Success on the Side ⇥ american.com

Today’s “Blue Sky” news reminded me of this surprisingly good 2009 article by Ben Casnocha of the American Enterprise Institute:

3M implemented a groundbreaking policy called the 15-percent-time rule: regardless of their assignments, 3M technical employees were encouraged to devote 15 percent of their paid working hours to independent projects. “Most of the inventions that 3M depends upon today came out of that kind of individual initiative,” says Bill Coyne, retired senior vice president of research and development.