Just the other day I had realized that I had passed the fifteen year mark since I graduated from b-school. After my initial shock of how long ago that really was I began trying to summarize what I had learned from those 2 years of my life. While I recall very few of the details from the hundreds of case studies that were read, there were a few insights that I was able to recall but there were three that seemed to stand out compared to the rest.
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Earlier this year I had finished Walt Isaacson‘s biography of Steve Jobs. It was a great read with a litany of insights to be garnered out of the book. In fact, I would make this book required reading for every employee in the electronics and retail industries. I will frequently run through a mental index of many of those insights but there is one in particular that continues to stick with me and causes me to examine my understanding of best leadership practices. Throughout the book Isaacson shared examples of Steve’s leadership or people management style. Jobs would oscillating back and forth when giving his employees feedback on their work. He would bounce between “This is Shit” and the occasional “This is Amazing.”
The Federal Small Business (SBA) association recently calculated their 2012 list of the business franchises that most frequently failed to repay their SBA loans. Blue MauMau, a blog focusing on the business of franchises in the United States, recently published the list as the Worst 25 Franchises to Buy with the Highest Failure Rates 2012 and 4 of the worst 25 were ice cream franchises: Carvel Ice Cream (56.41%), Marble Slab Creamery (43.66%), Cold Stone Creamery (41.93%), and MaggieMoo’s (39.39%).
Even the mighty Apple misses the mark on occasion. John Paczkowski (@JohnPaczkowski) of the tech blog All Things Digital cited sources close to the situation as suggesting that Ping will be gone with the next major release of iTunes in the Fall. The plug is being pulled on the “test” after less than two years for Apple’s social “music” network when it debuted on September 1st, 2010. Instead Apple has stated that it will focus on partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to better integrate into their dominant social webs.
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