David Wyld
Founding member
Bio
Professor, Consultant, Doer. Founder/Publisher of The IDEA Publishing (http://www.theideapublishing.com/) & Modern Business Press (http://www.modernbusinesspress.com)
Stories (300/0)
Seizing the Internet Opportunity
Overview What are you doing online right now? If you say you’re working, that may - or may not - be true. Indeed, there is a fine line at present between what is time wasting and money making activities online. And that shows the power - and opportunity - that the Web presents to all of us today.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Futurism
The Worst Management Idea of the Year
Introduction As a management consultant and professor, one thing that I usually urge executives to do is to be willing to engage in stealing. Now, I know that I need to explain that one. What I have found from my experience is that it is typically a sign of the best management when a company’s leadership is willing to copy the best ideas and practices of market leaders and adapt them for their purposes. This is true whether we are talking about how to manage your people, how to market your product, how to provide good customer service, etc. Steve Jobs, the legendary founder and CEO of Apple, who many of the innovations he is credited with actually originated with other companies, loved the famous Pablo Picasso quote that: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal
The Self-Checkout Solution?
Overview The self-checkout is a sign of once again just how divided we are as a nation. For some of us, self-checkout is one of the greatest innovations of the past decade. A retail store that has self-checkout available means that you can shop - and pay - literally without having to come into contact with, let alone converse with, another human being if you so choose. And in the age of the coronavirus, even checking out with a cashier means communicating most times through masks (depending on what state you live in) and plexiglass. Self-checkout offers you speed and convenience, so long as one can follow the procedures precisely and not cause the system to “tilt.”
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal
Pumpkin Spice Management
Overview We are in the middle of “Pumpkin Spice Season.” That is a quite remarkable statement, considering that a little less than two decades ago, the words “pumpkin” and “spice” would really only be used in connection with making pumpkin pies for the holidays. Now however, as Nina Friend recently observed for Food & Wine Magazine, “Pumpkin spice has become a cultural icon, a representation of autumn as emblematic as changing leaves.” And the flavor of pumpkin spice not only has birthed literally a thousand product offerings, but it also shows the power of encouraging taking the unusual, the unproven, and by no means the safe path in business and beyond.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal
What Total Wine & More Can Teach All of Us about the Power of a Great Idea
I had my first Total Wine & More experience late on a rainy evening at the end of a long workday followed by a middle aged, married life escape - a shopping/fast food dinner trip to a neighboring larger town about 20 miles from us. We had to go to Covington, Louisiana as we had an exchange to make at a big box retailer there, and after a long day, a “fancy” dinner out at Chick-fil-A or Five Guys seemed like a well-deserved treat for my wife and I.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Proof
- Top Story - September 2021
How Would You Survive Without the Internet Today? Top Story - September 2021
How long could you go without all modern forms of communication? 3 minutes? 30 minutes? 3 hours? Well, tens of thousands of us here in South Louisiana have been living through quite an experience - and an experiment in living without perhaps the linchpins of modern life and work - namely reliable cell service and easy access to the Internet.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Futurism
The WFH Series: Addressing the Measurement Challenges Involved with Managing Remote Work
Moving forward, it will not be enough - for any of us - to make managerial decisions, whether on the micro level for individual employees and their supervisors or on the macro level for organizations and government agencies, to have just the kind of anecdotal, largely self-reported data that we have had to date regarding remote work. For everything from employee productivity and engagement to organizational outcomes to the costs and savings associated with working from home, there should be a real push - both by companies, large and small alike, and by government agencies, both as employers and as wider data collectors - to gather, analyze, use, and disseminate useful information on remote working. This is vital for decision makers, on every level in the private and public sector alike, to make truly informed decisions along the way as we go through this transition in the way we work.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal
The WFH Series: The Troublesome Issues Involved in Managing Remote Workers Fairly
Certainly, managing remote workers - whether they are 100% WFH (work from home) or partially remote - is a different kind of management in practice, as one has to manage less based on observation and more based on performance - which is not a bad thing overall! However, one of the very real, and very important, issues that all organizations, private and public alike, will have to deal with as work increasingly shifts to a remote or hybrid format is a new form of discrimination - that being against remote workers.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal
The WFH Series: Addressing the Productivity Concerns Associated with Remote Work
Will workers be more productive working from home? That today is literally foremost among the biggest unknowns for managers everywhere, with really no easy or confirmable answer to that question at this point in time. Research into the productivity question during the pandemic has seemed to indicate that despite us being shifted to working from home abruptly and that the shift brought on an “imperfect experiment “ in working remotely, overall, workers in the United States at least seem to be able to be as productive, if not moreso, in the remote/WFH (work from home) environment as in the traditional office setting. Similar research from around the world conducted during the pandemic seems to indicate improved productivity similar to that found in the US. The real outlier in the studies was one done by Morikawa in Japan. His research indicated that Japanese workers saw significant - almost 40% - lower productivity when working from the home environment (of course, the average Japanese home is far smaller and more “efficient'' than the typical American abode). [1]
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal
The WFH Series: Addressing the Tech and Security Concerns of Remote Work
Certainly, one of the most critical issues involved with remote working - and one that most assuredly keeps CIO’s (Chief Information Officers) and other information technology executives in the private and public sectors up late at night worried about - is the whole issue of data security. And when talking about a governmental entity, the information security issues and concerns rise to a whole new level of complexity and importance over that found in most private sector environments. While data security, privacy, and hacking concerns about remote working are indeed important, and definitely do need to be addressed both upfront and on an ongoing basis, such issues can and must be managed proactively and aggressively in today’s working environment.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal
The WFH Series: The Implications of the Looming Demise of the “Commuter Industrial Complex”
In some ways, the consequences of the increases to come in remote working and hybrid work arrangements on a more permanent basis read almost like the children’s favorite, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. That is because if less workers are working regularly in offices, then organizations - the government included - will need less office space. And if there is less demand for office space, rents will go down. And if rents go down, that is good news for the renting organization (including the government), because they will be spending less on offices - with rent really only being the starting point of these expenditures (including utilities, maintenance, insurance, etc.). However, all of this is bad news - very bad news - for owners of the office space, who will see less revenue and more vacancies. And with less revenue and more vacancies, the value of the buildings holding the office space will go down. And if the value of the commercial buildings goes down, then the local governments who depend on property taxes will see less revenue. And with counties and cities seeing less revenue from property taxes, they will have to either raise taxes elsewhere or cut services to citizens.
By David Wyld3 years ago in Journal