Leadership

Law firms tinkering as business model under stress

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Law firms continue to grapple with finding new ways to mesh their traditional, if rapidly outmoded, business model with client pressures to control fees.

Most recently, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP came up with a service package for incubators and groups of angel investors. Its startup program gives entrepreneurs two hours of monthly meetings with lawyers to discuss basic business issues for about $2,000 a year. It gives Faskens an early lead on companies with good growth potential with possibly higher fees down the road.

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How to be more creative

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Whack on the Side of the Head022

Many branding, marketing, advertising, and public relations functions rely on creativity.

In many advertising agencies, there are people in charge of coming up with Big Ideas for clients, and collectively these ideas are called “The Creative.” Companies pay big bucks for creative ways to feature their products and services in front of their clients and prospects.

“But I’m not creative!” is the synchronized wail of many business people.

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The threat to your business is not your competition

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Netflix 1960s TVThe real threat to your business is not your competition;  it’s disruptive technology. Or, what’s called a “category killer” in marketing speak.

What killed classified advertising, a hugely lucrative money-maker for newspapers? It was Craig’s List and Kijiji.  What killed the Yellow Pages? It was the internet. What killed Blockbuster Video? Not a cheaper movie rental service;  it was Netflix. The internet has killed many industries so far—and it ain’t done yet.

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Communication lessons from Pope Francis

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Pope Francis clown noseThe ways in which Pope Francis has made the Church change are very simple and effective. Best of all, they’re entirely replicable by CEOs wanting to effect change in their organizations. CEOs can modify and implement themselves. Here’s just some of what Pope Francis is doing right:

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Smartphones? Meh! Get ready for “smart buildings”

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CISCO logoCurrently, only about 1% of devices that could be connected to the internet are, in fact, connected to the internet, said Wim Elfrink, EVP Industry Solutions, at Cisco.

By 2020, however, Cisco predicts internet-connected devices will increase by 450%. The real challenge will be this: municipal governments do not currently know how to use or leverage so-called “Big Data.”

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At Wal-Mart, $50B is a good start to repatriate U.S. manufacturing jobs

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walmart-logoWal-Mart held its first manufacturing summit in Orlando, Florida, on August 22 and 23, 2013, to kick-start and repatriate manufacturing jobs in the U.S. 

The summit boasted attendance from 500 manufacturers, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, eight governors, officials from three dozen states, U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, and Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart’s U.S. division—about 1,500 people in the audience.

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The rare CEO who takes responsibility: Ed Burkhardt, MM&A Railway

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MMA_logoWhen we turn on the TV and see a business executive or a politician being interviewed, we’ve come to expect them to be misinformed and poorly briefed, hiding behind big words, spouting Key Messages that make no sense. We have come to expect CEOs who hide behind lawyers. When we get the Real McCoy, we don’t know what to do.

When Ed Burkhardt, chairman and CEO of Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway (MM&A), arrived in Lac-Mégantic Wednesday to face the media, he was slammed for being lacking. Some of the comments I heard: “He didn’t care,” “He didn’t speak any French,” and “He didn’t arrive with any lawyers or PR people in tow.”

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