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  • Goal Setting: Lululemon Founder Chip Wilson

    Lululemon , a company known for its $100 yoga pants, had problems with public relations in March. Customers complained the yoga pants Lululemon was selling were too sheer, and the company eventually removed the pants from store shelves. Thus, the current CEO, Christine Day, plans to leave when a new CEO is named. The company posted a want ad for a CEO . The fun ad states the following job description, "You report to no one, you are the CEO (duh). You are passionate about doing chief executive officer type stuff like making decisions, having a vision and being the head boss person." The importance of vision can be seen in goal setting video by Lululemon's founder, Chip Wilson. Attached is his vision and goals worksheet. How did goal setting improve Chip Wilson's life? How can using the attached worksheet help you?
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  • The Business of Father’s Day

    Today is Father's Day! Managers profit on the holiday by shifting focus and content to dads. For example, restaurants make Father's Day special to maximize traffic and loyalty. Father’s Day is the third most popular holiday on which to dine, after Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. The National Restaurant Association found that the most important factor in choosing the restaurant for Father's Day was choosing his favorite restaurant, regardless of specials. How did you celebrate Father's Day with your Dad? How can managers use their loyalty programs to increase traffic on Father's Day?
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  • Working for Love

    What are the advantages and disadvantages of businesses having an office-dating policy? What problems arise from managers dating employees? Please Include Attribution to OnlineBusinessDegree.org with this Graphic

  • SHARK Acronym

    I received an email from Mari Smith , Leading Social Media Strategist. She reported on Shark Tank's Daymond John' s session at the annual conference , InfusionCon . Daymond John's acronym for SHARK is: S = set goals H = do your homework (research) A = amore (if you love what you do, you'll never have to work a day in your life) R = remember, you are the brand, and must have a 2-5 word brand mantra (like Nike's "Just Do It!" and Daymond's brand FUBU is "For Us, By Us.") K = keep swimming! What is your 2-5 word brand mantra?

  • Philosophy of a Successful Restaruant Entrepreneur

    In this video, entrepreneur Joe Johnston of Joe's Farm Grill, Joe's Real BBQ and Liberty Market (Gilbert, AZ) talks about the "two creations" of planning a restaurant, and how to minimize the risk of starting a restaurant. The video is by Schedulefly , a company that provides Web-based restaurant employee scheduling and communication software for independent restaurants. It is a spin-off project from the book , Restaurant Owners Uncorked: Twenty Owners Share Their Recipes for Success . Do you or someone you know want to start a restaurant? What practical advice for aspiring restaurant owners does Mr. Johnston offer?

  • Business Roundtable CEOs are Optimistic about Sales, but not Hiring

    Business Roundtable (BRT) is an association of chief executive officers (CEOs) of the 200 largest corporations in the United States. The CEOs are surveyed about sales, capital spending, and hiring. The results are reported as a composite index used to gauge their economic outlook. The long run average of the index is 79. The current index is 81. According to the latest quarterly survey of Business Roundtable members, 72 percent of the CEOs expect sales to increase in the next six months. While the group is more optimistic about sales than in the past, they are not as optimistic about hiring. Only 29 percent of the CEOs expect to increase hiring in the next six months. (See attached press release.) Why does hiring not increase when sales increase? The BRT video at http://businessroundtable.org/corporations-101 explains how corporations work and the value they provide to the U.S. economy.

  • Create a Life with Purpose

    Clay Christensen, Harvard Business School professor and author of How Will You Measure Your Life , discusses the daily decisions that define our lives. Managers are driven to succeed, and careers provide evidence of achievement. Investments in relationships with family don't pay off for a very long time, but families bring us the most happiness in life. As a consequence, managers who plan to have a happy life, find that the way they invest their time, energy, and talents causes them to implement a strategy that they wouldn't at all plan to pursue. Successful companies fail because they invest in things that provide the most immediate and tangible evidence of achievement. They are run by mangers who apply that very same thinking process in their personal lives with sad results. Professor Christensen warns us to be careful about how we measure success in our companies, as well as in our lives. Instead of money or job titles, he encourages us to measure how many people you have helped to become better people. This video reminded me of what I teach in my management class. "Good managers are determined by how many of their employees they have helped to get promoted to management." Professor Christensen encourages all of us to think about what is truly important. What is most important in your life? How will you measure your life?

  • Managers Provide Online Content

    Managers are in the best position to provide information online because they are the company experts. The slide below lists many of the ways that managers can create effective content. Basically, managers are answering the questions, "Who?, What?, When?, Where?, Why?, and How?". Of course the first step to creating online content is to plan for it. Source: The Plan to Grow Your Business with Effective Online Marketing from Barry Feldman Interviews, case studies, and photos are potential content for customers. What else might customers find of interest on a company's Web site? How can managers make time to add creating online content to their job descriptions?

  • Failed New Year Resolutions

    Most of us want to start the New Year with new goals. But a recent YouGov Omnibus survey found that many have already broken their resolutiions. But, if you take a look at the most popular resolutions below, you will see that they are not SMART. To be SMART or successful, an an objective must be S pecific, M easurable, A ttainable, R esults-oriented, and T ime-limited. Most goals fail because people don't give themselves enough time to accomplish the goal. Take the most popular goal, "to lose weight." To be measurable, the goal would have to include the number of pounds to be lost. To lose 10 pounds in one year is reasonable and attainable. To lose 10 pounds in a week is not. Graphic from YouGov - "Resolutions Gone Bad" http://today.yougov.com/news/2013/01/14/resolutions-gone-bad/ Did you set New Year's resolutions? Have you broken them? Or, are you keeping them? Did you write your resolutions as SMART objectives? If not, rewrite them to be SMART, using the following check list. » S = Exactly what is my objective? » M = What would a good job look like? » A = Is my objective feasible? » R = Is my objective meaningful? » T = Is my objective traceable?
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  • How to Break Habits

    Everyone makes decisions every day. But, many of our actions aren't decisions. They are habits. Charles Duhigg , author of "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business," says a habit has three parts: cue, routine, and reward. "You can change to a better routine by planning for the cue, and choosing a behavior that delivers the reward you are craving. What you need is a plan." (See attached "Guide for Changing Habits" for more explanation.) What are the cues, routines, and rewards in your life? Identify a habit you'd like to modify. What reward are you actually craving? How to Change a Habit (The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg)

  • Target + Neiman Marcus

    Target and Neiman Marcus collaborated to offer fifty holiday gift items created by 24 designers ranging in price from $7.99 to $499.99. The gifts went on sale December 1. Target showcased the gifts on ABC’s Revenge in a show titled The Gift of Revenge and encouraged viewers to use the hashtag #GiftOfRevenge to talk about the show on Twitter . The objective was to keep viewers engaged with the commercials just like the show. The fans seemed to like the commercials. But, demand during the launch Saturday for the gifts was weaker than expected. How do you think the companies are measuring this objective, Target + Neiman? By engagement? By sales? What do you think about the collaboration?

  • Ford Uses Social Media to Control Costs

    Automobile companies were losing billions of dollars six years ago. They had too many plants, too many workers, and union contracts forced them to pay workers even when the plants were shut down. So, factories were kept running to cover expenses, even though cars weren't selling. Too many cars and trucks were built that had to be sold at deep discounts. Today, carmakers are doing everything they can to control costs. One example is Ford Social , Ford's social media site used to share information. Jim Farley, group Vice President of global marketing, sales and service for Ford Motor Company told the attendees at the Association of National Advertisers' Masters of Marketing conference, "We test it, and if it works, we scale it right away. It's allowed us to innovate where others have gone on autopilot. It's not a very fancy message." Consumers opt-in at Ford Social. For example, they could opt-in to see information about the Ford Fiesta about a year before it launched. Potential buyers could comment on the car and make requests. They told Ford that they liked the European colors better and wanted a cup-holder for Red Bull. Ford loaned 100 of the new cars for six months to social media content creators, such as bloggers. Farley reports, "Ford didn't launch the car; our Fiesta agents did. Auto writers interviewed these agents, not executives, and it produced 28 million views. We had 60% nameplate awareness before we ran one traditional ad, and we had spent nothing. That showed me the power of social media." Ford is also very active on other social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. Has Ford found the right balance between spending on advertising balanced with interesting social media posts? What makes customers, as well as potential customers, return to Ford's social space day after day? Source for quotes: Sarah Mahoney, "Ford Uses Social To Rewrite Launch Rules" http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/185069/ford-uses-social-to-rewrite-launch-rules.html#ixzz29O87bLgh

  • Crowdsourcing at Domino's

    Companies are outsourcing research by turning to crowds ( crowdsourcing ). In the past, focus groups were asked research questions. Today, many companies are asking consumers for ideas. An example is Domino's Think Oven, as shown in this video. Think Oven has two parts, projects and idea box. Projects ask for help on something specific. Idea Box asks people to submit their ideas for Domino's. Users can post ideas on Domino's Facebook page . Co.create reported that "customers aren't the only ones voicing their ideas: Domino's store managers and employees have taken to Think Oven with genuine suggestions. The idea for one of Domino's new products, Parmesan Bread Bites, came from Brian Edler, a Domino's store owner in Ohio instead of from product development types at HQ." How is crowdsourcing improving Domino's business?

  • Microsoft unveils new logo

    Microsoft's updated corporate logo was revealed yesterday. The last update was 25 years ago (1987). The old logo is below. Choosing a logo is part of the product planning process. An effective logo projects the personality of a product, service, or company. Customers use the logo to identify the product, service, or company. (Try the Logo Quiz at http://www.logoquiz.net/ .) The new logo precedes Microsoft's new software products -- Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Xbox services, the next version of Office. Here's how Jeff Hansen , General Manager, Brand Strategy, Microsoft , explained the new logo. "The logo has two components: the logotype and the symbol. For the logotype, we are using the Segoe font which is the same font we use in our products as well as our marketing communications. The symbol is important in a world of digital motion (as demonstrated in the video above.) The symbol's squares of color are intended to express the company's diverse portfolio of products." Many companies have wasted a lot of money on their new logos. Consumers don't recognize them or remember them. It is inefficient for the same company, selling the same product, to change their logo. But, what about Microsoft? Was it time to change the logo? How will the new logo inspire the quality and integrity of the new software products?

  • Managers Use GDP

    Managers are interested in the economy. So, they look at the gross domestic product (GDP), which is the broadest gauge of economic output. The United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reports on GDP. The bureau defines real gross domestic product as the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States. BEA released its first-quarter 2012 advance estimate of GDP August 27, 2012. The New York Times prepared a chart based on that report and previous reports, as seen below. Recession and recovery or growth can be seen in the chart. According to the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research , the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. A recession is a period of declining real GDP and rising unemployment. During the recession real GDP dropped by ~3 % and unemployment rose from 4.7 % to 10 %. The recession (2007-2009) included a housing bubble, financial system losses, and a commodity boom. From 1995 to 2007, the U.S. housing market was booming, which encouraged many households to borrow money to buy real estate. Some of these new homeowners' loans were subprime. In other words, given their down payments, incomes and credit histories, they were at a high risk of loan default. Since 2007, many of the new homeowners found themselves underwater , owing more on their mortgages than their houses were worth. As a result, mortgage defaults and home foreclosures increased. In 2008, the financial institutions that held these subprime mortgages faced large losses. Bear Stearns was purchased by JP Morgan Chase Fannie Mae and Freddie mac were taken over by the U.S. government Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch American International Group (AIG) received $85 billion from the federal government JP Morgan Chase purchased Washington Mutual, the biggest bank failure in history In July 2008, oil peaked at $147.30 a barrel and a gallon of gasoline was more than $4.00 across most of the U.S., driven in part by increased demand from China and other rapidly growing emerging economies. Economic contraction in the fourth quarter caused a dramatic drop in demand. Prices fell below $35 a barrel by the end of the year. Since the second half of 2009, the economy has been growing, coming close to 4 % growth in early 2010. Then growth slowed, but accelerated the rest of the year. The most recent report says that growth has slowed to 2.2 %. How might this affect decisions by managers? Will they increase or decrease production? Will they hire or lay off employees? What other decisions might be affected?
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