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?

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.

Idea Stock Exchange

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to short neoconservatism.

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.