David Wyld
Bio
Professor, Consultant, Doer. Founder/Publisher of The IDEA Publishing (http://www.theideapublishing.com/) & Modern Business Press (http://www.modernbusinesspress.com)
Stories (300/0)
New Mexico—It's like a State, like All the Others!
Believe it or not, there's a big business today that exists trying to improve something that sounds like a bad oxymoron—that is customer service in government. At all levels of government—and indeed all around the world—there is a whole lot of interest among those who lead government agencies and a ready cadre of small and larger consulting and training firms out there who are willing and eager to work with the public sector to try and improve the delivery, speed, and efficiency of government services for constituents. Yes, citizens are customers!
By David Wyld5 years ago in The Swamp
Closing Time
Ah, the end of the semester! As a "seasoned" professor with over 25 years experience working in the higher education industrial complex, this is always the busiest, most hectic, most stressful time of the year—both for college students and for their instructors. Though I'm far removed from that scene personally, I always like to draw the comparison to closing time at the bar....bringing to mind some wisdom from the classic song, "Closing Time," that is now—wow!—two decades old from the group, Semisonic:
By David Wyld5 years ago in Education
Will the Future of Retail Be Augmented?
How many times have we seen it happen in just the span of our own lives? How many times have we seen the stuff of science fiction come to life? How many times have we seen characters in a movie from two decades ago, a decade ago, or heck, even two to three years before do something that was futuristic then but is commonplace today? How many times have we been watching a TV show from a decade or two ago and get frustrated at the plot and yell out, "Why doesn't he just send her a text already!"
By David Wyld5 years ago in 01
Old Ways and Old Devices Die Hard
We all see them around and have them in our organizations. They are the ones who haul around their five-pound company-issued laptop. They are the ones still using a Blackberry—or worse, a flip phone! They are the ones who insist on doing the paper contract, rather than gathering all the digital signatures. They are the ones who insist on flying everyone into Cleveland for a meeting in the middle of winter, rather than conducting a video conference to accomplish the same task.
By David Wyld5 years ago in 01
Branded as a Rat
This is the kind of story that gives top executives of any service-oriented business today nightmares! In our age of social media, it only takes one story, one post, one video, or one picture to possibly sink your business! One bad customer interaction or one disgruntled employee's action can become a viral video in an instant. Literally, this can place your business—no matter the industry, no matter the size, no matter the location, no matter of anything—instantly on the defensive, and if that story doesn't kill your business, it could well cripple it or at least make a huge dent in the firm's top and bottom lines. And that damage can be lasting for an indeterminate amount of time in the consumer mins. Indeed, there will be some consumers that you may never be able to reach after one of these incidents.
By David Wyld5 years ago in Journal
Marketing Socks for Good from the Big Easy
As a management professor and consultant, I can safely say that one of the waaaaaaaaay most overused—and overwrought—terms in business today is social responsibility. Companies will go out of their way to tell you all about whatever good they are doing to show just how socially responsible they are. And oftentimes, they will spend as much or more on advertising and promoting the good things they might be doing than on the actual good things they are doing.
By David Wyld5 years ago in Journal
Should You Be Your Own "Monday Morning Quarterback?"
We all know "them." In fact, you may work with a few—or more—of them. In your background, you likely had a teacher or two in school and/or a coach or two in sports who was one of them. If you are in the writing business, you might run into editors who quite often are indeed one of them. You may be related to them. In fact, you might be even be married to one of them! And you might be at the stage in your life where you miss having a parent who was one of them.
By David Wyld5 years ago in Motivation
Uber Me to the Hospital, Stat!
It is one of those great juxtapositions of the modern age, where classical economics meets social media. And yes, they can agree! That's why as a management consultant/professor, one of my all-time favorite expressions comes from Gary Vaynerchuk, who has updated and put his own twist on Adam Smith's famous notion that the "invisible hand" of capitalism works to sort out "things" as they apply to business and economics with his now famous (well, not as famous as Adam Smith), but growing idea that "the market is the market."
By David Wyld5 years ago in Journal
The Cautionary Tale of Jered Threatin
"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."— Andy Warhol Today, we live in a world where fame is a hot commodity. It is no longer a question of what people will do to become famous. In reality, the more important question is what won't people do to gain notoriety.
By David Wyld5 years ago in Beat
Step 1: Google It!
It is Branding 101 in the modern world. Say you want to name your new product? Say you need to come up with a name for your new small business? Say you have the desire to create an organization to help those in need? What is the absolute first thing that you need to do? Well, any marketing expert worth paying anything to, any marketing textbook, heck, any freshman marketing student, would tell you exactly the same thing: Google your possible choices!
By David Wyld5 years ago in The Swamp
Virtual Currency Mining, Real Job Firing
One of my favorite, go-to clips as a management professor and consultant is a classic from the hit TV series, Seinfeld. This is when George Costanza is confronted by his boss over what he did on the job (we'll leave those details out here...), but pleads his ignorance on the matter and makes the case of his innocence simply on the fact that nobody had told him that THAT was wrong!
By David Wyld5 years ago in The Chain
The Price Isn't Always Right
The wine aisle. Is there a more confusing, confounding place on earth for anyone who doesn't happen to be a sommelier? Rack after rack, row after row it goes. The wine aisle at the typical supermarket has morphed to now often be one of the largest sections of the entire store—perhaps bigger than "other" staples of life like produce, meat and dairy.
By David Wyld5 years ago in Journal