Are Listening Posts Underrated?
I had some interesting conversations over the past few weeks with my colleagues in the corporate innovation space. These are employees of large global corporations with relatively humble Silicon Valley operations: maybe just a few cubes tucked into a side office with perhaps the corporate logo in the window. Contrast this level of presence with Ford (300 employees, 2 buildings, 182,000 sq ft on expensive Page Mill Rd) or Samsung (2000 employees, 3 campuses, 1.5M sq ft spread across Mountain View, Santa Clara, and San Jose).
The colleagues I was meeting with run outposts, not development sites, and their primary purpose is to listen. If you judge a company’s engagement effort by the size of their local footprint, you might conclude that they are just dipping their toes in the water – not to be taken seriously. But perhaps this strategy is more effective? Here are a couple of reasons why outposts might work better than the more expensive development sites:
Cost. Outposts tend to have a half-dozen employees or less, some may even just rely on a single part-time, highly experienced scout holding down the fort (hint). This outpost wasn’t the CEO’s idea - it germinated a few layers below the “C” suite and had to make do with more modest funding as a result.
Leverage. With a small footprint in Silicon Valley, most of the heavy innovation lifting (i.e. the rapid prototyping, startup co-developing, venturing) will need to happen back home. That sounds depressing, but it can also be seen as a force multiplier for the outpost - labor is cheaper outside of Silicon Valley while subject matter expertise may be higher. Try hiring an experienced automotive engineer in Palo Alto and then do the same in Detroit. Which scenario is faster and cheaper? The nice side effect of this leverage is that you will also naturally transfer some knowledge (and culture) to the team back home – no CEO edict necessary.
Politics. A small listening post on a shoe-string budget will attract little attention from the empire builders back at headquarters. In fact, they might consider you a resource to help them advance their careers, especially if you let them think that, say, working with a particular startup was their idea.
Signal. This may sound counter-intuitive, but what are you signaling by maintaining a small, lean outpost in Silicon Valley? That you’re not serious? You might be sending the exact opposite signal if you know what you’re doing. The well-funded innovation centers here practice a ton of “innovation theater” – working to fill a never-ending array of demo slots to use for the next “learning expedition” visit from headquarters. These demos never go anywhere past the innovation center – they’re just serving as entertainment for visiting dignitaries! Startups are starting to catch on that not all funded PoC (Proof of Concept) projects are alike. Instead of working with the local innovation team, they’d much rather get connected to the business units back home – the team that is building the real products. If you're a startup working with Mercedes-Benz, Stuttgart beats Mountain View.
All of the above factors have another interesting benefit - they make your outpost more sustainable in the long run. A CEO’s pet innovation center project will attract a constant stream of arrows from the business units. Listening posts have more staying power because they support their organizations and create lasting impact.
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