March 2008 -- Intrapreneurship at HP's Mobile and Media Systems Lab

[Sue Klein Lebeck]

March 2008

Intrapreneurship at HP's Mobile and Media Systems Lab
Nina Bhatti, Principal Scientist, HPLabs


Join us as our feature presenter, Nina Bhatti, shares her experiences as an innovator and an innovation leader within HPLabs. An energetic scientist and intrepreneur, Nina's research interests include web/multimedia server performance, networking and distributed systems, and mobile systems and technologies. Nina and her mobile technologies team have developed some unusual applications -- including a novel color-matching technology that turns any camera-equipped phone into a tool for retailers, healthcare providers, and beauty-product shoppers.

Want to find more? Join us for the conversation!

[Sue Klein Lebeck]

Notes and Gems....

March 2008

Intrapreneurship at HP's Mobile and Media Systems Lab
Nina Bhatti, Principal Scientist, HPLabs

During Nina’s feature presentation, I noted these observations on innovation and innovation culture as it plays out in a large engineering organization. Nina offers loads of great insights and advice. Enjoy!


Innovation is a labor of love.
- You must care about the mission of the organization, to be able to express it in solutions
- An innovative challenge is bigger than you can create on your own. You must move out of your comfort zone

Choose an appropriate innovation challenge.
- Find a problem that you can solve
- A high-leverage innovation is a revenue repeater, one which can generate brand loyalty and attract sales of adjacent products
- When possible, start with a customer, and give the customer access to the process
- Run with something you can manage

Get technical expertise on board.
- When working with engineers
- do some technical homework; you must develop sufficient domain expertise
- offer what you are looking for as a technical challenge
- Find people whose passions and interests are aligned with your project;
people welcome additional challenges they find to be fun and engaging

Get sponsorship.
- Get sponsorship from someone at a high level, to help you to gain access to resources
- Get any needed managerial support as you cross silos
- Give all your sponsors lots of credit

Build an effective team.
- Create a team of people who
- cross disciplines
- are fun
- are respectful of each other
- Do not allow disrespectful people in your project, no matter how smart they are, as they will alienate the other team members;
you need trust in your group in order to get through the tough times

Respect the energies that are present.
- To be a successful innovator, you must understand the landscape and the politics of the arena you are operating in
- People are not stupid – there is always a reason for how they are doing something
- Honor people’s resistance, and then work to overcome it
- Don’t attach to uncooperative groups

Be fearless, and keep the faith.
- Create a sense and energy that it will happen, and it will
- Don’t be intimidated, and don’t give up
- Build goodwill and credibility

Essential and powerful practices.
- Borrow technologies from other departments, as needed
- High-profile demos are powerful
- Always be sure your stakeholders look good

Intrapreneurship is essential to an organization.
- Realize that organizations rely on intrapreneurship;
no one may be able to tell you to do what you are doing, but they will appreciate a good result
- Paradoxically, a compelling innovation project can have a stabilizing effect
- it can engage and retain talent and passion
- it can keep people focused through organizational and other types of change