Ideas Blog

This phrase became a company motto at O’Reilly Media in 2008, largely in response to the tremendous amount of value that left our economy during the financial crisis. Five years later, Tim O’Reilly advocates for this principle every chance he gets while applying it to emergent trends, such as the Sharing Economy. Since 2011, I’ve […]

A credo is a statement of personal belief.   In a world of competing perspectives, we each represent something distinct that is born from our values and communicated through our actions. If we’re not careful, the push and pull of others’ opinions and divergent motives can impede our ability to listen to the voice inside. Over […]

This Q & A with Jay Daughtry illuminates the powerful role of trust in online communities. As a society, we often spend more time nurturing relationships online than with the person living next door. Consequently, online communities have become central hubs for sharing ideas, aspirations, and values. I met Jay on Twitter, and through a […]

According to Gallup’s polls, Americans have never been less trusting of institutions. Although the culprits are too vast to name, today’s bleak environment for trust has a direct impact on leaders. Events outside the workplace shape employees’ mindsets and influence their propensity to trust co-workers and managers. Because the social and political events that form […]

Ever since oil spewed out of a well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and insensitivity poured out of a CEO, business leaders have learned what not to say in a crisis. Two years earlier, when the stock market hit rock bottom during the financial crisis, communications were equally ineffective. The great investment […]

A friend of mine recently mentioned how we’ve moved from a front-porch society to a back-deck culture. Where people once shared and related with neighbors as a course of life, interactions have become less common and more intentional. As a result, communities have fewer opportunities to influence moral standards through gentle corrections and role models. […]

Trust is poorly understood in business because it is also poorly understood in psychological and philosophical research. In fact, psychologists directly cite the dearth of research in this area as a handicap to applied learning in the field of interpersonal relationships. I have researched this topic for over a year and I shudder at blog […]

Following are summaries of three articles I published about leadership achievements, and missteps, during Hurricane Sandy. Each article address a different aspect of crisis communications, including: internal communications, public relations, and customer communications. Prioritizing employee concerns A crisis does not affect everyone equally, and when businesses reopened after the storm, many employees were still coping […]

During the financial crisis when institutions fell, credit markets froze, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average routinely dropped 600-700 points in a single day, the financial sector became obsessed with confidence. Although confidence is central to healthy and efficient markets, this single elixir for all things financial has been over-prescribed. As a result, we have […]

On October 17, 2012, the British Bankers Association (BBA) held its annual conference for the banking and financial services sector, and the theme of the conference was Restoring Trust. The new chief executive of the BBA, Anthony Browne, came into office shortly after the Libor scandal erupted this summer, and that event influenced his perspective […]

Months ago, I posted an essay to this blog about the plight of demoralized employees. Surprisingly, that one essay generated more organic traffic than any other article, even though this site is not optimized for those search terms. Curious to know whether this phenomenon was unique to my blog or part of a broader trend, […]