The theme of this week's class....Embracing innovation. iTigers did a great job with their video in summarizing this theme. Companies must embrace an innovative culture and company structure because innovation translates into ideas, which translates into money. Money is the fuel of any firm.
While companies must embrace a culture of innovation, they must avoid certain pitfalls, such as using the hands-off approach, employing metrics to analyze every aspect of a company, and believing new forms of communication (such as Skype) are a waste of time. Firms must see the BIG picture of the company, where the company is heading, and how the company can keep a competitive advantage when making innovative culture/structural decisions. Innovation gives a company the freedom to work across industries and traditional business practices.
To wrap up the video, iTigers mentioned IBM's Jams. Intrigued, I did some research and found these Jam Innovation Sessions are the quintessential example of a company embracing innovation. Since 2001, about 300,000 IBM employees will get together for a massive think-tank jam session. Individual IBM employees will share ideas, give problem solving solutions, actually change the core values and missions of IBM to fit with current trends, and provide different perspectives and inputs for the company. Basically, everyone gets together and brainstorms.
In 2006, IMB held the largest online brainstorming session, called Innovation Jam. Over 104 countries were represented by over 150,000 employees. The result? Ten totally new IBM businesses were created, which later resulted in almost $100 million in profit for the company. Impressive.
So, who wants to go to China or Brazil, when you can go to Canada and brainstorm with IBMers???? I know I do!
I love the idea of a huge jam session. I have also read about a company who does this. They give all of their tech employees two free days at work to do what ever it is they have been itching to work on. They have full resources of the company at their disposal. The only catch is that they are on company time so the company gets a cut if the product makes it to market and that they have to present their ideas at a company meeting. The fun thing is that this is not a boring conference but rather a party. There's lots of good food and drinks to be had by all and it really is a time for some of the brightest minds to be creative.
ReplyDeleteIt costs the company a good amount in "labor" but the innovation has made them hundreds of thousands of dollars. More companies should allow employees who see the company in action on a daily basis some free time to put this knowledge to work for innovative solutions.