Infotrade

Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked with managers and leaders who all had their own unique style. If the job of being a leader was easy, there wouldn’t be  67,454 books written on the topic . Leader or company perfection is non-existent. There is no  Nirvana  in Corporate America — that’s why it’s called work! Simply put, leaders have to know their business and know people. The 10 points below are based on personal observations and unsolicited feedback I’ve gathered from colleagues throughout my career. My goal was to take a realistic and common sense approach without exaggerated jargon. Translation: Almost anyone can condition themselves to be an efficient leader. 1. Don’t do surveys to measure employee engagement.  Employees won’t believe that they’re confidential (even if they are), nor will they give you honest feedback. 2. Don’t create new policies just because of one negative employee experience . Deal with the (negative) employee individually, but creating po...

Twitter campaigns from brands that shine are few and far between but this one from  Turkcell , a Turkish telecom company shows some excellent innovation using some of the most common Twitter features. The campaign revolved around a series of games that were all run through Twitter with post-its being removed at each stage for people to try and win the phone. The best little twist is the fact that users had to try and get a celebrity to Retweet them as the very last clue to win the phone. The entire campaign generated a whopping 56,000 Tweets around the competition over the 3 days that the activity was run. The most interesting fact about this campaign was that it was aimed at targeting heavy users of the Internet who are apparently smart at filtering out ads on their daily Internet travels…

Jimmy Guterman wrote about  Nokia's culture of purposefully fostering a collaborative mindset  as soon as someone started at the company or moves into a new role. I want to build on this by looking at how collaboration needs to be seen as a process that happens over time, and that the crucial groundwork for successful collaboration needs to be laid before the "actual" collaborative work happens. First, let's ask why collaboration is so important today. The main reason is that the problems we have to solve — whether deciding company strategy or bringing an innovative offering to market — are more complex than they have ever been. They require a variety of skillsets, perspectives, and approaches to solve them, and need a lot of pieces to come together smoothly to be successful. Bringing an innovation to market especially needs a mix of left- and right-brain people — visionaries and ditch-diggers, stubborn idealists and open-minded pragmatists. All this requires collabo...

Dropbox Inc., the Web storage provider with 25 million users, signed deals with mobile carrier  Softbank Corp. (9984)  and handset maker Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB to attract more customers in  Asia  and  Europe . The agreement means Dropbox’s file-sharing application will be preloaded on two phones running on Softbank’s network in  Japan  in early June, said Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen, head of mobile business development at Dropbox, in an interview. Sony Ericsson is building the app into devices that will be sold in 10 countries in Europe and Asia. The partnerships are the first for San Francisco-based  Dropbox , a startup whose app has surged in popularity as consumers turn to smartphones to take pictures, create videos and listen to music. The app lets users store and access their content from any computer, phone or tablet with a Web connection. “Whenever you do anything that can be stored, consumed or shared, we want to become part of ...

Pop over to  iCloud.com  today and you’ll see a doomed web page. The domain, which redirects to  Xcerion’s CloudMe software, is sitting on some prime real estate, namely  Apple’s  new iCloud  service. In a short release, Apple confirmed the existence and name: Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software – Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple’s advanced mobile operating system which powers iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple’s upcoming cloud services offering. We’ve been hearing about the potential cloud services for months now and it seems the stars have finally aligned. The MobileMe service recently received some considerable upgrades to improve performance and stability and there has been oodles of tal...

Executive says handset maker aiming for double-digit smartphone market share in 2011. Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest cellphone maker by revenue, plans to launch a new Android-based tablet computer running on fourth-generation network technology later this year in its bid to differentiate itself in the increasingly competitive tablet market. "The race for 4G (fourth-generation) has already started," J.K. Shin, president of Samsung's mobile communications division, told Dow Jones Newswires in an exclusive interview."4G transition is inevitable particularly for tablets because it requires faster download speeds than smartphones to handle bigger volume content." The new tablet will be an evolution of and an enhanced version of its Galaxy Tab models, Shin said, without providing further details. After launching a 7-inch device in October last year, Samsung will begin selling in June tablets with bigger screens-an 8.9-inch model and a 1...

First of all, I'm not sure if your organizers today were aware of this, but  I actually don't give a lot of speeches. I'm usually the guy doing the inviting. Frankly, it's a lot more comfortable that way.  But... I couldn't pass up the chance to spend some time with a group of people who have so much to offer the world. Truly, it's an honor to be here. To begin with, a favor.  If you are one of the graduating class, I would like you please to stand up.  I want to see you properly.  Thank you. Congratulations. You made it.  And if you would, I would like you to hold your heads very still for just the next 10 seconds or so. Because, I  have an app on my ipad here that's pretty cool. I'm not taking your picture. What I'm doing, if you don't mind,  is just grabbing a download of the contents of each of your brains. Thank you. You may sit. Now unfortunately, this app is still in, let's say, pre-alpha mode. It doesn't work that reliably. But i...