Innovation

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Innovation

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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October 11, 2012 at 9:32 pm

#283012

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Innovation

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derek.colley SSCrazy Eights Points: 8040 More actions · Answer 1

Absolutely, it's of prime importance to me. My core employable skill is SQL Server and that's what I do for a living, but I often have ideas on things I want to do and find myself (in my own time) haring off on a tangent to create a product, or module, or simply test something I've read about or discovered. Sometimes these 'BIMBs' (bee in my bonnet), as I call them, peter away to nothing but sometimes things turn out really well.

My recent BIMBs include:

- Coding up 'Conway's Game of Life' using VBScript, SQL Server and SVG (scalable vector graphics). This went brilliantly and worked without a flaw. I had some ideas about making a 3d version using a variation of Conway's rules, but due to slow rendering of the cuboids in my browser, I left it here.

- Web page creation for an idea I had, using purely HTML5 / CSS3 and SVG (as more of an exercise to test my skills for HTML5 coding than anything else)

- I've ordered a 'Makey Makey' (see url: www.makeymakey.com and have some exciting ideas about customising it to make my home environment more interactive.

etc, etc.

---

Note to developers:
CAST(SUBSTRING(CAST(FLOOR(NULLIF(ISNULL(COALESCE(1,NULL),NULL),NULL)) AS CHAR(1)),1,1) AS INT) == 1
So why complicate your code AND MAKE MY JOB HARDER??!:crazy:

Want to get the best help? Click here https://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/forum-etiquette-how-to-post-datacode-on-a-forum-to-get-the-best-help (Jeff Moden)
My blog: http://uksqldba.blogspot.com
Visit http://www.DerekColley.co.uk to find out more about me.

Doctor Who 2 SSCrazy Eights Points: 8194 More actions · Answer 2

In my company, innovation is sort of important. Not outright important, and not totally unimportant; just sort of important.

Rod

lionfan91 SSCrazy Eights Points: 8794 More actions · Answer 3

I work for a US Air Force organization and am pretty lucky that innovation is really important here. The technical advisor (top civilian) for our group wants to consolidate a lot of the disparate business practices throughout the group into the application that I develop. So he wants to automate where at all possible and centralize the functionality into this single enterprise-wide application as long as it makes sense. I also have a ton of freedom in developing this application. I've been here 12 years and know a lot about the functional side of what the group does, so I can balance the functional requirements with the technical solutions quite well. In fact I'm usually given some general requirements and then am off-and-running developing the functionality how I think they'll want it to work. 90%+ of the time I'm on target. This concept has allowed us to do some really cool things in a relatively short time period.

gmach SSC Veteran Points: 209 More actions · Answer 4

At my previous employer innovation was actually frowned upon. As an example, under previous management we had worked towards a web based knowledge management system, with our policies, procedures, break / fix, etc, all put into a SharePoint site. With management turnover in 2009 the new standard was cutting edge 1990s technology - let's put it all in a massive MS Word document and email it to everyone when there was an update! I just left there this year....grrrr.

My current employer, though, sincerely values innovation and I'm thrilled to be here.

TravisDBA SSCoach Points: 15780 More actions · Answer 5

Bill Gates once said "Microsoft is not about greed. It's about innovation and fairness." Coming from him, I'm not sure whether that statement is true or just hypocritcal.:-D

"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"

Andrew Kernodle SSCertifiable Points: 5314 More actions · Answer 6

Hm. At my current workplace, management isn't particularly computer-savvy, which has benefits and limitations when it comes to innovation :-). On one hand, things tend to be a matter of "if it gets the job done, it's good enough" as far as solution design goes, so I essentially have my pick of how solutions are developed (working in an itty-bitty shop lessens the pressure there quite a bit!). This has lead to some out-of-the-box thinking, like designing a once-every-four-hour e-mail notification routine for management to know that the servers are still up and running, which then got a weather report attached to it that's called in from PowerShell (in the event that a power-failure-inducing storm is inbound; we sadly don't have much in the way of backup power), or a shipping rate calculator that utilizes C# and PowerShell to generate data for our SQL Server to ingest and do comparisons on (SQL Server is best at handling data; web API calls, procedural loops, and text formatting gets done by languages that are better at those things).

On the other hand, that same lack of computer savviness can lead to problems, too. Management often doesn't know exactly where my limits are in regards to programming, so if there's something that can't be done (like getting more information from our distributors than they can provide), it gets a little messy trying to explain the situation fully. But the good comes with the bad, as it goes.

- 😀

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004340 More actions · Answer 7

Having time to innovate is a wonderful thing but what I'd really like to see is for people to actually learn the tools they're using so they don't have to spend so much time innovating a solution that's already available.

My favorite and, possibly, most outrageous example of such "innovation gone wild" is the fellow that submitted a CLR that he wanted me to install on one of our servers. It seems that he didn't know how to do a modulus in SQL Server so wrote a CLR to do it.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

mtillman-921105 SSCertifiable Points: 7156 More actions · Answer 8

I think my company rewards good ideas, but you have to know what upper management wants in order to find your way down the right path. I've gone down a few dead end roads, but that's to be expected: risks are taken and persistence pays. You're usually also learning, even as you go down the dead end road, so it's still useful.

The hardest part about coming up with new ideas is not when you first come to a company - you're the "fresh eyes" at that point. But after you've worked at the same place for years, it becomes more of a challenge, especially when you're doing basically the same types of tasks. I've been at the same company for 6 years now, so it's tougher for me to be creative than when I first started. But of course, new tech. can help with finding better ways to work.

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking

Miles Neale SSChampion Points: 13147 More actions · Answer 9

Yes, it is important. However we are business-driven not technology-driven so the business needs drive the wagon. We do try to inform the business teams about available and new technologies that they might use, but they call the shots for the most part.

And for me, as long as I have a compiler we will innovate. There is no other choice.

M

Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!

TravisDBA SSCoach Points: 15780 More actions · Answer 10

Jeff Moden (10/12/2012)
My favorite and, possibly, most outrageous example of such "innovation gone wild" is the fellow that submitted a CLR that he wanted me to install on one of our servers. It seems that he didn't know how to do a modulus in SQL Server so wrote a CLR to do it.

😛 It's either that or he was just trying to re-invent the wheel barrow simply because he could find one..:-D

"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"

Evil Kraig F SSC Guru Points: 100851 More actions · Answer 11

I find the idea of innovation to be interesting, and I'm primarily a developer, and I love to innovate and find new ways of performing some task. But generally, technology innovates to solve a requirement, not to simply invent something new (other than toys).

In most companies I've worked at I've never seen innovation be the primary driver of the technology department. (checks some NDAs) An example that everyone should know and love is Intel. Intel is an invention company that innovates the newest chips that technology uses. They solve particular issues in their R&D department. I'd like to add some of those people are amazing folks, I got the opportunity to interact with a few of them regularly on smoke breaks. However, there's something to keep in mind... Intel is primarily a chemical plant. Technology supports *that* innovation.

Technology itself is nothing more than a tool for most companies. Some companies which build tools for technology (Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, Cisko, etc) do innovate their tools for technology to use in their solutions, but the rest of us really don't innovate much. We use and apply to support the process of the business itself.

Innovation usually doesn't belong in the tech department for most businesses, as technology isn't really their business. They need to bring the tools together for the business to run more effeciently. I like a neat puzzle as much as the next person, and sometimes bringing these tools together in different ways, or unexpected usage of an existing tool (such as I occassionally do with SQL Server) are neat, but they're very rare in my experience.

- Craig Farrell

Never stop learning, even if it hurts. Ego bruises are practically mandatory as you learn unless you've never risked enough to make a mistake.

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Joe Johnson-482549 SSC Eights! Points: 916 More actions · Answer 12

Innovation is one of the primary values of my company. They truly believe that innovation provides break-through results. Some management still only give it lip service or think that innovation means doing something at all costs.

Being one of the values now is really good. I gave a presentation to my leadership a few of years ago on applying lean principles to software development and in the course of discussion talked about "Fed Ex" days.

We've now gotten buy-in for Fed Ex days that we call I-Days (Innovation Days) which we have at least once a quarter. Not all of the projects are stars, but there are enough that it makes it worthwhile.

We are very distributed though, so it is not a party environment, but more like show and tell.

Regards,

Joe