Great idea , but i wonder how this would work for other companies:
a) This works for 37s because they have a somewhat don't care attitude. So if a customer quickly wants feature-x, they could respond with "We will look into it but won't guarantee anything". I am not telling that's wrong, but other companies might not have created the same image for themselves
b) Having 'Everyone' work on some other idea could be distracting. Especially Support.
c) Last, and i've heard this from a ceo, if the company dosen't accept the idea to be implemented, by that time employees might be so much interested in the idea that they might want to quit and startup their own with 'that' idea.
I think it's a great idea in concept as well but it seems likely based on the way it's described that Jason's project will move forward (because he's the CEO) and then the rest of the folks will have to battle it out to get their project funded ongoing.
In addition to allowing people to go off and do their own thing there also needs to be some sort of evaluation criteria set up or else you're going to have a bunch of annoyed people at the end of the process who worked hard then found out they didn't have a realistic chance to get funded.
a) That's not a "don't care" attitude as much as a product company attitude. Companies that respond to individual customers' "quickly want feature" requests are consultancies, and consultants can't as easily just take a month out of the calendar.
b) That's very much the point. You get to switch contexts completely and immerse yourself in the idea. Presumably they have their support and operations concerns covered by non-developers, and if there's an emergency, devs are around to deal with it.
c) Think about it for a minute: "As a CEO, I want my employees should keep their creativity under wraps, so they don't get inspired to quit". If some employees get an idea that doesn't fit 37S, but they believe enough in to give up the very comfortable life as 37S employees for it, then that's a good thing. Or at least, it's an unavoidable by-product of hiring brilliant people.
a) This works for 37s because they have a somewhat don't care attitude. So if a customer quickly wants feature-x, they could respond with "We will look into it but won't guarantee anything". I am not telling that's wrong, but other companies might not have created the same image for themselves
b) Having 'Everyone' work on some other idea could be distracting. Especially Support.
c) Last, and i've heard this from a ceo, if the company dosen't accept the idea to be implemented, by that time employees might be so much interested in the idea that they might want to quit and startup their own with 'that' idea.