Category: Corporate

The Putrid Pivot: Why Facebook and Instagram are about to get much worse

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Meta had an earnings call this week. Revenues and profit are down. The metaverse division lost $2.8 billion in a single quarter. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, regarding the payroll, that there are “probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here.” Here’s why that’s bad news for people using Facebook … Continued

Why layoffs really happen

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In 30 years of working for companies, I’ve seen a dozen layoffs. And I’ve observed dozens more at companies I was following closely. Why do companies choose to dump staff they’ve invested so much effort in hiring and training? The answer, more often than not, is an inevitable consequence of how companies plan for growth. … Continued

Rogers crippled a huge chunk of Canada on Friday. How’s their apology?

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Rogers Communications is the dominant internet provider in Toronto and the rest of Ontario. When it failed on Friday, it crashed a quarter of Canada’s internet connections, disrupting everything from mobile service to work-at-home to financial transactions and emergency 9-1-1 service for parts of three days. Now that service appears to be back, Rogers has … Continued

Lowe’s finds 13 ways to undermine customer experience in a single transaction

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Customer service usually sucks. That’s not news. So I reserve my commentary for companies that manage to screw up in more interesting ways. That’s what Lowe’s just did. It not only failed, it failed 13 different times in one transaction. And it’s worth reviewing, since nearly all of those failures are due to the same … Continued

I love Tesla. I hate Elon.

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I love my Tesla cars. But Telsa CEO Elon Musk has become increasingly unhinged of late, and I have serious problems with him. What to do? Maybe some “I love Tesla, I hate Elon” swag would make us Tesla owners feel better. How did this happen? Here’s the story. Teslas are terrific cars I bought … Continued

Should workshops cost more in person?

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For the first time since February of 2020, a potential client asked me for a workshop delivered in-person, rather than through a videoconference. I’m going to have to charge more. But it’s an interesting question if the client is actually getting more value from the in-person session. Some quick history Before 2020, I delivered my … Continued

The crash: stocks and Bitcoin

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Nearly every financial asset is dropping in value. But they are not all the same. Here is a chart of the S&P 500 for the last 12 months. Any other index of stocks has a similar chart. A year ago, the S&P 500 index was at 4255. As I write this it is at 3750. … Continued

Ultimatums delivered nicely

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I’ve recently had to ask some people I like to get their asses in gear. It’s an interesting question how to be firm with people who are disappointing you, even though you want to maintain a good relationship with them. Here are two tales about this. Consider what you would write to these folks, and … Continued