Charming story last night on North Carolina Public Radio’s The Story about the astronomer who funded Galex, a NASA map the sky project – with a bake sale – a consortium of private funders. Chris Martin, a Caltech scientist, came up with the idea over drinks with a friend after NASA told him he would … Continue reading
Sometimes it’s not easy to know how well you’re doing. If half your customers have signed up for your new product, is that good or bad? How could your profits be improved? Benchmarking the results of peers can be one way to tell. Encouragetech conducts several different kinds of benchmarks. Sometimes, we collect financial information … Continue reading
When I studied strategy at the University of Virginia’s business school, we studied two cases where the leaders acted at different speeds. Crown Cork & Seal faced a threat to its very existence from red ink, bloated overhead, and commodity products. At L.L. Bean, in contrast, a new CEO came into a family owned business … Continue reading
On the family farm in central Missouri which I help to manage, we have 433 acres of woods. For twenty years, we’ve ignored them, beyond cutting a few cords of firewood and some Christmas trees. As an old forester told me when he came on the property recently, “Trees don’t bawl like cows do when … Continue reading
