Kay Plantes

In 1989, the CEO of my global employer allowed me to work from home rather than demand I move halfway across the US to be near corporate headquarters. Two technologies made his decision possible: Overnight delivery and an early fax machine. I was the first distributed worker other than our sales and product service representatives.

A general focuses on the battlefield and where the enemy is coming from, while the soldier in the foxhole keeps his sight within a 10-yard perimeter. In a similar vein, business leaders must understand the lay of a more expansive external environment while others define and execute day-to-day tactics.

The waiter at San Antonio's Beat Street Coffee Co. Bistro held the large vintage door for a long time while my mother entered with her walker. The restaurant's hipster ambiance was just what she needed as a meal break from living with 24 other people aged 80-103 at Chandler Estate Assisted Living. Needless to say, neither Mom nor I looked like the other diners. But this waiter treated us throughout the evening as if we were his target market.

A sports fan, I am not. So why was this otherwise buttoned up intellectual screaming (and at times uncharacteristically swearing) while watching the Badgers win Saturday’s battle against Arizona?

"Is the Uber disruption of local taxi and town-car markets a positive business model innovation for consumers?" a former colleague asked me.

The developers of Pac-Man built an arcade game so esteemed that it resides in the US Smithsonian Institution and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Millions of players have moved their rounded Pac-Man figure through a maze – eating small dots and earning points – while trying to avoid getting eaten by the four monsters in hot pursuit. The game is a great analogy for the economy’s industry consolidation since Pac-Man’s debut in the early 1980s.

Government funded basic research gives birth to new industries and jobs. Shortchanging it is akin to not eating while you are pregnant to save money for the baby’s future. Nevertheless, our nation’s growing (and repeated) budget crisis is short changing research and its long term economic cost is perhaps nowhere so clear as is it in research advancing health.

The well-dressed traveler ran like a bull charging a red cape into an open area in front of the waiting lines at Amsterdam’s United International check-in. “Excuse me – there’s a queue,” I commented from the front of the line. “But I’m Global Services,” he proclaimed haughtily, shocked at my objection. Thankfully, a United Airlines agent asked the “gentleman” to step to the end of the preferred travelers line.

Demographics don’t lie. They are one of the few external trends shaping organizational outcomes around which there is little if any controversy. The baby boom is aging. The voting electorate is getting more diverse. A critical question facing business models therefore is “What will be the impact of demographic trends on our future success?”

If you thought that the move from the Industrial Era to the Digital Era was the last major economic...