Target Loses Key Mobile Executive

I find this story interesting for all of the other plot lines it includes rather than for the core piece of news.  If you want to read a bit about corporate bureaucracy and how a start-up style approach can be successful at an established company, read on.  Last I heard the active users of the Cartwheel app numbered in the many millions.  I've met that team and there are great folks working on that app for Target. I've never met Mr. Wizemann personally but the work he did at Target lives on.

Here is the story:

http://www.startribune.com/target-loses-a-key-digital-executive-behind-cartwheel-app/319648541/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

Wizemann came to Target a few years ago from the tech start-up world where he founded ShopIgniter, a social networking-related retail firm that was sold last year. He was initially brought in as a consultant to help salvage Cartwheel when it was still in the project stage.

As internal frustrations mounted that Cartwheel might never see the light of day under Target’s layers of bureaucracy and risk-adverse culture, Wizemann got buy-in from Target’s leaders to run the project more like a start-up. He cut the team working on it from 200 to 50 and pushed the retailer to let the team put it out in a beta form, knowing it wouldn’t be perfect and would need tweaks.

When I read that I see a very good execution plan for any company to get in to mobile.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant