Innova Partners / Loosely Typed in Ohio

Productivity This Explains Everything

Posted by Eddie Bowen on June 24th, 2008

General, Marketing Improving the effectiveness of partnerships

Posted by Matt Scantland on June 3rd, 2008

So, I’ve been attending a lot of weddings lately, and one thing I’ve noticed is a lot of half-emptly-wasted-drinks. Usually very expensive drinks paid for by someone else. And being a young person in Columbus, I’m frequently at bars and restaurants where I never find waste. While some places probably pick up abandonments quickly, I think the bigger issue is that people take care of things that they’ve paid for. And they don’t take care of things that are free.

For many, this behavior falls into the shocking-but-obvious-in-retrospect category like greed, selfishness, or the Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel duet.

Like many professional firms, Innova spends time doing things that we give away (i.e., no cash changes hands). And while rewarding in some ways, these relationships can be among the most unproductive that we maintain. Relationships may start via business development, civic engagements, long-shot gambles, or friend and family commitments. What unites these no-cash efforts is that they usually undervalue the time spent by the side doing professional design and development, and grossly overvalue the ideas generated by the side that doesn’t commit to follow-on work after an idea-exchange between the two parties. So for no cash deals, a new requirement is time commitment for the non-development party. And lest I sound hostile, I’ve been on both sides.

Put another way, while folks should be happy to engage in no cash work they shouldn’t touch no cost work.

This should work well for everyone. By raising the activation-energy of ideas, we’ll all make sure we’re working on stuff that is important to everyone.

Thanks for reading. 20 GOTO 10, then contact us.

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