Archives for May 2005

The title of this post plays out to the key theme that I’ve been covering off since, what, early February? This is my first week back in the home office full time since then. Keynotes for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Nestle, SAP, Tier Technologies, Wirtz Beverages, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, Motorola, and countless other presentations.

All have played into a key theme — how do we build a culture within our organization that is able to respond to a world of rapid product obsolesence, shortened product lifecycles, faster time to market, product and service commoditization, the China price, rapid business model change, and all kinds of other challenges?

It’s done by establishing forward-oriented innovation — ensuring that we are on the cutting edge in terms of what might be impacting us tomorrow, so that we don’t sit back, Homer-Simpson-like, saying “d’oh, what happened?” Through forward-oriented leadership — establishing a corporate agility that can take us forward rather than concentrating on past nostalgia and old glories. There’s a good message here, and I think people are cluing in.

It’s a nice time. I’ve got the pool open, a long weekend is coming up, and its time for a breather — for at least two weeks!