Jackie Danicki

Lunch at Techdirt Greenhouse was a much more elaborate affair this time around; the first one had consisted of lots of nice sandwich fixins, fruit, salad, and so forth. Delicious and simple. Perhaps it was the VC sponsorship from Accel, but this time there was a hot buffet with lots of nice food and salad, plus fruit and other goodies. I have to mention the food, being a Polack and all.

Hillary and I sat with Sprint’s Russ McGuire and Alignent’s Yusuf Shirazi while we ate. We had a good conversation, quite interesting and worthwhile. (I have to say, somewhat cattily, that I was relieved that nobody boring plopped themselves down at our table - always a risk in these situations. Also, I hope I’m never the boring one everyone else dreads having sit at their table.)

So I was taken aback when Yusuf got up after lunch and gave us all five minutes on how his company manages and measures innovation within corporations. The very idea struck me as downright backward, especially from someone who seemed as intelligent and sensible as Yusuf. From the Alignent website:

Alignent’s mission is to make every organization’s future product and technology planning highly visible, integrated and constantly connected to overarching business strategies and long-term decision making.

Alignent delivers the first and only software solution to support the established and disciplined process of roadmapping. Alignent’s solutions dynamically connect product and technology planning efforts across the company, empowering organizations to visualize, manage and communicate future directions within a single system. With Alignent, you can focus R&D efforts, foster cross-functional collaboration and align people around a unified plan of record that adapts in real-time to empower accurate, timely business decisions.

At the risk of sounding dismissive: Girl, please. I made some comment about how innovation is not something that can be rigidly planned and controlled - especially not if one wants the best outcome possible. Alan Bushell, a South African gentleman who was sitting next to me and is a veteran of the technology world, piped up and said exactly what needed to be said. To paraphrase: In his experience, the way you work with inventive people is to make space around them, break all the rules for them, and let go of any notions of corralling them with suffocating processes. I was thinking, “Hmm, sounds like how the pharma industry manages to get blockbuster drugs out of their people.” If a chemist rolls up to work at 2PM every day wearing sweats and swigging gin, but can come up with a Lipitor or a Viagra, you turn a blind eye. As it happens, Bushell has spent a fair amount of time working in pharmaceuticals, too.

The distinction between inventiveness and innovation is also an important one, and I hope to talk more with Bushell about this in future.

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