We all know innovation is critical to providing customers with unique products and experiences, and lots of companies like to tout themselves as innovative.
But what can companies do to foster and generate innovation?
Some companies cozy up to their customers to gain a better understanding of how the product is used and how to make it better (every company should do this). Some conduct focus sessions or bring in product design gurus. Google famously allows many of its employees to spend up to 20% of their time on a "personal" project or idea as long as it holds some business promise (employees don't get a day a week to create scrapbooks of their cats).
One thing Elastic Path does is hold a "Hack Day" event for its employees at least once a year. Hack Day is intended to encourage interaction between employees (including those who don't typically work together), increase morale and, ideally, generate some interesting and innovative new product ideas for the company.
The event is promoted for several weeks in advance, encouraging employees to form teams of 3 or 4; we post a sign-up board in the office so everyone can see who is on what team and we also maintain a list of people who are not yet on teams. The teams all meet separately to come up with a cool product idea - something that is not only fun and interesting but also a realistic feature that would add value to the product. Non-technical employees (marketing staff, salespeople, writers and so forth) are encouraged to help generate and refine ideas with technical employees or come up with non-technical ideas to improve the company such as process improvements, cost-cutting plans and the like. We also maintain a list of ideas for teams that want to work together but don't have a great idea. Finally, we ask teams to "register" their idea with the organizer - we don't mean to stifle creativity but we also don't want 7 teams all working on the same idea... and every now and then we have to tell a team that their idea doesn't make any sense or has failed several times in the past.
The actual event runs from noon one day until noon the next. Technical teams spend the entire time designing and creating a prototype of their idea. Non-technical teams spend the time researching their ideas, working out the details, contacting potential suppliers or calculating the cost savings as appropriate. The company provides dinner and "refreshments" for all those who stay overnight, which is encouraged but not mandatory.
The next day starts with a company breakfast (typically served by managers) as the teams put the finishing touches on their prototypes and presentations.
At noon, each team demonstrates or explains its idea in a brief (3 or 4 minute) presentation. Finally, all employees vote for their favorite teams and ideas in a number of categories such as overall best idea; coolest idea that'll never work in real life; best team name and so forth. Prizes are awarded for the top ideas and teams are further rewarded for any ideas that make it into the product.
Hack Day has become a favorite employee event at EP and generated a few interesting ideas for the company, some of which are described in this forum.
If you're looking for new ideas for your product, why not organize a hack day? It's not difficult or expensive and you never know where that earth-shattering idea will come from. At worst, your employees will have a good time and get to know each other better!
