Mar 23, 2009

Upping the ante on efficiency in 2009

With all the changes in the economy and the workforce this year, I'm working to identify more economical and efficient ways to get great work executed without a huge staff. How do we scale the business without adding headcount? I'm finding the knowledge worker mindset to be strengthening significantly in the business world I work within. Doers are not quite as valuable as those who come up with the idea of what to do. We still need help getting the work done, but we're trying to find more creative ways to get that work done. Be it technologies like Saepio or short term, quick turn, independent contractors from the likes of Guru.com or Elance.com.

There are drawbacks to this idea -- with a technology like Saepio, you need a template that can be agreed upon and then easily replicated with the actual content the thing that changes. Who makes those changes is the question? In the case of Guru or Elance, you get what you pay for in terms of quality of service and delivery, AND there are 2 other challenges -- if you're working on something confidential or even moderately proprietary, it may be tough to ensure confidentiality. The second challenge is in ensuring the core basics of your business and your brand are well understood. We haven't used Guru or Elance, thought about it, but I fear the 2 challenges mentioned above are likely pretty big barriers for me. These sites are for access to cheap labor, it will be a lot harder to find the next Steve Jobs, Malcolm Gladwell, AG Lafley, or David Ogilvy.

So, what other efficiency ideas have you seen? I'd love to hear about them.

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