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."

Comments

Hey

[smvp6459]

Can I sell ideas short?

Japanese methods?

[CarpetShark]

Didn't the Japanese have methods like this way back in the 80s??

Re:Japanese methods?

[tomhath]

My experience with employee suggestion systems or quality circles is exactly what the executives at this company are trying to avoid. An idea comes in, some big shot decides it's not worth pursuing, and the whole suggestion system/quality circle/whatever falls apart because employees get discouraged. These guys are willing to let their decisions be driven by internal market forces (the employees). Sounds like a pretty good process to me.

A market for innovation

[LadyLucky]

Just as stock exchanges and other markets have created the flow of money that has been the foundation of modern capitalism and the greatest wealth engine in the history of mankind, a market for innovation may well be the next step.

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.

It's a trap!

[Jester998]

We're the founders, but we're far from the smartest people here

Anyone who submits an idea gets labelled "not a team player" for not backing management's ludicrous schemes.

It's a trap!

[/end Dilbert-esque paranoia]

Idea Stock Exchange

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to short neoconservatism.

Art by committee...

[IanDanforth]

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

A great idea

[argoff]

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.

this is a win for everybody

[Schlemphfer]

>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.

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.