  Innovation... a response to the economy?
March 16, 2009 at 4:30 pm
 I like Innovation. Ever since I was a kid, I have thought about silly little things that solve my just as silly little problems. One little problem less meant more time to address x% of a bigger problem or just more time to have fun. As a child, I went to Chinese school. I had to write Chinese characters on a piece of paper with 100 squares. I actually timed myself doing it once. The word water, took me around twenty minutes to complete if I worked through it character by character. I came to a realization that - writing each character in its own respective slot took more time than doing each stroke step-by-step through each box. Not only was my homework cleaner, but it took MUCH less time ( around 3-5 minutes less actually, per word! ).
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You probably have caught a glimpse of one of many articles that have mentioned the recession and how innovation for a business can steer your ship through this looming economy downturn. It makes me wonder though, even if the economy was doing well - why would you not be interested in innovation?
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Back to my life experiences! I had the rare opportunity to be a part of Best Buy’s innovation incubator program, namely “Project Big Idea”. Best Buy, ranked #66 in the Fortune 1000 with profits for 200 8 hitting close to 1.4 billion dollars, has started a myriad of programs attempting to incubate INNOVATIVE concepts. “Project Big Idea”, run by the VP of Human Resources invited twenty-five people to their corporate campus, to create and grow ideas that they caught wind of somehow. Each idea in that room on that sunny summer day, had enough potential to catch the interest of not only the VP of Human Resources but the CEO himself, Brad Anderson. The week-long, paid lodging, food and time, program were a series of workshops dedicated to the 25 attendees to grow their business concepts for Best Buy. The founder of Geek Squad, Shari Ballord their Executive Vice President, as well as many other executives attended many of our events an hour at a time. Yes, they were interested in this program! Each idea was a potential rudder for the ship called Best Buy, if built properly it could steer the ship into a better direction. However, with a larger ship - a better rudder needs to be built. Unfortunately, with a larger ship it is MUCH harder to steer it as well as creating a rudder deemed good enough to build.  That week did not last long enough, because when everyone went home - all thoughts of steering a multi-billion dollar business went away. After half a year passed, the creator of Project Big Idea has stepped down and the group has all but dissipated. All that is left is a bunch of broken rudders and a ship that has seemingly lost its steering. The company, like many, is at the whim of the unrelenting ocean we call our economy. Could a good idea have changed this? We probably will not know, unless it happens again. But, the question is - if a multi-billion dollar company can focus on innovation for just several weeks, why can’t we? (side note : they have not stopped their other resources to promote innovation, but the program dedicated to growing business ideas at their corporate campus has all but disappeared)
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Unlike Best Buy, most ships are smaller and need smaller rudders. Like my Chinese assignment, many thin gs can be done to increase the workflow within a business. Chris Butler seems to be doing just that. I’m sure he probably will hate me for this analogy, but he’s like me at the age of ten trying to write the word water quick enough to have time to enjoy the warm summer daylight or begin solving another issue. Day-to-day he’s analyzing our metrics for our website. Google Analytics and website technology seems to be heading towards a direction where innovation is right at your fingertips. It is literally GIVEN to you, but you have to take the time to look at it. Chris, is taking the time to look at it. He is doing this, because he is figuring out different ways in which Newfangled can steer its ship.
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Lucky for him, Chris has Google Analytics to tell him what the ocean currents and weather will be like for our future, so he can build accordingly.
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