Nexus
A "nexus" is a connecting point or meeting place. A great idea in isolation is the tree falling in an uninhabited forrest. A great list of prospects in isolation is a telephone book. What is the nexus you need to create to
Who Cares How It Works?
Understand how your customers apply and use things, not how those things work. My father-in-law was able to stick his head under a car's hood and fix anything in there that went wrong. But he didn't drive his car any better
Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern
Find the cause of your success and failures. Correlation is certainly not cause, and neither is coincidence. My dogs paw a door they want opened. The door is only opened when I'm around and going where they want to go. An occasional
Mixed Media Effect
Marshall McLuhan wrote about someone with expertise in one area being seen by others as (or actually claiming to be) expert in all areas. Hence, Barbra Streisand's constant political harangues, causing the opposing sentiment, Shut Up and Sing. We saw it again
The Rube Goldberg Phenomenon
Sometimes we work ourselves into a lather trying to create a visible model of all our intellectual property and methodology—we include every element. And then it can become a float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It's that large, and
What If It’s Not “This or That,” But Both?
Folks, let's understand that seldom does one advance in any area replace all that went before it. We still don't have a checkless society, nor paperless offices. We continue to use propeller-driven planes. Radio, even AM radio, has not disappeared.
Second Law of Thermodynamics
There is no such thing in this—or most other—professions as a "plateau." The Second Law of Thermodynamics states, briefly, that in any closed system (wherein no outside energy enters the system) entropy will result. A decline takes place as existing
May I Have This Dance?
Why is it so hard to think of the tune of a favorite song when another song is being played? (At least it is for me!) I think it's because it's tough to conjure up something in your mind when
Baby It’s Cold Outside
Why are we so surprised when it's freezing and snowy in the north in the winter (where is global warming when you need it)? We're hoping it won't happen, that it will be a mild winter, unseasonably warm, no shoveling
The Larger Picture
Just as many people cast votes based on single issues (abortion, immigration, climate, etc.), despite what other viewpoints the candidate might have, many buyers are similarly myopic. For example, they look solely at expense reduction or new product commercialization. It's your