We all make mistakes.
In business, we often have to put our neck out to get a result. And things don’t always go to plan.
That’s why, every year we run our Dumb Report, acknowledging the greatest groaners, gaffs and blunders that have befallen our commercial compadres in the year gone by.
And during that report, ironically, we often make the occasional blunder of our own.
For example, in Anthill’s 2007 Dumb Report, Channel Nine was featured as an organisation that had cut costs largely at the expense of the station’s creativity.
The dramatic fall in ratings that soon followed spoke volumes about the intelligence of the decision (or lack thereof) and prompted us to reward the station with one of our annual ‘Dumb Report’ gongs.
Of course, Hubris is a fickle God. Within the piece, we referred to the “ever expanding responsibilities of Eddie Maguire”.
Unfortunately, during the design phase of production, the two words “responsibilities of” somehow slipped away from the intended copy.
Oops! Sorry Eddie!
Sometimes a dumb decision comes from under-estimating the competition. Sometimes it comes from not understanding your customers. Others come from underhand behaviour. But most are the result of silly mistakes.
This week, we invite you to join us on walk down memory lane and re-visit the many groaners, gaffs and just plain dumb decisions that graced Anthill’s 2007 and 2006 Dumb Reports, from Dick Pratt’s decision to defy the law to the failed private equity buy-out of QANTAS.
We also invite you to check out ‘Dumb ideas that actually worked’, featuring ‘Rudd’s strippers’ and ‘Chaser’s visit to APEC’. And if that isn’t enough, we also have seven of our favourite dummy spits of all time (watch the videos).
Lastly, emboldened by the success of last week’s Magazine 2.0 experiment, we invite you to nominate any dumb business decisions that you think should feature in Anthill’s 2008 Dumb Report.
If you can’t think of any now, just remember, we’ve created a blog category (see right), so you don’t make the folly of forgetting (although I don’t think that qualifies). 🙂
