Boston Pizza

I'm planning on hitting my old college stomping grounds by the end of the summer to catch a Sox game, hook up with some old friends and eat some lobster. And no trip to BeanTown would be complete with out an awesome slice or 5... My hands down choice for the best pie in boston is Regina Pizzeria with Newbury Pizza running a close second.

Regina Pizzeria's opened in the North End in 1926 and it's truly everything a pizza place should be - awesome pies from the brick oven, pitchers of beer, hip, boisterous waitresses, and Sinatra on the jukebox. That’s amore! (Yup, that’s on the jukebox.).

Sadly, Newbury Pizza has closed. I worked at Newbury Pizza and interned at Hill Holliday part time while I was at the Massachusetts College Of Art & Design back in the late 1980's. Newbury's wicked simple and fresh pizza pie was the closest thing to a New York pizza you could find in Boston and working with Lee, Brian and the owner Angelo was really my pleasure and greatly enhanced the short 4+ years I lived there.

Regina Pizzeria
11 1/2 Thacher St.
617.227.0765.

More Boston Pizza!

HMK

Up The Downturn Starts Now!

"Go ahead. Cut your marketing budget when things get tough.

I get it.

That's like saying: 'I’ll throw some logs on that fire when it warms up in here." Chris Lochhead

Up the downturn: How to survive in tough economic times.

Christopher Lochhead, the former chief marketing officer at Scient and Mercury, offers his advice on how companies can do more than pray for survival in a prolonged economic downturn.

It's easy to be great when things are going great. The real test of leadership is who are you when things are tough. Leaders take market share in bad times, and losers lose share, money, and market cap.

We seem to be heading into a multi-quarter (or maybe longer) downturn. Planning for a long downturn is the right approach, even if you think this is just a blip.

Strategy 1: Don't Cut The Budget.

The first thing scared executives do in bad times is cut spending. It's easy. But often completely wrong. J. Paul Getty said, "Buy when everyone is selling. And hold until everyone is buying."

Downturns are time to invest in:

New Technology
New Marketing Campaigns
New People (hire the best salespeople, product developers, etc. from your competitors, especially those doing layoffs and missing their quarterly numbers)
New Products
New Companies (buy or start some)

Head on over to CNET. For the details on Strategy 2: If you have to cut, DO IT FAST. DO IT ONCE. and Strategy 3: Put Your Best People On Your Biggest Project.

Sounds like great news if you're one of the best at what you do and lucky enogh to have a smart employer that recognizes you as an asset.

After almost twenty years in business and being the marketing chief at three public companies, Christopher Lochhead retired at 38. Now, he serves on a few boards and is a part-time strategy advisor. Every year he gives a handful of speeches, and from time to time writes something. Check out Lochhead.com

That's Right,

HMK


Oh, and a great big thank you to Walter Goldstein for the funny cartoon - I found it while breezing through the above book last night.

Hiring The Best People You've Ever Worked With

Southwest Airlines print ad from 1999.

Here's an insightful read from the smart folks over at PMARCA.

Marc Andreessen, the man behind Netscape and as many believe, the success of the Internet, shares his thoughts about hiring practices today.

I like the fact that it's relevant to both people in charge of hiring, but also potential candidates in preparation for an interview.

Here's an excerpt from Marc Andreessen's How To Hire The Best People You've Ever Worked With

First, Drive.

I define drive as self-motivation -- people who will walk right through brick walls, on their own power, without having to be asked, to achieve whatever goal is in front of them.

People with drive push and push and push and push and push until they succeed.

Winston Churchill after the evacuation of Dunkirk:

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

That's what you want.

Some people have it and some people don't.

Of the people who have it, with some of them it comes from guilt, often created by family pressure.

With others, it comes from a burning desire to make it big.

With others, it comes from being incredibly Type A.

Whatever... go with it.

Drive is independent of educational experience, grade point averages, and socioeconomic background.

(But Marc, isn't a 4.0 GPA a sure sign of drive? Well, it's a sign that the person is driven to succeed on predefined tests with clear criteria and a grader -- in an environment where the student's parents are often paying a lot of money for the privilege of having their child take the tests. That may or may not be the same thing as being driven to succeed in the real world.)

Drive is even independent of prior career success.

Driven people don't tend to stay long at places where they can't succeed, and just because they haven't succeeded in the wrong companies doesn't mean they won't succeed at your company -- if they're driven.

I think you can see drive in a candidate's eyes, and in a candidate's background.

For the background part, I like to see what someone has done.

Not been involved in, or been part of, or watched happen, or was hanging around when it happened.

I look for something you've done, either in a job or (often better yet) outside of a job.

The business you started and ran in high school.

The nonprofit you started and ran in college.

If you're a programmer: the open source project to which you've made major contributions.

Something.

If you can't find anything -- if a candidate has just followed the rules their whole lives, showed up for the right classes and the right tests and the right career opportunities without achieving something distinct and notable, relative to their starting point -- then they probably aren't driven.

And you're not going to change them.

Motivating people who are fundamentally unmotivated is not easy.

But motivating people who are self-motivated is wind at your back.

I like specifically looking for someone for which this job is their big chance to really succeed.

For this reason, I like hiring people who haven't done the specific job before, but are determined to ace it regardless.

I also like specifically looking for someone who comes from some kind of challenging background -- a difficult family situation, say, or someone who had to work his/her way through school -- who is nevertheless on par with his/her more fortunate peers in skills and knowledge.

Read it all: Over Here.

Thanks Marc, great post.

That's Right,

HMK

Top Brands of 2006

Well kids, Google has again topped Apple for the highest spot in a global brand ranking that also sees YouTube and Wikipedia debut in the top five, a survey showed on Friday.

The annual survey by online branding magazine brandchannel.com often throws up controversial results, such as in 2004, when Arabic TV station Al Jazeera was named the world's fifth most influential brand.

This year the 3,625 branding professionals and students who voted have again surprised, awarding upstart firms star status when asked: "Which brand had the most impact on our lives in 2006?".

Read it all from the good folks over at the Brand Channel

That's Right,

HMK,