evolution. Despite everyone’s hunger for finding some kind of stable new normal, it seems… Read more »
An Artist, An Author and an Inventor Go Into a Bar…
Peter Sims, author of the new book “Black Sheep: The Quest to be Human in an Inhuman Time” regularly convenes a group of artists, thought leaders, inventors, and authors to chat about how we might… Read more »
Could you benefit from Belonging to a Peer-to-Peer Network?
The old recipes for making a firm a talent factory have eroded. Executive development programs provided formal training specific to organizational levels, and employees were expected to remain with their organizations for long careers. Today,… Read more »
Why are so few people talking about the massive wealth transfer to women?
Until astonishingly recently in the sweep of human history, women in the United States had little control over their financial assets, and despite the reality that they make fundamental spending decisions, many sectors of our… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – January 2024
Somehow, we’re already a month into 2024! It seemed that January 2024 was setting the stage for what is sure to be tumultuous year. Some of the trends we’re watching: Pending frameworks for the fractured… Read more »
Our lizard lateral brains and the exponential world we’re confronting
Human brains were designed for a world of lateral change. But, as Ray Kurzweil and others remind us, learning-by-trial-and-error systems introduce the potential for exponential change. This has huge implications for how we design and… Read more »