January - 2016

Billions, Part 1

My wife and I are big fans of Showtime original programming. Throughout the fifth season of Homeland, Showtime promoted a new series, Billions, starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis (turns out the entire cast is great – kudos to casting). Both are wonderful actors and, as fans of Homeland, we were delighted to see Damian Lewis make an appearance in a new series. So, on a recent Friday night after putting our son to bed, we sat down and watched the series opener. I was ex

Possibility Begins with You

As I was studying sales, there was a stat I read that 70% of the outcome of a sales transaction is within your control. Good odds. While some may fear that, I found it quite empowering due to the fact that when something is within my control, it means I can do something about it. One thing I continue to hone as I get older is to not fret and worry about what I can't control or influence. It’s a challenge given my personality type, but I have improved dramatically as I hav

Building Global Awareness

As promised in my last post (Are you worth the investment?), here is the video of a TED Talk given by Rainer Strack in 2014 - the global workforce crisis of 2030. I think he does a great job dispelling some myths about what is leading to this crisis and why, in fact, it is a crisis if we aim to maintain a healthy global economy. Those leaders and companies that aim to compete must differentiate and distinguish themselves from the competition thereby winning the war for top

Are you worth the investment?

In my post about the new definition of value describing the significance of the intangibles, defined as an investors' confidence in the differential capacity of leadership teams to learn, adapt and innovate ahead of the competition in order to optimize customer relevance, experience and advocacy, quality, value differentiation, surprise and delight, when it comes to a conversation about winning the war for top talent we must take an expansive view of the word investor. Classi

Another Reason Why Trust Matters

One of the huge values of the big data era is the ability to mine and analyze massive amounts of information to draw very sophisticated conclusions. That’s a wonderful advance of science that continues to prove its value and I am among the many who are thrilled to see how far we can push this technology to better our lives. However, there’s a key missing element to today’s big data analytic conversation – trust. I was at a breakfast this morning of industry technology execut

The Intangible Economy

A historic convergence of humanity, technology and social connectivity has disrupted, upended and rendered ineffective traditional models of the way we work, generate revenues and create value. The industrial age is dead and we have already entered a new economic age. The rules of the game have changed. People and organizations are seeking lives with purpose. Value generation today is driven primarily through intangibles. Up to 80-90% of the market cap of publicly traded com