harvard business « Scott Berkun

Archive for the ‘harvard business’ Category

By Scott Berkun on September 17th, 2008
7 Comments »
Innovation

How to learn from a nuclear missle

I love stories of management and creative thinking that come from unexpected places. I have short article about the development of the Polaris nuclear missile, over on my Harvard Business. Check it out.

I hope you don’t mind these cross-blog links I’ve been posting. Let me know if you do.

By Scott Berkun on September 8th, 2008
1 Comment »
harvard business

Google Chrome: beyond the hype

In writing my own review of Chrome, I stumbled across tons of articles about Google’s new browser. Many of them set off my hype and BS detector: over on Harvard Business I wrote this recap of the hype and my take on the reality.

Google Chrome: beyond the hype (Harvard Business)

By Scott Berkun on August 28th, 2008
No Comments »
harvard business

Upgrade your life: interview w/Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani

Over at harvard business, I interviewed Gina Trapani, Editor at one of the most popular blogs in the world, lifehacker.com. I asked some tough questions about personal productivity and and she has great answers.

Here’s an excerpt:

S: There are so many ways to optimize work and habits, that it’s easy to get lost, or to spend as much time seeking out new hacks as using the old ones. Are there meta-hacks, or hacks for managing all of the hacks out there?

G: The hack is simple: pick a system and stick with it. The irony of productivity media is that it gives you an excuse to put off actually doing the stuff on your to-do list by trying out a new way to keep track of your to-do list. (This is the reason why sites like Lifehacker even exist!) But the reality is that, like humans, every task manager, calendar, smartphone, or productivity tool is flawed…

Real the full interview here.

By Scott Berkun on August 18th, 2008
No Comments »
Management

How to win with anthropology: interview with Grant McCraken

Over on Harvard Business, I had a chance to interview master anthropologist and frequent blogger Grant McCraken.

Check out the interview here. We talk about culture as a key factor in organizations, the abuse of innovation and other words, and what insights ethnography can provide struggling managers.

By Scott Berkun on August 15th, 2008
1 Comment »
Management

The limits of leaked memos (Apple & Microsoft)

Another post at Harvard business is up – here’s an excerpt:

There is a difference between talk and action, and memos are 90% talk. We all know this. If a CEO at a 20,000+ person company wants to take action, he will, and most of those actions will surface through the executive chain. The corporate-wide memo is the most diffuse and overrated tool in an executive’s playbook, but since it’s the only play that most of the world sees, we naturally over-represent its significance. In every paragraph ask “Is this talk or action?” and you’ll see more clearly what the memo actually means, if anything at all.

Full post here.