Geek Soap Box

Let’s face it, our lives are pretty decent, and for that we should consider ourselves blessed.  We in the United States and other nations of the “West” are not torn apart by political strife, genocide, or cataclysmic natural disasters.  For the most part, we all are able to wake up each morning, safe and sound, and have our greatest fear of the day revolve around some minor political agreement or office productivity issue.

This freedom and safety, though, also serves as a double-edged sword, because it leads to dangerous over-thinking and over-analysis when the situation should just be left alone.  So, to that extent, I propose the following radical concept: if you work in any form of nonprofit environment, you would be best served to only stay in that field for ten years, maximum, before moving back to the private sector.

Let’s start with working for the government.  Sitting at the seat of power in a free society can be a great burden indeed, and the call to serve your fellow man is not one to be taken lightly.  It’s also true, though, that absolute power (or relative power) corrupts absolutely (or relatively).  Government workers often have tremendous benefits and job security — I know, I was once one of them for nearly a decade.  As such, there is little incentive to maintain a top level of productivity.  At the very top, elected officials can become prone to corruption in the hands of overzealous lobbyists or even demand that staff address them as royalty in a misdirected sense of self-importance.  Or, even worse, you can wind up holding the highest office in the land and, with no clue how the world really works, find yourself absolutely paralyzed to make the right decisions on any issues.  The poisoned official or bureaucrat leads to rampant regulation, taxation, and nanny-statism.

What about the halls of academia?  Is that vaunted higher education really worth all it used to be, or merely a piece of paper granting entrance into the world of management?  Tenure and philosophical “purity” lead to dangerous thinking and woefully incorrect teachings and research — such as that all men are closet rapists that use prostitution to quench their naughty tastes.  It’s not even the ridiculousness of such a topic that’s the problem — it’s that millions of dollars in research have gone into supporting such a theory.  In a world where profit and staying in business are the top concerns, would such overthought even see the light of day?

Finally, we have associations.  A great community filled with great people that I love working in.  But it’s also one that feels very incestuous, as in everyone knows everyone else and does business with the same people and retweets the same tweets and blogs the same blogs.  No doubt some great ideas do emerge about revolutionizing the business, but in an insular community where your board of directors are more concerned about their next trip to the St. Regis, I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t exposed enough to other ways of thinking and don’t wind up falling back too often on the same vendors and services (who, again, are great, but just do one thing one way).  Especially in days where membership is at a premium and nonprofits are struggling to find a means of staying in business through the next few years, is going back to the same well over and over going to get it done?

So, for your own sake, get out and embrace the real world.  Meet new people.  Discover new ideas.  Open your own business.  Feel the stress that comes from worrying about where your next paycheck will come from.  Complacency is the enemy of innovation.  Let those hairs on the back of your neck stand on end and in turn discover that next great big idea (or even mediocre one)!