What can Google teach us about nurturing our inner innovator? Larry Page and Sergey Brin ask Google employees to abide by a formula to keep their minds bubbling with ideas. “Every employee is meant to divide his or her time in three parts,” writes TIME reporter Adi Ignatius. “70% devoted to Google’s core businesses search and advertising; 20% on pursuits related to the core; and 10% on far-out ideas.” Some of the biggest innovations (free wi-fi for San Franciscans, Google Talk) come from the 10% of time spent. Google's idea of "time pacing" reportedly came from the book Time Pacing: Competiting in Markets that Won't Stand Still by Stanford's Kathy Eisenhardt and Shona Brown, now Google VP of Business Operations.
What would happen if all of us spent 10% of our work time devoted to creative projects? Would that actually make us more productive? More companies are finding the answer is, yes. Inspired by the MacDowell Colony, the isolated New Hampshire retreat that awards fellowships sought by novelists, filmmakers and composers, more companies including the SAS Institute are finding that allowing people to intermingle creativity with business can be great for work productivity. To read more about this, check out Joann S. Lublin’s “Nurturing Innovation” in Monday’s Wall Street Journal.
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