A profound point: Great advice from Peter Arnell....

The pop-culture presence of architecture, branding and ad industry icon Peter Arnell has grown this year due to many high-profile developments. Among them, he had a starring role on an episode of Martha Stewart's Apprentice, and he also has written "point of view" pieces for almost every issue of Point, the new monthly magazine Advertising Age began publishing earlier this year. In the past, The New York Times' Stuart Elliott has referred to the chairman and chief creative officer of Arnell Group, his own 'brand ideation and experience marketing company,' as the secret weapon of his company's parent Omnicom Group. I think the same can be said about the sage advice Arnell offers in his November Point column: It's a secret weapon to help individuals of all types to achieve real greatness.


With this issue of Point focusing on marketing returns on investment or ROI -- an acronym representing a phenomenon that's rapidly becoming both a blessing and a curse to many marketers -- Arnell makes the case on the ROI of friendship, based on his experiences with his nemesis, Frank Gehry. Do read the whole piece if you can in Point's November issue, but in the meantime, savor these thoughts, courtesy of Mr. Arnell, shared in honor of Mr. Gehry. "Invest time in people you believe in. Inspire them. Empower them through your own doing to take action and innovate. Learn how to make decisions based on experience, gut and business cases you believe in. Consider friendships your greatest investment and you will achieve your greatest returns."

Achieve sacred business wisdom, via S+B's pyramid of pivotal ideas

Ideas form the bases of our thoughts, and since 1995, strategy+business magazine has dedicated itself to isolating and extolling the virtues of the best new ideas to come to light. On the occasion of the magazine's tenth anniversary, s+b's editor-in-chief Art Kleiner reached out to his readership and everyone who has contributed to s+b's contents, to solicit input on the top ten ideas treated in the mag's pages which are the most likely to impact businesses, now and in the future. The concepts listed in his resulting story -- which is entitled "Our Ten Most Enduring Ideas" -- are fleshed-out with rich explanations, and most link to full articles from s+b's free, complete online archive.


In order, here are the things you probably need to know about to successfully navigate your business into the future: (1) Execution; (2) The Learning Organization; (3) Corporate Values; (4) Customer Relationship Management; (5) Disruptive Technology; (6) Leadership Development; (7) Organizational DNA; (8) Strategy-Based Transformation; (9) Complexity Theory; (10) Lean Thinking. Beyond these, there are another 25 ideas listed that were contenders for the top ten list. With its analytic approach to presenting its findings, and the depth of information presented for each key concept, the article provides a great road map for ensuring we comprehend what we need to know in order to successfully drive our businesses to our chosen destinations.

Change-proof your business with Harvard Business elixir...

The inevitability of change is one of the only things in this big old world that all of us can rely upon. In this month's Harvard Management Update, writer Peter Jacobs analyzes research from Texas A&M University's Michael Hitt and University of Texas, San Antonio's Katsuhiko Shimizu to help arm readers to persevere through difficult circumstances. The full article, entitled "Five Steps to Thriving in Times of Uncertainty," is available as a PDF download for just $4.


Strategic flexibility is the term that Hitt and Shimizu coin to describe the best means for a company to ready itself to endure tough times, and it relies upon (1) recognizing that significant changes are affecting your company, (2) rapidly setting a new course of action, and (3) continuing to monitor progress and committing resources accordingly. In summary, maintaining this mission-critical capability asks us to put systems in place to alert us whenever performance falters in any key area of business. We're also advised to identify individuals who can provide objective, critical analyses of our main activities -- and then put their advice to work. We also need to evaluate all major corporate initiatives on a regular basis and consider shifting resources to those that offer us the most strategic advantages. Finally, the results of these analyses and our follow-up actions should be weighed and judged, so that the lessons learned can factor into future decisions. Along with more illustrative examples, the full story also offers a worksheet entitled "Making Your Organization Change Ready," adapted from a Harvard Business Essentials piece by Siobhan Ford. If you're smart enough to be anticipating those unforeseen challenges over the horizon, this quick read can help make your business -- in a manner of speaking -- bullet-proof.

December 1 is World AIDS Day...

Doing my little part to promote World AIDS Day, which is today. You can click here to learn more about the official activities taking place to promote awareness and disseminate the latest information about HIV and AIDS.


I'm very proud to say that my clients at commercial visual effects company A52, commercial editorial company Rock Paper Scissors, global creative agency ATTIK and "one source" post production company PostWorks, New York have recently joined with me to provide a financial contribution to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. This non-profit group is currently waging an aggressive campaign to accelerate the response of the United States to children living with AIDS around the world. Any contribution large or small, to this organization or any other that is actively addressing the global AIDS epidemic, will be greatly appreciated. More information on the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and its efforts is available online at pedaids.org.