Nokia had an informal rule that no one should eat lunch at their desk or go out for lunch. People were encouraged to eat in the subsidized cafeterias and to mix with people from outside their department. Such informal meetings across departments break silos and are beneficial in sharing ideas and understanding.

→ Systemic Innovation: 7 Areas 

An impromptu setting can help spark cross-pollination of ideas and team chemistry. When the Danish hearing-aid company Oticon discovered that spontaneous interactions between employees located on different floors were taking place on stairwells, the firm wisely broadened the stairs to encourage the multidisciplinary interchange.

→ 2 Catalysts of Creativity

When asked "How you systematize innovation?", Steve Jobs, the Founder of Apple, answered, "The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient.

"But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem. It's ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea."... More

→ The Jazz of Innovation: 11 Guiding Principles 

Browse, constantly search for new ideas and → inspiration: make constant browsing of journals, books, newspapers, Internet and other sources your habit and an integral part of your → corporate culture... More

→ Inspiring Culture: 5 Elements 

GE Work-Out "Town Meetings" gave the corporation access to an unlimited resource of imagination and energy of its talented employees. "Nobody wears a tie at our quarterly two-days meetings," says → Jack Welch." We take a coffee breaks for almost an hour sometimes so people can swap ideas. We bring in an outside speaker to every meeting – the heads of Wal-Mart, Pepsi-Cola, and Compaq. We have dinner together and drinks after eating. We run this place like a family grocery store."... More

→ Innovation-friendly Organization

Fun4Biz is a social network where people can build their → entrepreneurial creativity skills by participating in both serious and humorous contest ... >>>