Open For Business

An interesting mix of items this week -- A 30 year fan offers surprising suggestion to HP; Burn your business plan before it burns you; Thumbs up / thumbs down on the best business books of 2012. Plus, some insights and homage to Zig Ziglar, a man who inspired generations of successful salespeople. We begin with some Hot Potato News items …. We talked last time about another multi-billion dollar write off HP endured with the purchase of Autonomy. Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic and a 30 year fan of HP offers a stark and surprising suggestion on what HP’s next strategy should be (hint -- breaking up is hard to do). http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/28/to-save-hewlett-packard-break-it-in-two/ Write a business plan. It’s the roadmap for where you are going and how to get there. Alexander Osterwalder in his Wall Street Journal Accelerator Blog has a different suggestion -- Burn your business plan. “No business plan survives first contact with customers.” There is an alternate path worth exp