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Think Strategically to Enable Growth in Tough times; Strategy is not about the plan

Think Strategically to Enable Growth in Tough times

by Dr. Grant Sieff | Sep 11, 2013

Dr Grant Sieff, Director of the Strategic Thinking and Execution for Growth Programme at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, offers five steps towards thinking strategically to enable growth in tough times

The passing of Margaret Thatcher is a signifier of the times: Thatcherism is certainly gone, and so too is any naivety that we can depend on any one simple formula for global economic stability.  Dr Grant Sieff, CEO of IC Growth Group and Programme Director of Strategic Thinking and Execution for Growth at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), describes the environment we find ourselves in as economic anarchy. “It’s not a slow evolution, it’s more like a series of shocks – more shaken than stirred,” he says.  “The nature of business is that it is in constant flux – globally, economies are slowing once again; and technology continues to evolve rapidly. Google Glass, for example, is about to come out, and could revolutionise the way we examine possibilities,” he says. However, Sieff says that inside this cauldron of radical change lie opportunities for businesses to innovate and get ahead; executives who have the ability to think strategically and execute strategies to ensure ongoing growth in the face of uncertainty and change, will prosper. But for that to happen, leaders and executives need to develop the skills to be able to identify and leverage opportunities. Sieff says that these skills can be distilled into five key steps.   Read more of this post

Mystery of acquiring another language; Neurology helps to learn a language, but hard work is what matters

September 11, 2013 4:13 pm

Mystery of acquiring another language

By Michael Skapinker

Neurology helps to learn a language, but hard work is what matters

In 1987 I interviewed Robert Maxwell, the publishing and printing magnate, at his London headquarters in Holborn Circus. His death and disgrace were some years away. As well as the Mirror newspaper group, Maxwell headed the biggest printing company in Europe and one of the largest in the US. But I was relieved, as he ordered senior managers around for my benefit, that I was observing rather than working for him – and what struck me, apart from the bullying, was his extraordinary English. Born in 1923 in a village on the Czech-Romanian border, Maxwell arrived in Liverpool in 1940 and joined the British army. Although he only started to learn the language at 17 years old, his English was fault-free and spoken with a booming upper-class accent. Read more of this post

Negotiation Tactics: The 10 Minute MBA Course On Negotiation

SEPTEMBER 9, 2013 by ERIC BARKER

Negotiation Tactics: The 10 Minute MBA Course On Negotiation

Want to learn the negotiation tactics of an MBA? I’ve cleaned up and distilled notes from the excellent negotiating course I took in MBA school taught by MIT lecturer John Richardson.

Preparation

Always, do your homework. Success in negotiation is strongly correlated with time spent preparing. Preparing in a group helps; others will come up with things you didn’t. Be ambitious. There’s usually a connection between aspiration level and what people get. (Obviously, you can go too far, so look at your benchmarks.) It’s very valuable to have things you don’t want in a negotiation so you can give them away for things you do. Read more of this post

The product as market research: The lower cost of digital prototyping helps innovators test lots of ideas simultaneously

September 11, 2013 5:25 pm

The product as market research

By Ian Sanders

In a set of studios close to London’s Old Street roundabout, Stef Lewandowski and his team are working on changing how digital products are built and tested. What sets Mr Lewandowski, co-founder of Makeshift, apart from many of his neighbours in London’s tech community is that his business releases a new product each month, a rate that it achieves by developing multiple ideas simultaneously rather than focusing on one single product. Read more of this post

Patent Fight Erupts Over Kids’ Fad; Amid a Bracelet-Crafting Craze, a Legal Battle Has Begun Over a Tiny Plastic Clasp

September 11, 2013, 7:51 p.m. ET

Patent Fight Erupts Over Kids’ Fad

Amid a Bracelet-Crafting Craze, a Legal Battle Has Begun Over a Tiny Plastic Clasp

SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN And ADAM JANOFSKY

Rainbow Loom says it has sold more than 1 million bracelet kits. Rainbow Loom’s creator, Cheong Choon Ng, has been mired in legal disputes over his bracelet-crafting kit.

Just 6 millimeters wide, a plastic C-shaped fastener enables kids around the U.S. to connect loops of colored rubber bands to form bracelets. Now, that clasp is at the center of a legal dispute among the entrepreneurs and retailers cashing in on the hottest crafting craze in years. In August, the founder of three-year-old Rainbow Loom—a rubber-band jewelry-making kit that is a blockbuster seller this fall—sued rival Zenacon LLC, claiming it copied the “distinctive trade dress” of Rainbow Loom’s “unique” C-shaped clips with its competing FunLoom product. Read more of this post

Teaching Entrepreneurship Is in the Startup Phase; Students are clamoring for instruction, but it’s hard. There are no algorithms for success

September 11, 2013, 7:29 p.m. ET

Teaching Entrepreneurship Is in the Startup Phase

Students are clamoring for instruction, but it’s hard. There are no algorithms for success.

BILL AULET

Forget medical school or law school. These days, record numbers of high-school and college students say they aspire to be entrepreneurs. At Yale University, for example, over 20% of the undergraduates indicate that they are interested in pursuing entrepreneurship as a career. Compare that with 1980, the year I graduated from Harvard. I didn’t know what the word “entrepreneur” meant—and neither did any of my friends. There is good reason for this trend. Traditional career paths no longer offer the security they once seemed to guarantee, and startups promise young people independence, control and the possibility of making good money. Read more of this post

Family offices talk a lot about club deals, but are they really happening, or just figments of fund managers’ imaginations?

CLUBBING TOGETHER

ARTICLE | 11 SEPTEMBER, 2013 05:07 PM | BY JEREMY HAZLEHURST

Club deals are all the rage. At least in theory. Many families are sick of paying fees to asset managers who stick their money in a black box, wave a magic wand over it and then, well, find that the money has vanished in a puff of smoke. People with burned fingers are, predictably, keen to cut out the middleman and invest directly. The idea of teaming up with other like-minded family offices to make direct private equity-style investments has an evident appeal. But club deals are not happening as fast as you might expect. “They are a bit like sex,” says David Barbour, co-head of private equity at Fleming Family & Partners, “it’s talked about more than it actually happens.” He points out that it’s hard to know how many deals are getting done, because they are off-market, which is after all “one of the attractions of doing club deals for family offices”, but suspects that the reality doesn’t match up to the desire. Read more of this post

Students Learn Better From Professors Outside Tenure System

September 11, 2013, 1:31 PM

Students Learn Better From Professors Outside Tenure System

By Khadeeja Safdar

Tenured professors at higher education institutions are certainly given more prestige than other lecturers. But are they better teachers? In a new working paper published by theNational Bureau of Economic Research, researchers David N. Figlio,Morton O. Schapiro and Kevin B. Soter find quite the opposite — that is, tenured professors or those on their way to tenure don’t enhance student learning as much as lecturers outside the tenure system. Read more of this post

Shanghai violin maker uses ‘secret formula’ to produce quality instrument

Shanghai violin maker uses ‘secret formula’ to produce quality instrument

Staff Reporter

2013-09-12

Ling Zhenhua adjusts the strings on one of his violins. (Internet Photo)

Although painting violins is a dying art, it has not stopped 59-year-old Chinese violin maker Ling Zhenhua producing top-quality instruments. Ling’s weapon is his own “secret paint formula,” which he refuses to disclose, reports the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post. At his workshop in Shanghai’s suburban Qingpu district, Ling shuts himself off from the outside world while making paint for his violins. It normally takes him one to two months to make one pot of paint and takes the craftsman six months to produce a complete violin. Ling said that a good violin needs to be coated with at least 30 layers. Read more of this post