Non-Commissioned Work
In going with my self-imposed theme this week of creativity, here's an article from Catalystspace from like a year ago. It was something that someone talked about at Catalyst last year (so, yeah, less than a year ago) - probably Daniel Pink who wrote the article (and a book called DRIVE - I think I have it here - I need to read it soon). might have been Seth Godin talking about Lynchpin (I'll be reading that this week, so...expect to hear soon.
Anyway, the idea is that smart companies give some percentage of their time to "non-sanctioned" work - that is, stuff that's not on the schedule, stuff that the employees just "want to figure out." The article begins with two guys who won a Nobel prize for science for a Friday Night non-commissioned project that they were fascinated with. More to the point, check out the article for what Google has done from the beginning.
So...life is full of stuff we HAVE to do. I look at my calendar and see lots of stuff I HAVE to do and a lot of them are things I WANT to do, too. But, of course, many are just things I HAVE to do. But I try to build in some time (even in my "work day") to do some things that have nothing to do with anything - but I'm passionate about them and I WANT to do them. And I've had a number of those things spill over into the things I have to do, too.
So...unlock your creative side.
Anyway, the idea is that smart companies give some percentage of their time to "non-sanctioned" work - that is, stuff that's not on the schedule, stuff that the employees just "want to figure out." The article begins with two guys who won a Nobel prize for science for a Friday Night non-commissioned project that they were fascinated with. More to the point, check out the article for what Google has done from the beginning.
So...life is full of stuff we HAVE to do. I look at my calendar and see lots of stuff I HAVE to do and a lot of them are things I WANT to do, too. But, of course, many are just things I HAVE to do. But I try to build in some time (even in my "work day") to do some things that have nothing to do with anything - but I'm passionate about them and I WANT to do them. And I've had a number of those things spill over into the things I have to do, too.
So...unlock your creative side.
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