

Yahoo's Entire Design Innovation Team Fired - nickb
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2008/02/14/confirmed-yahoo-design-innovation-team-axed

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boredguy8
"Hey boss, the company's headed for trouble. Costs are trending towards
exceeding revenue."

"Hmm, looks like we need to cut costs. Let's fire the innovation team."

"But boss, without new innovations, how will we manage to stay ahead of the
competition?"

"Silly child, we're Yahoo! We have a bang at the end of our name! We don't
need innovation."

"..."

"Plus, we can just buy anything that's innovative. Outsourcing innovation! I
should give myself a raise." :scribble, scribble:

"..."

"..."

Wow.

~~~
daniel-cussen
It's kind of true, though. Outsourcing production seems to be working well for
Yahoo. Delicious and flicker are pretty awesome, and I can't think of a Yahoo
in-house app that's at that level.

Plus, I suspect there are inherent problems in any group called "innovation
team."

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klein_waffle
The Design Innovation Team produced a lot of interesting toys in Processing
and Flash, but nothing that was relevant to Yahoo's business.

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=1>

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=2>

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=3>

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=4>

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=5>

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=6>

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=7>

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=8>

This one is just a ripoff of something a Google engineer did a long time ago,
and has been part of the Mountain View tour for years:

<http://design.yahoo.com/project.php?pid=9>

The artists from yHaus were very talented, but their relevance to Yahoo
amounted to supercool projections at Brickhouse parties. And that may be all
that they were asked to do. Some companies treat innovation as a core part of
the business, and others treat it as a P.R. exercise.

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DarrenStuart
I feel for the people laid off its not nice happened to me last year but that
said its not clear what they did from that article.

did they deal with all aspects of design? or was it just font and logos etc

I can't help but think it would be cheaper to contract this stuff out.

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wumi
Yahoo and design innovation are oxymorons

~~~
Taintedhero
Aw, Tell me you miss giant obnoxious smiley faces and frames?

