Beautiful ideas of the world’s most innovative firms
Great ideas can arrive in a moment of inspiration, plucked out of the ether fully formed. More often, though, the muses don’t pick up the phone. Innovation is mess and toil, and often found outside your four walls. “No matter who you are,” said tech pioneer Bill Joy, “most of the smartest people work for someone else.” The world’s most innovative firms, whose ideas are featured here, will always admit brilliance is harder than it looks
Curated By: Forbes
Adobe
Thinking inside the box
5-yr SaleS growth/ 5-yr total return: 33%/ 167%
What if someone gave you $1,000 to fund any idea you had? That’s what Adobe did with its Kickbox programme, which launched in late 2012. Employees are given a bright red box with a prepaid credit card, a Starbucks gift card, candy bars, exercises and instructions. After a training session they’re on their own. “Innovation can feel intangible, and I wanted to put something physical in people’s hands,” says Mark Randall, Adobe’s chief strategist. So far Adobe has distributed more than 1,100 boxes, and 24 ideas were good enough to get to the next level, where inventors receive the coveted blue box, with instructions specific to their idea. Two projects validated Adobe’s interest in buying stock-photo marketplace Fotolia. Another created Knowhow, an online learning platform for creatives
Thinking inside the box
5-yr SaleS growth/ 5-yr total return: 33%/ 167%
What if someone gave you $1,000 to fund any idea you had? That’s what Adobe did with its Kickbox programme, which launched in late 2012. Employees are given a bright red box with a prepaid credit card, a Starbucks gift card, candy bars, exercises and instructions. After a training session they’re on their own. “Innovation can feel intangible, and I wanted to put something physical in people’s hands,” says Mark Randall, Adobe’s chief strategist. So far Adobe has distributed more than 1,100 boxes, and 24 ideas were good enough to get to the next level, where inventors receive the coveted blue box, with instructions specific to their idea. Two projects validated Adobe’s interest in buying stock-photo marketplace Fotolia. Another created Knowhow, an online learning platform for creatives
