Zipcar’s Business Model
The article about Zipcar in the Sept. 8, 2008 issue of Business Week illustrates several aspects of business model and strategic thinking:
Twitter: No plan for making money!
In a recent article about Twitter, the company admits that they don't have a plan for making money. The founder "wants the flocks of Twitterers to grow before trying out new business models." Hopefully he has enough cash to figure this out! This approach is very similar to dot-com era new media models and what…
Handing you a business card does not equal opt-in
I received an email newsletter yesterday from a person I met at a seminar a few months back. At the seminar, we chatted about various things and he asked for my business card. What happened next? Now I find myself subscribed to his email newsletter which is promoting his business. I may actually find some…
Engagement and learning — getting to “Day in the Life”
Interesting quote in Chief Learning Officer magazine article about the importance of employee engagement. "You end up with solutions that sometimes are not designed to work in the real world because no one working the frontline jobs was asked about whether this would work or not," Kanazawa said. "So you have a lack of engagement,…
How not to raise prices
I recently received a letter from a firm that did some work for me over the past year. It was short and sweet. They wanted to let me know that they were raising their rates in 2008 due to the “increasing cost of doing business.” Guess what? As a customer, I don’t care about their…