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Why Your Boss Will Crush Your Innovative Ideas (bbc.com)
dryriver writes: BBC Capital explores why good ideas people have in the workplace almost never reach the top decision-makers in a company. From the report: "Surely you've heard the plea from on high at your company: we want more innovation, from everyone at every level. Your boss might even agree with the sentiment -- because, of course, who doesn't like innovation? It's good for everyone, right? Yet when it comes to innovating at your job it might be better to lower your expectations -- and then some. Your idea is far more likely to die on your boss's desk than it is to reach the CEO. It's not that top managers don't want new ideas. Rather, it's the people around you -- your colleagues, your manager -- who are unlikely to bend toward change. Today, big companies that don't innovate face extinction. 'Companies are almost forced to say that they are changing these days,' says Lynn Isabella, professor of organizational behavior at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business in the U.S. But, 'it's not organizations that resist change; people resist,' says Isabella. 'The people have to see what's in it for them.'" As mentioned in the report, some of the key questions that the people whom you pitch your ideas to will ask themselves include, what does this innovation mean for me personally -- will it be more challenging or will it lead to more career opportunities, and what will it mean for my job -- will I get fired or will it be (or was it) worth it? Many times the answers to these questions don't stack up in favor of the innovation, Isabella says. As a result, the people who need to buy in don't push for change.
Look the people on top have a lot to do and do not appreciate your noise as it implies incompetence. Let the big boys deal with this issue and focus instead on more important things for your job title
http://saveie6.com/
Of course there has to be a benefit to change. If you're proposing a change and couching it in idiot technobabble, all anyone will hear is "huh, more work for no payoff"
if you can't explain to a non-spergin nerd clearly and succintly why doing a thing different is good, why would you expect anyone to support you?
In my experience it is political. It's insulting to suggest ideas at my last job as it implies incompetence. I got demoted fast and blamed for not making it happen with no support and threatened with termination if it happened again. :-)
http://saveie6.com/
Start your own company if you want to innovate. Otherwise head down and soldier on worker, and be profitable if you expect us to continue you on our insurance plan.
> Of course there has to be a benefit to change.
> If you can't explain to a non-spergin nerd clearly and succintly why doing a thing different is good
If that's what you got out of it, try reading it again. You might explain very clearly a huge benefit - perhaps it saves the company ten million dollars by making one small change that has virtually no risk. It probably won't happen, if that's all your focused on.
On the other hand, if I show my boss something that can save HIM two hours a week personally, he'll probably do it.
He sure thought so. He could have been the poster child for the "Good Ideas, Only Rejected by the PHB" crowd. Every day he would have a new idea that would "revitalize, invigorate, and make the company (in his profession) excel."
Only problem was, they were exceedingly stupid, painfully ignorant ideas. Sorry, Dad.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
At my company, the CEO announced a monthly contest, with an award of $100, for the best idea to cut costs or improve efficiency. The first month, the $100 went a woman whose idea was to reduce the award to $50.
If you work at a profitable company, change is dangerous. The way that things were done before led to the current profitable state, any significant change risks upsetting that magic apple cart that nobody really fully understands how to build up again in the current environment, so don't do anything that might risk my next quarterly bonus, right?
If you work at an unprofitable company, that's not sustainable, innovate all you like, without a minor miracle (which will have little or nothing to do with any "innovative idea" and everything to do with external forces beyond the company's control) you'll be getting your layoff notice soon enough.
Most of what passes for "innovation" these days is really just illusion. We're better off without "innovations" like Uber, for example. The fundamentals of Uber are flawed, but their illusory "innovations" keep investors happy. Nevertheless, the fundamentals can't be ignored forever...
If you want real innovation, you need to have the person who is really doing the asking do the vetting directly, or hire an outside consultant to do it.
Lets say you come up with a great idea. It will cut your work load in half, effectively letting half the people do the same work. Assume that means your department is given slightly more work - but not double. So your boss changes his plans to hire two more people to instead fire one person. But he won't get the credit for saving the money, you do. And your boss's salary and power are based on how much money his department spends.
Best case senario, you get promoted. You are now directly competeing with your old boss. After he lost one of his best employee (as you came up with this great idea).
Worst case scenario, the idea fails.
Why would your boss promote your innovation? No incentive.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"Bosses are like diapers... full of shit and all over your ass". Needless to say the boss no longer shoots down my ideas then steals them while taking credit for my work.
The average job description is "you do as you're told".
I've always found keeping a direct line of communication with CEO and board is the best way. Just Cc your boss in the emails on your amazing cost saving innovative idea and thank your boss for allowing you to go direct to the top. If the CEO likes what you've said win win for you and your boss. Your boss isn't going to chew you out if it looks like he already approved you going up the chain and your idea is approved, that would be a show of a bad boss.
But honestly chatting with the CEO whenever you pass on a coffee break makes it easier.
I've never wanted to work for a company with more than a few thousand employees and only one level of management between me the board. If there's more levels than that the jobs to far down the rungs to make a difference and thats not a job I want.
They had an internal email address where you could email your ideas. Mine was to have the phone hold the data, when you were at your desk you could plug it into a docking station and get more storage, a keyboard, and a display. Plus it would run Word, Excel, whatever. Got rejected :(
I despise the new MBA management style that all ideas have merit or that there are no stupid questions.
In my experience many of the people I've run across who complain that the company managers (or me when I was in that position) don't respect their ideas don't realize that their ideas are crap. They typically have a very myopic view of what the company does, what it needs or what constitutes a good idea. They have no real concept of risk, logistics, development overhead, basic physics, human nature or a slew of other issues. Their ideas can be frequently characterized as 'wouldn't be cool if'.
I rose through the ranks with a GED and no college education in an environment dominated by PhDs by having what turned out to be good ideas.
So sure, in some environments, good ideas are squashed by pointy haired bosses, but many times it's just a dumb idea.
Innovation is bullshit. Do your job, do it well, and explain to all your barely competent peers how to imitate your behaviors. 80% of wasted potential at work is because people don't know even 20% of what they should. Low hanging fruit, people.
The only good reason to "innovate" is to convince some dope you need a charge number to use for jerking off in the supply closet.
That, or if you are the kind that likes playing office politics and you think you can make some other asshole lose face by making their work seem trivial. Appearance is everything here, substance is nothing. The ideal outcome is that you and your enemy know it's bullshit, but everybody else thinks it's brilliant and your enemy is forced to implement your sabotage or be seen as "not a team player".
First thing you have to realise is that Systems Exist.
Systems follow very specific laws. The first Law of Systems is that all Systems follow the Law of Self Preservation. The second Law of Systems is that all Systems Fight Against Change within themselves. Systems follow the Law of Structural Conformity. Systems follow the Law of Growth and Development.
1. Systems Exist.
2. Systems Preserve Themselves.
3. Systems Fight Against Change Within.
4. Systems Ensure Structural Conformity.
5. Systems Grow and Develop.
All of these laws of Systems exist only to protect the Systems from being destroyed. Systems do not care about innovation or quality, they care to grow, to protect themselves from change that can cause self destruction, they ensure that all of their internal structures are organized to ensure self preservation, they grow just to become bigger and to have a better chance of survival.
Once you understand this you will understand why it is obvious and expected that systems prevent any type of innovation coming from individuals within the system.
It is also important to understand one more thing: when systems cannot cope with something, they stop it, they may destroy it, but if the fundamentals upon which the system relies are themselves flawed, the system reliance on those fundamentals also makes those systems ultimately vulnerable to destruction.
You can't handle the truth.
And the next month the person whose idea won was to reduce the award to $25
I figured that Uber could be a supplier of software for a city's taxi service. But, there is more money in Uber running everything.
Uber can use a smartphone app, instead of using human labor for answering a phone. Routing is done with GPS and computers, instead of humans in a dispatch center. Drivers can log on and off, with a smartphone app and computers, instead of calling up humans in a dispatch center..... I guess Uber benefits in automating a human run taxi dispatch center.
You've got your definitions of words all wrong. I used to be God.
I had to read the first sentence 3 times just to figure out WTF the summary was trying to discuss.
Because once they're accepted by the company, they're no longer yours, but the company's. Even if they say no to you, they may later fire you and claim your idea as theirs.
A difference must be made. On one side, there's your job and what you're paid to do for the company, how you use the company's time and resources, in order to contribute to their projects and achieve their goals.
On the other side, you, your own ideas, projects and goals, which hopefully shouldn't overlap those of the company; what you do in your own time with your own resources, at home, away from the office.
Reread your contract, and pay attention to any and all comments about Intellectual Property. Your contract most likely has a Non-Compete clause (unless your jurisdiction prohibits it, as it's the case in California).
If you're still okay with that, then think about the costs, risks and consequences of your idea. Many things that looked great on paper become a nightmare to implement, and eventually became lost at the bottom of the priority pool, as company resources become assigned to more urgent priorities.
Talk with as many people as possible about your idea. Let it become discussed, analyzed and criticized. Your direct boss may not be happy with it, but if your idea is good you may somehow become a John Houbolt and find a Robert Seamans who can bring attention from the higher-ups to your idea.
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
Maybe what has been said here applies only to huge corporations. In almost all of the companies I've worked for, the boss was very happy to hear my ideas. We might argue over some of them but, generally, he was entirely happy to steal them outright. My code, my policies, my naming schemes... or should I say, "his". I got paid for it. I'm only mildly miffed. I have more where that came from. Still, I was the engine in his company, and the one before it, and the one before that. That's kind've why I got the jobs, though, so this had an adequate payout. They did always listen.
99% of the ideas workers submit which they claim are "innovative".... aren't. Usually it's completely pointless and has no benefit and quite frequently has drawbacks. Much of the time it's already been tried and failed.
Ideas are cheap and readily available. Good ideas are not.
And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them.
Until the first woman presents a cost-saving analysis claiming the old contest is not effective, and brings back the innovation contest with the award of $100.
Ideas are like, let's implement the high level GUI of our application using a Java/Python/LUA/QML engine. That way, we'll save development time by not needing our C++ programmers to do this work. What actually happens is that they now need to hire more programmers to do that GUI work and even more to handle the binding layers. Adding a new feature now requires waiting for a script programming person to become available.
Or it might be replacing one code layer of a software stack with another. For the person who knows that API, that gives them job security for the project. For everyone else who doesn't, that locks them out of that part of the project.
I can only assume snowflake logic is at work here. Why would anyone not part of the managing structure of a business presume unsolicited advice would be taken seriously? I think the author is mistaking naive arrogance for experienced confidence, and it's pretty much just silly. Sorry your parents lied to you about the world, it really isn't our job to fix that.
It's execution that's hard. Sure, the person on the shop floor or in the cube farm might have an idea that seems great, but making that idea happen politically within the organization is very, very hard. People don't like change. That "good" idea might be somebody else's worst nightmare, and they're going to fight tooth and nail to keep it from happening. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just reality. That's why people who CAN change things become the leaders.
Did they use only dysfunctional large orgs for their research? Many ideas "die on my desk" because they don't make sense. And it's not the idea generator's fault; he or she has a more narrow viewport into the business's operations and strategy. It's important to shoot bad ideas down in the right way, though, because 1 in 20 will be brilliant, and another 5 might cause you to think about something related that could work. So you don't want to discourage innovative people, which is naturally what you would end up doing if you're shooting down 19 out of 20 ideas.
The other thing I think is weird about this article is that the biggest problem with ideas is change management, and the biggest problem with change management is rallying the rank and file behind it. It's great to have this cool new flavor of agile that everyone should use, and I might agree with you, but how do we roll that out and get everyone to buy in? And how many such things can we roll out until people get tired of change? It's great to beat up management for "ignoring" ideas, but I think it let's the largest % of the company off the hook for being perennially resistant to change.
Lets be honest, most of our innovative ideas are pure tripe. Why? Because it needs to be good for everyone, you, your department, the company and the customers. How many ideas are going to be good ideas for everyone, not many.
I hear all the time that people want innovation and new ideas.
After discussions with them, it generally turns out that what they actually want is to have someone else come up with a great product they can claim credit for onselling, and they think that this is a legitimate approach to business.
I've got cheeto stains on my clothes too
Being a good Big Boss isn't often about bright ideas - it's about choosing among people and their ideas (or other skills). And balancing product/org. ideas against corporate finance ideas too. Better an overpromoted football coach than a dreamy scientist. (No, I didn't mention US politics).
Are software "engineers" the only folk left on /. ? .y hands and my brain,if you want bosses that may listen to a good idea,don't work for companies that have layer after layer of expencive,usless managers,I worked for small firms,had good,simple ideas that could be shown to save work,money and that our customers liked and wanted,many of my ideas were tried,most turned out to be good,saved work/time/costs for us doing the actual work,which meant we could do more work at lower cost,company saved money,which meant A) more profit or B) drop price to customer and get more work C) both at once,cut price for customer and also make more profit from same customer base..
Every case/opinion mentioned seems to be about innovation in software..
Me,I work with
Not everything in the world revolves round software,many may think it's the single most important thing in the world,let's see yer software unblock a drain or supply the power your software burns through while achieving very little of anything with real worth to anybody,except a few more scrappy code handlers..
99% of the ideas workers submit today tend to be on "how to make the men's restroom more inclusive" or "affirming the voices of the marginalized employees". That's not innovation, that's madness.
Furthermore, most suggested "innovations" add something to an existing process or create a new one to follow, very few remove/reorganize the workflow into something less inefficient, which is usually what's needed. It's a hell of a lot easier to see the benefits in reducing daily workload than it is in yet another process that needs to be followed.
The mindset expressed in the posting here is a perfect illustration of exactly what is the article's main point: the all-out negative attitude that pervades the teams at floor-level; and, may I add, this is particularly common among SW engineers, believe it or not. I think we all imagine that we are clever and sometimes inspired thinkers who are excited about new technology and new ways of doing things - but are we really? I have seen it again and again: any article that tries to present a new insight to /. seems to be met with this hailstorm of negative comments, and I see it here again. There's the comments along the lines of "This is [obscenity of choice] obvious, what a load of shit", and the "Most [obscenity of choice] idiots who think they are so [obscenity of choice] clever are just [obscenity of choice] idiots" as well as the usual N-step list of reasons why it is never going to work (which is marked "5 insightful", of course).
This article is in fact rather well written, and I think the reason it receives so much negativity here is exactly because it hits too close to home for many people: You it is true, and most of us are almost instictively against anything new, however much we pride ourselves of being the opposite. That includes myself, I have to say, but I try to be conscious about it from time to time, and try to be open minded. In Denmark we call this mindset "the Law of Jante" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante); Terry Pratchett calls it "the crab bucket" (in Unseen Academicals, if you want to check) - the explanation being that if you observe a bucket full of crabs, you will see that some times one will start climbing out, and then the others grabs it and pulls it back down. "Don't think you are cleverer than us".
Can't you see it? People around you can't find the way out of the bucket, but they sure can stop you from escaping the misery and a future in which you are all dumped into boiling water. This is one of the main reasons why people hate going to work, and why innovation only ever happens if the company buys up another company that has already developed the innovation; but it does not have to be like that. This is one of the admittedly few occasions where the blame doesn't fall on incompetent management, but on yourself and the people around you; that means that it ought to be something we can actually change, by a change of attitude.
jeez, so many negative comments in this thread. I wish I knew better about your jobs, to make sure I never get one of these. I must say we have a positive environment towards innovation. We have a constant program that qualifies ideas and supports the good ones with a budget. The thing is, a rough feeling of a "brilliant" idea os not enough. You have to work on it yourself, and prove that it is worth investing on it. Then you get it a few hours to mature your idea and make a plan. Passing that, you can get more hours and maybe even a small team to work (part time) on that, And so on. In practice, we always have some one doing some kind of innovation. After working with this for years, having spent myself quite a few hundreds of hours in these projects, even with a team, I must say that the largest barrier for this is the people having the ideas. Most of the people don't seem to give a damn about this program and rather sit in their desks doing the same old job, and please don't suggest any changes, right? But gladly I can say yes, people having good ideas are heard and supported.
... involve the company spending a lot of money so you and your colleagues can feel good about your job. Yes, many bosses give their employees shitty tools to use. Meaning, if you can't describe how your idea can save you time and double-handling, you're not thinking about your boss.
As you've not surveyed every single company, you can't expect anyone to take your post on face value. I'm sure you might feel what you wrote is true...
99% of the ideas workers submit which they claim are "innovative".... aren't. Usually it's completely pointless and has no benefit and quite frequently has drawbacks. Much of the time it's already been tried and failed.
Ideas are cheap and readily available. Good ideas are not.
I know what you mean, my idea to let me work from home for double the pay and half the work load didn't go down very well, I thought it was a good idea at least.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
"And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. Thus it happens that whenever those who are hostile have the opportunity to attack they do it like partisans, whilst the others defend lukewarmly, in such wise that the prince is endangered along with them."
The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli
http://www.constitution.org/ma...
You are correct. This is only what I've heard from my two friends (who had strikingly similar experiences even though they worked at different places), both of whom have worked at multiple different companies. So, if you want to be very specific, it only holds for a sample of some 4-8 large companies.
Political dynamics (organization dynamics) can cause ideas to by killed. Embarrassing management in front of a large group will also get your ideas killed. It is important to consider how ideas are socialized and communicated.
Wolfgang Pauli was a brilliant physicist who did not suffer fools. One time he insulted someone with an idea so bad that it "was not even wrong"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Buyouts have a more predictable ROI. Do you want a company that returns an annual average 20% on investment over 30 years, but varies between -30% and +50% as it goes, or do you want a company that returns an annual average of 7% on investment year after year, varying between 5% and 9% as it goes?
Startups return between -100% and 10,000% on investment, averaging something like 25% in the big picture. It's not a game for the marginally financed, which most of us are.
This is simply and succinctly explained in this cartoon, Safe Is Risky, from 2014.
In a nutshell:
Organizations can spot the risks of a new idea a mile away. But there’s a curious blind spot when it comes to the risks of not taking those risks. The path of least resistance is to play it safe and keep the idea as close to the tried-and-true as possible. We just need to ask Polaroid how that strategy works in the long run.
Executives and entrepreneurs face two very different sorts of risks. One is that their organization will make a bold move that failed — a risk they call ‘sinking the ship.’ The other is that their organization will fail to make a bold move that would have succeeded — a risk they call ‘missing the boat.’
Naturally, most executives worry more about sinking the boat than missing the boat, which is why so many organizations, even in flush times, are so cautious and conservative.
The subject says it all. Think about it.
A very large company I worked for had this for about 3 months and the reward was a percentage of the money you saved the company. It was well thought out and ideas were all considered. The first 3 winners were secretaries of senior management and all their ideas were ones that senior management should have already implemented. The program was then canceled and I think the secretaries got screwed out of the percentage they saved.
Ran out of real mod points.
Probably a "whooosh" for most.
Nicely played.
On one interview, a manager actually told me that I wasn't fit for the job because I was too innovative. They were looking for people to do more of the same, even if they had a lot of room for improvement, they didn't want it.
I work for a company that's reasonably large (8000+ people) and is consistently profitable, and we prize and celebrate innovation. People are encouraged to try out ideas quickly and if they fail, at least they failed fast. We have an intranet website where people post their successes and learnings. I personally know many coworkers who came up with ideas, implemented them, and made money for the company.
I am a technical manager of a team that specializes in automating manual processes and eliminating waste. I very intentionally leave room for my direct reports to innovate. If they come to me with an idea -- this is a critical point -- I treat my opinion as a HYPOTHESIS, not as absolute truth. After all, I am just guessing whether their idea will work or not. I'd rather have them build a minimum viable example to get some empirical evidence if their idea will work or not.
If I think their idea has no chance whatsoever of succeeding, I'll put forward my objections and see if they have good answers for them. This discussion is important. Sometimes they show me I am wrong, which is fine with me. (Nobody's perfect.) Other times my objections spur them to come up with a more robust idea.
Anyway, not all companies are pits of innovation death.
A company I worked for had a plan from day 1 to sell the company in a specific time. Shortly after I was hired I saw an opportunity to really revamp the manual and time consuming processes. I automated several tasks for my own use/sanity. I attempted to demonstrate time is money. Long story short, because I didn't know the red flags to look for this lead to a hostile job environment and attacking write-ups. The owners/VPs didn't care about improving any process. It was just a mad dash to whip employees to work night/weeks for maximum profit before the company was given/sold back to original investors. I also found that management/VPs didn't understand how using best practices would benefit everyone. It's just business. If you feel you aren't appreciated of fulfilled then there is always other opportunities out there.
An oldie but a goodie.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Why not? The Suits expect it all the time. We have to wade through a morass of buzzword-bingo and airline-magazine headlines to figure out what they're trying to accomplish when they attempt The Next Great Project.
Ditto. Big meeting, big new program. Our engineering group immediately spent a good amount of time investigating replacement of our IBM mainframes with Fujitsu's, at about half the price. We were well motivated, as we would receive a good chunk of change from the savings.
After about three months we never heard about the program again.
I imagine, though, that upper mgmt could have used this data in negotiations with IBM, and may have gotten better stock^W licensing options.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I'm not selling any idea worth implementing for $100. My idea saves the company 50k and I get 100? Nope.
But reserve the right to sue the begeezus out of anyone that quits and tried to implement them elsewhere (either on their own or by joining another company).
Political dynamics (organization dynamics) can cause ideas to by killed.
Indeed- I can think of a maor example. Political dynamics and those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo have been noted by more than one person as the reason that- despite employing countless talented people in their research division- Microsoft rarely seemed to be able to translate this into actually releasing anything truly innovative and well developed enough to succeed.
This post I made a few years back references this in more detail.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
If you being asked to contribute, that is an indicator of lazy or dumb management - You give the "idea" work, they get the pay! Go work for a better smaller company. You are not garbage, nor something to be disposed of after your idea is given.
Or is this some intern grumbling that his boss didn't buy into his suggestion to port the company product to Esolang?
Have gnu, will travel.
I was quite innovative when I was working for several companies as a software engineer. I never asked permission to enact the innovations I put into place. They would always eventually be discovered and management would usually be very appreciative. There were a few occasions that immediate managers would become angry that I was doing something innovative, accusing me of possibly doing something that might screw up production, when in fact it always enhanced production But upper management always had me covered though and lower management didn't dare complain about me.
Some wop guy - Micky Valli or something - said it 400 years ago.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I don't even think it's political dynamics. If you're looking at an entire organization of however many levels of management (call it X), then in order for an idea to burble up to the largest chunks at the top of the bureaucratic cesspool, it needs to get a YES at every level, which means X yesses in a row. One NO and it's done. Simple math means most ideas die easily even if every level "wants' new ideas and only kills half of the dumb ones, at each level.
The SGI story above just isn't true. In fact, SGI bosses there typically said "yes," costing the company billions, and in my opinion, causing it's ultimate (1st) downfall. NVidia: First off, NVidia was founded in 1993 by Jen-Hsun Huang (from LSI and AMD), Chris Malachowsky (from Sun), and Curtis Priem (from Sun). None of these guys worked at SGI. Yes, there were trickles of engineers who left SGI to go to NVidia - and 3dfx, Quantum3d, ATI, and E&S. The mass exodus of SGI engineers to NVidia did not happen until 1999, and that was a byproduct of SGI imploding. You might be thinking of 1997 and Quantum3d, but that was SGI execs not developers who helped that spinoff. SGI Did Build PC Graphics Cards and PC Graphics Workstations: Throughout the 1990s, engineers at SGI kept pushing the PC-graphics solution. Probably the first one, IrisVision, was introduced in 1991 as an offshoot of IBM licensing the Personal Iris tech for their PowerStation. The really important byproduct of this effort was converting IRIS GL into OpenGL. SGI knew OpenGL could cost them workstations but saw the future of PC graphics. IrisVision wasn't successful, mainly because of the PCI port speed. So, SGI engineers sold management on making their own motherboard. Which they did, and the SGI 320 and 540 Visual Workstations were begun and finally launched in 1999 to a cost of approx. $300million. These were great machines with tremendous capabilities, and were met with strong initial demand. However, each rev to CPU or memory or PCI required an incredible amount of work and SGI's advantages were quickly surpassed by AGP 2.0. So, SGI scrambled to find a more sustainable solution. Intergraph, who had made similar blunders (building their own motherboard in the 1990s, for an estimated engineering cost of $1billion), sold their workstation business to SGI in 2000 for $100m. SGI - The company where Bosses never said "no" I worked there for a short time, and worked closely with them through the 1990s. I use them as an example of the value of middle management. Engineers were constantly coming up with ideas, and frequently those ideas would go right to the top. "Instead of releasing Performer, let's add new features" "Let's build rides for DisneyQuest" "Let's try a completely new process to build the next InfiniteReality cards" "I know, let's make a whole new kernel and include every feature we can think of" "Let's compete against the WinIntel machine and build our own motherboard." There were tons of great engineers who tried in vain to throttle some of this, but the execs would treat any idea as gold - especially those that had nothing to do with the core business. Some were just ahead of their time, like IrisVision and Infrastructure As A Service so I don't fault them on that, but when you spend 80% of your attention on new ideas, your core business just goes away. By the way, the real boom in 3d graphics was the Voodoo cards from 3dfx and then the spinoff tech in Quantum3d. Those cards were the reason why game developers built 3d games. But, they, and the majority of the other PC graphic card manufacturers, eventually ceded the market to NVidia and ATI.
Success is 99% hard work and 1% innovation.
Don't know why you're getting all the hate, but I have squashed my share of dumb ideas. I love it when new people come in and instantly know what we should change.
On one of my early evaluations, I got a "too creative" comment. Now I just use my creativity on Easter Eggs that the bosses don't see.
Why, you could write a whole book about this. And someone did.
Clayton Christensen. _The Innovator's Dilemma_. http://www.claytonchristensen....
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Care to share?