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Category Archives: Management & strategy

Articles about general management, leadership and strategy issues.

Lessons from contrasting examples of customer relations: GDF and Lenovo

January 2, 2011by Kristen Sukalac Leave a comment

This blog post is based on a totally unscientific review of my own experiences with two companies, French energy provider Gaz de France (GDF) and computer manufacturer Lenovo, but I do think it provides some useful insights into what helps make cu…

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Management & strategy

Beaujolais Nouveau: Case study in buzz marketing (before social media)

November 18, 2010by Kristen Sukalac Leave a comment

One of my favorite events in France every year is the third Thursday in November when the Beaujolais Nouveau comes on the market. Wine experts will go to great lengths to describe the new wine (fresh out of the presses as the grapes were just harv…

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Culture, Management & strategy

Social media, engagement and the end of strategic planning

November 11, 2010by Kristen Sukalac 1 Comment

A simplified model of strategic planning places strategists at the top, largely isolated from daily operations, and fed on a stream of largely quantitative data that is increasingly aggregated as it moves up the pyramid. Occasionally, these strate…

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Management & strategy

Strategic planning: an oxymoron?

October 20, 2010by Kristen Sukalac 7 Comments

Everyone in business wants to demonstrate their added value, and the overuse of the word “strategic” has exploded as a result. Do you know any consultants who don’t claim to be strategic? Most professional communicators now claim to practice “stra…

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Management & strategy

Associations and weak ties

October 5, 2010by Kristen Sukalac Leave a comment

(Updated 11 November 2010) I strongly believe in networking as a way of life. According to organizational theory, people who link the “holes” between different networks are very influential. Many people are familiar with the “strength of weak ties…

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Management & strategy

Management lessons learned from walking the dog

October 4, 2010by Kristen Sukalac Leave a comment

I have always been struck by how much more sociable European dogs seem to be than American dogs. I think it has to do with the unintended signals sent by their owners. For example, the reason that dogs are hostile to the mail deliverer (assuming t…

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Management & strategy

How lampshades and teddy bears serve change management

September 23, 2010by Kristen Sukalac Leave a comment

Why do lamps have lampshades? The rather surprising answer is: because Thomas Edison tried to hide the revolutionary nature of electric lighting by making it seem as similar to gas as possible. This entailed centralized electricity generation, run…

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Management & strategy

Kotex tackles societal taboos to win customer loyalty

August 23, 2010by Kristen Sukalac 5 Comments

Entire books have been written about the portrayal of women in popular media and advertising. A few years ago, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty won kudos for tackling this problem head-on. Kotex, a North American brand of products for menstrual per…

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Management & strategy, Sustainability

How to ensure your article IS NOT published

August 21, 2010by Kristen Sukalac Leave a comment

This morning I received a pitch so bad that I feel the need to extract some lessons from it. Maybe the author will see them and learn. Hopefully at least one person on the planet will get just a tiny bit savvier about what does and doesn’t work wh…

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Management & strategy

Mastering the intricacies of copyright

July 13, 2010by Kristen Sukalac Leave a comment

[Update: When I used my “Share this page on Posterous” tool to share this, I really thought my paragraph comment would show up at the top and make it clear that I was referring to this being a great resource rather making it look like I was taking…

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Management & strategy

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E-mail Kristen 
Skype Iconksukalac |  Twitter Icon@ksukalac
office: +33 1 40 91 05 70
mobile: +33 6 99 51 94 34

1-My online articles

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2-My affiliations

  • Prospero & Partners
  • IABC
  • IABC France
  • IABC EMENA
  • Université Paris Dauphine
  • College of Europe
  • University of Pittsburgh
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