Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

The World is Not Flat

And other fantastic predictions that were not really true. We've known it for a few centuries now; it turns out the world is not flat after all. I was reading the March/April issue of Foreign Policy magazine and came across an article by Pankaj Ghemawat who makes a compelling case for why. We've been talking about globalization for so long that we forget how local our businesses and relationships really are. It's interesting to observe how we're not really as integrated and connected as we thought. Think about how you need to have a passport to travel to countries like... Read more →

What Goes with Movies and is Sticky?

Popcorn, of course! This past weekend I went to see Notes on a Scandal starring a superb Judy Dench in the role of Barbara and the beautifully tormented Cate Blanchett as Sheba. The movie was being played at a local theater. We were all sitting there waiting for the projection to begin when the usually suffused lights during the still publicity went full on and a young staff member called our attention. He was holding two small bags of popcorn is one hand and movie ticket stubs in the other. After getting our attention with a booming voice he stated:... Read more →

What Oscar Night can Teach us About Business

If you're like me, you probably watched only parts of the Academy Awards last night. I was thrilled to see Ennio Morricone win the Lifetime Achievement Award -- and intrigued to watch Clint Eastwood translate him for the audience. Although born in New York, I also considered Scorsese's Award for Best Director an achievement by a fellow Italian. Both prolific creators, both held in high esteem among their peers. Seeing all those actors at once got me thinking about how each of them plays many different roles throughout their careers. The best ones do not let anyone typecast them and... Read more →

What's in a Name?

Naming things is not easy. Naming a business is sometimes more challenging than naming your own child -- although I know you feel the business *is* your baby. We all think differently about business, ideas, marketing, and selling. The way we classify people in our own mind for later retrieval depends on: (1) what they communicate about their brand and business; (2) how we look at the world. I've been involved in naming new products and services as well as rebranding old ones throughout my career. Do you have a generic-like product that is going to be launched in an... Read more →

Michelin Man gets a Makeover, Company Rallies Around Sustainable Road Mobility

The company's long time mascot has been put through a drastic diet to lose those unwanted love handles in time for Valentine's. As reported in Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Thierry Rudloff -- the French company's UK marketing manager -- announced the return of their popular "Michelin Man" on February 14. How much weight did he lose? Compared to the classic version from 1905, Michelin Man lost 20% of its volume and it looks more energetic than ever. A 2000 survey result highlighted the mascot's popularity: in Great Britain, 83% of respondents recognized it and associated it with the company. Maybe... Read more →

It's About the Promise

A couple of days ago I had to call my bank to get some information as I had locked myself out of the online account -- how many passwords can you really remember before they all jumble? My bank is ING Direct and I chose it first because I liked what I heard about the way they do business: no fees for their Orange Savings Account with great interest rates, no application fee for the Orange Mortgage and a simple application. Then I met Arkadi Kuhlmann, the bank's President and CEO -- see a video with some of his remarks... Read more →

I Would Like to Thank the Academy

In 1987, the movie Fatal Attraction was shown to a test screening audience with the original ending that had the villainness commit suicide off screen. The audience did not like that ending and director Adrian Lyne changed it. The cinematic prototype captured timely feedback that ensured the movie’s success. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we talk about the final product -- although we’ll get to that in a moment, let’s first consider how we refine ideas. If you’ve read a book recently, you probably noticed a section titled “acknowledgments”. This is where the authors recognize those people who... Read more →

Why Didn’t *I* Think of That?

Chances are you have asked yourself this question at least once. If you blog, I would venture that it has happened more often than that. Why is it so hard to come up with good ideas? It’s not; we just make it so by discounting the simple stuff. We don’t do it on purpose, yet we are our own worst adversaries when it comes to accepting the ideas that pop into our heads and come our way. Look at what happens in the corporate world: we constantly use ideas we’ve scratched for with no worry that they’ve been used before.... Read more →

Where do Ideas Come From?

Do you ever wonder how some people are always full of ideas? How do you approach creativity and idea generation? This is the first part of a three-part series on generating ideas, building confidence and validating them, and executing the immediately actionable as well as the ones that are longer-term in scope. It all starts with mindset: "to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative." This is the assertion Twyla Tharp makes at the beginning of her book The Creative Habit, which I will use loosely as an inspiration to seed some thoughts on generating... Read more →

It's Not About the Sales

The Presidents' Day brand is actually about a lot more than retail sales in the third week of February. Americans first acknowledged a President's Day at the time of the founding father, George Washington's Birthday on February 22. Yet Americans didn't observe this holiday until 1832, exactly 100 years after his birth. The next President to gain reverence was Abraham Lincoln, who was born on February 12. His birthday was first celebrated in 1865, the year after he was assassinated. In 1968, legislation was enacted that affected several federal holidays. One of these was Washington's Birthday, the observation of which... Read more →