We at One Long House have always encouraged projects outside of client work. Deemed Incubator Projects, our goal is to actually get OLH time spent to 50/50—50% of time spent on client work, and 50% spent on projects we come up with on our own. Ideally some of those will make money, some will be pro-bono, and some will fail (nothing wrong with that). It’s our way of keeping our skills sharp, our gears well-lubricated, and giving back.

There’s a nice article in Behance’s The 99 Percent about encouraging daylighting for productivity. As always, Google seems pretty damn progressive:

Google has taken measures to encourage outside interests, enacting the 70/20/10 rule, which allows employees to spend 20% of their time on “Innovation time off” pursuing their own ideas that relate to Google and then 10% of their time on stuff completely unrelated to Google.  This could be reading a book, drawing in Photoshop, or going to a museum.  By doing this, Google gains a loyal employee by allowing them to do whatever they want without Big Brother looking over their shoulder.  At the same time, it captures innovative thinking due to random stimulation.

If you have any ideas you want to share with us—and collaborate on getting them done—drop a line.