Top 50 Most Innovative Companies

List by MIT.... Technology Review 2011

List by Fast Company.... FC Magazine 2011

Other lists..... Google search
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Management Theories, Models and Methods

There are hundreds of management theories, management models and management methods. To learn every concept will take a long time and it may not be relevant to your needs. I found a website which listed the various concepts and summarised each concept for quick understanding. The concepts listed included the following:

• Balanced Scorecard
  
• Blue Ocean Strategy
• Brainstorming
  
• Capability Maturity Model
• Maslow Hiearchy of Needs
• Six Thinking Hats
• Theory of Constraints
• ..... and so many more
  

For a quick understanding, goto ValueBasedManagement.net portal

100 Brilliant Companies 2011

Entrepreneur Magazine's annual look at the brightest ideas, the hottest industries and the most insightful innovators ~ 100 Brilliant Companies 2011
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Printer and Ink

If you purchased your printer many years ago. Maybe it's time to buy a new printer:

1. latest printers have better performance and functions
   
2. the cost of ink refills for new printers could be much cheaper
3. the price of new printers are reasonable
   

At least, do your costs-benefits analysis on keep-old or buy-new.
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Alert! Prevent Cheque Washing

Thieves can intercept your cheques and "wash" the payee details and amount. They can use that to steal your money in many ways.

Use "Felt Pen" or "Gel ink to" write your cheques.

Ball point and computer printed cheques can be washed.

More details to secure yourself against Cheque Washing.... click Here or search Google. Watch this short video on Cheque Washing. Be safe!

Success Breeds Failure!

It is a paradox! "Success Breeds Failure".... due to complacency, arrogance, indiscipline, fixated with the past etc etc.

Past successes do not ensure future success.

But managed properly, success can breed more successes.

Fight complacency and instil healthy paranoia.... says Peter Cohan
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What can we learn from "The Biggest Loser"?

There are a few "lessons from the biggest loser". The following is by a viewer:

Business lessons from the biggest loser
(denise lee yohn)

Last year I did a short Twitter series on the business lessons I learned from the show – here’s a more complete list of the 9 things I’ve learned about business from The Biggest Loser:

1: keep metrics simple – the show uses only one measure (pounds lost) to evaluate the contestants’ progress. Clearly they are improving their health and their lives in so many other important ways, but the one number makes tracking easy. Likewise, in business we should use metrics that are easy, clear, and memorable.

2: success requires both mental and physical strength – the most successful contestants are those who are mentally tough enough to withstand the politics and emotions of the show, as well as physically strong enough to compete in the challenges. In business, I think mental strength is strategy and physical strength is execution; we need both.

3: don’t get distracted from the goal – some contestants make the mistake of emphasizing winning a particular challenge just because they want to beat the others, when they should instead be focused on the end result which is weight loss. It’s just as easy for us businesspeople to get distracted by small issues or fads or personal agendas.

4: the tortoise always beats the hare — time and again, taking a steady and sure approach in the challenges wins over starting strong and then flaming out. In business, consistency and the wise use of all of our resources ensures we cross the finish line too.

5: excel at what you can control – when competing, it’s tempting to fixate on what the competition is or isn’t doing. Problem is, we can’t control what others do. Our competitive strategy should be grounded in focusing on our own excellence and playing to our strengths first.

6: be prepared – like most shows, The Biggest Loser surprises the contestants with challenges at random times. Likewise, we never know when our businesses will be tested by customers, competitors, or even market conditions. We should always have our game on and never think that something we do won’t get noticed or won’t matter.

7: up your game – just as our bodies get used to exercising over time and so they need increasingly harder workouts, business needs innovation and continuous improvement. How many companies have lost important ground while they were resting on the laurels of their last successful new product?

8: ask for help – the contestants who sought out extra support from the trainers and their friends seemed to have more success. Likewise, collaboration and partnerships are important to businesses now more than ever. Companies that try to go at it alone miss out on the resources, ideas, and support that business partners, customers, and even competitors can provide.

9: test your limits — we won’t know what’s possible until we do. Some contestants pushed themselves beyond what they perceived their limits to be and were able to do things they never thought they could. Businesses should also challenge the past. Calculated risk taking is the key to growth.

S.U.C.C.E.S.S. For "Sticky" Ideas

Mendapat idea adalah permulaan yang baik. Apa strategi untuk menjayakan idea tersebut?

The secret of your success is in S.U.C.C.E.S

Simplicity
How do we find the essential core of our ideas?
Strip your idea back to the core and find what the simplest elements are. Prioritize the important parts of what you're trying to get across. It's not about being short, it's about being remembered.

Unexpectedness
How do we get our audience to pay attention to our ideas, and how do we maintain their interest when we need time to get the ideas across?
In this day of "everything has been done before" we need to look at new ways of communicating what people may have heard a hundred times before. Break with people's expectations and get their attention. Use surprise to grab the attention, but then to keep it you must generate interest and curiosity. Don't give too much away too quickly.

Concreteness
How do we make our ideas clear?
Explain your ideas in terms of human actions and sensory information. Don't be obscure or too abstract or you threaten to lose the interest of your audience or worse, have your message interpreted differently depending on who is reading.

Credibility
How do we make people believe our ideas?
We need to generate authority for our ideas. In most cases we don't have a well-known and trusted public figure handy to assure the audience that the message being projected is factual and honest. Sticky ideas need to have their own credentials to give people peace of mind that what they're reading is the truth.

Emotional
How do we get people to care about our ideas?
A sticky idea is one that gets people feeling something. To most people, the fact that cinema popcorn contains 37 grams of fat doesn't mean anything - but if you show that one serve of it has more fat than if you ate fast food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, people will take notice.

Stories
How do we get people to act on our ideas?
By telling a story to get your message out you reach people on an instinctive level. As a race, humans naturally share stories of their experiences, thereby multiplying those experiences. When we find ourselves in a situation that mirrors a story we've been told we feel more comfortable with it and less fearful of the unknown.

The very best and most memorable ideas in history manage to employ all 6 of these qualities, and the more you can get in your ideas the better. Not every idea needs to tick all the boxes - some ideas only lend themselves to certain sticky qualities - but every idea has the potential to be fully realized with the help of these six elements.

In a lot of cases you must, as Yoda might say, unlearn what you have learned in order to fully utilize the 6 elements needed to give your idea the stick it deserves. The elements are there as a guide and with each idea or article you put out there you should run it through the S.U.C.C.E.S wringer and see if it manages to come out sticky.

Steve Jobs ~ CEO of the Decade

Why him? Steve Jobs revived Apple and remade entire industries, defying the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression -- and his own serious health problems.

Detailed article at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/steve_jobs/2009/index.html
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Art of War on "History Channel"

Watch Sun Tzu's Art of War on the History Channel @Astro. Based on Sun Tzu's strategies, the triumph of allied forces at Normandy and the loss of America in Vietnam can be predicted. Art of War is a must read for all business leaders!

Watch the Art of War videos on YouTube.
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