jay/day

Not out of the box. No catch phrases. No mind numbing power-point delivered by some humorless stiff you can't imagine has ever had a tight deadline or a crazy client, or a lunatic manager. It's me! Eve!

3Peas consulting is fresh! It is training and coaching that your team wants presented by a person who gets it. 3Peas consulting isn't old and sage; it's salty.

3Peas really teaches your staff how to manage, review, terminate, promote, change a stale process. It is how to give killer presentations, run a meeting, and what you need to know about employment law if you are managing people. All presented in a way that is relevant, real, customized to your firm and worth your and your staffs time.

I am going to be up in NYC May 13th -16th, and would love it if any of you have the time to talk with me about how I could bring some spark and useful information to your teams. Plus I miss the minds (and even some faces) of so many of my old C/D friends, it would be great for a chance to see you and pretend it’s business!

Give me a call or email me if you’d like to take me up on it!

Eve

Posted by Eve at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Forget the Oscar race. Here's a competition we can all get our dander up about. Just who is The Worst Company in America?

Vote!

Posted by alburty at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A fascinating story from the Washington Post on the impact of Cartoongate on Danish business.

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Posted by alburty at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every year, Business 2.0 presents its annual roundup of the previous year's stupidest business decisions. Here is a compiliation from that list of the year's dumbest moments in advertising. Just pray one of yours isn't on the list.

Read

Posted by alburty at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's my job to alert you when there's something startling new afoot in the world of technology, especially when that something new is creating an entirely new marketplace. That something new is the world of online reality games.

I'm not talking video games, I'm talking about huge, multi-player fantasy games, played online, where characters and "virtual land" are traded --- for real cash. It is not hyperbole to say that the economies of these virtual worlds exceed, in size, the economies of some countries in the real world.

"Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games" by economist Edward Castronova should be required reading by anyone who wants to impress their client with some mind-blowing insight into a new economic frontier.

Amazon

Posted by alburty at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A fascinating article from the New York Times about the attempts of computer scientists to measure how office workers manage to function at all in the psychological state of "continuous partial attention."

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Posted by alburty at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let me see if I understand this correctly. I'm not really crazy, I'm poised on the brink of fame and fortune. How fabulous! (Ok, you can stop the Valium drip!)

Read

Posted by alburty at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You think your job in advertising sucks? Try being a leech collector, or a plague burier. Take a nostalgic look at The Worst Jobs in History ...

Visit

Posted by alburty at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When the Economist magazine named its best books of the year, among the picks was "Mr China: A Wall Street Banker, an Englishman, an ex-Red Guard and $418,000,000 Disappearing Day by Day." You just have to love that title.

Says the Economist ...

Every foreign company in China should arm its executives with a copy of this shocking, funny and culturally sympathetic tale of the perils of doing business in Asia’s wild west. This first-hand account of one of the most expensive foreign forays into the Middle Kingdom is happily also one of the most instructive business books on China around. Next year the book will be translated into Chinese, for a market on mainland China that is hungry for business advice.

Buy

Posted by alburty at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Down with multi-tasking and efficiency! Finally, a book that codifies what we've all intuitively understood: goofing off is good!

Read

Posted by alburty at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The mayor of New York City? A businessman. The governor of California? A showbusinessman. The prime minister of Italy? A media tycoon.

Anamoly or trend?

An article in Tuesday's New York Times about the effect of big business on Russia's upcoming parliamentary elections says business executives could win more than 20 percent of Parliament's 450 seats. Another 40 percent could end up in the hands of what are called 'hidden lobbyists,' candidates supported by businesses to protect the interests of specific industries.

An article in today's Times reports that three Rwandan news media executives were convicted of genocide for inciting a killing spree by machete-wielding gangs who slaughtered about 800,000 Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda in early 1994.

The backroom power of business in politics is well-known. But have businessmen taken the next logical step, swapping the corner office for political office? When media executives are being convicted of genocide, it gives one, as they say, pause.

Posted by alburty at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The perfect Labor Day party game: solving a labor dilemma from today's "Ethicist" column in the New York Times:

Question: "My manager wants to complete our project early and thus save money by laying off many of the support personnel (testing, quality assurance, documentation). To motivate the engineers, he has offered us a bonus pending early completion. Is it ethical for me to profit by firing others or for my manager to put me in this position? "

Think about how you might answer this question, then without reading the Ethicist's answer, click on the Comments link below and tell us how you'd answer the question. Then, and only then, read the Ethicist's answer here. (Free registration to New York Times website required.)

Posted by alburty at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In an age when employees are labeled "human capital" and workplace longevity is measured in months, some companies have finally begun to realize that a truly loyal employee is a rare and valuable asset that should be recognized, nurtured, and, ideally, sold to the highest bidder.

Read

Posted by Eve at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How vulnerable is your company (or client) to fraud? What are the chances your accounting dept. and/or auditors are cooking the books? Do you have a plan in place in case of a need to conduct "data forensics?"

One man's woes are another man's billable hours. Welcome to the world of independent risk consulting.

Visit

Posted by alburty at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Do you supposed Ken Lay watched Martha Stewarts "perp walk" yesterday from the comfort of his living room in Aspen or by his pool in Palm Beach?

Posted by Eve at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2,500 Projects in Two Months! A profile of the lift-off of Song, Delta Airline's attempt to shed excess baggage.

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Posted by alburty at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just four short years ago, money flowed like water and ideas were
plentiful in the Internet world. The notion of retaining an in-house
Zen abbot for e-commerce didn't warrant a second thought -- instead
it was embraced. As Casey Dunn, the former CTO of failed online
clothier Zoza.com says, "It was in the water." The former dot-com
executive developed this site to chronicle the birth of the online
store backed by the founders of Banana Republic. While some of the
technical details in this exhumation may seem dry, there's plenty
of interesting behind-the-scenes commentary. It's all here -- quirky
item pages resurrected and critiqued, an examination of unsuccessful
marketing efforts, and the failure to standardize sizing, which
led to return rates of 80%. While today's armchair analysts are
having a field day with the bursting of the bubble economy, sites
such as this one provide a fitting (and interesting) epitaph to
the demise of many a dot-com.

View

Posted by alburty at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)