Diaspora of the Digerati
By Mimi Rosenheim
The California rolls are long gone, empty Heineken bottles roll and click on the Industry Standard rooftop. Dazed dot-com employees clutch pink slips in one hand as they pluck confetti from their hair with the other. The digerati stumble through the streets mumbling about stock options and trying not to trip over tumbleweeds. Some of them have begun to think about security and how, well, secure it sounds.
This is good news for larger companies that need the talented employees who have been siphoned away from big business over the past few years. Unfortunately, the work force has changed in that time. Where dot-coms failed in business, they succeeded in satisfying their employees. Your company can offer security, but can you reassure the digerati that your workplace isn't a Dilbert comic come to life?
You may be a big company, but you don't have to act like one. Cushion the impending culture clash by taking a lesson from smaller companies.
Don't Be a Hairball
A hairball is a company overwrought with policy, procedure, rigidity, and submission to status quo. Gordon MacKenzie coined this term after working at Hallmark for 30 years. He felt that there was a dearth of creativity in this company whose main product was creativity. If Hallmark can become a hairball, any company can. It's your job to fight the tangle by combining common leadership practices with more innovative techniques.<>
