It was an online phenomenon that went viral. READ MORE
Andrew McCoy
Freelance Writer
Andrew McCoy is an assistant professor in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. Contact him at apmccoy@vt.edu.
Articles by Andrew McCoy
December 2012
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There’s an old joke about Michelangelo in which he explains how he was able to create his enormous 6-ton, 17-foot-high sculpture of the young, biblical hero David: Michelangelo shrugs his shoulders and confesses, “I just chipped away everything that did not look like David.” READ MORE
August 2012
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In 1911, Leon Leonwood Bean (better known to his friends by his initials “L.L.”) stomped in from the chilly Maine weather with cold, aching feet after a long hunting trip. He had a fierce, personal obsession to design and manufacture a more comfortable boot for hunters and outdoorsmen. He dreamed of marketing it across the United States through a mail-order catalog. READ MORE
April 2012
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“Companies must put their people—not their customers—first,” writes Hal Rosenbluth, CEO of an international travel management company, in his 1992 classic book, “The Customer Comes Second.” At first glance, these words read like heresy against the great body of advertising that, for decades, has ostensibly made a religion out of the primacy of customers and their every concern. READ MORE
December 2011
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A good-looking set of year-end financial statements can be a source of pride for an electrical contracting firm. It’s too bad that even the best of those neatly bound booklets blessed by CPAs fail to contain critical indications of where the business may really be headed. READ MORE
August 2011
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Even for the famously entrepreneurial and highly creative Howard Schultz, it was a radical idea. Tough times needed tough measures, though. On Feb. 26, 2008, at precisely 5:30 p.m., Schultz—who re-entered Starbucks as chief executive officer that year to revitalize it—instructed staff to politely escort every one of its (millions of) customers out of the stores. Then, all 7,000 Starbucks’ U.S. READ MORE
June 2011
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Anyone who has attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony knows what they are about to hear when local government officials head for the microphone. Two phrases, “on time” and “on budget,” often reverberate, and those with project or industry knowledge might wince, as the speaker enthusiastically praises everyone who completed the monumental public project. Often, unfortunately, neither term is accurate. READ MORE
April 2011
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Vilfredo Pareto loved to garden. One day he realized that 80 percent of the peas from his patch came from 20 percent of the pea pods. That proportion matched the ratio that he had already uncovered elsewhere in his investigations as the economist who gave the world the 80/20 rule. READ MORE