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Tag Archives: Departmentalization

When Trails Of Science and Art Cross

  By Fred H. Schlegel | October 1, 2009 - 5:30 am |
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What causes burn out? Is it the path to competency? It seems the world is full of paths to follow, many of which leave us isolated from different modes of thought. Different points of view. When your right brain and left brain argue interesting things develop. Was reading October’s copy of Smithsonian while baking in the Community Center sauna, one of the few places I’m still tethered to paper, when I read of a meeting between Margaret Geller, David DeVorkin, Atesh Sonneborn, and Mickey Hart. “So what?” you might ask. Better said, this was a meeting between an astrophysicist, a science historian, an ethnomusicologist, and, wait for it…. a drummer for the Grateful Dead. Ideas from strange places. Ya gotta love them. Ya gotta be open to them. All members of the meeting are at the top of their game, simply different games. Hart, of the Dead, called the meeting. He … Continue reading →

Biomutualism, Breaking Down Silos, and Finding Inspiration

  By Fred H. Schlegel | September 1, 2009 - 10:10 am |
11 Comments

Developing a structure that encourages cross pollination of ideas is difficult at best. We are barely able to keep up with all the advances within a discipline, let alone take time to see what is happening in other fields. But as you may know from my love of ideas from strange places, I’m a big believer in breaking those silos down to drive innovative thought. In that vein I came across this Ted Talk from June by Robert Full called Learning from the gecko’s tail. His presentation demonstrates the powerful possibilities of cross discipline approaches to innovation. A few quotes really stood out: “[Biomutualism is] An association between biology and another discipline where each discipline reciprocally advances the other to where the collective advances that emerge are beyond any single field.” And: “We need to build biomutualisms like I showed that will increase the pace of basic discovery, in their … Continue reading →

Marketing Should Be Everywhere All The Time

  By Fred H. Schlegel | May 2, 2009 - 9:01 am | ,
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Dr. Kantor over at HarvardPublishing.org calls for everyone to be in marketing during a recession. I agree completely, but for those who know how I rant my next question is obvious: Why only ‘in a recession’?  Driving the marketing discipline through your organization creates entanglements with customers deep down in the soul. It affects creativity in ways that are profound. Just think what would happen if your customer and prospects became an intimate part of your org chart. Creative chaos or intimate understanding?  Ah well, since we are in a recession I guess it is a worthy call to arms. Let’s just try avoid departmentalizing marketing once the economy is on a roll again.

End Marketing Departmentalization

  By Fred H. Schlegel | January 17, 2009 - 10:15 am |
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As I was looking around for current ‘definitions’ of marketing to satisfy my curiosity and I came across the AMA’s revised definition for marketing.  “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” A bit high falutin’ but an improvement over the old language that starts with: “Marketing is an organizational function…”  In the announcement from Mike Lotti, Chairperson of the Board they hit the nail on the head:

Rethinking Budget Cuts

  By Fred H. Schlegel | January 15, 2009 - 4:53 pm |
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The nice thing about a recession is that it reminds you how amazing capitalism can be.  Even though most of us are hurting pretty badly —budgets being cut, loans being called, sales dropping — there are companies out there doing well.  Thriving even. Why bring up the lucky few when talking about budget cuts that are hitting most of us?  As a reminder that opportunity always exists even when the economy seems to be completely against you. Even a Budget Cut can be an opportunity. Truth is, there is no need for marketing, business development, product innovation, customer relationships or anything else if your organization runs out of cash.  In today’s economy, the length of your runway (how long before cash runs out)  matters more than practically any other program you have. So, if cuts need to be made, make them quick, take care of people as best you can … Continue reading →