Love Is My Favorite Flavor: A Midwestern Dining Critic Tells All
July 12, 2024
The Air They Breathe: A Pediatrician on the Frontlines of Climate Change
June 27, 2024
An Excerpt from When We Are Seen
June 05, 2024
'Getting Things Done with Others': An Interview with David Allen and Edward Lamont
May 28, 2024
Upcoming Author Interview: Tessa West — July 24, 2024
March 27, 2024
The 2023 Porchlight Business Book Awards
November 30, 2023
Promo Video: Our Author Interview Series
July 31, 2023
Blog
-
Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - Screw Business as Usual
By Porchlight
Screw Business as Usual by Richard Branson, Portfolio, 384 pages, $26. 95, Hardcover, December 2011, ISBN 9781591844341 By the time you get to page four of Richard Branson’s Screw Business as Usual, you will have already been treated to stories of Kate Winslett saving his mother from his burning home on Necker Island—literally carrying her soot-faced down the stairs as the fire rages behind them—and discussing the state of the world over dinner with the Queen and Barack Obama at Buckingham Palace. (And, to apologize for name-dropping, he shares a joke told to him by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
-
Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - Situations Matter
By Porchlight
Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World by Sam Sommers, Riverhead, 304 pages, $25. 95, Hardcover, December 2011, ISBN 9781594488184 It is raining out, and you are in a rush. You back into the only open parallel parking space you can find on your third trip around the block.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
-
Blog / News & Opinion
Find Your Next
By Porchlight
Andrea Kates has just released a new book, Find Your Next: Using the Business Genome Process to Find Your Company’s Next Competitive Edge, that reveals the keys to a revolutionary model of business innovation which has the capacity to change business as we know it. If you’re a manager, executive, or entrepreneur, you understand that your business is unique, with its own challenges and rewards. By using the new science of the Business Genome® process, you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t for your business’s genomic type.
Categories: news-opinion
-
Blog / News & Opinion
ChangeThis: Issue 89
By Porchlight
The Promise of Entrepreneurship by Adelaide Lancaster “We are made to believe that when it comes to business success, bigger is always better. In our super-sized, consumption-oriented culture, not even small business is exempt from the pressure to grow for growth’s sake. .
Categories: news-opinion
-
Blog / ChangeThis
The Promise of Entrepreneurship
By Porchlight
"We are made to believe that when it comes to business success, bigger is always better. In our super-sized, consumption-oriented culture, not even small business is exempt from the pressure to grow for growth's sake. We fixate on top-line revenue growth and increasing numbers of employees and locations. We pepper entrepreneurs with questions such as, 'What are your plans for expansion. What's next. How many cities will you go to. ' instead of asking what their goals are or why they started their business in the first place. When talk about growth we focus on speed, not sustainability. When we talk about success we focus on size, not satisfaction. So much so that entrepreneurs doubt their own success and skill if they aren't pursuing the largest form of their business possible. We've talked with countless business owners who run profitable ventures, make a good living, enjoy what they do every day, and have significant impact in their industry—but who also hesitate to call themselves successful.
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
Does Your Customer Really Need You? Lessons from Zappos
By Joseph Michelli
"For those of you not familiar with Zappos, the company is an online retailer who defied the odds and built an Internet empire, initially as a virtual shoe store and now expanding its inventory well beyond shoes alone. Zappos has always charged top dollar for its products and has succeeded primarily because the leadership innovated an experience that consistently exceeds the expectations of customers, vendors, and people who simply encounter the brand. ... Unlike other failed online vendors from the "dot gone" bust, Zappos invested in both the delivery infrastructure and the corporate culture necessary to produce customer evangelists. To help you appreciate how Zappos might serve as a provocative benchmark for your customer experience, let me give you a few highlights from the 5 principles outlined in The Zappos Experience"
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
Leading Transformation and Captivating Communities
By Brian Solis
"Social media is not the catalyst for change, but merely one of its agents. We must remember that Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and the like are the networks that facilitate an uprising. However, it is repression, angst, injustice, inequality, vision, aspiration and hope that serve as the true stimulus for insurrection and progress. Technology plays a part in transformation and it is up to you to learn how social, mobile, real-time, and all other emerging trends are affecting your industries, communities, or markets. What we learn as a result however is that these new tools can bring people together and unite them under a common front or concerted mission. At the center of any revolution is the burning desire to bring about change. But it always comes down to people, shared experiences, and a common ambition. And it is people who need one another for leadership, support, and inspiration. What's missing from the equation is your vision and leadership."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
The Business Genome Approach: Finding Your Next Competitive Advantage
By Andrea Kates
"You have the wrong tools. And you use them the wrong way. It isn't your fault. You were taught, as we all were, to make forecast models out of past results. You were taught to look in the rear-view mirror. You were also taught to look straight ahead of you. If that competitor was in your line of sight, you had their number. That's how you knew you were staying ahead. They were good people that taught you these skills, great professors of the craft in business school, veteran managers and executives in your first, third, and twentieth job. But that was a different time. That was when we could see the future by looking back. Somehow, it made sense back then. But, now, the rules have changed: our game plans have gone public, and whoever knows what the customer will do next wins."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
Putting a Signature on Customer Experience
By Porchlight
"To reach it's full impact, customer experience needs to be thought of as a strategic agenda item on par with and actually integrated with corporate strategy, managing the brand, and new product development. Customer experience should not be confused with existing efforts to focus on customer service or touch-point management. These efforts are focused more on delivering tactical reengineering of customer-facing processes. As a customer experience leader, you want customers to talk with everyone they know (and don't know) about your company, employees to live and exude the best qualities of the brand on and off the job, and to be rewarded as a market leader. If you share that vision for your customer experience efforts, here are some strategic tools and ideas to help you do that."
Categories: changethis
-
Blog / ChangeThis
Blending Art & Science To Create More Effective Ideas
By Porchlight
"Blending art and science is about collaborating in ideas generation: the inter-relationship is critical, you can't have one thing without the other. A bunch of code or data is just a bunch of numbers without the art. Science can enable us to be more creative, and creativity allows us to get the most out of our data. But consider 'the multiplier effect'. If either the data or creative are bad, the idea will fail. It's not one or the other that we need, it's both. It's not science plus art equals results, it's more science times art, so a zero for either means failure. That is where the interesting ideas are - at that intersection. The future is all about ideas connecting. Those who can bridge art and science will be in demand, will be powerful. So if our ideas are going to change hearts and minds, let's blend them together."
Categories: changethis