Posts Tagged ‘non-profit’
ECommerce: Kick-off
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What comes to mind when you think of ecommerce? Amazon? EBay? Yes, they are big ecommerce players that are highly visible in the consumer world. However, ecommerce is more about online retailing. They are certainly not the only organizations that enjoy the benefits of ecommerce. Read the rest of this entry »
The Starfish and the Spider – by Ori Brafman & Rod A. Beckstrom
What do ebay and terrorists have in common?
From Publishers Weekly
Brafman and Beckstrom, a pair of Stanford M.B.A.s who have applied their business know-how to promoting peace and economic development through decentralized networking, offer a breezy and entertaining look at how decentralization is changing many organizations. The title metaphor conveys the core concept: though a starfish and a spider have similar shapes, their internal structure is dramatically different—a decapitated spider inevitably dies, while a starfish can regenerate itself from a single amputated leg. In the same way, decentralized organizations, like the Internet, the Apache Indian tribe and Alcoholics Anonymous, are made up of many smaller units capable of operating, growing and multiplying independently of each other, making it very difficult for a rival force to control or defeat them. Despite familiar examples—eBay, Napster and the Toyota assembly line, for example—there are fresh insights, such as the authors’ three techniques for combating a decentralized competitor (drive change in your competitors’ ideology, force them to become centralized or decentralize yourself). The authors also analyze one of today’s most worrisome “starfish” organizations—al-Qaeda—though that group undermines the authors’ point that the power of leaderless groups helps to demonstrate the essential goodness and trustworthiness of human beings. (Oct. 5)
IT & non-profit services
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Your church struggles with keeping up with member addresses, names, and contact informaton. People want e-mail reminders about church services but no one knows how to do that. A local farm offers “save a turkey” programs around Thanksgiving but the owners don’t know how to get the words out to people who may be interested. Your local food bank has a hard time predicting the quantity of food they need for each week, as they always have either shortages of basic food items or excessive food supplies that must go to waste.
If these issues sound familiar, it’s because they are everywhere. With more sofisticated technical skills learned in IT150, you will help dramatically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the services that you care much about.
