We recently heard thatYouTube.com, the video share site, was purchased for more than $1.65 billion. Not bad for a venture that was developed by two men (and helped by a third) in a garage. Coincidently the video venture was purchased by another company that had also spent time in a garage—Google. Sergei Brin and Larry Page, co founders of the that startup company, had rented a garage in a suburban house in Mountain View, California, while they worked on their search engine. Two decades earlier, two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) also did garage time when they were building an early version of the Apple Computer. And the grandaddy Silicon Valley company of them all, Hewlett Packard, began its life in a garage.

So what is it about garages that incubate businesses so well? Is it the aroma of gasoline mixed with oil, or the scent of newly mowed grass still sticking to the stored mower? Or is it a steady tracking of field mice in and out of the haunt that bring new ideas? Likely none of the above has any affect on business. What the garage symbolizes, however, is something more powerful: a commitment of people to their ideas, either in singles, twos or threes. The garage then becomes not simply a repository of ideas, but an active workshop where ideas are applied to the marketplace. (See The Economist, Oct. 5, 2006.)

Garage as Innovation Tool
Awhile back, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina was featured in an HP television commercial in front of the original garage where Bill Hewlett and David Packard built their first oscilloscope in the late 1930s. The association between Fiorina and the garage was meant to demonstrate visually that HP was still an innovative company. And, despite the boardroom spying scandal, the company has developed new products that customers want. The slogan for the company is simple and to the point: “Invent.”

Every business should encourage a degree of innovation. And in fact, most companies like to boast of their innovative prowess, but like many companies, they confine innovation to research and development. That is, they look for new ideas from people charged with coming up with new ideas. While that’s not a bad policy, it does tell everyone else in the company that innovation is not something they should worry about. That’s too bad because good ideas can come from anywhere and anyplace and, of course, anyone. The challenge is to capture them and seek to capitalize on them. And the garage is a good place to start.