Let's Do Lunch.....Leadership and Career Growth in Silicon Valley

We’ve all sat through long presentations that left us wondering how to get that fraction of our lives back. You know, those “FYI” presentations that are often more self aggrandizing than informative. During this economic downturn, I have seen an increased number of internal company business communications that have made me wonder who [...]

I chuckled when I read “Speaking Truth to PowerPoint” in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Business has grown to rely heavily on PowerPoint as a primary communications medium. Unfortunately, details are lost because the nature of presentation slides is summarization. I depth business planning requires a format that is conducive to [...]

When I first heard about the modified Pecha Kucha exercise that I was invited to participated in (see Pecha Kucha on Summer Vacation) I wondered “what kind of nonsense is this?”. I first had to look on Wikipedia to figure out what it was. I’m not one for gimmicks, and this seemed [...]

It’s the spring of 2009 and the economy is in the dumper. The average American family’s wealth has dropped by 18% and California’s unemployment rate has topped 10%. Just about everyone in Silicon Valley knows someone who has been laid off from, what were once, promising economic high flying companies and employees are [...]

I watch several blogs because they provide outstanding insights.  All of them post with sporadic frequency but I was concerned when Ed Batista stopped posting for over a month on his blog “Executive Coaching and Change Management”.  I started to worry about his health or was afraid that he’d lost interest.  Many blog entries  I’ve [...]

Yesterday I sat down and started to write out the different job functions I hear about in my company and in others.  We give complicated and impressive sounding titles to people but descriptions often create more confusion than value.  Sure, the titles sound impressive, until someone has to figure out what they actually do. The [...]

Web 2.0 has certainly changed the way many people interact.  It has created communities, provided a vehicle for customized interaction, and has been a platform for collaboration.  The communications aspects of Web 2.0 are breakthrough technology for marketing and delivery of new products and services.  We can overlay new methods on existing business functions, such [...]

Web 2.0 is all about making personal connections directly and immediately. More and more I hear about how blogs, wikis, and social networking sites are changing the way we live and play. Clearly teens and above have started to use sites like Facebook and MySpace in ways that have changed social interaction but [...]

I was in a series of leadership offsites this week and had some interesting observations about communication. All the leaders around me were the best that I have ever worked with. They understand business and how to lead. Each leader has their own style and strengths which create their own organizational culture. [...]

People hate to fight. Its human nature to avoid conflict and we all want to be liked. Unfortunately, people often mistake confrontation for aggression. The reality is that conflict can be positive and constructive. Confrontation does not have to, and shouldn’t, be personal nor does it have to be mean. [...]