Software for Your Head

PATTERN: ECOLOGY OF IDEAS

PROBLEM

You don't get the best ideas into the product.

It is a common holdover from the previous era to value ideas because of the source. Bosses at the turn of the last century were authority figures; their ideas were implemented by workers. The tendency to maintain a system that awards extra points to an idea from the boss seems entirely vestigial in the business of ideas. The authoritarian model, although successful when measured against earlier standards for building material things, is inadequate for intellectual properties.

Workers who simply follow orders will not create great IP products because IP consists of ideas. There is no special need for repetitive motion or for the unthinking followers who repeat the ...