5 ms·
Secret to innovation success = keep senior management away from the ideas
- Flemlord 16y ago...unless the boss is a Jobs or Gates who intimately understands the market and/or technology.
- bhc3 16y agoRight...there are those guys.
- tomjen3 16y agoTrue, but they are also statical outliers - most big bosses don't understand the market or the tech. And even then I wonder: what would Microsoft be if Bill had understod the internet? He blew the company on that one. Might somebody who would not have been so high up in the hierarchy see that one comming?
- Tamerlin 16y agoI think the blame for that lies more on Ballmer than on Gates, but the point still holds. Microsoft could take a lesson from its own games division, though. It largely ignores them -- and they're largely successful and creative. :)
- duffbeer703 16y agoThey talk about 2 or 3 "gating" processes where a decision is made to go from idea to prototype or from prototype to production. I'm sure that Jobs/Gates don't get involved until you start hitting the prototype stage.
- alanh 16y agoHardly a secret! Edit I’m not going to dignify the Apple jibe with a response (Apple is one in a million). But who hasn’t worked at a company where the guys on top seem resolutely determined to meddle for the sake of meddling or are so clueless that they sink the company? The VPs of a tech start-up I used to work for were so in love with themselves that they ignored the advice of everyone else, including me, a lowly junior developer, and continued using a fly as a mascot and the tagline "Your place to sell out" until they filed for bankruptcy.
- enjo 16y agoExplain Apple then.
- nerme 16y agoApple Inc. (previously Apple Computer, Inc.) is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife suite of multimedia and creativity software; the iWork suite of productivity software; Aperture, a professional photography package; Final Cut Studio, a suite of professional audio and film-industry software products; and Logic Studio, a suite of audio tools. As of January 2010, the company operates 284 retail stores in ten countries, and an online store where hardware and software products are sold.
- nitrogen 16y agoI heard of a VP of a pro audio equipment company who was on a quest to eliminate red LEDs from the front panels of all audio equipment (red LEDs are a de facto standard to indicate a clipping or error condition). Last I heard, he's no longer employed there.
- jessriedel 16y agoHow are they establishing causation?
- VengefulCynic 16y agoReminds me of the "Blessing for the Czar" from Fiddler on the Roof - "May the Lord bless and keep the executives... far away from us!"