Monthly Archives: July 2008

The Start of Something Big?

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Thank you. This articulates what we have been planning and hoping for as part of our rebuild.

It was such a difficult and painful process and it had so much risk inherent in it. And it isn’t completed. But my sincerest desire is to not only win a Stanley Cup but for the team to be really good for a long, long time. I believe that is the deliverable: Keep a very good team together for a long time to the benefit of the fan base and the franchise itself. And win the franchise’s first ever Stanley Cup trophy. We made one tiny step last season. We have to get our team into its prime together. The window has opened and now we need to jump through it. This article on the Outstanding Six and best practices is a must read. How does a team build itself to compete at the highest levels over a long period of time and win a championship? That is the key question and one we are trying to answer correctly!

ESPN Summer Power Rankings

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Thanks, that is nice to hear. Now delete these pixels. Success is earned on the ice and not in the media. We haven’t done a thing yet. We have lots of work to do before we are considered a power player and a shoe-in for a playoff spot. Check out this ESPN.com article. Our success will pivot around health, execution, team chemistry, how the refs handle key decisions and a little luck to help us to get to the 5th spot this year. Wish us luck and good fortune but I don’t believe any of these rankings. The game is played on the ice. I know I can’t wait to see how we do this next season.

Step Brothers

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Step away from the theater – careful - it is that bad. What a lazy way to make a film: say the F word a lot; act like a kid; and cry and fart. There are about ten minutes of good moviemaking and fun in this film. It would be better on “Funny or Die” for free and even then, I would have been disappointed. Bad film – bad filmmaking.

Humbling but as Predicted

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China has passed the US in internet users, more than a quarter of a billion people are on the net in China. I noted this day would come four years ago after my first trip to China. And China is growing at a fast clip while the US usage is slowing. Is there any field we can remain #1 in this new economy?

Company Positioning – Random Musings

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Historically there has been a lot made about “positioning” in marketing and about the importance of a very succinct and easy to understand positioning for a company to be successful but, ironically, the most successful Web 2.0 companies don’t have it. In fact they have vague positions in the market. They have “optionality” on where they want to grow and seem to be thriving. Here is what I mean in a couple of obvious examples:

So is Google a….

  • Search provider?
  • A software company?
  • A technology company?
  • A CPC company?
  • An advertising company?
  • A media company?
  • A web services company?
  • A developer platform?
  • A web operating system company?
  • An artificial intelligence big algorithm in the sky?

Is it and can it be all of the above? They seem to be doing a pretty good job of it and the only positioning line I can think of about Google is “Do no evil.” They don’t have a position and they are the zero sum winners as far as I can tell.

Amazon is it…

  • The e-commerce company?
  • A shopping portal?
  • The one click shopping and no shipping charges provider?
  • The e-commerce platform provider?
  • The Wal-Mart of cyberspace?
  • A cloud computing company?
  • The “I know what you need to buy” recommendations company?
  • A communications company that connects buyers and sellers together?

 All I ever remember as Amazon’s positioning was the original “World’s Biggest Book Store.”

My point: In the new world order, positioning may not be as important as it once was and may actually hurt a brand in that while expensive to build a brand’s position, it is even harder and MORE expensive to reposition a brand. Just think about it.