For Purpose/For Profit Orgs

Should Non-Profits Buy $800 Chairs?

July 12, 2010

During a meeting in a downtown conference room at a non profit a few weeks ago, I noticed we were all sitting in Aeron chairs. These are geeky-stylish, ergonomically adjustable office chairs that retail for about $800 a pop. There were 12 of us in the conference room, sitting on a total of about $9,600.00, [...]

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Organic Discount or Competency Penalty? The real reason organic wines sell for less

March 9, 2010

Stereotypes about non-profit and for-profit firms explain why organic wine can’t command higher prices. Today’s Freakonomics column picks up on UCLA research reported earlier this week by Matt McDermot at Treehugger.com. The researchers, Magali Delmas and Laura E. Grant, demonstrated that organic wine cannot command as high a price as conventional (non-organic) wine. This despite [...]

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Why So Much Anger at the Girl Scouts?

February 22, 2010

Ever since I poked the beehive back in August with my post about Walmart and Girl Scout cookies, my blog and I have been receiving angry comments from people who just hate the Girl Scouts. It’s one thing to be angry at Walmart, but the Girl Scouts? I don’t understand… Why is there so much [...]

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Girl Scouts Rebrand Their Cookies: “Every Cookie Has A Mission”

February 18, 2010

The Girl Scouts have been busy with their organizational re-branding efforts. With the start of the 2010 Cookie Season, they have a new branding campaign specifically designed to make Girl Scout cookies meaningful. Back when I wrote the post Wal-Mart Knocks Off the Girl Scouts, about Walmart entering into competition with the Girls Scouts on [...]

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Girl Scouts: Limiting Cookie Sales by Strengthening Their Brand?

February 8, 2010

Good news for you and your Thin Mint Addiction! The Girl Scouts are making it easy to find out where those dang cookies are being sold! (Now I don’t have to drive to Walmart and get the cheaper but less meaningful generic imitations!) The Girl Scouts have an online cookie locator– just type in your [...]

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Does the iPad Signal a Change in Apple’s Core Brand & Identity?

February 2, 2010

If products reflect an organization’s values and an organization’s identity, does Apple’s new iPad tell us something about where Apple as a company is headed? And, if that’s where Apple is going, do we all want to go there too? Here’s a proposition: Apple as an organization is changing, from an organization that’s “about” creativity [...]

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Networks and the Myth that Flatter Organizations are Better

January 15, 2010

Are flatter organizations really “better”? If they are better, how? Hey, I already wrote a dissertation, so I’m not going to take on that question in its entirety. And, I’m not going to do the proper academic thing of being super-specific and qualifying my points. You got complaints? Email me and I’ll send you the [...]

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Authentic Organizational Values at Smith & Nephew: The Greatest of these is …

November 20, 2009

Love. That was what I saw when I went to the home page of Smith & Nephew: UK & Ireland. I saw love, even thought that’s not what Smith & Nephew said was one of their organization’s core values. Smith & Nephew is a medical products company that makes, among many things, wound dressings. I [...]

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Evidence of a Mommy Track Bump: Returnees are seen as more motivated

October 21, 2009

This just in from the The Journal of ‘I’m Not Sure I Can Believe It’ … Well actually, from the The Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies: Research published in the August 2009 issue suggests that coming back to full-time work after a few years on the Mommy Track can make you look “unusually” motivated [...]

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Can Starbucks Touch Your Soul?

October 8, 2009

When an organization is being authentic, you can feel it. Even when its character is being expressed in a very small way, or through a very small action, an organization’s expression of its authentic self can touch your soul. I was reminded of the power of small, authentic acts to touch your soul while I [...]

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