• Innovation motivation

    Feb 16.10 | Learn   

    Innovation is hard.  Sure it sounds like a good idea in the abstract — but when the everyday pressures of cost, time and keeping people happy come into play, the old familiar solutions normally win out.   I fall into this trap myself more often than I care to admit.  For instance lately I’ve been shopping around a really cool idea — a complete game changer for one of our key web sites.  We’d replace a bunch of custom web programing with Drupal, integrated with our CRM system making content updates much easier, quicker, and distributed across more staff.   We found two organizations doing something similar who would even share their custom modules.

    But when it comes to applying this to an actual project we consider trying this potential new approach, but keep ending up sticking with the status quo.   What we need is an opportunity to experiment with technology-driven solutions to problems outside the confines of project time lines — without the demands of a normal workday — in a forum where failure is an option.  In short we need an technology innovation barn-raising/quilting bee/ideas forum.  Modeled after the Hack Day concept,  here is how it might work as a motivator for development of new, untried ideas across the entire company:

    • The convention itself would take place over two days in a meeting facility.  Participants work in teams to crank out a technology-based application that creates value for the company and can be taken from idea to prototype in two days.
    • 3 months before the event employees would be invited to propose ideas/problems/opportunities to be addressed.  Any and all ideas from the community would be welcome.  Maybe a series of idea workshops would be held — with the added goal to help publicize the idea and market participation.
    • People interested in participating in the event would troll the idea forum, find something of interest, and organize a team to come up with some solution.  Cross-functional, cross-departmental groups encouraged.  Teams cold advertise on the forum to recruit others with specific skills or experience.  The team would put together a short proposal with a rough approach and what technologies would be used.  The proposals would be reviewed by the innovation convention committee.
    • A proposed idea like ‘make event schedules more accessible’ might be answered by a group proposing to build a location-aware iPhone app that shows a map of all the day’s events on a map centered around the users current location.
    • Selection criteria for proposals could include elements such as relevance, maturity of the idea, quality of the approach, use of existing resources, low implementation cost and the likelihood of the team completing a prototype within the time frame.  Technology support might include access to server resources or sample data sets — existing resources.  Participants would bring their own laptops, software, etc.
    • On the day of the event teams would gather in a conference type facility.  They’d be provided with technical support (server access, networking, etc.) based on their proposal requirements.  Snacks, lunch and all that good type of stuff would also be provided.  The days would run “officially” run from  9 – 5 but teams work as long and as late as they need.
    • On the 2nd day all activity would stop by 1pm.  After lunch each team would hold a presentation of their work.  Everyone attending would submit an evaluation of each of the presentation, with final selection of winners made by the innovation committee.
    • Prizes would be awarded for most innovative solution(s), maybe in a range of categories.

    This innovation forum falls somewhere between something like New York City’s recent data apps contest, Yahoo Hack Days and Google’s 20% dedication to new ideas.  The cost is low — two days with the participants released from normal work — a couple of meals — access to existing technical resources.  And the potential benefits are pretty high — working prototypes of innovative solutions to common problems around the organization.  Not bad from the cost/benefit ratio perspective, and a pretty good morale booster too.  So what do you think?  Would employees participate?  Would the administration support it?  Would it work?

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    • Author: Randy

    In my day job I serve as Information Technology Director for the Yale School of Drama. Otherwise I garden, play guitar, build stuff out of wood, take photos, play around with technology and have been blogging since 2003.

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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!

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