Ponderings in a corner of the universe

Ponderings in a corner of the universe is Matt's blog on everything that passes his mind. His latest posts have been a bit focused on his wedding, but there's some good marketing stuff there too. :-)

Walking the Talk.

Fast Company has a short & sweet story on their blog of Leading Ideas: Don't Let Talk Parade as Action.

Doesn't it sound familiar, having read all those management books, talking about them, using the buzzwords for a while, and then having trouble actually putting them into practice, and running on to the next big idea?

Click on to the article for some tips on what to do about that!

What is the meaning of life?

A question a lot of us ask ourselves at various stages in life.

Luckily, all the answers can be found here, on Wikipedia. Just take you pick. :-)
Or maybe the answer is as simple as "42".

Advertising overkill

I guess this may be normal in Japan. PingMag talks about 10 tips for advertising in the Tokyo Subway, including MetroVista. I have to go there once to experience THAT!

The Power of Visualization

In an earlier post, I talked abouth the power of context. Over at Presentation Zen, there's a great article about the power of visualization. Something to keep in mind next time you create a powerpoint slide full of text.

Swoosh! Who do you turn to when times get tough?

I have just finished reading "Swoosh. The unauthorizes story of Nike and the men who played there". Even though it was a business book, it read like a novel, telling the story of Phil Knight and the men who worked with him to make Nike a billion dollar company.

What struck me most was that when you got closer to the end of the book, you could see how the company was transformed from a dynamic, creative (almost anarchistic) company into a corporate behemoth. I want to share the ending with you:

"The new leaders of Nike are not entrepreneurs like their predecessors. They are managers, very good managers - much better managers than their predecessors. The pain-in-the ass individualism that made Nike different is gone, but so is the spirit that made employees care. There are experts who would say that such a transition was inevitable, that every large company goes through a transition from entrepreneurs to managerq. But if times ever got tough again, which would you turn to? And, perhaps, just as important, who would you rather go to a ball game with?"

"Just do it?"

UPDATE: You might also want to read this and this article from Harvard Business School, which deal with when it is time for a company's founder to "move on" and hand over the reins to a new CEO.