Category: Interview

The companies of the future will profit by fixing the world’s problems, not creating them

In the book Net Positive, the ex-Unilever CEO who increased his shareholders' returns by 300% while ensuring the company ranked #1 in the world for sustainability for eleven years running has, for the first time, revealed how to do it. Teaming up with Andrew Winston, one of the world's most authoritative voices on corporate sustainability, Paul Polman shows business leaders how to take on humanity's greatest and most urgent challenges--climate change and inequality--and build a thriving business as a result. Let's listen to Andrew Winston talking about the book. Hi Andrew Winston, so why did you write this book… now? Andrew Winston: My co-author, Paul Polman, approached me about writing a new book that would leverage his experience running a multinational company with purpose and sustainability at the core, and use my knowledge from working on these issues for 20 years. We both feel...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: June 7, 2022

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At work, every generation is both a teacher and a student

How an intergenerational workforce can be reframed as a profound business opportunity and discover how Gentelligence can help them win the talent war, create strong, diverse teams, and build adaptable cultures that will flourish in an era of rapid change? The answers with Megan Gerhardt, co-author of the book: Gentelligence. Hi Megan Gerhardt, so why did you write this book… now? Megan Gerhardt : I was just 26 years old when I began my career as a professor, which meant I was closer in age to my students than many of colleagues. Because of this, while I often reached out to those older than me for guidance, I also found myself asking my students for their input and feedback as well. I learned so much in both directions, and have continued to use this strategy throughout my career (though I am not very close in age to my students anymore!). I became passionate about this kind of diversity as a source...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: January 12, 2022

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To Fear Of or Not To Fear Off… Missing Out

FOMO syndrome (Fear Of Missing Out) is a form of social anxiety characterized by the constant fear of missing out on important news, driving the individual to stay constantly connected to social networks. To talk about it, we interviewed Patrick McGinnis, the inventor of the notion of FOMO and the author of the book Fear Of Missing Out. Hi Patrick, so why did you write this book… now?  I am the world’s leading scholar having coined the term in the early 2000s when I was a student at Harvard Business School. I also host a podcast called FOMO Sapiens. Today, we live in a world of overwhelming choice.  With Amazon, Netflix, LinkedIn, and Instagram at our fingertips, personal and professional choices seem infinite. This information overload — layered on top of the constant ability to compare ourselves to others — can induce decision paralysis. In turn, this decision paralysis is compounded by...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: January 6, 2022

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There’s an 80 percent chance you’re poor. Time poor, that is.

How can we escape the time traps that make us feel this way and keep us from living our best lives?Time Smart is a playbook for taking back the time we lose to mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. Author and Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans give us proven strategies for improving our "time affluence." The techniques she provides will free up seconds, minutes, and hours that, over the long term, become weeks and months that we can reinvest in positive, healthy activities. Interview. Hi Ashley, so why did you write this book… now? Ashley Whillans: I wrote this book in 2019 because I was finding over and over again in my data that time, not money, mattered for happiness. In one data set of 2.5 million Americans, time poverty--the feeling of having too many things to do and not enough time to do them--undermined happiness to a similar extent as being unemployed. Feelings of time...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: January 3, 2022

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One of the biggest barriers to understanding RPA is the whole idea of ‘robotics’

Robotics Process Automation (RPA) is one of the most sought after and yet misunderstood process automation tools on the market today. In a concise book titled The Practitioner's Guide to RPA, Jonathan Sireci documents the reality of Robotics Process Automation (RPA) : what RPA is, why it is not AI, RPA's architecture, how to identify valuable RPA use-cases, pitfalls to consider when engaging consultants, the vendor landscape, common billing models, how to select a vendor, how to build an RPA team and ethical considerations for your workforce. Interview. Hi Jonathan, so why did you write this book… now? Jonathan Sireci : There is a large gap in RPA literature between academic and consulting frameworks on one side and step by step “how-to” guides on the other. Scholarly works often result in overarching summaries about RPA that provide executives with the big picture but do little to help turn the...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: December 13, 2021

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People change best by feeling good, not by feeling bad

Social networks are said to have largely put into practice the principles that professor BJ Fogg develops in his book Tiny Habits. The most influential Behavior Scientist in Silicon Valley, father of the notion of captology or science of making us captive to screens, answers our questions. Hi BJ, so why did you write this book… now? BJ: I've taught Tiny Habits to people around the world starting back in 2011. I created a free 5-day program with personalized coaching via email. I coached lots and lots of people — thousands each year. Many of them wanted a book.But I was busy with research and teaching and industry innovation. I was too busy to write a book.However, one night I had a dream that I was riding in a plane. And the plane was going to crash. At the moment I realized I would die, I had deep regret that I did not write the book Tiny Habits yet. It was an overwhelming sense of sorry and shame...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: October 1, 2021

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Contents.com, the content generation and trend-spotting platform, arrives in France

Publishing content has become a strategic issue for companies. Thanks to an advanced artificial intelligence technology, Contents.com has developed a platform that analyzes data and creates multilingual content for all websites and e-commerce. Unique article development, text generator, creation of product sheets or Amazon descriptions, trend forecasting, site performance analysis… Its founder Massimiliano Squillace explains it all. Hi Massimiliano Squillace, what problem do you propose to solve with your start-up? Massimiliano Squillace : The world of communication is constantly and rapidly changing, the challenges for content creators and for anyone who runs an online business and needs content are many.The tools are varied and often not available in one place, which makes it difficult for the user to use them. Another problem often reported by users in the market is that there are no tailored...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: July 23, 2021

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Innovation accounting tells the story of innovation before it is returning revenue

Most established organizations have understood the need to innovate and become more digital, however the management tools available to leaders seeking to understand the investments in innovation are lacking. Beyond, financial accounting, a new complementary system for measuring and tracking innovation is needed. A book explains how. Let's listen to Esther Gons, co-author of Innovation Accounting. Hi Esther, so why did you write this book now?   Esther Gons : Innovation Accounting is a topic covered in our first book, The Corporate Startup, but it is still very much an unknown area for many people. The lean startup movement has taught us so much about how to start de-risking the search for New Business Models and the need for accountability if you want to do that in a data-driven manner in a startup. However, setting that up in a corporate environment brings a set of entirely new challenges.   The...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: July 23, 2021

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The urgency of psychological safety at work has never been greater

What if we worked safely? It could thrive to both our companies and ourselves. A not so crazy assumption that Amy C. Edmondson of Harvard Business School explores in her book Fearless Organization.   Hi Amy, so why did you write this book… now?   Amy C. Edmondson: I wrote this book now for two reasons. First, the urgency of psychological safety at work has never been greater because of the high levels of uncertainty today. When work is straightforward – programmed, or clearly prescribed, and essentially a matter of pure execution – psychological safety matters little to the quality and experience of work. But with uncertainty comes a need to speak up openly with questions, ideas, concerns, and even mistakes, if the right things are going to happen to ensure the quality of the work, as well as the quality of the work environment.   Second, a few years ago Google conducted a well publicized study that...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: June 24, 2021

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Raising childen, forget the tricks, enjoy the T.R.I.C.K.

Esther Wojcicki AKA the Godmother of Silicon Valley, legendary teacher, and mother of a Super Family has been inspiring legends like Steve Jobs. She shares her tried-and-tested methods for raising happy, healthy, successful children using TRICK, standing for Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness in How to Raise Successful People. Let her tell us about her book.         Hi Esther, so why did you write this book… now?     Esther Wojcicki : I wrote the book for three reasons. Number one is that I see an epidemic worldwide of helicopter parenting and that is creating a generation of adults who feel that they always need help and they always need approval before they do anything. Kids are trained by their parents, who do it unintentionally, that the adults know the best and that the adults will direct their activities and make sure they...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: June 17, 2021

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The ticket to win comes from being a partner in life for your customers

Customers are looking increasingly to companies instead of governments to tackle societal challenges like climate change, health care and mobility. While digital ease of use has become a commodity, the companies will succeed in providing outstanding digital service, becomes a partner in the life of their customers and providing solutions for major societal issues. To understand how, we interviewed Steven Ven Belleghem, author of the book Offer You Can't Refuse.   Hi Steven, so why did you write this book… now?   Steven Van Belleghem: I believe we are at a turning point. The past ten years, you could make customers happy and excited with digital convenience. That’s how companies like uber and Amazon won the market. Today, digital convenience is the norm, it’s a commodity. If you have it: fine, if you don’t: you loose. It is no longer a positive differentiator. That’s the turning point where we...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: June 10, 2021

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Let’s add a taste of Nietzsche to the library of entrepreneurs

What If a serial entrepreneur and a venture capitalist can connect the dots between Nietzsche’s free spirit and the high-tech business environment? Let’s challenge Dave Jilk and Brad Feld about their, as surprising than relevant, book: The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors. Interview. Hi Dave and Brad,, so why did you write this book… now? Dave and Brad: The project dates back to 2013, when we had a brief discussion about a line Nietzsche wrote, and made the observation that it sounded a lot like an entrepreneur. Dave was reading quite a bit of Nietzsche at the time and kept noticing ideas and aphorisms that seemed to apply. We are always looking for projects we can do together, so in 2016 we decided to see if we could make it into a book. The timing turns out to be very good: because of the popularity of Stoicism in Silicon Valley, especially through Ryan Holiday’s work,...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: June 2, 2021

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What if privacy was the true power ?

Every minute of every day, our data is harvested and exploited… It is time to pull the plug on the surveillance economy, reading Carissa Véliz who calls for the end of the data economy and proposes concrete measures to bring that end about, offering practical solutions, both for policymakers and ordinary citizens, in her book: Privacy is Power. Hi Carissa, so why did you write this book… now? Carissa Véliz : The more I researched privacy, the more alarmed I grew about the state of our personal data. After six years of researching the topic, I felt confident that I knew enough to take a stand. We are at a crucial historical moment: the United States is discussing the possibility of a federal privacy law, Europe is discussing the ePrivacy regulation, China is quickly eroding privacy and trying to export its surveillance model… The time to act is now. The laws that we choose now will shape society...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: April 27, 2021

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If you write for the money, you’ll be playing a different game than what you need to be playing if you want to be a decent writer…

Medium.com is undeniably a rising place to log when you want to make money writing. Even if is is a little bit tricky you still can enjoy success as a blogger on Medium.com. The book Success On Medium explains how. Interview with the author Sergey Faldin. Hi Sergey, so why did you write this book… now?   Sergey Faldin: I wrote the book exactly one year ago when I reached my first 1,000 followers on Medium and made my first $1,000 from the platform. It took me three months of daily writing.  It was a big milestone for me, as I just started writing in English — I am originally from Russia and never wrote anything publicly in English — so I decided to share some of the things I’ve learned witht the Medium community.   One year since, Medium has changed. It’s a different platform and I view it from a different perspective. I am not pushing myself to write there every day anymore. I am...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: April 1, 2021

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The Job That Remains To Be Done: to understand your customers’ underlying intent

Theodore Levitt, marketing professor at Harvard Business School, famously said, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole." Later on, the concept of Job To Be Done, AKA JTBD, was developed by Clayton Christensen (the inventor of the theory of disruptive innovation) who suggests that people are less interested in the products they buy than in the services they receive from them. But how do we put this theory into practice? Jim Kalbach, answers in his book The Jobs To Be Done Playbook. Interview. Hi Jim Kalbach, so why did you write this book… now? I've been investigating the field and have applied JTBD to my own work for almost 20 years. About 5 years ago I started giving a workshop on the topic as well. So for me, the book is actually a culmination of a long-time study of the field. In other words, I've kinda been writing the book for a while, or at least thinking about how I'd...

 

Posted By:    Category: Blog, Interview    Date: March 18, 2021

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