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Biz Dev
3.0: Changing Business As We Know It by Brad Keywell Recommendation: • |
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Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Bizzy Book What’s that expression? “To the man with a
hammer, everything looks like a nail.” For Brad Keywell, everything becomes part
of business development in his book, Biz Dev
3.0. Old economy executives will especially find this book bewildering
and annoying. Even the appearance of the pages of the book will be annoying
for many readers, and is way too busy. Three inches of the page have black
text. Another inch has blue text summarizing key points on that page, or
providing random quotations to support the points made. Bold txt is used
often, along with bullets, and blue topic headings, followed by pseudo-wise statements
titled “Biz Dev Buzz”. Here’s one: “Being first forces the competition to
react, to catch up.” Duh. Another: “When you land alliances that are worth
the exclusivity, set off the fireworks.” Huh? If that’s not enough to lead
you away from this book, try not laughing as you read this excerpt: “Biz Dev means
putting speed in your cross hairs, thinking about it, focusing on it, working
to develop it. How do you measure speed? ·
Absolute speed: How
fast your company is compared to a neutral baseline, moving from idea to
deal, and from deal to launch. ·
Competitive speed:
How much noise your company makes about its speed, through mutual press
releases, interviews, ads, and other channels. ·
Real speed: How fast
and how well you leverage your partnerships to deliver the products and
services that you promised your customers in those press releases. ·
Relative speed: How
fast Biz Dev, legal, tech, marketing and production staff move to convert
announcements into actual products and services in collaboration with
partners and allies – compared t how fast everyone could create those
products and services before.” I admit that I found this book juvenile
and useless. Maybe I was distracted by the use of biz dev as a verb. Maybe
there’s something of value in there somewhere. This book is best read by
those who live in the biz dev world and like the buzz, or by those who want
to visit a distant and unusual place to gain some knowledge of what makes the
natives tick. All others should take a pass. Steve Hopkins, January 2, 2002 |
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ă 2002 Hopkins and Company, LLC |
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