Monday, December 13, 2010

Daily Stat: Groupon Leaves Some Businesses Dissatisfied

42% of a sample of 150 businesses that ran Groupon promotions between June 2009 and August 2010 said they wouldn't run a Groupon promotion again, according to a study of the social-media coupon site by Utpal M. Dholakia of Rice University. One of the main reasons: A significant proportion of Groupon redeemers are extremely price sensitive, barely spending beyond a discounted product's face value. Google has bid to purchase Groupon for $6 billion.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Management Tip of the Day: Abolish Great Meetings

Abolish Great Meetings
Having a "great meeting" often means that everyone in the room agreed on a topic without debate or discomfort. Yet, most great ideas are born from conflict and differences of opinion, rather than effortlessly run meetings. Next time you are organizing a meeting, don't focus on making it go smoothly. Instead, pay attention to moving your business objective forward. Only invite people who truly have a stake in the goal, not those who have a territorial claim or just want to be heard. Good results come from complex, iterative, and challenging processes. Rather than making sure your ideas and discussion fit perfectly into the hour time frame, be willing to leave the issue unresolved and have another "bad" meeting to follow up.