The disappearance of the original mind
By the time he was 22, Jack London, author of The Call of the Wildand White Fang, had variously: Worked in a cannery, electrical plant, and laundry Taught himself to sail and become an oyster pirate Lived as a tramp and spend a month in jail for vagrancy Travelled the pacific on a seal hunting schooner […]
Armani, aspiration, and the decline of luxury
If we’re reductive about it, we might say there are really only two strategic levers a business can pull from a consumer perspective: Utilitarian Brand led When it comes to delivering value, these are basically the paths to do it. Utilitarian companies offer a genuinely useful and unique “function” – for instance, the supermarket Lidl, […]
How Do We Create Something Beautiful
There is a school of thought that holds that beauty is subjective and unreal; merely the expression of one person’s preference over another. Whilst fashionable, this is contradicted by philosophy, science, and more importantly by the experience and good sense of ordinary people. Places, buildings, items, creatures; all of them are capable of holding this […]
How to grow a strategic culture
What do you look for in a new hire? Immediately no doubt all the cliches come to mind. Hardworking, team player, problem solver, etc. Cliches are quite helpful like that: by on the tip of our tongue, they guide us effortlessly to good solid solutions. Solutions that have been tried and tested enough to become […]
How to make eco-strategies work
I spend a lot of time here talking against herd behaviour; against the reflexive urge, we all have to copy and to cluster – particularly in business. It should be acknowledged, however, that not all herd behaviour is necessarily illogical or counterproductive. We are all swimming in the same cultural waters, and sometimes a wave […]
Sugar, sex, and the supernormal
Following my piece a few months back on the phenomenon of concentration – the great invisible force shaping pretty much everything right now – I wanted to do another similar piece on a different macro-trend. The purpose of such pieces, which of course aren’t strategy how-to guides like some others, is to give you a […]
How successful brands die
Understandably we talk a lot here about growth. That’s what most founders are interested in. However, this is should only be one part of their agenda. The other, less discussed, is survival. Simply sticking around and maintaining your brand’s position – hopefully long into the future. When it comes to the growth side of the […]
Have you been taught the wrong way to think?
As some of you may have heard, humanities education is in something of a crisis. University enrolment in such subjects is in free fall, and many are now questioning what the point of studying literature, philosophy, history, etc. is, in comparison to practical STEM disciplines. This topic may seem outside of our purview here, but […]
Hattable brands – what makes a business a cultural icon
Arguably there are two types of brand in this world: Those you could put on a hat, and those you couldn’t. Harley Davidson, Mountain Dew, Jack Daniels, Levis, Marlboro, Fender, Porsche; all “hattable” brands. Dell, Audi, Dove, Pepsi, Cadbury’s, FedEx; all great brands, yes, but not “hattable”. To be the sort of brand who an […]
The danger of knowing too much
Consider the following paradox: The more news you consume, the more ignorant you may become. How can this be true? After all, clearly the person who reads the paper regularly, watches a 24 hour news channel, devours current affairs podcasts, and spends hours on Twitter will end up knowing an awful lot of stuff. Certainly […]