The Pragmatic Strategist

Entrepreneurs Get it Done

Entrepreneur-turned-VC, Mark Suster, recently posted an article on his blog, Both Sides of the Table, highlighting what he considers to be the essential qualities of entrepreneurship.  At the heart of his post is a very, very simple philosophy: entrepreneurs just do it. For some people, this is easy.  Moving ahead, pulling the trigger, motivating people [...]

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Why Customer Service Matters

Many people don’t think about it specifically, but know it intuitively: if you want good customer service, skip the big guys and go to a small company. In Small Business’ Competitive Advantage, I discuss that Customer Service is the magical pixie dust for small business. Think about your normal daily experience: if you need to [...]

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We Never Called it "Cyber Monday"

I’ve been feeling nostalgic this week. After so many years in ecommerce, supporting catalogers and retailers whose year entirely revolved around the Christmas season, I am almost at a loss for what to do if I’m not running around putting out fires from Thanksgiving weekend up until the week before Christmas. Strange as it seems [...]

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Tis the Season to be Independent

In Deck the Halls with Pink Slips I discuss the November round of layoffs at several big companies. Of course, part of what brought these to my attention is that a dear friend of mine got caught in the pre-holidays cut-backs at Adobe. Even worse, however, was the fact that my friend loved working at [...]

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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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The Reverence Gene

My husband constantly points out how irreverent I am. He does this mostly in a light-hearted, good natured way, but he still definitely finds it frustrating. He will often feel like I am being actively disrespectful to individuals or institutions that deserve my deference. The fact is that I am not disrespectful at all. What [...]

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Where Are You Leading?

I’ve had an interesting few weeks. My husband and I have been dealing with a lot of things at home, hence my absence from blogging for much of the past month, and I have started a new project with the New Media (a.k.a. “web”) team at KXAN-TV here in Austin. Between getting settled into the [...]

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