April 2011

About once a month, the partners at High Lantern Group gather a small list of interesting, provocative, and contrarian items that shed light on what makes great strategic positioning and thought leadership. We are happy to share them with you – and hear from you about ideas worth sharing.

Six Ideas That Made Us Think

Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1.  How Presentations Become Conversations

A radical reinterpretation of what a presentation ought to be.  It’s an adaption from a talk the authors gave about how technology is zooming past PowerPoint to allow presentations to engage audiences in new ways.  A must-read for anyone who has stood on a stage in front of an audience:

The best conference talks share a common attribute: they start a conversation. The conversation begins in the room, and may echo for weeks or months afterward. In the very best, fantastic, mind-blowing talks, some of the audience, compelled by the speaker’s ideas and unable to hold their thoughts, gripes, or questions until the Q&A session, type notes or share their thoughts on Twitter.

From here, the article introduces what may be a trail-blazing prototype app designed to expose speakers to feedback and criticism in real time.

2.  Jamie Dimon’s Annual Missive

Like Buffett and Welch, Jamie Dimon has elevated his annual shareholder letter at JP Morgan Chase from corporate claptrap and business boilerplate to highly readable observations about the global finance scene.  More evidence that good letters make good leadership.

3.  Can Larry Page Discipline Google?

Where will Larry Page take the company he co-founded?  Henry Blodget, in an open letter to the new (and untested) Google CEO, makes us wonder whether Page’s penchant for trendy experiments might actually undermine the company:

Unlike Bezos and Buffett, Larry has never articulated what his long-term mission and vision for Google is. In the past, Larry has pursued pet projects like wind power and self-driving cars that have nothing to do with Google’s core business. And if Larry’s plan is to double-down on these pet projects (and others), Google could lose discipline and focus and become a complete train wreck.

4.  The Permanent Lobbying Culture

As Google comes under the regulatory microscope, Michael Kinsley explains how, years ago, Microsoft initially resisted “the American way of doing things” in Washington, D.C.  Resistance, he argues, was futile:

The Washington culture of influence peddling is not entirely, or even primarily, the fault of the corporations that hire the lobbyists and pay the bills. It’s a vast protection racket, practiced by politicians and political operatives of both parties. Nice little software company you’ve got here. Too bad if we have to regulate it or if Big Government programs force us to raise its taxes. Your archrival just wrote a big check to the Washington Bureaucrats Benevolent Society. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to do the same?

5.  Brutally Honest Corporate Culture

Is Bridgewater Associates a cult or does it have a stunningly effective corporate culture? Hard to tell – but it’s also hard to argue with the success of the firm, which operates the largest hedge fund in the world.  Last year, Bridgewater’s profits exceed those of Google, eBay, Amazon, and Yahoo combined.  Read this compelling New York profile of CEO Ray Dalio, his company, and his Principles—a hundred-page required read for all employees.  As the article explains, while most companies talk about the importance of transparency and honesty, Bridgewater has created a working environment that pushes unbridled honesty to the extreme:

At his firm, Dalio would make constant, unvarnished criticism the norm, until critiques weren’t taken personally and no one held back a good idea for fear of being wrong. His chosen investment system depended on such behavior.

6.  Knowing When Not to Collaborate

Designer David Sherwin makes the case that some of best collaboration happens when you let people work alone.  He challenges the fetishistic attachment to teamwork and group offsites:

Instead of holding an hour-long meeting with a facilitator at the whiteboard, pen poised to capture ideas called out, what would happen if every person in the room were provided five minutes to generate ideas individually?

For more information about High Lantern Group, please visit our website at www.highlanterngroup.com

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