It’s hip2b2

There are numerous schools of thought about 20% time in the corporate world. This concept was popularized by Google. But, it has been around in mostly academic and research circles for quite sometime now. According to Google,

Google engineers all have “20 percent time” in which they’re free to pursue projects they’re passionate about. This freedom has already produced Google News, Google Suggest, AdSense for Content, and Orkut – products which might otherwise have taken an entire start-up to launch.

However, other companies have other opinions about 20% time. Most notable is Microsoft. In the book - The Google Story, a Microsoft engineer is quoted as saying that 20% time is not necessary because he is doing what he likes to do 80% of the time. I think this is not true. It is definitely very possible that people love their work. But, 20 percent time is actually more. I personally feel (being of academic research background) that the 20 percent time advocated by Google is a good thing. Here are my two (2) main reasons:

• It allows time to devote on projects than don’t fit the corporate agenda. This is particularly true for companies that have very defined corporate directions and do not encourage veering away from these. I have seen may ideas shot down because they were not “aligned with the corporate agenda”. Sometimes what you find cool and interesting is not what your company finds interesting.
• It provides time to think out of the box. Being subjected to the same thought process on a day-to-day basis within the company tend to make people think the say way - think within the box. After a significant amount of time, people start thinking like each other. This is good for unity of purpose within the company but is stifling for innovation. The 20 percent time can be used as thinking OTB time and can be dedicated as such.

For these and many more reasons, I feel that 20 percent time is definitely something every corporation with an interest in innovation should apply. It can be improved. Deliverables can be set. Innovation days can be schedule (similar to what Yahoo has). Of course, this is a very costly prospect for most who are trying their best to streamline their operations. However, this is still much cheaper and encompassing than a dedicated research department. The whole company becomes the research department.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 12:33 am and is filed under Musings and Speculations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.