Marissa Mayer, former software engineer and later on as VP of various divisions at Google, now appointed CEO of Yahoo, shared "Nine Principles of Innovation" on Fast Company. What do you think about number three on the list, "A License to Pursue Your Dreams?"
Mayer's principles focus on her relationship with Google since 2000 where engineers could spend 20 percent of the time working on whatever they want.
One of the ideas Mayer cited includes a researcher who wrote a program to collect news following September 11. Mayer and her coworker discovered the tool would be cool to add to - hence the addition of more news sources turned into a great product, Google News.
In my profile of Imaginatik, developer of an innovation software platform called Innovation Central helps companies uncover ideas that also can turn into new products. Imaginatik's software will measure innovation value, including your return on investment and value brought forward by each of your projects and challenge teams.
Taking the example from Marissa Mayer and Google, more situations that enable ideas to come about are possible if we can manage it. But we have to dream.
Image copyright Andy Cox/Getty Images 2012.