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Bureaucracy Isn’t Inevitable – How Airbnb Beat It
- SixSigma 11y agoIt isn't "is the organisation a bureaucracy" it is "how bureaucrasised is the organisation" - Cole, Management: Theory and Practice. His words in the article reflect the last 20 years of management theory. Notice he uses the phrase "unproductive bureaucracy". Weber introduced the word in 1947. Drucker: Business is driven by marketing and innovation, everything else is a cost. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
- digi_owl 11y agoThese days it feels like it is 99% marketing...
- SixSigma 11y agoIt is, but I think you mean advertising shenanigans. Marketing starts with deciding what to produce.
- toolz 11y ago> Marketing starts with deciding what to produce. Sounds like a one liner intended to boost the self-worth of marketers. There's nothing wrong with what the average marketer does, so no need to make it into something it isn't.
- tormeh 11y agoWell, to sell something you need something people want. Finding a market and coming up with a product in the abstract is part of what's traditionally the marketing department's job, even if it's not what the travelling salesman does.
- BjoernKW 11y agoWell, an average programmer's job mostly is just moving input and output data around. Promotion - the common understanding of what marketing is about - is just one of the four traditional aspects of marketing.
- jknightco 11y agoToo many people view marketing as what you do after you've built the product. Any company worth its salt understands that its also crucial before you've built the product.
- digi_owl 11y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0 The first part should be fitting...
- lazaroclapp 11y agoPerhaps, but it is not untrue. Which is why it's good for developers to know a bit of design/need-finding/marketing, even if you never want to be a "salesman". As someone who has seen the process of trying to commercialize bleeding edge academic research up close, I can tell you that knowing about your potential users and their needs can save you from building the best possible solution for the slightly wrong problem.
- SixSigma 11y agoWell it isn't. Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Process, People, Physical Environment - the 7 p's of marketing. Most people think it is just Promotion. http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/online-marketing-mix/how-to-use-the-7ps-marketing-mix/ http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/onli... And that's still only one aspect of what marketers do.
- sremani 11y agoThere are no numbers on the size and scale of the team or the organization, would have put a better context.
- mikecurtis 11y agoGood point. A lot of this is based on growing the engineering org from ~40 => ~200 over the last couple years.
- hartator 11y agoI think the only point to remember: Build a team of trustworthy people. It's way harder than it seems to hire the best...
- makeitsuckless 11y agoIndeed the only point. I've worked in, for and with many different organisations in the past 30 years, and I've only seen two real patterns: A) hire great people, or B) create the perfect bureaucracy. Everything else is just running around putting out fires, no matter what label you put on it. Now you will of course never be 100% successful with either A) or B), but pick one and aim for it, and don't get distracted by miracle management method #99999 just because you don't get it perfect.
- CurtMonash 11y agoI first heard that description of why bureaucracy occurs in the 1980s, from Jim Huff, who was both an EDS executive and a reserve Naval officer.
- neuro_imager 11y agoI thought this would be an article about getting through regulatory bureaucracy - which is one of Uber's greatest strengths IMHO. This article mostly regurgitates old advice about good hiring and company cultural policies. I'm disappointed.