What Are You Doing to Be Innovative?

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Recently I ran across a concept that is employed at Google that was new to me - the concept of 20% time. Basically, Google encourages their engineers to take one day a week (or 20% of their time) to work on side projects not directly related to their normal job functions. Many innovations have grown out of this concept, including things like Gmail and Google Reader.

How does this apply to the world of email marketing and ecommerce? I think it's a lesson for all of us who work in this business to set aside time for innovation. So often, we're a one or two person staff who are trying to do everything we can to keep all of our current marketing initiatives afloat, to the point that we never have any time to try anything new.

It might not be practical to take an entire day to try new things, but could we set aside a half day? How about two hours a day? Some amount of time set aside to get out of the rut, and learn, explore, and experiment about ideas we have or things we're passionate about.

What are some of the things you could do with your 20% time as a marketer?

• Testing - Do some testing on new creative, subject lines, offers, something.


• Twitter - If you haven't even looked at, take this time to do so.


• Blogging - Use it to break the monotony, and to talk about what you're passionate about with your brand. (like what I'm using my 20% time for right now)


• Brainstorm - Go outside and talk a walk. Take a small pad and pencil with you. Think of off the wall ideas you could try.


• Fix something - take the time to look at a process that doesn't quite work for your business and think of how to make it better.

These are just a few things I've done or thought of myself. Really, it could be anything that is something productive and that you're passionate about; anything to take you out of the day-to-day grind and get you innovating with your marketing.