Management

I miss meeting new people. I miss bumping into people I know. So, necessity being the mother of invention, my team has been experimenting with different ways to gather our community – and we have a plan. Introducing the Shelly Palmer Online Networking Salons. They are free, category-specific, weekly, 20-minute, super-curated, small, Zoom meetings where you will introduce yourself, meet some new people, bump into old friends, learn something, hang out for a bit, and then get back to work. Here’s how we tested the theory and why we know it works. Continue Reading →

The pandemic is teeming with known unknowns. How will we assess the risks? What impact will new consumer preferences have on our business? Will we have inflation or deflation? A recession or depression? As hard as these questions are, we’ve helped our corporate clients reframe and answer them in multiple ways. You can too. Here’s how. Continue Reading →

Unified brand messaging and a well-defined brand personality are among your business’s most valuable assets. It all starts with a statement of the organization’s vision and mission (sometimes combined into a brand purpose) and a statement of brand values. Continue Reading →

SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) may be the most famous strategic planning technique. What I love about SWOT is its flexibility and adaptability. This framework is a great way to aggregate the information you need to continuously improve and adapt your areas of focus. If you’re in business, you’ve probably been in many SWOT sessions. But have you run them? If not, here’s how. If you’re an expert in the SWOT process, here’s the variation I use as a prerequisite to creating a brand playbook. Continue Reading →

Slack has filed an antitrust complaint in the EU against Microsoft for bundling Microsoft Teams with its Office suite of products. It's deja vu all over again — remember the browser insanity of decades past? — and it raises the same questions. Continue Reading →

Like California, Massachusetts has sued Uber and Lyft to force the ride-hailing companies to classify drivers as employees (as opposed to independent contractors). On the surface, it looks like the states are trying to do right by workers, but these two lawsuits don't do any carve-outs for other kinds of gig workers. Continue Reading →

Learning from her friends that TikTok view counts were all zeros, and thinking that this was a signal that TikTok was about to be banned, my friend's 12-year-old daughter ran up to her mom and excitedly said, "OMG! Will things go back to normal now?" Continue Reading →

Like many of you, I’ve spent the past few months talking with friends and colleagues about the future. Everyone, myself included, is taking their best guess about what the new normal will be. There are many common questions: what will happen to restaurants, theaters, Broadway, concerts, bars, hotels, commercial real estate, the auto industry, airline travel, etc. As the conversations drift from professional to personal I am almost always asked, "What do you think I should do now?" Continue Reading →

CNBC is reporting that Amazon is planning to build its own diagnostic labs as it ramps up to test the bulk of its workforce for COVID-19 every two weeks. Workers would test themselves with nasal swabs, using a video for guidance, with a clinical professional supervising. Those testing positive will be referred to a third-party Continue Reading →

In an effort to help clarify where news posted on Facebook is originating, Facebook announced that it will place labels on posts from state-controlled media outlets. Continue Reading →