The Pragmatic Strategist

Don’t Play the Work-Life Waiting Game

Tim Berry has a recent post on MyVenturePad that is highly worth reading.  He takes issue with a VentureBeat post that essentially recommends to entrepreneurs that they sacrifice their life until they get their business successfully built. Tim hits the nail on the head right out of the gate: the absurdity of that recommendation is [...]

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What Makes Innovation?

CNN recently reported that researchers from Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs, and say they have identified five skills that drive innovation: Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields. Questioning: Innovators [...]

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Necessity is the Mother of Invention

CNNMoney.com published an article on this week’s government report that states, over the past six months, the “22 banks that got the most help from the Treasury’s bailout programs cut their small business loan balances by a collective $10.5 billion.” The report goes on to highlight that over the past six months that TARP recipients [...]

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A Pragmatic New Year

Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry to have seen 2009 go. Personally and professionally, it was one hell of a rough year. On the other hand, it did bring with it some changes that — despite fighting pretty voraciously at first — have ultimately proven to be profoundly valuable. The biggest and most obvious [...]

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My Favorite Bloggers

As someone who consumes most of her daily doses of new information through the blogosphere (as opposed to traditional media), there are different bloggers I read for different reasons.  As I’ve been trying to streamline my process for writing more (and better), myself, I’ve been thinking more and more about what I specifically get out [...]

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Scrappy Swimlane High Level Overview

Much thanks to Sherry Lowry from Bridging Futures for this picture. As with all items of this type, it’s eerily familiar enough to be both hysterical and cringe-worthy for those of us who make a career out of this. (Click on the image to see the details.) Send to Facebook

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There is No Strategy if You Don’t Manage Your Team

Last week I wrote an opening rant about “strategists.” In the comments that ensued, I am now inspired to clarify what I mean while I continue to write this series. I am not talking about consultants who are hired to help hone and build out a strategic vision for an organization; nor am I talking [...]

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