Creating organization wide impact through individual initiative. Hackdays and [in]cubator at LinkedIn via @prchg

1. Employee Driven Innovation
Creating organization wide impact
through individual initiative

2. About me
Prachi Gupta
Hackday Master
[in]cubator co-founder
Women in Technology co-founder
Engineering Manager at LinkedIn
 Twitter: @prchg  LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/prachigupta

3. Outline
• Innovation Basics
• Innovation at LinkedIn
• Jump start you own cycle

4. Let’s talk about innovation

5. innovation = invention ?

6. Invention:
Creation of a product or introduction of
a process for the first time.

7. Innovation:
Improving on or make significant
contribution to an existing product,
process or service.

8. Invention
Microprocessor

9. Invention
Microprocessor
Innovation
Smart phones

10. Invention
Glue
Paper

11. Invention
Glue
Paper
Innovation
Post-it notes

12. Who is an innovator ?

13. You can’t get the right answer if you are
asking the wrong question.

14. Imagination is more important
than knowledge.
Albert Einstien

15. Everybody may not be an inventor,
but we are all innovators

16. sounds great, but …

17. So how do we make innovation a habit ?

18. Let me tell you the story of Hackday and
[in]cubator programs at Linke dIn

19. This is the story of scalable, best-of-breed
methods for driving innovation

20. This is the story of transformation:
of your career, company and the world

21. Outline
• Internal hackdays
• Public hackdays
• LinkedIn [in]cubator

22. Internal Hackdays

23. “A hack is a quick and dirty solution to a
real world problem. It’s never perfect or
complete, but it’s almost always clever and
insightful.”

24. One Friday per month we have hackday
Open to all LinkedIn employees

25. Use the day to work on anything you want
Submit your hack on an
internal website

26. Present the hack to the
whole company
Executive staff acts as Judges
3 wins get you the title of Hackday Master

27. www.linkedinlabs.com
Internal hackday winners and experimental projects

28. inMaps
Visualize your professional network

29. Year in Review
See who changed jobs in the last year.
"The best networking email you'll get all year" (CNN).

30. M.O.C.H.A
Skill translation and job search tool for Veterans
Presented to Dr. Jill Biden & Aneesh Chopra (former US CTO)

31. Public Hackdays

32. eat hack sleep

33. Year round events; variety of locations and themes
http://hackday.linkedin.com/

34. Open to hackers from all over the world
24 hours non-stop hacking

35. Food, Drinks & Yoga

36. Industry leaders, investors and local celebrity judges

37. Prizes!

38. I built a great hack.
How do I get it to production ?

39. LinkedIn [in]cubator

40. A chance to work exclusively on your idea
for 1-3 months

41. Created by a group of Hackday Masters

42. [in]cubator History
 Motivation: an official path from hackday to production
 Inspired by startup incubators and accelerators
 Incorporates learnings from a number of other
companies that had similar programs.

43. [in]cubator was the first [in]cubator project

44. Happens once per quarter
Open to all LinkedIn employees

45. Submit proposals on internal [in]cubator site

46. [in]cubator Proposal
 Description
 Team members
 Timeline
 Proof of concept or prototype
 Success metrics
 Risks, competitors
 Technical details

47. No one will be ever be assigned to an [in]cubator project.
It's up to the team to convince anyone they need to join.

48. Top teams present to the execs

49. Judging Criteria
 Impact: what value does this project bring to LinkedIn?
 Feasibility: how hard is this to build? What are the risks?
 Timeline: can v1 be done in 3 months?
 Team ability: can this team pull it off?

50. Open to almost any type of project
 New products
 New revenue lines
 Internal tools
 Infrastructure/technology improvements
 HR processes
 New training programs
 Philanthropic programs

51. Why all this matters
 Learning
 Motivation
 Innovation

52. 1. Learning

53. In a 24 hour hackday,
you can learn more about building products and about
yourself than in a year of university classes

54. Hackday, [in]cubator = Learning
 Rapid prototyping
 New technologies, libraries, techniques
 Team formation, project management
 Trade-offs, scheduling, focus
 Sales pitch, design, marketing
 Stamina

55. Hacking regularly will make you better at your job

56. 2. Motivation

57. Money can’t buy happiness

58. Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose
Dan Pink
The surprising science of innovation

59. Hackday, [in]cubator = Motivation
 You can't buy motivation
 For creative roles (programmers, designers), money reduces
motivation (mo' money, mo' problems)
 Hackday and [in]cubator = happier, more motivated, and more
productive employees

60. 3. Innovation

61. Genius is one percent inspiration,
ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison

65. Hackday, [in]cubator = Innovation
 All product development is trial and error
 Hackday and [in]cubator are trial and error at light speed
 Innovation is something you do, not something you have

66. Final Thoughts

67. Innovation is a process

68. Even if not a single innovative project
ever came out of hackday or [in]cubator,
it would still be worth doing.

69. Kickstart your own Innovation cycle
 Design a program cadence that works for you
 Get Executive and management sponsorship
 Create a place for sharing ideas and collaboration
 Have dedicated workspace for teams away from their regular desk
 Find out what works for the culture in your organization

70. Give one day per month back to employees.
It will pay for itself many times over.

71. Thank You !
- from me and my fellow Innovators at LinkedIn
Email: praachee@gmail.com
Twitter: @prchg @LinkedInEng