In my youth we lived on the corner of a tiny street in suburban Philadelphia called Shepherd’s Lane. At the other end of the street, less than half a city block away, the sign read Shepards Lane. The discrepancy bothered me at the time (though not enough to compel me to find out which was […]
In late September 2014 a man showing symptoms of the Ebola virus came into the United States from West Africa, was examined by doctors at a hospital in Dallas — and was then released back into the community. There he came into contact with other people before finally being readmitted to the hospital, where he […]
I recently had the pleasure of meeting the class of incoming students at Columbia’s Information and Knowledge Strategy program and conducting an introductory learning session with them in tandem with Kate Pugh, the program’s academic director. Take it from the top This master’s degree program is designed in an ingenious way. Unlike many programs in […]
I’ve been preparing to help Guy St. Clair teach his course Management and Leadership in the Knowledge Domain. This is part of Columbia University’s exciting new master’s degree program in Information and Knowledge Strategy, which I am pleased and honored to be part of. This for me is a perfect opportunity to link my ideas […]
The opportunities revealed by the Knowledge Value Chain derive mainly from taking data, enriching it, and applying it to support decision making in more innovative and value-enhancing ways. But are there inherent characteristics of certain data that make it more valuable than other data? Absolutely. Five factors come to mind as distinguishing one set of […]
The headline in today’s Wall Street Journal caught my attention: “Bringing Jobs Back to the U.S. Is Bruising Task.” The article describes the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit group that helps companies return production to the US. 80% of these companies are relatively small, with revenues of $200 million or less. The article describes that a key […]
I take pride in bringing the latest techniques and insights to my clients. But it turns out the origins of what I do go back at least 2500 years. I discovered this while reading Lawrence Freedman’s new sprawling history of all manners of strategy, called (fittingly) Strategy: A History. Professor Freedman traces the modern use […]
We’re pleased to announce the publication of the latest Version (4.0) of our Knowledge Value Chain Handbook. Here’s an excerpt (with added emphasis) from the Introduction. Knowledge is a fundamental resource of our economic lives. If you were going to enter the business of, say, manufacturing airplanes, you would want to hire people with substantial […]
Competitiveness and Innovation
I recently had the experience of intensively studying an industry as a consultant — then subsequently (and unrelatedly) becoming a client of that industry. The industry, as you probably have guessed, is health care. There are things you learn when you are a patient that you never see when you’re not. (I’ve heard doctors report […]
Competitiveness and Innovation
The holiday break provides us an ideal time to calibrate and refocus our efforts and build for the year ahead. Given the dynamic nature of the business environment, I recommend you consider these two simple questions: If I were starting my enterprise today, what would I be doing different from what I am doing now? […]