Business Week has "compiled the techniques and tales of great competitors—people, organizations, and even communities—and learned how they got ahead."

From one of the articles in the report:

As this new century unfolds, though, the competitive urge is aimed increasingly at winning in everything you do -- and not necessarily at the expense of others. Leadership today involves motivating people, not killing them. Flatter organizations reward performance rather than title. And more people pick the places where they compete, easily moving in and out of jobs, industries, or even the workplace altogether. "Measuring success against others is a moving target [and] a road to burnout," argues leadership consultant Patrick Lencioni. Now, adds Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, "it's about distinguishing yourself." Beating your neighbors simply isn't enough.

Knowledge@Wharton has an excerpt from "Must-Win Battles: How to Win Them, Again and Again."

Lesson 2: The most successful MWBs are those that tap into the groups' aspirations and inspire everyone to do things differently.

Early in the book, we stressed that must-win battles should make a real difference, be market focused, be tangible, and be winnable. These things are indeed important. But we also said that a well-chosen MWB is one that has the potential to create excitement in the organization. Our conclusion now, after several years of working with MWB teams, is that choosing MWBs that can create organizational excitement is probably the single most important success factor. Excitement leads to commitment, and commitment leads to success. The MWBs themselves almost become "brands" within the organization -- not just slogans, but the tangible means by which the group is going to win together.

David Beisel writes:

I see these...moves from Yahoo and Google as potential datapoints in a trend towards advertorial content, where the content is the advertising (see other posts on the topic). When the current paid search market emerged, there was a clear line of demarcation between it (advertising) and natural search (content). Since then, the line between these two has blurred (perhaps in part because most consumers don’t know the difference anyway), creating an advertorial search product which is sponsored by advertisers yet still includes some editorial control. And in some ways, this situation is a good thing – at the end of the day, all content and advertising (even links to other content) is most effective when delivered to the most appropriate person to consume it. The difficulty is to avoid alienating advertisers in that tightrope walk (as it is in any advertorial product).

News.com writes:

A growing number of start-ups, like Calbucci's Sampa, are trying to bring Web application creation to the masses, letting mere mortals share spreadsheets online or "mash up" information from different Web sites.

The idea is to empower non-programmers to make sites that are more than a simple collection of static Web pages. In the process, individuals will gain better tools to collaborate and communicate online, particularly when these services are brought to the office, say experts.

"Bringing do-it-yourself (Web sites) to the office may be the beginning of a new movement to free up creativity at the individual office worker level," said John Seely Brown, a consultant and former chief scientist at Xerox. "I think we have the perfect storm for some major changes."

i-mode Business Strategy writes:

Mobile TV success is about building Interaction, Involvement, Integration, and through Content, Community and Communication (IM voice etc) – Mobitvsmallthis requires device intelligence and the cellular feedback loop. Those 3I 3Cs are where the profit is and where the whole purpose of the mobile content industry is heading.

Your mobile (as we here at MoMo all know) is 3P - Personal, Personalisable, Private, and 3I - Intimate, Immediate and Integrated (meaning technically integrated and integrated into your life and lifestyle).

The combination of these mobile phone characteristics with digital broadcast and the content and entertainment world is simply an explosive combination, unheard of in the annuals of the world so far.

The top and middle segments are the ones who are the right candidates for using the mobile internet – with the middle segment being the one for whom it is going to be much more critical. Over time, the middle segment of 30 million will expand as users from the bottom of the pyramid move upwards to better phones.

So, from an audience perspective, there is a fairly large potential user base. But it is easy to get carried away with the numbers. In India, we get excited about the Internet user base of 40 million users – forgetting that for most users access is via the cybercafe and therefore patchy. Sure, the Internet user base will grow to 100 million in the next years, but the question that also needs to be addressed is how much of a utility the PC-based Internet will be in India.

Similarly, the 100 million mobile users (growing at about 5 million a month) seems like a great big market for value-added services until one realises that for a majority of this segment, the killer app will remain voice for the foreseeable future.

My belief is that the real opportunity for the mobile Internet will be in the middle of the pyramid – at the 30 million users who have access to both the mobile and the computer, and whose digital lives are being built around the mobile. These users are less likely to live in South Mumbai than North Mumbai – and perhaps even more likely to be in tier 2 cities in India. For them, ubiquitous PC-based Internet remains a distant dream.

[As an aside, I think what will change the balance is the combination of three innovations: network computers, city-wide broadband wireless networks and a business model which makes computing a utility. These are some of the ideas that we are working on in Novatium.]

For the middle of the pyramid, the ability to access the Internet via their mobile phone will open a new world of opportunities. Whether it is making use of life’s empty moments or getting answers in life’s know-now moments, the mobile Internet will become an integral part of their lives in the coming years.

In India, the mobile data infrastructure is excellent. I have travelled across Western India and have been able to access GPRS almost everywhere. The speeds are quite good and reminiscent of the early days of the Internet. Over time, the devices will become faster (improving the speed of rendering pages) and so will the networks. What will, however, not change dramatically is the input-output capabilities of the device. Those limitations are essential because the phone is something we carry with us all the time.

Tomorrow: Mobiles First