February 2007 Archives

As part of Spark, we had a brief seminar from Tony Seba today. He was presenting his research (that turned into his book Winners take all: The 9 fundamental rules of high tech strategy. He is a very suave and compelling speaker.

Here's a summary of the his main points

• Rule 1: Feel The Pain. Then Develop Your Product
• Rule 2: Focus, Win, Grow, Repeat
• Rule 3: Add Value Not Features
• Rule 4: Have a Story. Communicate Clearly
• Rule 5: It's a Risky World. Sell Confidence!
• Rule 6: Convert Champions Not Deals
• Rule 7: Choose The Right Partners. Manage Them with Clarity
• Rule 8: Design Products and Services That Are Easy to Adopt
• Rule 9: You're Doing Well. Congratulations. Now Change or Die.

Even in this rather terse format, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt (especially with number 3 for Chinataka).

I've spent a little time today updating the help on BadDog with some help infromation .... oh well it is a start.

I seem to have spent msot of the weekend working on the paperwork for our upcoming AMBA review. I've been sending versions of our self-report document backwards and forwards to Sue Laurenson

It really is a time consuming process, but it is really helpful to take stock of the MBA programme this way. It reminds me of what Sarah Kennedy of Healtheries was saying at the MBA Business Breakfast last Wednesday. Talking to the MBA students she talked about how Healtheries had been put up for sale and had to go through vendor diligence. As part of that process they were reviewed by PWC and found the process very helpful in highlighting some of the gradual changes that might have otherwise been unnoticed.

Anyway, for me, and I hope for our MBA programme the AMBA self-review has been very useful.

We went and saw Cirque du Soleil. Actually, there were quite a few of us from the University who went. It's nice to get out as a bit of a group.

What did I enjoy the most -- the people on the swings at the end. I do enjoy flying through the air myself, and I'd really like to try those swings.

Lisa asked if anyone has written a case on Cirque du Soliel. I'm aware of one in:

De Wit, B., & Meyer, R. (1998). Strategy process, content, context: An international perspective (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Thompson Learning.

and I think Yvon Dufour (who is about to join the Business School) has also worked with them.