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Did you write these words of truth?
Just along for the ride.
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011) "No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)
"It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011)
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No, thats why I mentioned in the subject as,
Found this interesting in the optional text answers...
If my guess is correct, you have written this right?
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Chill out home-slice.
I was just asking a question. By the way, I had given you a 5 on your original post...now I wish I didn't vote.
Just along for the ride.
"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011) "No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)
"It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011)
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Any one who claims to be and is the author of this optional test answer is welcome for my 5.
Note: I am not yet a high rep user, so my 5 might be worth less, but still is a token of appreciation.
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or how the organisation is structured.
If you want innovation you get a bunch of motivated people, give them an almost impossible target, give them all the resources they need and let them get on with it. Protect them from idiots, from interference, from stupid paperwork, just give them cake and praise once a week and leave them alone.
If you don't want innovation;
- employ boring and fearful people,
- don't give them enough to do,
- ration all resources,
- have layers of useless bureaucracy,
- micromanage,
- provide the cheapest coffee,
- use worn-out office furniture,
- encourage bullying,
- allow nepotism
In every kind of organisation you can see both kinds.
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Exactly what I was thinking. Innovation isn't defined by organisational structure, but by the individuals within it and giving them freedom to do their jobs.
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Depends how you see it. In my experience engineers are motivated because they really like doing their jobs. You can't make them motivated, but you can prevent other people from de-motivating them.
An easy target is boring. Almost impossible, not impossible. I mean things like, the job needs 9 months but we only have 6, let's show them what we can do.
I choose my words carefully as a rule (I'm an engineer). Paperwork is fine, I said stupid paperwork. Like having to book your hours every day on a slow and useless SAP machine, with a new mini-project-number every 3 days. Or filling in 6 forms to get some 100 dollar tool. Or having to book your own business trips...
All the resources they need means (to me) up-to-date software tools, fast computers, things like Incredibuild, a saintly admin. We use Doors and a few other tools that make us so much more productive, but I know of projects where they still use Excel. To use (for example) Doors you need a Doors person who has done all the courses.
Sorry I wasn't more expansive before, I am used to being with other engineers and being concise.
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Most innovative: individual I'd say - small startup ... as soon as they passed the initial design/innovation phase, they'd be just too busy simply to get the product out in the market.
Least innovative: asian firms where developers dedicated 150% of their time just churning out half finished software trying to meet impossible deadline on tiny budget.
dev
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Which sounds stupid to lots of people here (and I can't say I completely disagree), but they do have the resources available to them to be innovative.
Some examples:
I'd say GOG.com[^] is innovative and they confess they have the ability to be so because they are big, have a large network and financial certainty.
And GOG.com is inspired by Steam[^] from the rich and famous Valve Corporation.
Avatar[^] was innovative and boosted 3D television. James Cameron could pull it off because he was an established name and had a budget that went through the roof.
I think World of Warcraft[^] pretty much challenged every game norm they could challenge (successfully) and Blizzard was able to do this because they had the money and the power.
Now certainly I believe Microsoft was innovative with the .NET Framework, Apple was innovative with iTunes, iPod, iPad iWhatHaveYouNot, and Google was innovative with GoogleMaps, StreetView and stuff like that.
Sure, small companies can be much more innovative, think of new stuff, make it all better and perhaps they already have. But it's the large companies that usually make the 'new and innovative' the 'old and chewed out'. And if the small companies think of something new and amazing and become successfull with it it is usually only a matter of time before they become the large and established corporation themselves
It's an OO world.
public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{
public void DoWork(){ throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}
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I voted the second option at first, but your post made me to change my mind.
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I have voted for 2nd but had exactly similar thoughts on my mind about bigger organizations...
Their size provide them with cushion as well as resources to do something new and innovative... to take risk... but then at the same time many of them get tied up with a pre-defined line of thought and thus restricted (example... How Microsoft killed its courier tablet)... whereas an individual or a small group have to take risk to make their mark which make them more open to thoughts and ideas.
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Naerling wrote: I'd say GOG.com[^] is innovative and they confess they have the ability to be so because they are big, have a large network and financial certainty.
And GOG.com is inspired by Steam[^] from the rich and famous Valve Corporation.
Well, GOG isn't that innovative then, if they're an iteration of Steam.
Steam may be big now, but started much smaller - and was innovative at the time.
.NET Framework - not exactly innovative. I find it hard to think of a single innovative thing in there. It's well-implemented, and I like it, but was massively influenced by Java and other languages.
Google Maps: Google Maps first started as a C++ program designed by two Danish brothers Lars and Jens Rasmussen at the Sydney-based company Where 2 Technologies.
So, pretty well all the "innovative" things you mentioned were either developed by small teams, orthe remainder were iterative, rather than innovative.
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Rob Grainger wrote: Well, GOG isn't that innovative then, if they're an iteration of Steam. I said inspired. They are an online games portal, like Steam. But instead of selling new games they sell old games no one wants to sell anymore (probably because it was thought no one wants to buy them anymore). CDProjekt took a huge financial risk by selling these games anyway. And mind you that GOG started small and innovative, but that CDProjekt was the innovator and took the risks.
Steam started small, but Valve was still the initiator and they took the financial risks. A large and established company (kind of like CDProjekt and GOG).
So you say .NET is not innovative. Let's think for a minute that this is true (and you might be right), Microsoft still did something new and took a financial risk by doing it. They could have released VB7 and C# whatever version they were at the time. Instead they put all their time and money in the .NET Framework. If it hadn't caught on and people would've stuck to VB6 and C# well... That wouldn't have been good for Microsoft. And what about WCF, WPF, F#... Aren't those at least a bit innovative (WPF because it changed the old WinForms way of building forms (after 15 years!), WCF because it's a sort of all in one solution that I think made life so much easier and F# because it brought functional and object oriented programming to one language). And these are only some technologies I can think of without using Wikipedia (which is closed today because of some SOPA/PIPA support )...
Can't say much about Google Maps, except that it was still Google who made it big and appearently thought it would work while a huge part of the world didn't or didn't know it yet.
It's an OO world.
public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{
public void DoWork(){ throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}
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With respect to .NET, I think you're confusing taking risks with being innovative.
.NET really didn't do much Java was already doing. Consider that other languages were already targetting JVM. OCAML and Common LISP had already merged functional and OO languages, and F# seems a bit of a bastard child of the two to me. I like the direction of C#, enjoy using it, and am glad it has adopted innovations from other languages.
Its a bit like people claiming Steve Jobs was innovative - he very good at getting products to market, but was renowned for doing so with ideas developed elsewhere.
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Alright, so we don't fully agree on .NET being innovative, but it was a risk for Microsoft when they introduced it at the time. And the original question did include risks, so I think Microsoft would still fit the question
Anyway, I'm not saying all large corporations are innovative or risk taking, but overall I think they are more innovative and take more risks then many people seem to realize.
It's an OO world.
public class Naerling : Lazy<Person>{
public void DoWork(){ throw new NotImplementedException(); }
}
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Small companies allow making decisions to some extent and does not hinder process by long chains of communications, so that may get relatively innovative.
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The reason why a start-up is more likely to be innovative and an established company isn't is that the small company is trying to find their customers so they are more willing to try new ideas to differentiate themselves from the established companies whereas established companies are trying to maintain and keep their existing customers who, generally, don't want to change either.
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. -- Steve Landesberg
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I think the problem with start ups is that they often lack the domain knowledge to really inovate. While it is true that they can through up a lot of new ideas, the hit/miss ratio will be high and companies with deeper domain knowledge are better able to exploit new ideas.
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sellinger wrote: companies with deeper domain knowledge are better able to exploit new ideas.
Well isn't this a matter of exploiting existing ideas versus innovating/creating those ideas then?
I think large companies sit around and wait until a small company shows promise with what they are doing, then jump on it, too, often with more resources.
"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. "
— Hunter S. Thompson
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Why?
Because they'll provide BACON to keep the code monkeys at work!
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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Before going bust under crippling bacon bills.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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ChrisElston wrote: bacon bills
Now there is a concept: bacon money. Spend it before you either eat it or it goes off...
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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But, but, but, buttie.
I'm sure the staff would all chip in, just to make sure the BACON, didn't run out.
ps. There are some mean spirited people here who may be of the t.o.f.u persuasion.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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In general it is small companies that allow you to be innovative, whether they are startups or not - simply because you can talk directly to the person who makes the decision and they understand what you are saying. The larger the company, the more layers of non-understanding you have to go through to get an idea started.
But innovation is not just about your output, to be truly innovative in terms of product needs a lot more than a good idea - it need a lot of money too. There are the costs of manufacture, marketing, advertising, sales - all of which are frequently tens or hundreds of times the development cost. This is where it takes a big company to back it and get it to the market.
I have seen quite a few good, innovative products that have got nowhere because the company concerned cannot afford to get it out there to teh attention of people. And quite a few that do very well, despite being completely useless. JML anyone?
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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