Innovative organizations

1
Innovative organizations

• The Internet
• The inspiration for net-centricity and the GIG
• Goal to bring the creativity of the internet to
  the DoD

• Other innovative environments
• The scientific and technological research process
• The market economy
• Biological evolution

What do innovative environments have in common?
2
Innovative organizations

• Innovation is always the result of an
  evolutionary process.
• Randomly generate new possibilities.
• Select the good ones. (Daniel Dennett, Darwin's
  Dangerous Idea)

How does this apply to organizations?

• To ensure innovation

• Creation and trial
• Encourage the prolific generation and trial of
  new ideas.
• Reaping the rewards of success
• Allow new ideas to flourish or wither based on
  how well they do.

Sounds simple doesnt it?
3
Innovation in various organizations
New ideas arent the problem.
Trying them out
Reaping rewards
Initial funding Prospect of failure Approvals Establish Successes
Biological evolution Capitalism in the small. Nature always experiments. Most are failures, which means death. (But no choice given.) None. Bottom-up resource allocation defines success.
Entrepreneur Little needed for an Internet experiment. Perhaps some embarrassment, time, money not much more. Few. Entrepreneur wants rewards. Bottom-up resource allocation.
Bureaucracy Proposals, competition, forms, etc. Who wants a failure in his/her personnel file? Far too many. Managers have other priorities.Top-down resource allocation.