I must have fooled a few people into thinking I was a SEM guy with some of my recent topic bouncing. (I got a few emails asking if I had more info on leveraging Squidoo.) The ringtones example was just a shill to get a conversation going.
We’re dealing with scale vs sprawl right now. I touched on performance-based marketers for one reason: they know how to scale. Spiking a campaign that’s performing doesn’t mean adding new people, more computers, bigger offices, etc. To be honest, it makes me a little jealous.
We run a small web agency / development firm that sometimes feels like it’s on an uncomfortable growth path. The past few years have brought a certain degree of success, and we’re trying to avoid some side effects. We’d rather keep it simple and sharp, and sometimes that runs counter to outside influences.
I have a similar stake in an organization that creates enterprise solutions for individual and aggregate health analysis. We partner with an established player in the field of worksite wellness, so our staff adjustments have been minimal. But we’re just getting started.
Both organizations are plotting aggressive growth curves in terms of output. Both are trying to seduce us away from small.
So, I’m out to learn as much as I can from people who know how to scale. We got into the development business to build things. And as we spike that part of our business, we’re looking to avoid administrative sprawl.
For anyone that didn’t read Greg’s comments on the topic last night, you should take a look. IDC is a case study on knowing how to spike the things that work and lose the things that don’t.