Typically, my family would order from food entrepreneurs at least two to four meals weekly, sometimes even more frequently. We wanted to support entrepreneurs as well as the economy. In fact, I released a 4-minute free video “Business Model Map for Food Delivery Business” on YouTube to help these entrepreneurs understand the bigger picture of their business–many have thanked me […]

Premortem is a pre-event or pre-launch meeting where members articulate and anticipate anything that may cause an initiative to fail. The technique is a decision making tool developed by Dr. Gary Klein that was intended to improve a plan by removing overconfidence and reducing errors.  In anticipating problems and worst case scenarios, the company can prevent financial and/or reputation risk […]

The Cobra effect is a kind of perverse incentive where loopholes or weaknesses are exploited in an offer intended to influence behavior to solve issues, making the problems worse.  Recipients of these incentives that could be well-meant but with unintended consequences, include external customers or internal executives. A classic example of the cobra effect, was first observed in India when […]

Wearing masks and keeping social distance are already optional in many places outside the Philippines. Even some airlines no longer require wearing masks in flight.  When my wife Chiqui and I decided to once again to attend an innovation festival we have been frequenting in New York since 2016, the feeling of movement and some normalcy was definitely liberating!   While […]

Unicorn is a term introduced by US venture capitalist Aileen Lee in her 2013 article “Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups.” In her article, she shared her firm’s study of US-based private tech startup companies with valuation of US$1 billion or more. In the footnote of her article, she noted that “the term ‘unicorn’ is not perfect […]

Marketing is commonly associated with stimulating consumer’s needs and wants that will hopefully lead to sales revenues.  While marketing clearly goes beyond that, the term “needs and wants” infers that there is a difference between the two jargons that is certainly worth a marketing conversation. Needs are essential to survival while wants are not. From a consumer choice architecture, needs are basic […]

Once again, it is time for businesses’ midyear evaluations and planning sessions.  Have you explored the four critical directions for review to assess your strategy choices? From these questions, some lessons can already by deduced, explicitly and implicitly. Our own experience on how we, in Mansmith and Fielders Inc. changed  the rules to be different is shared below.  These strategic steps […]

I had the opportunity to interview a manager in a multinational company about the ongoing MBA course being taken by this individual. For confidential reasons and upon their personal request, I will not identify the name and gender of this individual. I am providing a summary of their dislikes, wish-list, overkill, and likes. Dislikes: 1. “Schedule: On top of the Friday […]

Innovation is a buzzword again the last few years as many companies struggle to survive and thrive during the pandemic. We are reacquainted with the term “innovate or die”, but innovation has become an often used and abused word, people normally confuse it with many results that are not actually about innovation. So let me share what innovation is actually […]

(From left to right: Lhullier, Mascariñas, Sazon, Uy) Four prominent Filipinos have been named Master Innovators in the 2nd annual Mansmith Innovation Awards. They are Jean Henri Lhuillier, Ronald Mascariñas, Martha Sazon and Dennis A. Uy. They will join an equally elite roster of game-changing master innovators recognized last year — Edwin Bautista (Union Bank), Kenneth Cobonpue (KennethCobonpue Collection), William […]

Josiah Go features the movers and shakers of the business world and writes about marketing, strategy, innovation, execution and entrepreneurship

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