By Stephen Brown

Boeing had barely ceased its banshee wail before Barton Brady’s cell phone piped up. “Viva Las Vegas” the king of ring tones-belted out of its tiny speaker just a the flight attendant announced their arrival at Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport.

Brady glanced around, acknowledging the amused appreciation of his fellow first-class passengers, whose own phone soon joined in to create a cacophonous chorus.

Since the mind 1990s, management-metaphor boutique Serendipity Associates (SA) has been offering clients sizzing similes and snappy sound biter. But the nead of SA, Barton Bridy, gets word that someone is now poaching in his territory. It’s the low-rent operation Tropes R Us, which has started offshorring production to lreland and will soon flood the market with high-quality, low-coast metaphors. Does this move cofirm Brady’s fear that the U.S. is losing its competitive edge in right-brain work ? Four experts comment on this fictional case study.

Daniel H Pink, an author and consultant, say SA should move to higher ground-to find new ways to differentiate itself on the basis of right-brain capabilities that will be difficult to offshore. Doing this, he writes, requires an education system that nurtures creativity.

John Chuang, CEQ of talent consultingfirm Aquent, writes that Brady could raily U.S. citizens to protest the country’s current immigration policy, which makes it difficult for companies to import top talent. Brady should also broaden the definition of SA’s business.

Richard Phelps, a human resource executive at Pricewaterhouse Coopers, argues that contrary to the prevailing view of many in the Wes, workers in emerging economies are equal to the demands creative work. Sashould assemble the best right brains on the planet and either hire them or contract with them to represent the SA brand.

Charlie Wrench, the CEO of brand and design consulting firm Landor Associates, advises Brady not worry about his country – which Wrench believes will continue to attract a disproportionate share of the world’s creative talent – but about his multinational clients, who need service providers to display a powerful combination of right-brain and left-brain skills. Learn more Harvard Business Review September 2008

Source : Harvard Business Review

Tags: Airport, Barton Brady, Boeing, business, cell phones, fligh, king of ring tones, Las Vegas, McCarran International, offshore

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 at 10:03 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.