interview

A critical component of a great employee experience is feedback – both from peers and from management. The iterative, continuous improvement that happens as a result of that feedback is important to an employee’s development, productivity, and engagement. But does that improvement really happen? Or is providing/receiving feedback more of a demoralizing exercise?

Here’s an interview with Sally Smith, CEO of Buffalo Wild Wings, the casual dining restaurant chain.

Alain Thys is the founder of Futurelab and author of So You Want to Be Customer Centric. Laurent Bouty is the CMO and partner at Futurelab. They were recent guests on the TechnologyAdvice Expert Interview Series. The series, which is hosted by TechnologyAdvice’s Josh Bland, explores a variety of business and technology landscapes through conversations with industry leaders.

Do you know what great brands do? 

I first met Denise Lee Yohn in person when she spoke at the inaugural CXPA SoCal Local Networking Event in the fall of 2012. She spoke about good brands and great brands, and likened the difference between the two to the difference between failure and success. Great brands reap so many benefits, including: increased sales, higher profit margins, lower costs, greater customer loyalty, and higher market valuation.

Exit Interview is an occasional series profiling sustainability professionals who have recently left their job.

It seems like Groupon has really changed, doesn’t it?!Today’s interview includes some of the back story behind the company’s evolution from a social deal-of-the-day offering to an engine of local commerce. I talk with Suneel Gupta, Groupon’s first ever product leader. Suneel helps us understand what Groupon is trying to become, why, and how.

On day 4 of our Blogger Bus Tour, we met with Carlos Diaz, the CEO and founder of Kwarter and Guillaume de Cugis, CEO and co-founder of Scoop’it, two French entrepreneurs who left their country in order to take their venture to the next level and … change the world! (this post was originally written for the Live Orange Blog)

Corporate social responsibility is entering its third decade as a mainstream business movement, at least as measured by the history of BSR, the organization formed in 1992 as Business for Social Responsibility, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. It's a good time to take stock — of the organization, the movement, and the trends shaping its future.

Today, Wells Fargo announced a major environmental commitment consisting of three 2020 goals: $30 billion in loans and investments in clean technologies, energy-efficient buildings, environmental innovation; $100 million in community grants and increased volunteerism for grassroots environmental initiatives; and energy-efficiency, waste-diversion, green building, and greenhouse gas targets.

As I was in San Francisco today, I managed to squeeze into a meeting with some of my former partners of the IT press tour organised by my friend Philippe Nicolas. Today we visited Engine Yard, a new player at the forefront of the implement of platforms as a service (PaaS, i.e. the infrastructure side of cloud computing) for start-ups and Fortune 500 companies.