The thing about useful stuff is

Big companies know they can't be nimble and innovate Monday, March 26, 2007

I was at a meeting on Thursday with one of the most senior executives of a significant US Bank. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce them to an early stage venture we are involved in, which we believed that might wish to take a stake in.

We were asked by one of the attendees why one of the big companies in the space wouldn't simply copy it and kill this venture. We acknowledged that it was always a possibility but I added "I'm in dangerous company saying this, but big companies are usually too busy to get round to doing sensible stuff. There are simply be too many other projects they have to get done before they would even assemble an evaluation team to consider it and fill in all the project paperwork."

The Senior Executive turned and smiled - "We certainly understand that problem".

James Hong has the same thought.

Labels: innovation

posted by John Wilson @ 9:54 AM Permanent Link ,

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Who owns the idea/innovation you came up with at work? Tuesday, February 20, 2007

There's an interesting story in the FT today about a former marketing employee of Euronext-Liffe who is being challenged in court over who owns the patent right to electronic trading inventions he devised whilst working at the Exchange.

Ordinarily things that you invent in the course of your employment belong to your employer. Yet the judge in this case has already ruled that the innovations were not created in the course of the employees normal duties. So this puts a boundary round what the company owns.

However the judge has already rule that the creativity occurred because the employee was specifically asked to look at a specific topic - "It was in solving this problem that Dr Pinkava made his inventions. They were, thus, made in the course of his specially assigned duties".

The inventions were a system and related functions that facilitated the trading of a variety of derivatives.

And guess what - the Exchange hadn't been particularly interested when he first approached them with the ideas to get them to engage/participate in developing it. It was only when the patents were being filed and the system got interest from potential customer that the Exchange woke up and decided to exert its ownership claims.

I mention this for several reasons

Many employees develop their ideas based on on things they've been involved in at work. If you want to exploit your idea, you may want to consider offering it to your employer first. It's probable that they will not want to proceed with it because big companies are dumb (I'll leave aside the possibility that your idea is dumb) and rarely entrepreneurial. In this scenario, simply ask your employer to confirm in writing that they waive their claims. Obviously this approach carries risks since it a) may spook the middle manager you spoke to who simply says no b) it rules out the opportunity for you to sneak off and develop your idea in the hope that your former employer forgets about you and fails to spot you exploiting the idea.

However, if you don't do this then you could end up in a litigation battle and that normally drains you of cash, draws your attention away from your business and scares your customers who worry about being sued for patent infringement
This case implies that companies don't own all your ideas whilst you are working for them, even if you worked on them after work on the company premises, provided that it's not something that you did as part of your normal duties i.e. if you code a system for your employer then you can't claim its yours but if you develop a useful application unrelated to your job, that should be ok. It common for employment contracts to stake a claim to such developments as well simply because you used their facilities.

Labels: innovation, patents

posted by John Wilson @ 4:26 PM Permanent Link ,

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Ways to create the innovative organisation Saturday, January 13, 2007

It is widely accepted that some types of organisation can be more creative and innovative than others (Hesselbein, Goldsmith and Somerville, 2002). Why? Some argue that organisational features can override and stifle the innovative capabilities of individuals. Kanter (2002) identifies ten, which she argues are common in organizations of all types and sizes.

Rules for stifling innovation

Regard a new idea from below with suspicion, because it’s new, and because it’s from below.
Insist that people who need your approval to act first go through several other levels of management to get their signatures.

Ask departments or individuals to challenge and criticize each others’ proposals. That saves you the job of deciding; you just pick the survivor.

Express criticism freely, and withhold praise. That keeps people on their toes. Let them know that they can be fired at any time.

Treat identification of problems as signs of failure, to discourage people from letting you know when something in their area isn’t working.

Control everything carefully. Make sure people count anything that can be counted, frequently.

Make decisions to reorganize or change policies in secret, and spring them on people unexpectedly. That keeps people on their toes.

Make sure that requests for information are fully justified, and make sure that it is not given out to managers freely. You don’t want data to fall into the wrong hands.

Assign to lower level managers, in the name of delegation and participation, responsibility for figuring out how to cut back, lay off, move people around, or otherwise implement threatening decisions you have made. And get them to do it quickly.

And above all, never forget that you, the higher-ups, already know everything important about this business.

Sound familiar? Usually creative types and doers will simply leave this environment, preferring to step away from the committees environment demanded by "B-listers" looking to fill their days and prevent change.

When experimenting with the new, failure is to be expected. Ideas that do not work out must be regarded as learning opportunities, not as platforms for recrimination and blame.

Innovation is inhibited where organisation culture favours blame over learning. Is this a problem for firms, where risk management and the avoidance of error are paramount considerations ? It is difficult for individuals and teams to be innovative and to take risks in some segments of their working domain, while following standard rules and protocols to minimise variability and risk in other areas.

I've always hated big firm environments for this very reason - the public and management face says "We encourage innovation and creativity", whilst ensuring it's too hard or too much of a career risk to be try new things.

Labels: innovation