Working in an industry were innovation is key, I believe we should always find ways to foster new ideas. My suggestion is to apply the idea of Google in this company and allow employees to dedicate 20% of their time to a personal project. This blog entry analyzes how this initiative could benefit the company.
Sponsoring this competition will add excitement to the idea. On one side, we can classify the projects in different market segments. On the other side, we can invite our clients in those segments to be judges of the projects. For me this is an excellent way to showcase talent and do some branding. Furthermore, it is a great opportunity to increase sales.
As cheap as it sounds the prizes could be items that the company currently owns. For example, free days of vacation, more the RAM, an extra monitor, or free data roaming for your smartphone. Please no ipads, they are a cliche.
I believe this idea will encourage everybody to come up with new developments. But let me know what do you think.
Any takers?
