When Innovation Pays Off
April 6th, 2008by Jeremy Thomas
Google is famous for allowing its engineers time to work on personal projects. This makes the engineers happy as they get a chance to be creative and show what they’re made of. And it makes Google happy because they get lots of innovative ideas and products from this personal time.
I’m trying to instill a similar culture across my development team at active.com. We’re in the middle of “Web 2.0ifying” the site, and my guys (and girl) have lots of awesome ideas. The challenge I have as a development manager is balancing the allocation of tasks the business needs completed while allowing enough time for my team to “innovate”. What I’ve found is they “innovate” anyway.
Case in point: on my my engineers developed a locator tool which mashes up Google Maps with an XML RPC (dare I say REST) service that we use internally. It’s a nifty little app with strong visual appeal. Last week our product director asked us to start designing and developing a feature for the web site that requires 80% of the functionality in the mashup. He hadn’t seen it before. When we showed it to him he had an “oh yeah” epiphany and subsequently modified the requirements to be more inline with the mashup as he thought the functionality in it was more consistent with the rest of the site.
What do we, as an organization, gain from this?
- The engineer who created the mashup gets to see his idea become part of the broader product and gets recognized for his effort.
- The time required to design and develop the new feature is significantly reduced - we already have a prototype.
- The feature has been thought about and refined from several angles - that of the engineer and that of the product developer (no waterfall here baby).
Imagine, then, if we could reach out to other groups and leverage their ideas. In this case, the engineer, product developer and I were aligned organizationally. But what if we had the ability to discover others within my large, global organization, who had concepts or demos that could be used in a similar way? What if we had Enterprise 2.0?
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April 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Sounds like a case for Clearspace !
April 6th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
We have an innovation fund which allows people to get paid for their work. If it’s a big enough idea, then we even give them developers.
If it’s a marketable product, then the person with the idea gets a cut of profits.
We still have problems getting people to take advantage of it. What’s the hold up?
April 7th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Hey Jeremy, I’m currently researching a book about innovation in companies like active.com and would love to hear more about your experience there - your post touches on a lot of interesting issues. Shoot me an email if you’re up for talking for a few minutes. Thanks, -Adam
April 7th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Hi Jay, heard of your great work from my colleague, Michael Loke. I had the same question you posted and I believe (among other unknown reasons) its the Australian culture. My experience is that if people are supposed to work outside of office hours, they generally are not quite willing to take on a task like that.
@Jeremy, since you are half-Aussie, what do you think??
April 7th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
@Jay
@Sean
@Jeremy
In my opinion it may well be not so much an “aussie-ism” as aussies are known global as some of the most innovative people in the world. I think more about a) the workload of an individual and b) their willingness to relinquish one of their ideas (given the number of startups these days) and c) the potential for negative feedback.
I think if you talked to developers (especially young people) they might actually have ideas, but aren’t confident in their skills and/or the idea. The notion that you might submit an idea and have it criticized or the code potentially *reviewed*, could be quite daunting…
In the coding world we need to live by the mantra “There is no such thing as a stupid idea, only stupid people” (to quote my last manager).
April 7th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
@Pete,
I totally agree. The panel that reviews it may send some shivers down the spine for less experienced developers.
I think in every tech co, we need an alpha geek (Jeremy, you’re the man !!!) that actually takes the first drive, and start encouraging people on the go by pulling them into the project together.
@Jay, perhaps, instead of getting review by committee, I reckon this Enterprise Knowledge Market
approach is MUCH MUCH better. Whoever’s idea gets the highest vote is the winner, and there you have your “intangible” ROI calculated based on user interest. It’s much faster too.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I’ve often wondered if a certain personality type is required to A) blog and B) think that your ideas are cool enough that other people will want to read about them and comment on them. I think one needs to be somewhat arrogant to broadcast his thoughts to the world and expect the world to listen.
Arrogance is gained with experience. A track history of success makes one think “man, I’m good”. Young developers, who are usually intraverts, often don’t have those track histories, and are thus less inclined to share their ideas (be they Australian or not).
April 7th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
@Adam just shot you an email.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Excellent post Jeremy. I have often wondered about the applicability of “innovation incubation” practices for non-developers. Like your alma mater (and my current employer) for example. I think it would be interesting to see if it would bear similar fruit.
April 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
@All
@Michael
Regarding your vote (Digg) idea. I think that can work. I went to a site[citation needed] where every user was given dollars that they could donate to posts that were not their own. I think inside of an organisation we could turn those fake dollars into real dollars. It also allows everyone to have a say in where money is spent.
…Empowering
April 10th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
@Jeremy,
”
A great blog Jeremy. It is also interesting you mention the kind personality that is required to blog…
@Michael
I remember having this conversation with you, how I have a few ‘draft’ posts saved, and wanting to ‘perfect’ them before I publish them out. Isn’t that the fear of getting things wrong, or fear of criticism? I remember you simply said to me, “it’s just a life style, don’t think too much over it
April 10th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
@Jeremy,
”
A great post Jeremy. It is also interesting you mention the kind personality that is required to blog…
@Michael
I remember having this conversation with you, how I have a few ‘draft’ posts saved, and wanting to ‘perfect’ them before I publish them out. Isn’t that the fear of getting things wrong, or fear of criticism? I remember you simply said to me, “it’s just a life style, don’t think too much over it
April 11th, 2008 at 6:19 am
@All
Agree Jeremy is the Super Alpha Geek.. also agree that young developers and even older experienced developers are not confident enough to expose their ideas in fear of criticism. Furthermore l believe time is a major factor in life.
Do you spend your time writing about your ideas or implementing them ?
IBM has whats called a ‘hackday’. “Hacks” can be anything! Pick anything cool and take it from concept to prototype in one day. You don’t even have to be a programmer to get involved.
Anyone used TurboGears ?