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Making A Difference – Thoughts, Observations and Opinions
This is Dave Brock’s Blog.
It offers my views on a variety of business, sales, marketing, and leadership topic. My goal is to make a difference for you, the reader, in both your professional and personal lives.
Latest Posts
Was There Life Before 7/24 Connectivity?
Today’s New York Times has an interesting essay by Ben Stein entitle, Connected, But Hermetically Sealed. It is nice commentary about how we use technology to seal ourselves off from the real world. Mobile phones, PDA’s Ipod’s, all great technologies that contribute to the quality of our lives also serve to diminish the quality of our lives by isolating us. Imagine, sitting with a group of people, none talking to each other, but all engaged in text messaging as vigorously as possible. Yesterday, on a bike ride, I passed someone saying “Hello” as I passed. They didn’t hear me or […]
Stop Wishful Thinking —- Focus On Executing Your Strategies And Business Plans!
Over the course of a year, I meet with dozens of companies and hundreds of professionals. In the course of most of our discussions, people are concerned about their business strategies and plans. These “strategy” discussions are wide ranging— they can be about an overall business or organization’s strategy and direction, it can be about developing and launching new products, about partnerships/alliances, about sales and routes to market, or about a specific sales strategy, or a strategy for personal growth. Regardless of the specific “strategic” issue, the discussions are always exciting. There is a lot of creativity, openness in assessing […]
When Fad Things Happen To Good Concepts
You already know I am a fan of Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership blog. Today, he had an interesting post entitled “When Fad Things Happen To Good Concepts.” It’s a good post and worth reading. However, I’d like to get on my soapbox on management fads. Everyday, it seems there is a new management fad or trend. These fads will certainly save anyone’s business, giving them the silver bullets to outstanding performance. As P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Unfortunately, in trying to find out where the fault lies for management by fad, I have to point […]
Making A Difference — A Personal Plea For Support
For the past three years, I have been actively engaged in raising money to help conquer Multiple Sclerosis. Over the past few years, I have participated in the Southern California MS150—a 150 mile bike ride down the Pacific Coast. I have raised close to $7000 in the past. On October 11-12, I will be riding in my third event. This year, I am trying to surpass what I raised last year. My goal is to raise $4,500. This event is an important. The money raised from this event will fund continuing research to discover the cause and cure for multiple […]
How To Live A Life — Examples For Each Of Us
I was saddened last night to read of Dr. Randy Pausch’s death. With many others, I have been inspired by his courage, humor, and personal example in his battle with Pancreatic Cancer. I’ve followed him closely, actually having the privilege to see the live video feed of his famous “Last Lecture.” Since that time, the media have elevated him to some level of celebrity. In the past few hours, I have thought a lot about that. Even in his celebrity, Dr. Pausch struck me as a very “ordinary man.” A person dealing with tremendous personal tragedy, but living heroically in […]
Inspirational Leadership: The Victim of the Balanced Scorecard?
Amy Meyer has an interesting guest article in Art Petty’s On Management Blog. As the title indicates, it speaks to the tendency of managers to hide behind things like Balanced Scorecards, using them as the end, not as a means to understanding problems, diagnosing them, developing improvement plans, and leading the changes required. It’s an interesting and provocative article, I encourage you to read it by linking here. The problem, I think, is not with the tools themselves, but rather with the way some managers implement them or hide behind them. No tool, Balanced Scorecard, or whatever approach can substitute […]