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Back before the Interwebs, part of the suspense of the Super Bowl was not knowing what Budweiser or Chevy had up their 30-second sleeves. But times have changed, and there's generally no escaping the teasers or crowdsourcing that are now part of the language of modern advertising. Want to help name a baby Clydesdale? Or win a chance to go to space? Super Bowl XLVII already has you covered. Aside from being entertaining, controversial, or overtly sexual, what's the value of all this effort? I ...

Heed the stampede of Clydesdales: The Super Bowl, and it's ubiquitous ad season, is upon us. The analysts at Kantar Media recently pulled together a pile of data on what the last decade of championship football has looked like on America's TVs. Some of it is fairly well-publicized — ad costs have, for the most part, steadily increased to culminate in this year's $3.7 to $3.8 million price tag for 30 seconds of airtime. But there are some other figures that reveal who is buying up the most ad ...

With Star Wars superfans apparently satisfied with the choice just announced of J.J. Abrams to direct the next movie in the franchise, the folks at Disney must be feeling some relief. According to MTV News, at least TheForce.Net is with them. The curator of that fan site, Eric Geller, told its reporter that "J.J. Abrams is a huge Star Wars fan and will bring respect and familiarity to the job." For those needing a refresher on "the story so far," Star Wars' creator George Lucas sold his empir...

There's nothing like being alone on a highly experimental 75-foot boat five days from anywhere to make you realize some pretty profound things. For Ellen MacArthur, who twice solo circumnavigated the globe on said sailboat — the second time setting the world record for speed in doing so (71 days, 14 hours) — her realization came when she considered the finite resources she had to pack with her for those two-plus months alone. Seeing the world as she did through her trip, she began to apprecia...

Portlandia (Fridays, 10:00, IFC) has started its third season. Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney) continue to search the city for satiric targets. And because satiric targets are one of Portland's chief exports, the comedic opportunities are many: Bed and Breakfasts, knitting, pickling — and organic deodorant: And feminist bookstores: Since the satirical targets on Portlandia are many, it's inevitable that Fred and Carrie will write a piece on Subaru. Af...

People have been trying to reform the office, it seems, since the office first appeared. Who was A Christmas Carol's Bob Cratchit but an early office reformer, whining for heat so that his ink didn't freeze? Office reformers of today point to trends like hotelling, co-working, and (my personal favorite) working from home — worthy endeavors, all. Maybe not as worthy as central heat, but pretty good ideas nonetheless. But maybe we can learn a lesson from the humble cubicle. No one sets out to d...

It's a great disservice to everyone, especially young people, that the stories that we often hear about the most accomplished entrepreneurs sound so effortless. The truth is just the opposite, even for visionary creative success stories like those of Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Howard Schultz, Wendy Kopp, and even the legendary Steve Jobs. Like any creative process, any entrepreneur who wants to invent, innovate, or create must be willing to be imperfect and make mistakes in order to learn ...

After more than a decade of vehement denials, Lance Armstrong finally came clean last night in an interview with Oprah Winfrey about his use of performance enhancing drugs. Early reviews leaned negative: Forbes said "Lance Armstrong admitted a lot of wrongdoing during his 90-minute interview with Oprah Winfrey tonight, but he did almost nothing to win back the sympathy of the world." CNN host Piers Morgan took it one step further, posting on Twitter that Armstrong was a "sniveling, lying, che...

China’s one-child policy has changed the expectations of professional women, according to this excellent Wharton report based on extensive interviews. As Alice Au, a senior executive at the search firm Spencer Stuart, in Beijing puts it: "You can have your one child and you're done, so you can basically go on with your life." But although China's rapid industrialization, inflation, and the Communist Party's efforts to promote gender equality have propelled more women into the workplace, tradi...

Over 100 million phones will ship with NFC this year. Google has built NFC into the Android operating system. Nintendo uses NFC in the new Wii U gaming console. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung, LG, and Sony unveiled NFC-enabled smartphones, televisions, and appliances. So what's NFC? It technically stands for Near Field Communications, and it enables mobile devices like smartphones to communicate with nearby devices and objects with a simple tap. It works like this: A chip in...

I believe the distinction between social and non-social business is a false dichotomy. And yet, it's one we continually want to make. We talk about "social businesses" — those that are mission-led and focused on creating positive social change — and "non-social businesses" — those that focus on revenue and profit. Social entrepreneurs launching ventures may ask themselves if their business models need to be different. Does pursuing a social purpose require something unique to describe and str...

There is a growing network of people — including the leaders of companies such as the Container Store, Starbucks, Trader Joe's, Patagonia and Whole Foods Market (of which one of us is the co-CEO) — building their companies based on the idea that business is about more than making a profit. It's about higher purpose. We are a part of this group, and host a set of conferences each year to share the guiding principles and best business practices that we have come to call "conscious capitalism." ...

It's been quite a year for labor disputes in professional sports. First came a gamble by NFL owners to replace striking referees; then NHL owners locked their players out after the two sides couldn't reach a contract agreement. After outcry from fans and players, a deal centered around pay raises and pensions was reached with the NFL officials; and earlier this week, after months of contentious bargaining, NHL players and owners agreed on a compromise to put teams back on the ice. In a countr...

As a leader, what do you want to accomplish? Do your employees know what needs to be done to reach that objective? Do they know how you expect them to behave? And — once they know the "what" and "how" — do you provide them with enough autonomy to get the job done in an effective and timely way? These are pragmatic business issues that all leaders encounter. Here are a few thoughts on how you can more effectively address these issues and reach your goals in an authentic and enduring way. Colla...

Christmas isn’t a national holiday in Japan, where only about 1% of the population is Christian. Nevertheless, Smithsonian magazine reports, KFC managed to create a marketing campaign — Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii! (Kentucky for Christmas) — so effective that 38 years later people will order a bucket of “Christmas Chicken” months in advance to avoid waiting for hours in front of their neighborhood KFC on Christmas day. Originally the bucket included wine and went for ¥2,920 ($10), pricey in 19...

In 1863 something profound happened to First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar. While recovering from an injury during the American Civil War, he takes solace in the solitude of his new post out on the western frontier. During this time of personal reflection and healing, he not only befriends his Sioux neighbors, but also finds himself doing the same with a wolf that is tracking his every movement. As Dunbar immerses himself in the Sioux culture and people, they give him the name, "Dances With Wolve...

Recent corporate history is littered with successful established firms who failed to manage disruptive innovation even with full knowledge that it was coming. Kodak is a poster-child. They knew digital photography was the future and invested heavily in hybrid technology in the hope of managing the transition from physical photo printing. It didn't work. For Clayton Christensen, this is a basic flaw of incumbency. Successful firms have an established customer base, most of whom are satisfied w...

A handful of controversies have sprung up around the movie Zero Dark Thirty, a fictionalized depiction of the hunt for and killing of Osama bin Laden. Criticisms range from the argument that it served as pre-election boosterism for the Obama Administration to accusations of leaked sensitive or classified material to arguments that the movie is pro-torture. (Everyone denies everything, by the way.) But more interesting, at least from the perspective of management, is an article that recently a...

You're a corporate shareholder unhappy with the direction management is taking. Do you a) take the "Wall Street walk" and sell, b) raise hell at the next annual meeting, or c) just hold onto your shares and hope for the best? You're a United Airlines Premier Platinum member with hundreds of thousands of unused miles, and you've decided you can't take the airline's post-merger disorganization and shoddy service any longer. Do you a) start flying another airline — putting you back at square one...

If there is one piece of advice that might have saved Danske Bank from an explosion of negative publicity around its latest ad campaign, it might have gone something like this: "A new normal demands new standards." Such thinking might have reminded the banking giant that the new normal for advertisers is a highly vigilant, social media savvy public, always on the lookout for hypocrisy. It might have made Danske Bank think twice before appropriating images of Occupy Wall Street protests — a mo...

Across virtually all measures, the US is losing the education race to other countries. We're not even in the top ten countries in terms of our children's competence in reading, math, or science. We're actually ranked about 20th in science and even worse in math, behind countries such as Estonia, Hungary, and Liechtenstein. We rank 16th in the percentage of our population that holds a college degree. We're not even in the top ten. The problem is getting worse, not better, with average tenure o...

By 2015, 1.3 billion people worldwide will be working remotely. That's almost 40% of the entire global workforce. While we can thank technology and increasingly flexible office policies for the shift away from the office, for many companies, mobility has simply been an unintended consequence of trying to keep pace with change, as well as a calculable means to rein in real estate costs. But while the movement toward less square footage and mobile workforces will likely continue, we shouldn't d...

When it comes to China and India, we at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) urge you to bet in favor of both. Just yesterday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a new report predicting that the economy of China will rebound and grow 8.5% in 2013 and 8.9% in 2014, citing increasing domestic consumer demand and government spending on housing and infrastructure as the tailwinds behind this renewed surge. According to The Wall Street Journal, the OECD report a...

Lots of us fall into the "smart" trap when presenting: we work so hard to be polished and articulate that we overcompensate and come across as flat, boring, and egg-headed. We've all certainly heard (and suffered through) talks like this. So how is it that great communicators manage to engage and entertain their audiences while sounding smart? They're open and sincere. We all have different personalities, of course. But whether you're boisterous or quiet, be yourself. If you really love what ...

Most people think charisma is as vital to leadership as it is to rock stars or TV presenters and, unfortunately, they are right. In the era of multimedia politics, leadership is commonly downgraded to just another form of entertainment and charisma is indispensable for keeping the audience engaged. However, the short-term benefits of charisma are often neutralized by its long-term consequences. In fact, there are big reasons for resisting charisma: 1. Charisma dilutes judgment: There are only...

You know the Christmas season has started in Britain when the commercial wars begin between John Lewis and Marks & Spencer. M&S sent the first salvo this year with this high-energy, glitzy romp through its Christmas stock. But John Lewis has responded by doubling down on its emotional sell. Last year’s ad (epic in length, by U.S. standards, at 90 seconds) reduced the British public to tears, the Guardian reports, with its message of …well I won’t tell you the ending — see it for yourself. But...

The South Africans have a beautiful philosophy called Ubuntu, which translates as "I am what I am because of who we all are." This is a perfect way to think about the way a brain develops, influenced by its surrounding people and experiences. It's also how we should think about the way the Internet is developing, and about the way our choices in how we use technology are shaping this global brain. For both the brain and the Internet, networks are always binding us in new ways and changing our...

A nerd hasn't been this popular since, well, ever. Nate Silver, the creator of the election poll statistical hub FiveThirtyEight was declared the clear winner in last week's election. And on Fox News, election math was at the center of one of the most bizarre on-air moments in memory. The numbers discussion then seeped over from polls to other politically charged topics such as climate change. David Frum, President George W. Bush's speechwriter, tweeted this gem: "Horrible possibility: if the...

The latest election-related viral video shows President Obama praising and thanking his team of volunteers. What's the big deal? He cries (at about 3:20, if you haven't seen it yet). When he wipes his face, making it clear that, yes, he's really crying, his audience applauds. Love it or hate it, people seem to agree that this video is remarkable. Some think Obama's tears herald his authentic humility and humanity. Others suspect the crying episode was staged, or that "No Drama Obama" was simp...

Any consumer goods company trying to reduce its environmental impact faces this challenge: your footprint is largely determined by what customers do with your products, not what you do directly. At Unilever, nearly 70% of the greenhouse gas impact of our products occurs when consumers use them to wash their hair or do their laundry. The success of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan — our strategy for sustainable, equitable growth, tied to 50+ time-bound targets we've set for ourselves — dep...

Well, it's all over. There will be no great political ad of 2012 — no meaningful story to remember this mudslinging, claim-spouting, outrageously expensive election cycle by. And that's really too bad for all of us. Why? I realize it's easy to look back on old-school political ads, cooked up on Madison Ave by Don Draper-types, with a sneer. After all, we're witnessing the death rattle of the broadcast era and these big ad agencies were its architects and artists. Most of us cheer its demise. ...

As we approach the final days of the U.S. presidential campaign, all the media attention shifts to the ground game: how many doors are knocked, and how many voters are mobilized in crucial swing states like Ohio. But while field organizing is essential in this closely contested race, the groundwork has been laid over many months by the campaigns' digital operations. Online outreach has enabled the candidates to raise vast sums of money, identify their supporters and likely supporters with pre...

Cities around the world are getting bigger, fast. By 2015, there will be 22 metropolitan areas with populations of more than 10 million people. Around the world, some 180,000 people move into cities every day. And while in the past growth was the main measure of economic success, today growing populations represent a huge challenge for governments and municipal planners. More people means increased consumption of valuable resources such as water and energy, and further burdening already aging...

Professional rivalries often seem like the ultimate waste of time. Why is she spending so much time worrying about what someone else is doing? Why doesn't she focus on her own business? Doesn't she have anything better to do? It's true that obsessing about a competitor isn't the healthiest long-term activity. But I've also come to believe you can glean important lessons from the very act of rivalry — if you use it as an opportunity for growth, rather than just an opportunity to crush your ene...

Here's a question. Why are you (really) here? Aloha: If there's a single lament-slash-question I get most often — and most pointedly — lately, it goes something like this: "Listen, Deepak Kafka. I've read your stuff about living a meaningful life; I've followed your advice; I've even spent long evenings at dive bars, just like you recommend. But what the blazes do I do with mine? I've searched high and low, looked far wide, listened long and loud, but I still can't find anything even vaguely ...

The rambunctious, topsy-turvy U.S. Presidential campaign took its latest turn on Tuesday night. From jobs to gas prices to world events, central to the arguments advanced by both candidates was the idea of exerting control. Governor Romney, in particular, has criticized President Obama for "leading from behind" rather than using U.S. power to direct the evolution of events such as the Arab Spring. Early in his term, President Obama pledged to bring the unemployment rate to below 8%. Mitt Romn...

Over the past three years I have made two dozen trips to India. I have wandered the streets of big cities, visited consumers in their homes, spent time in rural villages, sat in conference rooms in the headquarters of multi-billion dollar companies and met with the founders of tiny startups. The entrepreneurial energy in India is immense, as are its infrastructure limitations. Those two factors are in fact interrelated. It's hard to survive in modern India without being an entrepreneur. And t...

I want to love Samsung products. Every time I see someone with Samsung's flagship smartphone — the Galaxy S III — I can't help but be impressed. It's got an impressive 4.8 inch Super AMOLED screen (read: very high quality, large size). It sports the near field communication chips I've been dying for (read: secure mobile payments, instant device to device information transfer). And no one can argue with the fact that it's certainly a beautiful device (read: It might not be as pretty as my iPho...

Here's a safe bet about the 2012 presidential election: either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will lose. And here's a bet that's nearly as safe: whoever the loser is, he will explain his loss this way: "the other guy told a better story." We hear it after every election cycle. In 2004, the Kerry campaign complained that while they had controlled the facts, Bush controlled the story. After the 2008 election, McCain's consultants bickered over the narrative he should have crafted but couldn't comm...

We don't usually think of consumers as a threat to our business. But thanks to social and mobile technologies, consumers are now "hyper-connected and super-empowered," to use Thomas Friedman's memorable phrase. No longer passive audiences, they can organize to overturn even the most strategic initiatives. The result is a fundamental change that has put executive teams and board directors on high alert. We call this new dynamic "customer insurgency." While this term may seem a bit dramatic, we...

Ok, I can hear you groaning. We've all heard the phrase "Hope is not a strategy" — and it isn't, especially when based on illusion, delusion, fiction or false assumptions. But hope is a critical part of achieving a strategy when based on what is possible; perhaps not highly probable, but possible. Hope is the belief that something is possible and probable, and the recognition that the degree of each is not necessarily equal. When hope is based on real-world experience, knowledge and tangible ...

One of the most consistently problematic decision-making biases is the overweighting of recent data and personal experiences. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky attributed this tendency to what they called the "availability" heuristic (rule of thumb): our minds give inordinately heavy weighting to the most readily available/recent/vivid data and experiences. This causes us to believe that the future will likely resemble the most recent past. As a result, we tend to extrapolate pri...

Let's start with a game. Below are three mission statements from three Fortune 500 companies. Try to match each company with its mission statement: How did you do? The largely indistinguishable statements make the task almost impossible. Such statements may still be considered "best practice" in some quarters but in so many cases they do not achieve what they were intended to achieve. Ironically, many "directional documents" are not fit for purpose: they do not provide direction. At the risk ...

A lot is riding on the candidates' performances in the Presidential debates. Many of us will be paying attention to the messages the candidates are delivering — what's being said — while neglecting to (consciously) pay attention to the body language the candidates are using to deliver those messages — how they say it. That's a mistake. The body language, or nonverbals, may have a bigger influence than what's actually being said. I study how people judge each other on two fundamental traits, w...

There's no doubt technology entrepreneurship is becoming its own kind of celebrity. Here is a quick rundown of its appearances on the national stage: The story of the founding of Facebook receiving a feature-length Hollywood portrayal in The Social Network; Hollywood celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Justin Timberlake, MC Hammer, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber investing in technology startups and making their presence known in Silicon Valley; the rise of initiatives like the White House-endorsed ...

From Chick-fil-A to Apple, more and more major companies are taking policy positions on gay marriage. Arguably, there's a business case for supporting it. Google, Starbucks, Nike, General Mills, and other big brands have all opened themselves up to both the potential risk and opportunity of supporting LGBT equality. Even Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, announced his support in a Human Rights Campaign public service announcement: "America's corporations learned long ago that equality is...

Google's Sergey Brin knows a multibillion investment opportunity when he sees one. Acutely aware of the competitive edges timely data offers sophisticated investors, the company's ever-entrepreneurial cofounder once proposed that Google launch a hedge fund. After all, what company on earth enjoyed greater access to more insights more quickly from more people searching for more information? Then–Google CEO Eric Schmidt was appalled: "Sergey, among your many ideas, this is the worst." (The lega...

Business English deserves its terrible reputation. We invent jargon, rely heavily on clichés, repeat catchphrases endlessly, and restart sentences three or four times before finding a way to finish them. And to paraphrase Schopenhauer, every generation ridicules the other ones, and they are all right. Millennials think their elders speak in a lifeless monotone (think Ben Stein), and we think they use upspeak way too much. But for some reason, nothing pains me as much as the backloaded busines...