10 ways Startup Weekend can help your company break barriers to innovation

This past weekend I participated in Startup Weekend Tijuana 2. Some people asked me why I was participating in SW since I was one of the Co-Organizers.

Here are 10 reasons why your company should participate in Startup Weekend and break barriers to innovation:

1. I’m a competitor and don’t like sitting on the bench just watching the action
2. It provides me with an outlet to get my creative juices going
3. It helps me talk to GenY people (who are still in college or just got out) and see what they have in their heads
4. It helps me recruit people (getting down and dirty with them creates a bond)
5. It helps keep my mind sharp as you are competing against other people who might come up with something more innovative
6. It helps me practice my leadership and communication skills with people you have never met
7. It grants me access to all types of ideas that might play out in the real world
8. It grants me access to see how younger people work and collaborate
9. It helps me learn how other people solve problems
10. It helps me break my routine and work on projects I might never have thought off – (my team’s idea was about democratizing how unknown musical artists that play in bars are found and pushed)

In coming up with this list, I think it also applies to companies to want to develop their innovation breeding habits.

A companies barriers to innovation are plenty. One of them, is their insulation from the outside world. Entropy and inertia reign supreme when companies operate as they’ve always done. And that is why events like Startup Weekend, where development moves fast while collaborating with people you’ve never met, can help break those barriers.

If you are a company, why don’t you send a team of people to participate in SW? Wouldn’t you benefit from taping into new knowledge and collaboration sources? Why not organize one yourself? Do I think some of the other companies that helped co-organize and sponsor SWT see it the same way I do? Nope.

Break barriers to innovation

Collaboration opportunities are everywhere. More importantly, opportunity to collaborate with diverse types of people are out in the open. Just like people, companies have preference to collaborate with others just like them. And participating in events like SW is an opportunity to break out of your network and innovate.

Here are a few pics from the weekend:

Group photo at the end of the event

Our pitch

In development mode (I’m the one working in the mobile prototype)