IBM Uses Internal Kickstarters To Pick Projects 40
alphadogg writes "IBM is readying its fourth internal Kickstarter-like crowdfunding effort over the past year or so to inspire employees to innovate and collaborate, often across departments and the globe. According to IBM Research member Michael Muller, IBM has embraced the crowdfunding model popularized in recent years by Kickstarter, Indiegogo and hundreds of other such platforms that match up creators and financial backers from among the masses. But IBM's 'behind-the-firewall' form of crowdfunding, for which Muller has coined the term 'enterprise crowdfunding,' is unique in that it isn't open to the public. In an experiment held in the third quarter of last year, 500 Watson Research Center employees were each given $100 to invest exclusively in colleagues' proposals, which ranged from procuring a 3D printer to setting up a disc golf course to recording and sharing seminars."
Sounds Good In Theory (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like a good way to make employees feel they have some say in what the company does. I wish more places did this, unless they simply scrap the data afterwards and management vetoes the winning projects.
That did not start at IBM (Score:4, Interesting)
All your idea are belong to us!
The first time I encountered the above phenomenon I was at my sophomore year.
During one of the many brainstorming sessions we had with our mentor I blurb out (at that time) a very outrageous idea. The idea was so outrageous that even the mentor was visibly taken aback somewhat.
5 months down the road that mentor applied for a patent based on that outrageous idea of mine, and of course, my name wasn't appearing anywhere in the patent application.