The So-Called Arrogance of Gen Y Social Media Managers
By Tim Berry
Last Friday NextGen Journal published Cathryn Sloane’s Why Every Social Media Manager Should be Under 25. Her main point was: We spent our adolescence growing up with social media. … we learned to use social media socially before professionally, rather than vice versa or simultaneously. To many people in the generations above us, Facebook and Twitter... Read More »
12 Ways Best Blogging Practices Aren’t
By Tim Berry
I like Blogger Brad Shorr‘s list of 12 Most Horrible Pieces of Blogging Advice (no longer available online). It’s a good list, well worth reading, good food for thought. More important, in my opinion, is that it’s also an eloquent reminder of the essential case-by-case rule that applies not only to business blogging but also to all... Read More »
Which is Worse: Making a Mistake or Losing an Opportunity?
By Tim Berry
What a great thought: how people approach failure is a key to success. That comes straight from Why Failure Drives Innovation, an article by Baba Shiv, Professor of Marketing, published in the Stanford Graduate School of Business news page. Consider this: “Failure” is a dreaded concept for most business people. But failure can actually be a... Read More »
Backroom Backbiting Will Bite You Back
By Tim Berry
There’s a coffee shop in the Portland (OR) airport with the tagline “good coffee … no backtalk.” It’s hard to see in my picture here, but there it is. What I make of this is a reminder about a fundamental business practice that way too many business owners forget. You can’t, simply can’t, let your... Read More »
Growing Your Business: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
By Tim Berry
This was more than 10 years ago but I still remember it well. I was walking to lunch with a friend and long-time business planning client talking about our growth at Palo Alto Software. We had doubled revenue in the previous two years. These were good times. But my friend had a warning: Be especially... Read More »
The Paradox of Profits
By Tim Berry
We take it for granted. One of the main goals of a business is making a profit. Right? Maybe not. Answer this question: What makes a business more valuable? Is it profits, or growth? Or future prospects? And then this question: Don’t you have a straight trade-off between profits and growth? Assume you have money... Read More »
5 Hard Lessons Related to Firing Somebody
By Tim Berry
So you start your business, and you get it going, and growing. If you have employees, it’s likely you’re going to have to deal with firing somebody. Here are my some of my thoughts (based on actual experience; not theoretical) on that subject. Having to fire somebody who’s been trying hard and failing is the... Read More »
Do You Like Working Alone, in Teams, or Both?
By Tim Berry
Did you perhaps catch The Rise of the New Groupthink on the NYtimes.com last week? Here’s author Susan Cain’s interesting lead … SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious... Read More »
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