Atoms to bytes – the media’s future

Check out this article published recently in the 2010 edition of AdReview

http://www.monitoringsa.com/pdfs/2010_04_29_1398672.pdf

How will traditional and new media co-exist?

What qualifications should the Dean of a business school have?

As an aside to our current conversation what qualifications do you think the Dean of one of the world’s foremost business schools should have?

Economics?

Finance?

Commerce?

Try Ethics and Leadership.

At least that’s what Harvard Business School reckons and has appointed an expert in both – Prof. Nitin Nohria – as Dean to prove their point.

Elsewhere in this blog I have argued that business schools need to focus on what business ought to do, rather than what it should do, as it seeks to find meaning in the society in which it operates.

Understanding the mechanics of business through an MBA programme isn’t sufficient – while an MBA confers technical competence it doesn’t confer differentiating competencies like moral intelligence.

For that you need a sense of the difference between right and wrong which relies on an understanding of consistency and rationality in the way one engages in business practice.

Prof. Nohria’s appointment signals the start of a new era in the way business schools operate.

Trust Harvard to be the first.

How does reputation affect competitive advantage?

How does reputation lead to competitive advantage? 

I reckon in two ways:  Reputation, or let’s say the net effect of all one’s interactions with a brand, provides an identity that becomes a rallying point for employees and makes customers proud to be associated with a company or brand.  They have a clear understanding of what a brand is about and identify with the vision and value system associated with that brand.  Abraham Lincoln would call this the ’tree’.  It’s the real thing and cannot be faked … at least not indefinitely.

Secondly, reputation affects image, or the way others view you – this is Abraham Lincoln’s ‘shadow’ analogy.  A positive image attracts people to you – like prospective employees so you get to choose the best of the bunch, but the same may be said for attracting customers and shareholders.  Image is good for share price.

So a positive reputation helps a company keep its best people, attract and retain good customers, and adds value to the share price as the share takes on an intrinsic value of its own.

Where is the competitive advantage?  Sustainability is key across the triple bottom line – people, planet and profit.  Now if sustainability is important it means that experiential gains from employees, and their interactions with customers, become the means by which input costs are kept low and where one facilitates a premium on pricing. 

Sounds easy? Well it isn’t.  The idea of creating a common vision and value system is ‘Organizational Behaviour 101’ stuff but inculcating it across an organization is the hardest thing you will ever take on.  It’s critical though if it is to lead to that all important reputation and making it really meaningful depends on … you guessed it …. the moral intelligence of an organization or brand. 

Interested?  More next post.