INSPIRING
Thought Leadership
Just drop names as to a few of our business heroes.
phillip kotlerPhilip Kotler is known as the “father of modern marketing.” He has taught at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University for more than 50 years. Kotler’s infamous book, Marketing Management, is the most widely used textbook in marketing around the world.
He is author of over 150 articles and 80 books on marketing topics to include social marketing, non profit, travel and tourism democracy and capitalism, Nations and advancing the common good. His research covers strategic marketing, consumer marketing, business marketing, professional services marketing, and e-marketing. He has been a consultant to IBM, General Electric, AT&T, Bank of America, Merck, Motorola, Ford, and others. He received his M.A. degree in economics (1953) from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. degree in economics (1956) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), and has received honorary degrees from 22 universities. Philip Kotler has been honored as one of the world’s leading marketing thinkers. His website is pkotler.org. |
peter m. sengePeter Senge is the author of The Fifth Discipline. This framework is set to foster aspiration, develop reflective conversation, and understand complexity to build a learning organization. The key question asked, “how do we create the best conditions, including the tools and methods, for enabling learning communities?”
"The Journal of Business Strategy" named Peter as having had greatest influence on business strategy in the 20th Century. Peter is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute, and the founder of the Society for Organizational Learning He has authored many books on the subject reflecting topics of sustainability, education and human purpose. Peter received his B.S. Engineering from Stanford University with a B.S. and an M.S. in social systems modeling and a PhD in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management. His website is solonline.org. |
clayton christensenClayton Christensen taught one of the most popular elective classes for 2nd year Harvard business students named "Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise." He developed the theory of "disruptive innovation", which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century.
In 1997, he authored nine books. His first is named, The Innovator’s Dilemma which received the Global Business Book Award as the best business book of the year (1997); and in 2011 The Economist named it as one of the six most important books about business ever written. He is regarded as one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth and his ideas have been widely used in industries and organizations throughout the world. Prior to his academic career, Clayton worked as a management consultant with BCG in their Boston office and helped co-found Ceramics Process Systems, a Massachusetts-based advanced materials company. He has subsequently helped establish many other successful enterprises, including the innovation consulting firm Innosight, the public policy think tank Innosight Institute, and the investment firm Rose Park Advisors. Professor Clayton received his B.A. in economics, summa cum laude, from Brigham Young University and an M.Phil. in applied econometrics from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He subsequently received an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School in 1979, graduating as a George F. Baker Scholar. Clay Christensen passed away on January 23, 2020. In his lifetime of many achievements, awards, and accolades, he also served on the Boy Scouts of America for 25 years as a scoutmaster, cubmaster, den leader, troop and pack committee chairman. He and his wife Christine were parents of five children and grandparents to seven grandchildren. He was a life long member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and attributed all of his services to God. More can be found regarding Clayton Christensen at his website claytonchristensen.com. |
don normanDon Norman is an American researcher, professor, author, and a naturally curious person. He is a cognitive scientist. In 1998, he authored The Design of Everyday Things. The discipline of 'user experience' is based on the ideas brought forth in this book and others he had written. This book is about how design serves as the communication between object and user, and how to optimize that conduit of communication in order to make the experience of using the object pleasurable. One of the main premises of the book is that although people are often keen to blame themselves when objects appear to malfunction, it is not the fault of the user but rather the lack of intuitive guidance that should be present in the design. The book had a major update in 2003.
In 1986, Norman introduced the term "user-centered design" in the book User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-computer Interaction. In the introduction of the book, the idea that designers should aim their efforts at the people who will use the system is introduced: "People are so adaptable that they are capable of shouldering the entire burden of accommodation to an artifact, but skillful designers make large parts of this burden vanish by adapting the artifact to the users." Norman received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1957, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, a PhD in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, one of the earliest graduates from the Mathematical Psychology group at University of Pennsylvania and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University. As of March 16, 2020, Don Norman announced his 4th retirement to focus on:
More about Don Norman can be found on jnd.org. |