The top five concerns of U.S. chief financial officers (CFO):
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Base: 484 CFO respondents in the U.S.
Source: Duke University/CFO magazine Business Outlook Survey, June 2007
“Look back twice as far as you look forward,” writes forecaster Paul Saffo in his Harvard Business Review article “Six Rules for Effective Forecasting” (July-August 2007). It would be easy to misunderstand that powerful statement — Saffo’s Rule No. 5 — so let’s dissect it a bit.
Notice that he says “look back twice as far.” Recent history rarely repeats itself directly. Futurists can make big mistakes extrapolating from recent history, Saffo says, so you need to look much farther back to identify useful patterns. For example, the Web’s dramatic transformation of the media landscape seems to defy categorization, unless you look back 50 years to the emergence of television. Saffo writes:
The texture of past events can be used to connect the dots of present indicators and thus reliably map the future’s trajectory — provided one looks back far enough.
He adds that, although you may find useful patterns in the past, don’t try to force exact matches.
It’s been written that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.” The effective forecaster looks to history to find the rhymes, not the identical events.
Two other interesting Saffo Rules (paraphrased by me):
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Related:
How to Forecast the Future, a Q&A interview with Paul Saffo
Futurists often compile a list of megatrends but it’s a mistake to view each megatrend in isolation. Life doesn’t work that way. So it was interesting to see futurist Andy Hines, at Social Technologies LLC, writing about the possible convergence of two megatrends: consumer convenience and “being green.”
The problem is that convenience (time-saving) is often at odds with the environment (think: over-packaged single servings of food, and taking the car instead of public transportation). Hines continues:
We suggest “congreenience” as a challenge to our innovative talents. How can we marry green and convenient? We see some early indicators toward congreenience from energy companies providing green power options that make the switch to green energy fairly painless. These are steps in the right direction, but still just baby steps.
Sorry, but I don’t think the moniker “congreenience” will catch on. But I agree that this could be a powerful combination. People don’t like to make sacrifices, so anything that helps people “be green” without inconvenience will be a win-win situation.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the effort to get a Web site a higher ranking (more visibility) in search engines such as Google. But there’s a flip side: The same SEO professionals also know the tricks to pushing a competitor’s Web site down in the search-engine rankings. It’s called “negative SEO,” according to a recent article in Forbes magazine (“The Saboteurs Of Search,” 28 June 2007).
SEO expert/blogger Hamlet Batista isn’t amused. He says:
These so-called “SEO professionals” proudly proclaim their job to be damaging the hard-earned rankings of their clients’ competitors. I understand a lot of people would do anything for money, but it’s still unsettling to see such people trumpet their efforts with such gusto. A huge thumbs-down to all those mentioned in the article.
Earning high search-engine rankings is challenging enough. Now we need to work twice as hard to protect the rankings once we earn them.
The Forbes article lists seven ways to damage a competitor’s ranking. Batista’s post provides the countermeasures, i.e., “things you can do to detect, prevent and protect your rankings from these types of attacks.” One example from the post, 10 ways to protect your site from negative SEO:
Anti-Google bowling. This attack makes your link structure look spammy, potentially causing Google and other search engines to believe your rankings are undeserved. The way to protect your site from this is to monitor your incoming links and their anchor text. Google’s webmaster central provides all the information you need for this purpose. Any site-wide links you are not familiar with, links with strange anchor text (usually porn), etc., are a clear indication that your site is being attacked. Contact the site owners that host the links and politely request they take them down. A cease-and-desist letter should do the trick, too — but only as a last resort.
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Related:
“Negative SEO” — Harming Your Competitors With SEO (Search Engine Land)
Negative SEO is Possible, Yet Difficult, Says Matt Cutts (Search Engine Roundtable)
Negative SEO (Black SEO) Tactics — Fighting Dirty (FantomNews)
What are the main areas of competition that your company seeks to measure and monitor?
Technology innovation (119 responses)
Customer loyalty and composition (84)
Product composition (77)
Technology infrastructure (54)
Product capacity and strength (53)
Talent acquisition and management (52)
Time to market (49)
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Survey base: 181 strategy executives at high-tech companies; multiple responses allowed
Source: “Competition at the Crossroads,” Deloitte Consulting LP and BPM Forum, June 2007
Ampersand Reports 