New Research on Why We Pull for Upstart Brands

  We pull for the upstarts. We want to see the giant fall and the hero triumph. It’s a universal story told for timeless generations around the world. This story is the heart and soul of Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath In Your Industry and it gives us all timely – and […]


Apple, Steve Jobs and Lessons from a Morita-less Sony

I’ve never met Steve Jobs. And while I worked for Mr. Morita for many years, we never met face to face. But I knew the culture at Sony and joined it because of the aura that Mr. Morita projected. Sony was an innovative Japanese company – an oxymoron of sorts, given the copycat stereotype prevalent […]


Killing Giants: 10 Strategies to Topple the Goliath In Your Industry

  You compete against Goliath. A competitor with more people and money and resources than you can ever hope to match. A household name. They have more people in R&D than you have in your whole company and they spend more on off-site meetings than you do on marketing. Where they seem to have no […]


Seeing What Others Miss: Q-TIPS, How to Win a Lost Battle, and 5 Ways to Tactically Shift

If you’re like most people in business, you fall into one of two camps. You’re either looking for ways to take your business, your brand or just yourself to that next level or you’re wondering how in hell you ended up in this mess and how you’re ever going to get out again. It doesn’t […]


The Coming Logo Singularity: Starbucks and the Simplified Logo, Simplified

Is it always about simplification? Always? I don’t think so. When we re-launch a logo, we do so for a lot of reasons. The current brand identity no longer fits who we’re turning into, perhaps because of new business opportunities or segments we’re getting into, or because it just looks dated and needs an upgrade. […]