rethinking

Traditionally, in American businesses, the same person occupies the role of chairman of the board and chief executive officer, though this is gradually shifting to the European model. In most European, British, and Canadian businesses, the roles are usually split, in an effort to ensure better governance of the company, and in turn bring higher returns to investors.

"I have had to change my email address to [deleted], as usa.net is no longer offering their services for free, another indicator that the internet business environment is not what it used to be."

More than likely everyone has heard the quote by Michael Michalko of Thinkertoys who coined the phrase, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." Based upon the assumption that a different result or outcome is desired in regard to our business endeavors, it makes sense that we must be vigilant in our efforts to do things a little differently! But change doesn't come easily to most people. While we want to see effective results, lots of people get stuck in what they perceive as the right way and resist change.

The product life cycle has been part of marketing strategy since the late 50's. All of us are either intuitively or intellectually aware of its five stages of introduction, growth, maturity, saturation and decline. Yet, this classic model now faces the same inevitability it predicted for brands and market segments. We all face a new reality wherein everyone knows the model, emulates it, then with alarming regularity...fails. Failure comes from the predictability of the strategies that we all believed were dictated by the model. Over the past five years we've seen mature core brands suffocate under their own weight like lost, beached whales on the shores of EDLP (every day low price) Beach.