This blog was originally posted on LinkedIn.
Sometimes to solve a problem we need a team of five McKinsey consultants, onsite and working with the full team. But often we need a lot less, like a quick hour of consulting from someone with the right experience. We need a nudge in the right direction, for someone to connect the dots in our planning or offer some functional expertise to understand our options. We need a smart person who gets it, to give us the upshot and move us forward.
With the launch of Google Helpouts last week, Google made this type of spot coaching infinitely more accessible. In doing so, they not only disrupted the consulting industry, they introduced perhaps the most radical innovation in nonprofit management this year.
Helpouts is Google’s new service that connects people who can give help to people who need help over live video. The Taproot Foundation, one of the only nonprofit partners to launch the program, offers free, on-the-spot pro bono consulting from professionals with the targeted expertise nonprofits need.
