“Our model is to increase employee freedom as we grow, rather than limit it, to continue to attract and nourish innovative people, so we have a better chance of long-term continued success.”
— Netflix CEO Reed Hastings
To become more innovative, companies need to cultivate the key elements necessary for innovation— one of which is an innovation-friendly culture. To build a corporate climate that truly fosters innovation, you must be able to encourage smart risks and energize your workforce. Netflix, one of Fortune Magazine’s 100 fastest growing companies of 2010, does exactly this by promoting a culture of freedom and responsibility from the top down. The company’s commitment to these principles goes far beyond just a values statement chiseled in marble.
• Freedom — Netflix does not have a vacation policy and doesn’t track vacation time. Employees may take as many vacation days as they feel they need. When it comes to expenses and business travel, the only rule is to “act in Netflix’s best interests.”
• You Have to Believe — Netflix also requires that all employees take responsibility for contributing to the company’s success. High performers are substantially rewarded and the merely adequate are quickly let go.
Sound harsh? According to Hastings, “We need a culture that supports rapid innovation and excellent execution. Both are required for continuous growth. There is tension between these two goals: between creativity and discipline.”
Since last fall, the news has been dominated by tales of woe: companies going under, layoffs, downsizing, restructuring, billions of dollars lost. It’s no wonder that organizations today feel handcuffed to the point that innovation takes a back seat to simply staying afloat. But a few companies are bucking the trend and seem to be more focused on growth and innovation than ever before. One of these companies is Google.
In the last 3 months alone, Google has announced groundbreaking new projects such as Google Voice, the Chrome operating system, and Google Wave. These projects, which have been brewing for as many as five years now, are major growth opportunities for a company whose core search business is beginning to plateau. While some companies have chosen to stop work on major, untested new projects, Google has opted to charge forward and is planting a number of important seeds for its future. Will all of these new projects be runaway successes? Probably not. Will at least one of them take off? No one can be sure, but given Google’s track record, it’s very likely. We’ve all read the snippet about Google launching its search business during the dot-com bust in 2000. Read the rest of this entry »
Plastic Logic’s electronic reader may be the ‘Kindle Killer,’ but for many, this little innovation will be quite the savior.
The new eReader will provide users with access to Barnes & Noble’s abundant eBook store—this means more than 700,000 titles at their fingertips, while Amazon’s Kindle provides only 300,000 titles. But the thing that positions this new eReader toe-to-toe with the Kindle—and has eBookers stirring—is that it will provide wireless access through AT&T’s wide 3G network; giving users unlimited access to new books in many more locations, ultimately providing added mobility. Read the rest of this entry »
This week, Condé Nast launched the inaugural issue of WIRED UK. Now our fellow Innovators, Futurists, and Tech Geeks on the other side of the pond can get their monthly dose of what’s emerging and new.
The first issue of WIRED UK features a cover story on Futurism—highlighting predictions of the next 40 years from a host of world-renowned futurists, including Peter Schwartz, Faith Popcorn, and futurethink‘s Lisa Bodell. Futurists were asked to make predictions on a range of topics including Brain-Enhancing Drugs, Artificial Intelligence, Food Cloning, and Electro-Sex, among others. It’s an interesting glimpse into the possibilities of the future.
Just a week after launching the Kindle2, Amazon has released an iPhone/iPod touch application that allows users to enjoy the Kindle collection of over 240,000 eBooks right from their device of choice.
The Kindle app is free, and is a really interesting launch from Amazon’s standpoint. While the eReading experience on an iPhone or iPod touch is nowhere what it is on the Kindle, many users may now avoid spending $359 on the Kindle2 device and still purchase and use eBooks through Amazon. But Fast Company is quick to point out a couple of reasons why the iPhone/iPod Touch is no replacement for the Kindle:
[T]he Kindle device itself probably won’t be threatened by the iPhone app. For two main reasons. The first is display technology: Though the e-ink screen used on the Kindle isn’t the most amazing out there, it’s certainly a rather closer experience to reading a book than viewing text on an iPhone. Read the rest of this entry »
Meet Amazon’s just-announced Kindle2. The device is an update to the Kindle, which launched in November of 2007. The Kindle2 is, at its heart, very much the same device as its predecessor. The most notable difference in the updated model is a sleeker new form factor, which incorporates improvements to many of the details users used to complain about. For example, there are now two sets of page turn buttons on either side of the screen, allowing users to hold the device in either hand. Other improvements include faster page turns, improved battery life, and a text-to-speech option which lets users hear their books read out loud (albeint in a roboticized voice). The device still retails for $359, and all open orders for the original Kindle will be fulfilled with the updated model instead. Read the rest of this entry »
“Imagine if you were all sitting down to your morning coffee, turning on your home computer to read the day’s newspaper…”
So begins this news segment from 1981—a report on early attempts at bringing the news online. It’s an entertaining clip to watch today, as the newspaper business crumbles before our very eyes due to the popularity of Web-based (free) delivery channels.
Granted, this clip is 27 years old at this point, but it’s fun to see how drastically things have changed since then. Not only do we now consume our news (and many other forms of media) online; we carry it in our pockets on iPhones, Blackberries, and Kindles. We “tweet” links to one another and have hundreds of publications feeding their content to us via aggregators and RSS readers. (Full disclosure: I actually stumbled upon the clip by reading a friend’s Facebook status containing the link, which he had discovered via Twitter.) Read the rest of this entry »
“It’s like ‘Music to My Eyes.'” So begins the FAQ on MTV’s recently launched MTV Music site.
The site is an easy-to-navigate trove of nearly every music video ever to play on the network. Unlike MTV’s main Website, MTV Music isn’t cluttered with reality-TV updates, and celebrity gossip. The site is dedicated to allowing visitors to easily search for high-quality music videos from nearly any artist or band. Read the rest of this entry »
Google released a beta version of its new browser, Google Chrome, a few weeks ago. Some of us here at futurethink have been using it since its launch, so we thought we’d put together some first impressions and thoughts.
But first, some background. Chrome launched at the beginning of September, and was publicized with the launch of a little comic book that details its birth and development. The comic is an entertaining read, if, of course, you have any interest in how a Web browser works. If not, here’s the abridged version (and an overview of some of Chrome’s key features): Read the rest of this entry »
GOOD Magazine, which we’ve been enjoying since it launched in 2006, recently launched a new Website and a revised subscription plan. The magazine used to charge $20 for a 6-issue annual subscription. 100% of the subscription price went to charity, and got the subscriber into a year’s worth of GOOD events and parties.
The new Website is focused on the publication’s active community. Users can create a free account and profile, and then comment on blog posts, create original content, and get invitations to GOOD events and parties. The magazine has also changed its subscription plan—users can pay-what-you-wish model. Subscibers can pay as little as $1 for an annual subscription, though $20 will get you free access to events. Like before, all subscription proceeds go to the charity of the subscriber’s choice (out of 12 pre-selected non-profit organizations). Read the rest of this entry »
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