Comments on: Creating NPO Innovation Capacity in a Downturn

By: David Gammel

David Gammel — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:42:18 +0000

The current state of the Web certainly enables a lot of self-guided collaboration that doesn’t require significant investment of capital. I’m with you on that.

When those grass-roots efforts grow and show significant potential for greater value, the association should invest in them to achieve that potential.

That’s when those existing zombie cows become a problem if the organization isn’t good about ceasing investment in those that no longer deliver. Nothing left to invest!

By: Lindy Dreyer

Lindy Dreyer — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:14:27 +0000

Let me start by saying that staff should not be spending their time on a bunch of niche programs.

But associations are the long tail. Our umbrella is what makes micro-niche collaboration possible. Perhaps rather than letting programs become sacred zombie cows, we need to create a herd of self-supporting free-range cows.

By: Fred Simmons

Fred Simmons — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:44:33 +0000

It’s funny how most of the sites being shut down are/were acquisitions (like Dodgeball). Then again, other acquisitions are doing fine (YouTube, Urchin, Feedburner). I guess anything they have a hard time serving their ads on most be tough to justify in this economy.

By: David Gammel

David Gammel — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:50:43 +0000

Chris, I think the example still holds so we’ll have to disagree on that one.

The employees are being retained and redirected if they choose to relocate. Not ideal for them or Austin, I grant, but it’s quite different from companies that are slashing their staff left and right.

Google is also letting go about 100 recruiters, which reflects the slow down in their hiring, but are holding on to core talent even while they shut down non-performing projects.

By: Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:24:45 +0000

David, I’m not exactly sure that Google is the right example to offer. Here in Austin, Google shuttered an office that was open for a mere 4 months and laid off its engineers (though they promised to relocate them to other parts of the country if they wished). Rather than refocus their people onto different projects, they did what most corporations do and just cut bait and run.

With that said, I wholeheartedly agree with your point that non-value driving activities need to be culled. Don’t stop trying new things and innovate…just know when those activities don’t bear fruit that its okay to learn from them and move on.