Ideas flourish when a company's culture encourages them to blossom.

Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of coming up with a great idea that could make a substantial difference in a company's fortunes only to have it disappear in a black hole of apparent indifference. It doesn't have to be that way.
Some companies are lean, mean, workin' machines and darn proud of it. But they may leave an innovative employee no time in the fully packed workday to develop that great idea. That doesn't have to happen, either.
Surrounded by those atmospheres, employees tend to shut up, keep their ideas to themselves and just do their basic jobs.
Contrast those pictures with a company that opens a special Web site - www.gamechanger.nl - and asks:
"Are you dreaming of innovative technologies you can't wait to develop?
"Do you have an idea that is so 'out of the box' that nobody is willing to fund it?
"Do you believe that there should always be money for a great idea?
"If your answer is 'yes,' then GameChanger may be your partner."
The site belongs to Shell International Exploration and Production, and GameChanger has paid big dividends as a stand-alone profit center for the company.
GameChanger
GameChanger is the brainchild of Tim Warren, former director of Shell E&P Technology. The industry had gone through hard times with low product prices and massive cutbacks. Those times were particularly hard on research and development (R&D) divisions. "Tim Warren conceived GameChanger, which was a brilliant idea to put the spark back into R&D," said GameChanger Tom Riddle with Shell.
Shell and many other companies lost much of their ability to do basic research, research on pure ideas. Instead, exceptional scientists went to work to find specific solutions to specific problems.
Shell started the GameChanger program about 5 years ago to encourage big ideas. It's not a suggestion box. It doesn't ask employees to look for a-nickel-a-box savings by substituting plastic paper clips for metal clips.
It looks for ideas that have the potential to make a big improvement in profitability for the business or open opportunities for growth.
The ideas fall into two basic categories. One set is new technology ideas that may open a path to new, high-impact opportunities in exploration and production - solutions begging for implementation.
The other group consists of new strategic visions that can impact exploration and production - opportunities waiting for solutions.
Getting ideas
Employees typically submit the ideas, but the program is open to anyone. "We take ideas from anyone, anywhere, anytime," Riddle said.
"Sometimes Shell people bring in ideas with external partnerships. There's always money in the system for a great idea. We want to have everyone's ideas," he added.
Once an idea is submitted, the GameChanger team calls the contributor into the office for an informal talk.
Shell has several panel members on the GameChanger team, but it only takes two of them to make the decision to move forward with a project.
The team consists of people with a variety of research-level technical and business skills, all the way from physicists and engineers to MBAs and attorneys.
Accepting ideas from people within or outside the company is just one way the program works. That's the passive mode, but it also features an active mode.
Under the active program, Riddle said, Shell experts sit down and look for gaps in the company's direction and for areas that are fertile for stimulation of the company and its operations in the future.
The company's workshops are set up to develop ideas to fill in those gaps. Shell workshop members plan with universities, institutes, service partners and anyone else who might be able to help the company with balanced growth. Shell has worked with Russian Association scientists and funded research on problems they could potentially solve.
To help focus those ideas, Shell has posted on its Web site an extensive list of key words. Those key words represent the kinds of projects in the Shell research portfolio.
For example, key words for subsurface operations cover such topics as stratigraphic prediction 3-D, fault and seal structures and unconventional exploration techniques. Key words for surface and production applications include water handling, smart well systems and novel drilling technologies.
Nearly 600 solid proposals have been submitted for consideration, or about 120 a year. That's a track record most companies can't match.
Submitting proposals
Shell employees submit most of the proposals, and the relationship between the company and its employees is typical of many businesses.
When a person outside the company submits an idea and the Shell panel accepts the project, the proposer must sign an agreement to keep the technology confidential, but it's public for Shell. That protects Shell if it already is working on a similar concept. If Shell decides not to pursue the technique or technology, it waives all rights, according to information on the GameChanger Web site.
When the panel accepts an idea, it agrees to mature the concept and negotiates terms and conditions for development. It also appoints a technical expert as the Shell partner on the project. This part of the process clarifies the idea.
Once the idea and the development concept is clear, the idea goes before an extended panel of Shell experts, and the panel members decide whether it deserves funding. If it is a GameChanger idea, the proposer starts working with Shell partners, and the company monitors the project carefully under the rules outlined on the Web site.
After successful completion, the idea may go to further R&D within Shell's research program. When the proposal comes out of this program, it's more than an idea and a show-of-concept. Ideally, it should be focused enough to convince someone to invest in the idea. That someone could be a Shell operating unit or an outside investor. A key ingredient of this process is the ability of the idea to provide a return on investment.
Examples
Some of the less well known ideas to come out of the program have made a difference in Shell's ability to perform in the field. Some of the better known ideas have grown into business partnerships with the ability to improve the performance of the industry, according to case studies on the Web site.
One GameChanger idea led to improvements in time-lapse seismic and reservoir monitoring. Shell used the technique in Draugen field in the North Sea. Now, it's working with ADCO and partners to bring the technique to the Middle East. The resulting detailed information about fluid movement in the reservoir at Draugen convinced the company to change the location of a well and save US $84 million.
Another GameChanger idea led Shell to suggest an offshore liquefied natural gas platform at the Greater Sunshine complex offshore Australia as a less expensive alternative to Phillips Petroleum's proposed offshore pipeline from its Bayu-Undan field to Darwin, Australia.
Among the better known products that grew out of the GameChanger program are Enventure Global Technology and WellDynamics.
Enventure is a joint venture of Shell and Halliburton Energy Services helped along by Grant Prideco to build and market expandable tubing. Shell has used it to build wellbores with larger casing and tubing to improve production from deep wells.
The technology also is an integral part of a Shell plan that will combine monobore tubing strings, dual-gradient drilling and surface blowout preventers on smaller, streamlined offshore drilling rigs to reduce costs of deepwater wells by as much as 50%.
WellDynamics, headquartered in Aberdeen, Scotland, is another combination of Shell and Halliburton that combines Shell's iWell intelligent well technology and Halliburton's SmartWell intelligent completions technology. The technologies provide accurate downhole monitoring and measurement, inflow remote control, downhole processing and wellbore communication.
Rewards
Shell has no elaborate big-dollar reward program to go with GameChanger.
But for many employees, the fruition of a great idea, as the television commercial says, is "priceless," and GameChanger gives them the opportunity to get that feeling of satisfaction.

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