On Feb 10, 2009, at 9:11 AM, Stephen Russell wrote: > Here is blog on one guys thoughts on the matter. > > <http://boagworld.com/personal/never_work_for_free/>
I agree with him. Even charitable organizations need to make cost/ benefit decisions, otherwise they want "everything" even if it doesn't make sense to do. One time, I did work for a (not close) friend as a barter. Unfortunately, we each valued our own service more than the other person valued it. If one does this, one must set up the *specific* value of the goods being bartered beforehand. I don't do anything for friends any more, either. Not too long ago, a very successful friend bought a business for his son (first red flag I should have caught). The business was in a different industry from the one in which he had had so much success (second red flag). It had a loyalty program in place, and the friend didn't have experience with that. I did, so he brought me in as a consultant for that. Not technical consulting, but marketing: the structure of the customer loyalty program. After studying the situation, I made some recommendations. He didn't like my ideas (third r-f). I also told him that the businesses off-the-shelf management package was not capable of running the loyalty program he had in mind, and researched and presented packages that would. He didn't want to change. (Fourth Flag) In a normal (not friend) situation, I would have said "thank you so much, but I think you need a different consultant, as we seem to approach these issues differently." (Thinking: "you need someone who will suck your, er, agree with all of your half-assed ideas.") Because he was a friend, I didn't, and carried on, even trying to write a program to kludge his off-the-shelf program to do what he wanted. Longer story than this, but the end result was pretty nasty on all ends. Never again. Ken _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/c5f6533a-6379-45b5-ab2e-f42c2b7e6...@information-architecture.com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
