The Michigan Wolverines and Organizational Change

One of my favorite things in the world is college football, and more specifically, the Michigan Wolverines. Indeed, you could say that my introduction to Web 2.0 was through a vibrant network of college football blogs that is far more entertaining (and probably more informative) than ESPN.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, Michigan hired a new coach this season; and for the first time in about 40 years, the new coach is a guy who is not a “Michigan Man”.  With this came a radically different offensive system, that requires different styles of players than Michigan’s historically recruited (most obviously having a quarterback with the ability to run the ball, where as Michigan has traditionally had QBs more known for being 6’5 statues with rocket arms).

So last week, in their first game under the new era, Michigan lost to Utah.  Utah isn’t a bad team (actually they’ve been picked as a BCS buster-type), but they are a team that Michigan had traditionally been able to beat handily. But alas, without the right players in the system, RichRod lost his first game as coach of the Wolverines.

This got me thinking.  Rich Rodriguez is forced to play his system, or, more accurately, an adaptation of his system,  with players that were mainly recruited to play in a different system.  This problem is quite similar to those facing managers and leaders all across the business world, especially in this time of rapid change in the business world.

The lesson that I take from this comparison is that leaders, be they in business or government, are often forced to run their systems with other people’s players.  This can of course have drastic consequences, if the skillsets don’t match up to the new leader’s visions and strategies.  Ultimately, the leader has a few choices: 1. Adapt the model, 2. Re-Train the players, or 3. Get a new team.  Probably more accurately, a combination of all three.

This has been rambling and barely coherent, but my take away is that, at least right now, for a Web 2.0 implementation, it is important to remember that you are trying to run a spread option offense with a three-yard and a cloud of dust workforce.  Models have to be adaptive, players have to be trained, and new recruits need to be brought in.

The College Football BlogPoll and ESPN: When do they Meet?

I love college football.  And I love college football blogs.  EDSBS is perhaps my favorite blog on the internet.  MGoBlog is one of the most professional (and dedicated) blogs I’ve seen on the net (and since I’m a Michigan fan, its sort of my other favorite blog on the internet by default).   The social network of college football blogs is strong, yet informal.  However, they even have a blogpoll, where members of the network rank their top 25 teams in college football.  Here’s last year’s results, catalogued by Wikipedia alongside the “official” polls.

So two thoughts crossed my mind today.  First, this really caught my eye today.  Hinton, the author of that post is a former freelance blogger who got a job with Yahoo as their CFB blogger extraordinaire (and he is fantastic).  For some reason, I assumed that he would stop voting in the blog poll now that he’s a pro-blogger.  I guess this is stupid because Spencer Hall/Orson Swindle at EDSBS is a journalist too and even Brian, who runs the BlogPoll and MGoBlog does it for a living.

But then I had another thought: what happens if ESPN’s new conference bloggers want to join the blogpoll?  The sports blog world is often been so vociferously against the mainstream media and the World Wide Leader specifically that it might seem counterintuitive.  But today the Big Ten Blogger linked to all of the Big 10 blogs that I read; Why is so far off, given the evidence that a blogger for the Sporting News and a blogger for Yahoo are already member, that ESPN’s folks might want to get in on the fun?  (This post started when I posed the question to my friend as to how long it’d be til ESPN posted the BlogPoll on their Rankings page.)

I guess in the end I don’t know if it matters.  I just think its interesting to watch the interplay between traditional media and blogs, and how they line is constantly getting more blurry.  For me, I guess the day that the BlogPoll and the WWL cross will be a remarkable day in the way that sports journalism works.