• Pret A Manger is looking to change the way the fast food industry operates. If your group is based out of New York or London hold your next meeting at a Pret A Manger restaurant. If not hold it at a self-service restaurant in your city. Observe the fast-food process: the way customers are handled, dispute resolution and perceived employee satisfaction. What input can the customer have in determining how they are served? Compare what you observe to how Pret A Manger is described in the article. Design a business model for how your group would run a fast food franchise. Invite the manager or district manager of a fast food chain to come talk about how they handle customers and employees and get their input on your group's model.
• Risk taking in business is a must to go forward in a stagnat economy. And Cheryl Stearns is no stranger to extreme risks.But while changing your marketing plan to focus more on R&D might make your heart pump a little faster at the office, some risks give you a rush just even thinking about them. Organize the daring members of your group to go skydiving, bungee jumping, racecar driving, parasailing, or hot air ballooning. Equate these activities to similar risks in business. How do you prepare to take new steps in business? Compare it to the physical and mental preparation involved in these activities.
• Cisco employees are doing their share to help out in East Palo Alto schools. Invite a local prinicpal or school board member to your next meeting and have him or her come up with new ways for your group and your company to invest in area public schools. Consider ideas like company greeting cards that reward student artists, sponsoring and coaching a school athletic team, and getting involved with school bands and choirs.
• Web logs, or blogs, are changing the way we distribute information on the web. Have your group create a blog related to happenings in your group. Have different group members update the blog each week with business stories that interest them. To get ideas on how to set up your blog, check out Andrew Sullivan's and Glenn Reynolds' sites. Discuss other potential uses for blogs in business.

Daniel Richards contributed this month's Next Steps.

April 2002 Connexus | Flash Points | Next Steps

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