(84c) Innovation As a Pathway for Industry Career Enhancement

Most organizations actively solicit new ideas, and most career professionals have knowledge, competencies and interests that extend beyond their current job assignment.    Actively engaging in “innovation” is a means to extend one’s role and visibility in the organization, and to extend one’s network.   It also provides a mechanism which drives lifelong learning and expansion of knowledge base, by providing a justification and outlet for professional society involvement (AIChE) and conference attendance, as well as reading of technical literature.  

At Shell, innovation has been formalized into a Gamechanger^TM process, which provides support for innovation and investigation of technology and opportunities beyond one’s current job assignment.  Informal “Hunters” networks also exist in a number of locations, created to facilitate matching of ideas with identified challenges and new opportunities.  These networks provide initial screening and enhancement for inputs to the formal idea review process.   Network collaboration provides the energy and support often needed to enable the pursuit of new ideas and opportunity, despite barriers and inertia that can act to suppress organizational growth.      

This seminar will present an overview of corporate innovation methodologies and the use of networks and online communities to encourage development and pursuit of new ideas.    It will also examine how innovation can be used to grow one’s personal network, and broaden one’s skill base and value to the organization.  Finally, it will conclude with a review of grand challenges for chemical engineering in future energy and chemicals, which provides the impetus for new idea generation and resultant opportunities.