"Obviously you don’t want to compete with free. If your economic model
doesn’t let you get to free but your competitor’s does, you’re fighting
a very powerful proposition. If you are selling software and some other
company decides to make that software a free service, Microsoft Office
is going to be more and more competing with online word processors.
That’s a wake-up call for Microsoft."

Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired magazine as quoted in Advertising Age interview (February 25, 2008)

"The top down world is coming to an end. The individual, if not quite
as powerful as the self-styled famous, is just as important. People
have tools to make art, and a smorgasbord of entertainment options. You
must penetrate their temples trepidatiously. You must use permission
marketing. You must reward them. You must not bang them over the head
and make them feel inferior. You must knock on their door and ask them
if they have the time. And you must be selling something more than
momentary, or they’re not interested. Oh, they’ll look at a
train-wreck, but avert their eyes to a new distraction very quickly.

"We’ve
been living with a class of professional, holier-than-thou
trendsetters, who believe they determine what is cool. Cool is not so
important anymore. Attention is king. And the longer you can keep
someone’s attention, the more you’re going to win in the twenty first
century."

Bob Lefsetz as quoted in The Lefsetz Letter (February 2, 2008)

"Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by
acclamation. They are made well only if based on the
clash of conflicting views, the dialogue between different points of
view, the choice between different judgments. The first rule in
decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is
disagreement."

Peter Drucker as quoted in BusinessWeek.com (December 9, 2007)

"You cannot create in
that atmosphere of confinement or sameness. Perhaps one
of the mistakes that we made as a company—it’s one of the dangers of
Six Sigma—is that when you value sameness more than you value
creativity, I think you potentially undermine the heart and soul of a
company like 3M."

George Buckley, CEO of 3M as quoted on BusinessWeek.com (June 11, 2007)

"Telling stories that people can internalize is a way to reduce
execution risk—they will execute with a common vision in mind. In the
absence of data and direct execution experience, well-told stories
might be the only way to inspire action and ensure that all parts of an
organization are on the same page."

Diego Rodriguez and Ryan Jacoby of IDEO as quoted on BusinessWeek.com (May 16, 2007)

"We’ve had 60 million streams [of TV shows] at NBC.com. A lot of
those are repeat viewers. Others are time-shifting. They’re
place-shifting, too, with iTunes or on phones… If consumers are in control, they’re going to figure out how they want to watch. We have to find the right solution."

Beth Comstock, President of Integrated Media for NBC Universal as quoted in Fast Company (May 2007)

"When looking specifically at Impreza, it’s gotten bigger: a little more
stylish, the interior has been upgraded, but the true core concept of
the car—the performance, all-wheel drive and the safety features—all
remain. Those three items make up our DNA—the attributes that appeal to
Subaru enthusiasts… Every time a car is changed some of our more vocal customers have a
reluctance to the change, but then they love it. We hope we are true
enough to our values and DNA so that our core customer will still love
the car and we will also attract new customers too."

Tim Colbeck, Vice President of Sales for Subaru of America, Inc. as quoted on BusinessWeek.com (April 25, 2007)

"The best way to get ahead is to stay fit: flexible, informed and
technologically savvy. Students should be prepared to begin at the
bottom and not see any job as beneath them… and appreciate that all
careers will be shaped by technology."

Henry McGee, President of HBO Video as quoted in Current Magazine (Spring 2007)

"In an emotional economy, success is judged by a profound and indelible
connection with people through sensory experiences. The challenge for
CEOs, CMOs, and clients the world over is to remember what’s at the
soul of their brand: the credibility of a well-respected product and
the passion of the culture behind it. Design is the expression of that
culture and the link that will cause people to be irresistibly drawn to
the brand. If your brand doesn’t connect emotionally, you will have to
rely on media or advertising hype, a short-term and risky proposition."

Marc Gobé, Chairman and CEO of Desgrippes Gobé New York as quoted on BusinessWeek.com (February 16, 2007)

"I firmly believe in choosing great people to help run this company
and its large and diverse set of businesses. It can’t be about one
person. I have to be a collaborator not a dictator, when it comes to
running this company, even though a CEO has a certain set of
responsibilities, and accountability himself to shareholders and to the
board. It’s important to really find great people, and to enable them. And that’s what I’ve tried to do."

Robert Iger, President and CEO of Walt Disney as quoted on the Financial Times site (January 31, 2007)