Innovation
Today everyone at my company was issued with a booklet about innovation. I'm viciously skeptical about corporate management and the rhetoric that they produce. When I hear managers speak I visualise them standing around a white board constructing every sentence to be inspirational and motivational; they always fail and produce something that is condescending and stupid. It pisses me off when people from a non-technical background claim to have developed the skills to manage and believe those skills can be applied in any area. They don't understand how to build a culture of technical innovation and are seemingly oblivious to the solutions that other companies have implemented. Rather than leaning from companies like Google and Apple they have decided to to take a cheap, non-committal option and produce a booklet. My booklet is now filed top of a banana skin in my bin.
I mentioned Apple. I would like to point you in the direction of this speech made by Steve Jobs that I stumbled across on the Positivity Blog. This is one of the most inspiring speeches I have ever heard, and it allows me to be very Web 2.0 by embedding a video in my blog. Watch it now! I think this video illustrates that for innovation in a corporate environment you need inspirational leadership and incremental development (you can only join up the dots looking back).
I will start my own business on day (I'm just waiting for that awesome idea to smack me in the face). For now here a couple of sweet-ass out-of-the-box ideas that I have seen recently
4 comments:
I saw this video a while back and wrote about it twice on my own blog.
I also felt it was one of the most inspiring speeches I've ever heard and think the points he made are essential to success for technically-minded people trying to make it in the world of business.
However, it's easy for us to complain about non-technical managers who are trying - and failing - to create a technically innovative work-ethic because we are technically minded and think we know what works and what doesn't. But do we really have the business background to make such comments? Could we do a better job? I'm sure we'd like to think so, but in reality I'd be willing to bet that it's a different story all together. Can we really manage all facets of the IT structure? I'm not saying we don't... I'm just asking 'Can we be so sure?'
'Getting Real' by 37 Signals is a great book on this subject. Even though the book is very web-app centric, the theories can be applied to any software business model and reading it is something I would highly recommend - especially if, like me, you are waiting for that big-idea. (I've got a pdf version of the book, so if you're interested...) Also, 'Entrepreneurial Proverbs' is based on a speech given by O'Reilly's Marc Hedlund entitled 'Entrepreneuring for Geeks' last week at ETech. It's also worth a read.
One final thing... I'm in the process of compiling a list of inspiring speeches for my Toastmasters group, so send me along your recommendations / suggestions.
Hmm... I don't know why my link to Entrepreneurial Proverbs didn't work. Here it is...
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/03/entrepreneurial_proverbs.html
Hey Lloyd,
Wow, I didn't know anyone actually knew about, or read this blog. I read yours occasionally, and I would read it more if it had an rss feed! I think that you'll find as my writing style develops I'll stop making outrageous carte blanch conclusions like this :) I was just going off on a bit of a rant and trying to tie it all together with a somewhat contrived point. Lol, I'm so lame.
You are of course correct. The best managed companies employ a variety of people. I've always been quite envious of people who go and do a non vocational degree, like PPE or Philosophy and then move into management because it must give them such a solid foundation in "life".
But I think that a strong technical influence is important, and it would be better to recruit and train people from technical backgrounds.
I think it takes a certain type of person to manage people well, and that kind of personality isn't rife within computer science. Can this kind of personality be learned? I'm not sure. One of my friends is currently taking a course in Vipassana meditation that involves ten days of solid meditation with no speaking. This course is compulsory for managers in some companies in some countries (I was v.surprised to learn that).
Thanks for the book recommendation, maybe I'll take a look. The only book I've read on IT management is Joel on Software, and that was excellent.
Andy
And yes,
This video isn't particularly new. I just thought it was so awesome I wanted to share it with as many people as I could. :)
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