08.24.09
The Google 80/20 Innovation Time Off Model
I’ve been thinking about Google’s Innovation Time Off Model – that which employees are expected/encouraged to spend about 20% of their time working on new things that don’t necessarily relate to your job functions. Quoting a New York Times article:
It sounds obvious, but people work better when they’re involved in something they’re passionate about, and many cool technologies have their origins in 20 percent time, including Gmail, Google News and even the Google shuttle buses that bring people to work at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
Here’s another blog that discusses more thoughts about the process.
Why have I been thinking about it? I have a group of really motivated students who love to “play” with computers – be it programming, building up, playing with the operating system… and often only the kids who get their work done early have the time to do this – or kids blow off class work because another kid who DID get done early is doing something that is far more interesting. Understanding that I want ALL kids to have the opportunity to innovate, I’ve decided that maybe I can implement this rule in my classroom. It should be easy to do – pick the day where they are the most rambunctious, the least likely to try hard at “class work”, and then insist that they do something new and creative. If you didn’t already guess, that’s Friday for most teachers.
So this year, Fridays are time off to innovate, Google style. I’ll report back here how it works for me this year. I’ll be asking my students to create a wiki to track their projects (whether they work alone, or in “grouplets”).
