FOUR HATS - Work Smarter

News and articles - Business

New article published on The-ChiefExecutive.com

12-04-07

A new article has been published on The Chief Executive website, highlighting the pitfalls of the consultancy model, and suggesting some differing approaches to solving them.

The customer seems to be rarely right

28-03-07

I was working in the City the other day, and had need of one of those small-to-large USB cables, the type that allow you to attach your mobile and charge it from a PC, or transfer data between the two. I always carry one around, but must have left it somewhere. It was frustrating, because I knew I had loads of them at home (what with two adults going through two phones a year, and numerous other pocket-pc and games devices each coming bundled with one). But this was holding me up, so I went out to buy one. Easy, simple, cheap, I thought to myself.

Think about the customer!

14-03-07

I was recently on a business trip to Basel, in Switzerland. All work, no play of course, but I did get a moment to sit in the sun, enjoy a cold beer and browse the local paper. There were a number of adverts for German lessons, two of which caught my eye.

The median isn’t the message

05-02-07

Browsing around the website of Edward Tufte, ("The Leonardo da Vinci of data", according to the New York Times) I came across a fascinating essay by another ground-breaking chap, Stephen J Gould.

Changing the world

03-02-07

"Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn." - Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate Technology It's a fair comment. Most businesses don't actually do a hell of a lot to make the world a better place. They're just not in that market. Businesses exist to make more money than they consume. If they're successful in that goal, they can provide for the workers that make up the business. Sometimes the distribution of the profits is rather too uneven, sometimes not. But ultimately, the vast majority of businesses aren't going to change the world through what they do. And it's not going to happen by accident.

Disaster Recovery: A Triumph of Hope Over Experience

13-12-06

According to a report published by the Institute of Directors (IoD) and Dell, small and medium businesses, or SMEs, as they're known, are chancing to luck when it comes to the business of continuity and disaster recovery.