Octavian Mihai

Synthesizer Last week I was reading Larry Light’s book about his time at McDonald’s and branding methods and insights he used in the turnaround. The following paragraph particularly resonated with me. “It is important to identify trends. They are ideas and concepts that happen around us and influence the way and manner in which we behave. Trends are valuable [...]

Yes, I’m still around. Just extremely busy with clients and not very available for blogging nor public speaking. The Wake-up Series restarts next week and will be scheduled all over the summer. Soon we’ll post all the dates. Be good. For other info check Jaime Candy‘s site and Bluesponge’s blog.

Rebranding JC has been a great exercise and as Borat would say ‘I like to last for a very long time!’. Well at some point the creative process and the pleasure that entails have to take a practical shape. Perfection is the excuse of lazy and undecided people. Personally I tend to adopt the iterative [...]

If you do it because everybody else is then you’re doing it wrong. [Don't listen to me]

According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, at any time, 10% of the working population suffers from depression. Out of 1000 employees 100 suffer from depression, 25 are diagnosed and 6 are actually properly treated. That is 6%! There are clear links between depression, job strain, stress, cardiovascular disease (the leading cause of [...]

A Love Relationship This is no conspiracy. Your employees leave you, nobody is taking them away from you. And where should they go if not to your competition:)? Everybody pursuits her happiness. See it as a relationship. The phase “The only reason an employee leaves you is if she fells out of love with your [...]

Here is an understatement: 99% of the corporate problems are caused by the organization chart that does not match the innate business processes and your client’s needs. My examples are from software and marketing agencies but they can be expanded to other industries. 6. Too many divisions, positions, departments, etc Organization chart is not simplified [...]

Along with Tom Peters and Sun Tzu, Machiavelli is probably one of the most cited authors at leadership-over-beer sessions. Here are in a nutshell the teachings of Machiavelli’s Fear vs Love taken from The Prince analyzed form the business perspective of leadership and keeping employees united and loyal and consequently engaged and productive. The goal [...]

60% : the average time an employee spends at work working (creating value) How to maximize that time? Improve project management – Activities planing and scheduling Do your project managers plan 80% of an employee workday on a project? Your project will be late. – Clear tasks Your project managers should minimize the time the [...]

10. Everybody is replaceable You wouldn’t be the same if you lost an arm, or a finger, why would a company stay the same when someone leaves? 9. Under-promise, over-deliver Just deliver what you promised. Keep your word. 8. Take examples in the extremes. Apple, GE, Welsh, Jobs… Steve Jobs is the best at being [...]

I have no faith in this 2.0 trend… and bubbles are made to be popped… A couple years ago in Austin at SxSW, I used to chat with the guys from wired, technorati, creative commons and other trendy kids about the importance of community driven websites and google’s business model. I was arguing for a [...]

Aight, this is a post of mine on my strategy group on facebook. You have the right to disagree… or not… —– Let ‘what’ be a new or improved idea. Let ‘how’ be a new or improved production method. creativity = what + how innovation = what * how (i.e. the product of…) Good strategy [...]

One of the arguments I use when discussing about the propagation of new products (like aids drugs, genetic tests, 3d printers, etc) is the what I call the Robin Hood business model (a combination of patent breaking and network effects business model… this is not a really a business model but draws the lines of [...]

The Google way – volume – network effects – unclear quality – gather as many people as possible – network effects – show them an ad – statistically a very tiny portion of the people will be targeted by your ad – an even tinier portion of the people will go and visit the store [...]

(CNN) — Charting Success talks to BT Group Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen “CNN: Innovation must be of utmost importance to your company. How does one manage innovation or encourage innovation. BV: So what’s innovation? Innovation is mindset. I’ve a fantastic story. Here I was talking to the top talented under-30s at BT. Eight hundred young [...]