Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.
– Peter Drucker
The quote above is from Peter Drucker’s book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The book was first published in the 1980s, and it was re-released a couple of years ago. It is still sound advice. If you want to improve business, marketing and innovation had better lead the way. Considered by many as the preeminent business consultant and author for decades, Drucker is the person who coined the term knowledge worker.
Considerable effort should be spent on measuring the success (or failure) of marketing and innovation. Why? Another famous Drucker quote answers that question: “What’s measured improves.”
While social or peer-to-peer lending isn’t new (in Internet time), what is new is the recognition Zopa received this month as the world’s “most threatening non-bank competitor.”
Amidst the steady stream of stories about the worsening credit crunch and tightening lending standards, Zopa’s style of social or peer-to-peer (P2P) lending stands as a virtual beacon for beleaguered borrowers and serves as a potential investment alternative for would-be P2P consumers-turned- lenders. Traditional banks beware!
Author Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife) gives a wonderful talk about creativity and how it intertwines with her/our lives. You’ll have to wait until the end to see what’s in the bag at her feet.
Imagine surfing the web and finding a site that looks and behaves exactly like yours...the one you spent a lot of time and a lot of money designing and building. Your web site has been stolen! How did this happen and what can you do?
While Disney’s tween movie series High School Musical (HSM) has been wildly popular among 12 to 14 year-olds, older siblings of HSM fans have probably been more excited about the company’s dance-themed flick Step Up and its sequel Step Up 2 the Streets. Released on Valentine’s Day, the sequel was a surprise hit at the box office, thanks in-part to Disney’s use of social media. A post last month on http://social-media-optimization.com/ discussed the success of Step Up’s MySpace campaign.
