Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

�

Click here for the Secret Decoder Ring to this issue!

Click here to keep up with Galen's Speaking Schedule

Looking for a back issue of Mullings? They're in the Archives

Click here to join the Mullings Movement!

Sustainable Output

Wednesday July 30, 2003

Click here for an Easy Print Version

There is an old newspaper term - which has been appropriated by web page designers: MEGO, which means "Mine Eyes Glaze Over."

This was used by editors to accurately describe a "think piece" which was written with too many words, involving too many obscure concepts, for too few people, almost always for the Sunday edition.

I go through all that because this edition of Mullings might turn out to be a MEGO piece.

Dear Mr. Mullings:
We are only 70 words into this and it's already a MEGO piece.
Signed,
Everyone.

What we want to discuss today, class, is the concept of the "Highest Sustainable Level of Output."

I invented this. I think.

An organization can accomplish enormous amounts of output for very brief periods of time. Think of it as a sine wave. The peaks of the wave (output) can be very high, but the width (the length of time) will be very narrow.

On the other hand, that same organization can accomplish less over a longer period of time. The peaks of the wave are lower, but the width will be much wider.

When a firm is "crashing on a proposal," everything else tends to stop. The proposal might get done in a timely way, but the firm cannot survive doing that all day, every day. Assuming this isn't a brand new firm, there are other clients who have to be serviced and, while they might not miss 48 hours of service while all hands were getting the proposal out, they would soon be ex-clients if that was all everyone did every day.

The secret to being a successful manager is to determine, not the highest POSSIBLE level of organizational output, but the highest SUSTAINABLE level of output.

As an example. The Lad sent along an item from the Boston Globe which ballyhooed the notion that the Howard Dean campaign had raised more money on-line than Vice President Cheney had raised at an in-person fundraiser in South Carolina.

The Dean campaign had issued an on-line call to supporters to out-raise Cheney.

According to the Associated Press, "Vice President Dick Cheney spent about 30 minutes in Columbia Monday, raising about $300,000 for President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.

The Dean campaign drive started on Friday night and went until Midnight Sunday. According to the Boston Globe: "Dean raised $344,000 for his campaign by the time of the Cheney lunch."

30 minutes for the Veep, 48 hours for Dean. The Globe points out that the Dean campaign counted the $20,000 per day they raise under normal circumstances as part of the total; but to be fair, the Cheney event took time to set up in advance, so the 30 minute number is misleading as well.

The Dean campaign made the point that it received donations averaging about $50 - as compared to the $2,000 tab to attend the Vice President's lunch.

The Boston Globe missed an opportunity - one which was seized upon by the Concord Monitor to reflect upon the overall fundraising of the Bush campaign and the GOP in general:

"Of the 105,000 contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign between mid-May and the end of June, nearly 86,000 gave less than $200.
"And since Bush took office, the Republican National Committee received contributions from 950,000 donors who have [sic] never given the organization money before, with an average donation of less than $35."

The Dean campaign, in effect, had to stop everything else it was doing to make this goal. It was a short term effort - a successful effort - but short term.

The Bush/Cheney campaign can, and will, do $300,000 events on a regular basis from now until it doesn't need any more money.

The difference is the SUSTAINABLE level of activity which each campaign can endure.

Next time we'll take up the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum.

The bell is ringing.

On one of the more BIZARRE Secret Decoder Ring pages today: Links to the Boston Globe and Concord Monitor articles; An embarrassing Mullfoto of the Mullmeister; a definition of the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum; and a pretty good Catchy Caption of the Day.

Current Issue | Secret Decoder Ring | Past Issues | Email Rich | Rich Who?