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Idea Stock Exchange
Retrospeak writes to tell us The New York Times has an interesting article on an interesting business strategy used by a company called Rite-Solutions. The system recognizes the need for harvesting ideas from the entire company instead of just one or two "idea-men" in a stock-market-esque idea exchange. From the article: "We're the founders, but we're far from the smartest people here," Mr. Lavoie, the chief executive, said during an interview at Rite-Solutions' headquarters outside Newport, R.I. "At most companies, especially technology companies, the most brilliant insights tend to come from people other than senior management. So we created a marketplace to harvest collective genius."
Didn't the Japanese have methods like this way back in the 80s??
How often is the person with the idea and the vision the guy with the business smarts to capitalize on it? How often does a company with excellent execution thirst for the next big idea? A marketplace for ideas and innovation is possibly the solution to this.
It may be unpopular here, but in order to make such a market work properly, it's necessary to have the necessary protection for ideas and innovations - i.e., intellectual property laws need to be improved. That isn't to say that draconian laws are needed, but if I have an idea, I need a reasonable expectation that I will not get fleeced by offering it on a marketplace.
An efficient innovation market backed up by appropriate laws may well be the next driver of wealth.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
The difficulty in any system like this is what I like to call the Artistic Paradox.
Great art comes from experience and talent. It almost always comes from the vision of a single individual. Truly fine art cannot be done by committee.
Thus while brilliant and committed people in business need the ideas of those people around them, a system like this can only serve as an inspirational tool for those people with talent. The idea is not the art, the execution of that idea is.
I have lots of great ideas, but no matter how many I give out, or see on the web, few, if any, ever get done. Why? Because I'm lazy.
This marketplace could easily give rise to dependence on it for ideas, and ignore the fact that people who can get things done often don't have the best ideas, but because they can accomplish them, are infinitely more valuable than the armchair quarterbacks scattered throughout a company. And asking people to implement ideas other than their own, even if they are objectively better, reduces a talented individuals ability to great true greatness.
-Ian
That's right, good ideas don't only come from one person in the 'idea department.' If this holds true, and people aren't punished for speaking up, they may be much better for it -- and be able to monitize those ideas. Many companies I have worked for in the past, have an 'open door' policy with opinions, ideas, and better ways to do things. Not once have I ever heard a success story from someone piping-up. Didn't someone say something about hiring people smarter than you?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Isn't that what Google already does, with their personal project time and whatnot? That's how GMail got started, and Picasa, and probably a few other things.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Great concept but I can already envision a problem in the (lawless) US where an employee comes up with a great idea and some other employees leave to go pursue development and market delivery of said idea. And they get sued for idea theft or something along that line. What, did something similar happen with RIM / NTP where one great company developed a real, market demanded product that another (totally useless) company claimed was their idea? Hmm... food for thought in the mighty US, isn't it.
(long live Canada)
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
Believe that patents and copyrights are sewage, and act on that belief accordingly.
If you did, you would have seen that the internet is more than a passing fad (1992), that Linux
was more than a "toy" os (1996), that the x86 architecture and the IBM compatable PC was going
to take over the market place(2000) inspite of it's original inherent design flaws. That p2p was going
to explode in usage, that ethernet would win out over Novell, and Token-Ring despite being
"technically" inferior. Plus you would have been able to anticipate the technology explosion
that happens every few years when a new technologies 18th annaversary approaches and patents start to
run out.
All to often, a companies version of a great idea is something that they can patent, sit on,
and collect royalities on without any real application usage or work. Well, bullshit - it's just
the opposite. A great idea is something that proliferates and spreads in usage freely, without
restriction.
Ideas don't come for free
Uhmm.. I just got an idea.. absolutely for free...
Nobody can make me pay to use my brain.
What are you? A commy? *shifty eyes*
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
>and ignore the fact that people who can get things done often don't
>have the best ideas, but because they can accomplish them, are
>infinitely more valuable than the armchair quarterbacks scattered
>throughout a company.
Those people you're mentioning who "get can things done," -- isn't it to their interest, and everybody's interest, that they are implementing the very best ideas available? It's not like anybody's suggesting that these people be fired -- if anything the value of what they're able to produce increases as they are given better projects to see through to completion.
And those "armchair quarterbacks" -- this term seems needlessly insulting, by the way -- if these quarterbacks are able to come up with the very best ideas in the company, shouldn't they receive all the encouragement in the world to dream up new ideas? And shouldn't they share the spoils of this success with the people who can implement these great ideas?
Seems to me that this stock exchange idea is win/win/win for the GTD people, the quarterback people, and the company as a whole.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Did you even read the article? Oh wait, this is /.
Your "description" of how it works is utterly and completely wrong. In fact, it's near opposite to how this program works.
I'd tell you to RTFA, but it seems clear you're just trolling.
As someone already commented, I'd hate to work at your company.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Re:
:) I think it's a quite normal case in any IT company, the bosses are "oldschoolers", meaning sure they know how a pic cpu works and how perl text databases are cool, but their knowledge doesn't always map to the current situation out there. Transaction rdbms is the word, not a text database.
/disease/, i hope they do well and give a good example to the others.
"We're the founders, but we're far from the smartest people here," Mr. Lavoie, the chief executive, said during an interview at Rite-Solutions' headquarters outside Newport, R.I.
Admitting to the reality is actually a vital sign of the intelligence in the leadership. If you'd hire people more stupid than you in any intellectual business, you're f-d.
I wish my boss would consider this fact in some areas more often
I do understand that the bosses in situations like that usually do realize that their workforce is more talented or at least more up-to-date in the expertise, but unluckily for the workers, the selfpride of the bosses preceeds the rationality that you'd expect.
Anyway, seems like one company (at least officially) is trying to fight the
Ps. how would you fight this "pride" issue ? My current strategy is either to explain very calmly my selections in development paths or if that fails, just go along and point the primary reason out when it starts to fall apart... Humans are supposed to learn most from their "personal" failures.
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
This and other business plans sources can be found in the book The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki.
Speak truth to power.
I'm curious... What kinds of protections are built into this idea exchange to keep people from stealing one person's Billion dollar idea and then patenting it as their own? I'd hate to see some greedy bastards using this site, and end up creating the next SCO or Rambus style legal dispute.
Indeed, executive decision support systems like this are precisely what the executive suite needs and it tends to be the layers just below them that are the most resistant so it's a catch-22.
I find that weak managers tend to be afraid of letting any negative information get past them to senior management. If the CEO can look at the idea futures and see that most of the rank-and-file are betting on a later ship date than the first-line managers are telling them, he's going to ask why.
It would be a fascinating exercise to set up an idea futures market at the Evil Empire, and see when Longwind really is going to ship.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"I wish my boss would consider this fact in some areas more often :) I think it's a quite normal case in any IT company, the bosses are "oldschoolers", meaning sure they know how a pic cpu works and how perl text databases are cool, but their knowledge doesn't always map to the current situation out there. Transaction rdbms is the word, not a text database."
Audiance. Compare the above to this