Mindful Proclamations: Studying Failed Movements Last week, I got a call from a consultant who lamented the “failure of all those management movements.” As usual in these conversations, the caller went on to explain how his particular idea was what leaders and managers really needed. That type of lament seems increasingly common in the literature …

Last week, I did a workshop among nonprofit CEO Executive Directors. Some of them expressed great frustration at the exorbitant compensation of CEOs of very large, in-building nonprofit capacity for-profit companies. They mentioned that many of the company’s products were very poor quality anyway. One participant offered a rather novel assertion that the pay of …

Media Notification! Avoiding Common Mistakes and Assumptions In my PR career, I’ve heard some unbelievable things people have said about “The Media.” Things that made “The Media” out to be some kind of monolithic machine, the political equivalent of the Teabagger viewpoint about “The Government” (as if “The Government” were one entity. Seriously, are they …

DUE DILIGENCE: “The process of investigation, performed by investors, into the details of a potential investment, such as an examination of operations and management and the verification of material facts.” (Source: InvestorWords.com) The title of this article may surprise some readers. What possible role, you might ask, can crisis management play in the complex interaction …

The issues surrounding Goldman Sachs highlight many of challenges facing the business ethics industry. There has been a public furor over the integrity of certain industries, such as finance, even though the leaders of those companies can state categorically that they acted legally, and ethically, within the guidelines they have worked within for some time. …

Tomorrow is the first day of the Social Enterprise Alliance’s annual Summit, a national conference that features a wide variety of presentations, workshops and networking in this field. This year’s Summit is being held in San Francisco. More information is available at www.se-alliance.org. If you can make it to the conference, great, I know you …

As mentioned previously, overcoming the myth of the "paper trail" requires building a performance culture.

What do the month of May, the 50th anniversary of the Pill and a pending big bill for rental tuxedos and pretty dresses have in common? If you guessed the Prom, you’re about half right — and, some would say, maybe a little morally jaded. But if you have a news announcement that can somehow …

Is Direct Response Marketing still a powerful concept in the digital age? Marketing in the digital world is a race for the most current information, the best technology, and the fastest implementation. David Ogilvy remains one of the most famous names in advertising and one of the handful of thinkers (Raymond Rubicam, Leo Burnett, William Bernbach, Ted Bates) who shaped the business after the 1920s.

The benefits of having a business plan include: Helping you to clarify your vision and deciding whether or not to forge ahead with the idea. Determining if your product and/or service has a sufficient market to support it and whether or not it will be profitable. Providing an estimate of your start-up costs and how …