4 ms·

There is a reason companies don't encourage internal innovation. It has nothing to do with managers, HR, or what not. Say you have 100 innovators in your comp

There is a reason companies don't encourage internal innovation. It has nothing to do with managers, HR, or what not. Say you have 100 innovators in your company. Everyone comes to you with an idea, as an SVP or a Director, can you agree to all of them? You obviously pick and choose. And how can anyone say a new product / service by a company is not the result of an internal innovator? Alternatively, in the safe environment of a company, as in the innovator is getting capital and resources from the company finances, I think it is more likely that people are more free to give out ideas, even crappy ones. It's easy for a good idea to get lost in the noise. Ultimately, what is the solution to this? I guess you have to fundamentally change the structure of companies itself. In the given example, if Cisco were to transfer the innovator to another division, give him some money, on the same terms and conditions as a VC, perhaps it would have borne fruit. Essentially, it's easy to see companies, once a certain size, are effectively hard wired to move at a slow, glacial pace and focus on sustainability, rather than fast and fail innovation.

coderintherye 6y ago
>Say you have 100 innovators in your company. Everyone comes to you with an idea, as an SVP or a Director, can you agree to all of them? Yes, actually you can, as long as you control the parameters around how the idea is tested. We used to do a full 2-week sprint once out of every 16 weeks just to prototype people's ideas. In order to pitch the idea the only constraint was that it needed agreement from someone knowledgeable in that area that a prototype could be accomplished in <= 2 weeks.
MattGaiser 6y ago
> Everyone comes to you with an idea Is this actually happening? Are ideas being pitched at a high rate? As at every company I know of that has held an internal innovation competition, interest is quite low.
- sk5t 6y ago
  > internal innovation competition As in, an opportunity to give away good ideas for no cash and no equity?
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    They usually have cash prizes, or at least electronics.
    - robjan 6y ago
      Doesn't seem like a good deal
      - MattGaiser 6y ago
        It depends. I am someone with a lot of ideas and I will never follow up on 95% of them on my own accord. Having it on the resume + the $200 bucks is more than enough for an idea that would otherwise just rot in my notebook.
    - kumarvvr 6y ago
      In a lot of big companies, there is always a huge distrust in the management. Seems to be true even cases like Google and Microsoft.
      - MattGaiser 6y ago
        That is having too many expectations. You should go into this expecting them to give you a small bonus. That is it. You don't have some idea you value at under $1000?
hedora 6y ago
> In the given example, if Cisco were to transfer the innovator to another division, give him some money, on the same terms and conditions as a VC, perhaps it would have borne fruit. Cisco actually has a program like this. They maintain right of first refusal to acquire the resulting company, and call them spin-ins. I think the problem is that they won’t fund things that directly compete with one of their own products, even when their existing offering is terrible. To do that, they’d have to admit the product is terrible, and that upper management isn’t competent enough to fix it.

coderintherye 6y ago

>Say you have 100 innovators in your company. Everyone comes to you with an idea, as an SVP or a Director, can you agree to all of them? Yes, actually you can, as long as you control the parameters around how the idea is tested. We used to do a full 2-week sprint once out of every 16 weeks just to prototype people's ideas. In order to pitch the idea the only constraint was that it needed agreement from someone knowledgeable in that area that a prototype could be accomplished in <= 2 weeks.

MattGaiser 6y ago

> Everyone comes to you with an idea Is this actually happening? Are ideas being pitched at a high rate? As at every company I know of that has held an internal innovation competition, interest is quite low.

sk5t 6y ago
> internal innovation competition As in, an opportunity to give away good ideas for no cash and no equity?
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  They usually have cash prizes, or at least electronics.
  - robjan 6y ago
    Doesn't seem like a good deal
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      It depends. I am someone with a lot of ideas and I will never follow up on 95% of them on my own accord. Having it on the resume + the $200 bucks is more than enough for an idea that would otherwise just rot in my notebook.
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    In a lot of big companies, there is always a huge distrust in the management. Seems to be true even cases like Google and Microsoft.
    - MattGaiser 6y ago
      That is having too many expectations. You should go into this expecting them to give you a small bonus. That is it. You don't have some idea you value at under $1000?

hedora 6y ago

> In the given example, if Cisco were to transfer the innovator to another division, give him some money, on the same terms and conditions as a VC, perhaps it would have borne fruit. Cisco actually has a program like this. They maintain right of first refusal to acquire the resulting company, and call them spin-ins. I think the problem is that they won’t fund things that directly compete with one of their own products, even when their existing offering is terrible. To do that, they’d have to admit the product is terrible, and that upper management isn’t competent enough to fix it.