The movie, made by Google, explaining everyday life at the company, but obviously focusing on recruiting talented technological women was a fun little snap shot of how innovative Google is. I love hearing about how companies, especially those in the tech-industry, are catering to the needs of their employees to in turn benefit their company. Even more than learning about fun ways of reaching your employees to motivate them was what the women were saying. Here are a couple points that stood out to me:
1. Set aside time- for innovation.
How many times have you thought up great ideas for your business- do you have a notebooks of new products, services, or maybe ways of packaging, but have never gotten around to the implementation stage? I admired Google for giving employees 20% of their time at work to work on their own projects and provide them that time to be creative. What if we gave ourselve 20% of our work week to work on our new product or services. Think about it:
- How much time do you spend on bookkeeping?
- How much would it cost for you to outsource that work to a bookkeeper?
- What would your return be if your ideas suddenly be come a reality?
- Would you enjoy working on your new project vs. balancing the books?
2. Generate ideas- by thinking of problems and finding a way to solve them.
The example of the women coming up with the ability to search for a movie name and a location to find movie show times was a great example of this- I thought this was awesome because I use this feature all the time, it makes life so efficient (actually all of Google makes life so much faster). What is a problem that is found in your market? How would you go about solving it? How could you make money doing this?
3. Act on your innovations, or solutions quickly- create a system of making ideas a reality that is simple, enjoyable, and generally motivating.
When you watch the video you get the impression that the video’s target, female engineers, or extremely intelligent, well versed women become frustrated when their ideas never come into fruition because of circumstances outside of their control. New ideas are constantly becoming a reality online today. If you have a great idea, I would act on it fast. Not every work environment is as conducive to forward thinking as Google- Find out what the problems are in accomplishing your goal and first work through those.
