Big Think

Quentin Cassidy commented on New Rules of Business Sustainability on June 11, 2009, 11:15 AM

Getting an MBA is something I've gone back and forth on a lot lately and it's interesting to see the reactions to the commentary of these B-School deans and their thoughts on today's business sustainability. In a time where entrepreneurship is such an encouraged path, I have to wonder about an MBA's merits. Maybe Big Think can do a topic on that.

Quentin Cassidy commented on Preserve Cash and Earn Profits in a Downturn on June 10, 2009, 12:03 AM

I wonder if Thomson Reuters sees any strategic interest in acquiring a newspaper organization. NYT's Thomas Friedman recently mentioned that a guy like Michael Bloomberg, and his expertise building a news empire using technology would be an ideal person to buy New York Time Company. So for those keeping score at home, that would overturning term limits, out spending opponents tenfold and owning his city's largest newspaper.

Quentin Cassidy commented on Effective Leadership For Business Sustainability on June 9, 2009, 8:32 PM

In response to Abigail Colleran, who says on the Business Sustainability homepage that Beer is the first commentator able to "humanize the wrenching process of downsizing," I say really? It doesn't seem to me a terribly challenging thing to humanize the redundancies of large swaths of a company, so I'm not sure why Beer should be given all this praise. As much as we demonize them, I'd say that most executives do understand the human side of laying people off. Just because we don't read their internal memos or hear their addresses to employees shouldn't mean as a default that they sit from their corner office enthusiastically crossing names off a list with a red marker.

Quentin Cassidy commented on Protecting Value in the Customer Base on June 8, 2009, 12:07 PM

"Can I make this as simple as possible, but no simpler" - great line. Working for a startup myself, where we're constantly trying to monetize our products and services, half of the sell comes in the presentation and there have been numerous times where we've overthought ourselves and made our concept far too complex than it needs to be. But on the other end...making it too simple such that it appears too broadly idealist is problematic to businesses who want to know specifically and directly how it will help them save/make money.

Quentin Cassidy commented on Make Your Company High Commitment High Performance on June 8, 2009, 11:58 AM

I wonder how many of the recent Harvard MBA graduates had in mind Professor Beer's talking points - the "multi-stakeholder perspective...to be concerned about the community and society as a hole" - when they went to work for the financial institutions and participated in practices that were ultimately responsible for the global recession. Hopefulyl Beer and his colleagues are doing more than sharing these noble ideas with Big Think.