Innovation? Yeah, I got you

As part of Engineers Week at work mid-February, an internal innovation “Kickstarter” contest was launched where everyone got fake investment money and anyone could seed invention investment ideas. Inventions needed to include machine learning as part of the design and as an inventor, you had to submit a short presentation defining your idea to elicit investment funds. Prizes go to the top inventions AND the top investors at the end of the month-long contest.

What a super cool idea!

So of course, my highly competitive nature jumped into overdrive and I immediately dove in as an investor, spending my $500 within the first week. As Engineers Week progressed, I hit another event, introduce a girl to engineering. By the end of that day I was wired and inspired. That evening, I mentally came back around to the Kickstarter contest and realized what had been subconsciously bothering me…. I had instantly wrote myself out of the inventor side of the competition?!? WTF.

I've thought on this a lot since then as to why this happened. I'd say root of this is because I’ve never thought of myself as the "techie" or the "avionics buff" that can just see all the end customer problems and how we can solve them.

You know what else? After watching invention posts on the google community website for over a week, I clearly wasn’t the only one in this boat of self-sabotage. As of this writing (and 2 more weeks remaining in contest) there are ~40 invention ideas. From what I can tell? All submitted by gentlemen.

<GRRR> I will be DAMNED if the ladies don’t represent. So I sat there that night determined to submit an invention.

Guess what?

I submitted 2! Are they techie-avionics-new-product cool? Nope, not at all. They are outta left field, internally focused but directly relevant to managing and improving our employee engagement. They are REAL, short-term possible to develop and based on my conservative estimates, they could drive $30M year-over-year savings.

Innovation? Yeah, I got you. I’m at the table and I’m ready to play.