Article Review 3: Innovation and Leadership

Article review one: Innovative and creative leadership.

Name of article: The Eight Pillars of Innovation

Name of journal: Think Quarterly: The Innovation Issue

Name of author(s): Susan Wojcicki 

When and how did you locate this article? I located this article on November ^3rd 2012 and found it through google.

Two paragraph synopsis of what you learned in this article:

This article was written by one of the first Google employees and is about ways they stay innovative. She talks about how much the company has grown over the years and how they have been able to do that through creative innovation. She says it is always a struggle to make the decision whether to invest in a new product or put money towards improving something that is already there. She then goes on to talk about the Eight Pillars of Innovation. According to her these are: Have a mission that matters, Think big but start small, Strive for continual innovation, not instant perfection, Look for ideas elsewhere, Share everything, Spark with imagination, fuel with data, Be a Platform, and Never fail to fail.

How will you apply this knowledge to your professional development?  Though these principles were about an internet search engine I feel it can be applied to almost any profession. Having a mission that matters really stood out to me because in TR we often work at agencies that have mission statements and like she states it is important that it matters. If we don’t understand or care about our mission statement it is meaningless. Looking for ideas elsewhere was another I could really relate to because I often look for ideas for different programs and activities through other sources and try to change it a bit to make it my own.

Would you recommend this article for other TR students?  Why or why not?  Yes, because it provides another angle of looking at TR and also it helps to break innovation down into a way that we can see how it can relate to us.