Some time ago, 3M was in the news about the way they used “social networking” internally to generate new ideas. This electronic suggestion box generated an “impressive” 700 suggestions in only 2 weeks, according to news site cio.com. And of course, every suggestion is welcome, but I’d like to put the 3M efforts in a somewhat larger perspective. Then 700 ideas in 2 weeks means about 18,200 ideas per year. Now 3M has some 75,000 employees, so this implies 0.24 ideas per employee per year. So do we still think this is impressive? Furthermore, cio.com mentioned that the ideas were submitted by some 1,200 employees, so by 1.6% of all employees. Cio.com published the article to illustrate a “best practice” in employee involvement. Honestly, I’m not very impressed. Are you? (more…)
