Do you find Facebook a helpful tool for maintaining and growing business contacts, or are you contemplating what Harvard Online editor Paul Michelman is about to do: "Defriend" all his business contacts. As a business tool, says Michelman, Facebook is not working, and it's...
Let's just cut to the chase, shall we? Business travel sucks. It's always been difficult. Today it's horrendous. In the next few years it could be unbearable as airlines consolidate routes and pile on fees. So veteran business traveler Marshall Goldsmith checks in to Harvard Business with...
As people continue to pinch pennies in a slowing economy, how does the seller of upscale products and services convince them to buy items that are impractical Hummer, unnecessary Amazon rain forest excursion, or expensively luxurious Lobster of the Month Club? The answer is simple. Lay...
When you hear a bottle of Coca-Cola being opened, does the pop-fizz sound wet your thirst for that first sip? Or does it do something more, transporting you back in time to a happy, warm memory when your grandfather snapped open an eight-ounce bottle of the popular...
Where did Starbucks run off the rails? Probably the day it decided to go public. The demands of investors to expand and grow undercut the delicate ingredients that had made Starbucks a mega-success in the first place, argues Harvard Business School marketing professor John Quelch in a...
Following the historic 9 percent run up in oil futures June 6, expect your customers to be more concerned than ever about prices. But it's not just customers you have to worry about -- you need to be thinking right now about how to manage your business through the deepening...
Do you work in a building designed to keep you energized, more productive, and that tells your company mission to all staff and visitors within a few steps of entering? I suspect most of us work in Dilbert's Cubicle World. So it's intriguing to see the HQ...
You likely have repeat customers who love your store, products and services. But they will discard you by the side of the road like yesterday's fish wrap for the first smart-talking competitor who bats an eyelash their way. Why aren't customers more loyal? It's...
On the heels of Apple's announcement of a $199 iPhone and the company's continuing surge, it's instructive to recall that CEO Steve Jobs isn't always right. Enter the year 2001 into your Apple Time Machine to a period when the company was recording a $195 million loss...
Harvard Business Review editor Thomas Stewart says its clear the airline industry has declared war on its customers. How else to explain American Airlines charging passengers for checked luggage, starting with $15 for the first piece -- even if it's just a briefcase. Stewart wonders why American...
Twenty years ago, with George Bush Sr. in command of the country, the US was gripped with almost a national hysteria about Japan. The hottest read in business and government circles was Trading Places: How We Are Giving Our Future to Japan and How to Reclaim It,...
The Nintendo Wii wants YOU!!! -- if you are overweight, a mom, a dad, older, or worried about your fading mental skills. In other words, if you are anyone but the traditional video gamer. Welcome to the world of Wii Fit, an $89 physical...
The Olympic Games present billions of dollars worth of marketing opportunities, but the controversies over this year's host, China, have the potential to make some advertisers wonder if the risk is worth the reward. So far, however, there have been few, if any, high-profile companies pulling...
When your iPod earbuds aren't working or your chainsaw is hard to start, where do you turn to for help? Just a few years ago, the answer was pretty straight forward. You'd call up the company's customer support line or hunt down an FAQ on its...
An economic downturn is a great time to go after competitors, who likely will be retrenching rather than advancing. But you need two things before loading up. First, your financials must be in order, including a healthy balance sheet, cash, and little debt. Second, pick the right...
The middle market is that great area where customers on the low end of the income scale aspire to shop, and where high-end spenders fear to fall. Think Sears, T.J. Maxx, and Applebee's as prototype mid-market players. Harvard Business School marketing professor John Quelch thinks the middle...
Every revolution needs a revolutionary. Have you identified the Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or Che Guevara who is going to lead your corporate social revolution? This is the effort to forge new, interactive engagements with both your customers and employees using social technologies such as blogs,...
Web users generate two kinds of information, explicit and implicit. Explicit is what you set out to create: blog posts, tags, wikis. But it's the information you create without thinking as you make your way across the Web that may be far more important in the long...
Under the intriguing title Are Your Prices High Enough? Harvard Business Review senior editor Bronwyn Fryer blogs on the idea that people's expectations about a product influence how they ultimately respond to it. Put two unmarked but identical bottles of wine before your friends. Tell them the...
Early this decade the Girl Scouts of the USA was an organization adrift. Membership growth was slowing, the mission seemed dulled, the brand had lost its focus. When Harvard Online blogger Bill Taylor looks at the Girl Scouts today and the steps it has taken under recent...
