The long Thanksgiving weekend is an excellent time to refresh you business brain by both not thinking about the projects you have on your plate and catching up on the thought-leadership taking place outside the walls of your enterprise.

I don’t recommend discussing these topics over Thanksgiving dinner with your extended family. They love you, but surely do not get as excited as you do about business leadership, product management, and marketing. Enjoy and leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Some thoughts on innovation from Google’s Astro Teller
via The Equity Kicker
Insight from Google’s current Director of New Projects on how to deliver step changes in a company’s direction/performance, rather than incremental change.

Developing Organization Mission, Vision & Values
via Branding Strategy Insider
Branding basics that are often overlooked when you are in the weeds of your week. Take some time over the holiday weekend to develop or re-evaluate your mission, vision, and values. Then, bring your ideas to your team on Monday.

Industry Reference: The Social Business Stack for 2011via Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing
An interesting forecast, to the National Venture Capital Association, of where the enterprise social business space is headed in 2011. How can your organization capitalize on this insight?

Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask And Answer
via TechCrunch
Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker’s slides highlight strategic points that executive teams should be thinking about to ensure that their organizations are creating solutions that solve the right market problems.

Words Matter when Marketing Yourself
via Brand Autopsy
A reminder that the impact of using accurate, business language in your marketing copy has diminished over the years, replaced by clear, customer-centric language that should be continuously tested, measured and adjusted.

Marketing Improvement Is a Moving Target; Good CRO Flexes With You.
via Conversion Rate Optimization & Marketing Blog | FutureNow
A nuts and bolts articles that cuts through the buzzwords, hypes, and “experts” allowing marketing executives to stay focused on the actions and metrics that impact their business objectives.

50 Free And Useful Websites To Be Thankful For
Silicon Valley Insider
A great list to browse while watching Thanksgiving weekend football. Along with checking out these sites from a personal utility perspective, look at them from the application design, business model, and “what problems are they solving for their target markets?” points of view.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.