Not everyone is equally comfortable with innovation, but everyone should be thinking about it more or less. Everyone needs to be willing to give it a whack now and then.
WSJ and MIT Sloan Management Review for the Business Insight Journal Report: Software Firm Is Open for Innovation, 2008-Jul-7, by Josh Hyatt:
Martin Myklos, MySQL chief, interviewed:
BUSINESS INSIGHT: Is there any way to organize a company for innovation? Build it into the structure of a business?
MR. MICKOS: We don't have an innovation team or group. Innovation is so central to us that everybody does it. Our innovations are not meeting-centric. We prefer trial and error, getting scrutiny and commentary from everyone.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: Does innovation always have to be informal? Is that the only way it can happen?
MR. MICKOS: I think so. I think that innovation happens in encounters when you encounter other people and also when you step over some boundary and you combine ideas that haven't been combined before. The original innovation moment always has the aspect of being chaotic.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: Couldn't a potential competitor use your code as a starting point to get into the business -- and crush you?
MR. MICKOS: Even if someone studied us in tiny detail, I don't think they could really match us. We've shown them our code, and nobody has been able to measure up against what we have.
BUSINESS INSIGHT: Why is that?
MR. MICKOS: Even if I showed you my DNA, you wouldn't know how to become me.
