Feb 11Why we need to balance management and leadership. Interview with Nitin Nohria, the Dean at Harvard Business School.What are the key lessons from business history that will still apply in the future? I’ve been trying to answer that question through a number of interviews and articles. First, I spoke to Chris McKenna of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. Later on, I spoke to Nitin Nohria, the Dean…Business5 min readBusiness5 min read
Published in The Startup·Jul 31, 2020What If Big-Tech Companies Became Non-Profits?After years of misinformation, security breaches, abhorrent labor practices and election meddling, politicians have decided it’s finally time to regulate the major tech companies. It’s almost impossible to think that, as recently as a decade ago, large technology companies were considered agents for democracy that would usher in an era…Big Tech5 min readBig Tech5 min read
Published in Festival Peak·Nov 29, 201925 Years Later: Grunge Hero Re-emerges as a Solo Artist with Songs from the Deepest Darkness of Marriage“Wow! Where did you get that?” he asked, pointing to my shirt, a white tee with their album cover emblazoned on the front. “I.. I uh.. I made it myself,” I responded. I was just a shy, long-haired, 14-year-old kid, backstage with Boghandle — Denmark’s coolest grunge band. Ever since…Music4 min readMusic4 min read
Apr 19, 2019Mind the Pause: Why the Boring Companies Will Be the Winners of TomorrowAs I’ve written before, change is not accelerating. Yes, the world is changing. But the change is not accelerating. In modern history, the most accurate graph to illustrate societal change consists of continuous or overlapping S-curves. Like this, more or less:Technology3 min readTechnology3 min read
Apr 13, 2019Redefining the Role of Business: A Conversation with Harvard Business School’s Geoffrey JonesWhat will the future of business be like? One way of finding out is arguably to focus on future challenges in society at large. In 2017, Geoffrey Jones, professor in Business History at Harvard Business School, published Profits and Sustainability. …Business14 min readBusiness14 min read
Mar 16, 2019A Parrot With A Purpose: Why Most Companies Should Consider Becoming NonprofitsIn earlier posts, I’ve argued why companies need to play the long game and leave their short-term focus behind. Why they need to be system builders. And why they even need to be boring. But do companies need to be companies? As odd as this question might sound, there’s actually…Nonprofit4 min readNonprofit4 min read
Mar 15, 2019Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Talks Clickbait, Fake News, the Information Wars and How to Fix a Broken InternetIn this day and age of Trump, tech and anti-trust, it’s easy to forget the quiet Internet miracle that is Wikipedia. I will argue that Wikipedia — the no. 5 most visited website in the world — is the best thing on the Internet. …Tech11 min readTech11 min read
Mar 14, 2019How Facebook, The Company That Said It Wanted to Bring the World Together, Became the Great DividerSome of us are old enough to remember the halcyon days of social media, when we genuinely believed it would be a force for good in the world. The early evidence was promising. There was the Arab Spring, in which citizens across the Middle East used Twitter and YouTube to…Social Media5 min readSocial Media5 min read
May 22, 2017How I Made Social Media Marketing Work And Earned $3.5M In 8 WeeksSome background first. I’ve been working with digital strategy and communication for more than 10 years. Among other things, I was the person behind Maersk’s success story on social media back in 2011–13. I have always believed — and have been quoted saying — that you should not use social…Social Media Marketing4 min readSocial Media Marketing4 min read
Nov 19, 2014Why brands need to stop talking about themselves. And other content marketing lessons from Guitar Center.“I was pretty much afraid of everything. Afraid of the world, afraid of speaking — a really, really shy kid. And music was a way to speak. As simple as that.” These words belong to Metallica’s James Hetfield, from the opening lines of Guitar Center’s most popular video on their…Content5 min readContent5 min read
