Culture Note: Independence & Community Cooperation

A recent Atlantic article explored “Why Japanese Kids Can Walk to School Alone?”  This seemingly mundane activity has extreme elements of socio-cultural depth to it.  Two chief cultural elements come into play with this: individualism and collectivism. At first glance, the average American would point and say “Look how they make kids fend for themselves […]

Thanking Starbucks & Howard

Yesterday I had an amazing lunch where I bumped into Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. I made a point to talk to him for a bit because of how well he treated me when I was a younger partner barista. As a professional today I respect and admire him more in recognizing how he sees company […]

Present With Visual Movement

An excellent presentation platform is Prezi.  It allows for sharing information in a visual dynamic manner. My primary points when being a speaker with visuals are as follows in no particular order: 1. Keep the audience’s interest. 2. Use more imagery than text. 3. Text in presentations should be minimal, and BIG when it is used. […]

Intangible Business Objectives: Getting Seattle an NBA Team

“We put Seattle’s best foot forward.” -Chris Hansen Why is money not important in business objectives? Objectives of some enterprises are not always profit-driven.  Bidding on the Sacramento Kings to become the new Seattle Supersonics is a good case to look back on. Chris Hansen is a billionaire hedge fund manager who knows about strategy, […]

Idea Reading in Powerpoint

IDEA READING IN PPT Have you ever read whole paragraphs during a meeting in powerpoint slides? Powerpoint for business training and graduate presentations is part of my daily work. Communication in business is extremely important but sometimes poorly executed.   Far too often my colleagues make slides that are used as their speaking solely points.  They do not use […]