Late last year, the American Banker of the Year awards were held, and the winner was Ken Lewis .  Fast forward and his decisions on Merrill Lynch, China Construction Bank and  Countrywide are being put together a call for his resignation.  In particular the article notes somewhat to my surprise that BofA were not pressed into taking over Merrill – this was done voluntarily. In any event the armchair quarterbacks are out in force.  The strategic opportunities of China, Mortgages, and brokerages were 100% accepted as valid at the time by commentators, newspapers, government and industry.  The problems that arose … Continue reading Ken Lewis judgement wrongly being called into question

I attended enough marketing conferences and events this year to realise this headline is no surprise.  Classic response which I can hear now – “we are in a new paradigm, with new challenges that no-one has seen before – time to get back to basics, and forget all this talk about social this/ that”. Top Marketing Trends for 2009: Execs ‘Sick’ of Web 2 | MC Marketing Charts #4. Marketers “Sick” of Web 2.0: Twice as many marketers are “sick” of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as “blogs” and “social networking” compared with last year’s survey. I … Continue reading “Back to Basics” because marketing gets “it”