Ideas

Aside from city founders Solomon Juneau, Byron Kilbourn and George Walker, few people, if any, have had more impact on Milwaukee than entrepreneur, community advocate and philanthropist Michael J. Cudahy.

You've dug out your spring clothes, cleaned the inside of your car, and swept off the patio to welcome spring. But when you go into work, you are buried under winter clutter…a snow pile of emails and an ice flow of meetings.

Have you seen any dinosaurs lately? They were giants that dominated the Earth. They are, of course, long gone. But oddly enough, small sea mollusks have survived for 545 million years!

As Sonny and Cher once sang, “And the beat goes on,” and so do the needs of our customers. Whether your business is product, customer or service driven, you need to be able to spot trends and feel the “pulse” of your customer.

Years ago, Clark Hull, a famous psychologist who taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1916-29, developed a profound theory about what motivates people.

Michael J. Cudahy was known for an open, enlightened and progressive corporate culture at his former company, Marquette Medical. In his autobiography, “Joyworks: The Story of Marquette Electronics,” Cudahy outlined his “10 Golden Rules On How To Run An Organization,” which he also refers to as “How Not To Screw Up An Organization.”

“Creativity is about thinking up new things. Innovation is about doing new things,” is a Theodore Levitt quote found in “ON Innovation,” a new book written by Terry Jones. Jones likes this definition of innovation the most because not many people know how to innovate their ideas and turn them into real products.

The total national student loan debt recently topped the $1 trillion mark, a new record high, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Readers of the BizTimes Manufacturing Weekly are invited to attend the ninth annual BizExpo.

SABMiller plc and Molson Coors Brewing Company reported first quarter net income of $271.9 million for Chicago-based MillerCoors LLC, a decrease of 1.2 percent compared to the 2012 first quarter.