My BusinessPundit Resume

Rob over at BusinessPundit is looking for additional contributors:

"What am I looking for? The primary criterion is that you love business. You should enjoy reading about business, thinking about business, talking about business, writing about business, and engaging in business. You have to be willing to be a little controversial, and not afraid of criticism. It helps if you have a particular interest in some or all of the following: entrepreneurship, finance/accounting, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, economics, new technology, management, strategy, execution, and leadership. It probably helps if you are a bit skeptical of manias and fads, and are highly interested in the thought processes and decision making side of business. It also helps if you are interested in how the academic side of business can be applied to the real world. Prior writing or blogging experience isn't necessary, but it does help. You should also be able to write at least one post of decent length every week, or multiple short posts about newsworthy issues."

Regular Spooky Action readers will recognize many of these qualities in your humble host, but I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce myself to the folks at Creative Weblogging. Here are a few posts that show the kinds of BusinessPundit-y writing I've done in the past couple of years:

Spooky Action Predicts: Nick Carr has your number! (.8 probability) If you can read only one post to decide if I fit, this is the one. Carr caused a firestorm of controversy in the IT realm when he published the HBR article "IT Doesn't Matter", but this post outlines exactly why he's right for most organizations. Where else will you find Cerberus (the three-headed guardian of the underworld), William James (the father of American psychology), Robert Cialdini, and Jim Collins tied together in one post?

The Theory and Practice of Customer Delight in a Nutshell Everybody likes to talk about customer delight, and plenty has been written about the topic. This post explains the simple secret to creating delight, and points to some source material for futher reading.

Good To Great Throughout the Ages which answers the question: "If we pass the bright light of G2G through the prism of epic mythology, what will project onto the opposite wall?" It turns out that the key tenets of G2G can be found in most epic mythology, and what that implies for today's organization.

Why Co-workers Hoard Information The simple, visual answer:


I discussed a counterexample attitude from David Maister, the professional services guru - AND HE COMMENTED!

A Lattice of Insights from Charlie Munger Nobody knows the intersection of cognitive psychology and business like Charlie Munger. This post highlights key points of a speech he made looking at the soft science of economics from a hard science viewpoint.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Concepts How's this for 'skeptical of manias and fads':

"How can such bad things happen to good concepts?

Simple. The executive who read about the new concept in Harvard Business Review doesn't really want to apply the concept. No, he wants an instant application that gives him the same results as the HBR case study! And he wants it in time to effect this year's earnings!! There's no time for a complete definition of context, and besides, we're mostly similar to those other companies anyway, so let's bring in a complete application, tweak it for the most important unique characteristics of our company, and get a quick win!

But since we don't know anything about the new concept - and because we're in a hurry - we don't realize that the color of the boot was only relevant because the last application the consultant built was at a bullfighting establishment in Matamoros. Dios Mio!"

Part Two of the series sparked a controversy that spilled into the comments section...

Part Three answered the question "Is there a downside to collaboration?" by providing a simple, two question test to decide when your collaboration efforts have gone from good to bad.

Meet the Nick Carr of Organizational Change Management Nick Carr may have said IT doesn't matter, but Prof. Chris Grey took on the entire notion of managing organizational change! His piece was rather long, so I excerpted the juiciest bits and added additional insight regarding the foibles of many common change practices and how to avoid them.

How to Make Important Decisions Looking for 'the decision-making side of business' and 'application of academic theory'? Here you go!

Jim Collins on the Carly Fiorina Story Sometimes 25 characters is all it takes...

There's more where that came from, but that should give you a clear idea of who I am, what I have to say, and how I say it. Thank you in advance for your consideration!