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“Given them what they want – just not the way they expect to get it.” Robert McKee, as told to us in his 3 day Story Seminar.  The How, Not the What. Brands that have lasting impact aren’t the ones that focus on the what. The what gets commoditized pretty quickly. What is the intellectual property, […]

I’ve been to one Dead show. It was in college, where a mandatory part of the curriculum in any 4 year liberal arts school in the 80’s was total immersion in all aspects of the band’s ecosystem. We drove up from Lexington, Virginia, to Wolf Trap Farms outside of my hometown of Washington DC and […]

My friend and colleague at Decision Triggers, Dr. Steven Feinberg, would describe the art of questioning the givens as one of the strategic shifts that separate “advantage makers” – those business leaders who tackle seemingly insurmountable problems and come out ahead. Question the givens: a tutorial Ever notice how the world looks different when you’re […]

When we think about how to re-invent an industry, we usually look to emerging brands: start-ups that have disrupted stodgy industries, iconoclasts who have re-imagined existing frames of reference and shattered expectations and others. This is limiting because we’re all not in the process of launching new brands. Sometimes, we’re working on existing brands – […]

Don’t confuse Great Ideas with Great Vision. Look at ChangeThis.com this month and read Trevor Ginn’s manifesto called “The Fallacy of the Great Idea.” If you’ve ever played with the idea of launching a start up, this is a wonderfully empowering read. Many entrepreneurs feel that they cannot start a business without a great idea. […]