As companies grow older and larger, it becomes increasingly difficult to develop new and innovative products and services. When you aren't Apple, Microsoft, [insert other giant company here], you don't have the luxury of a dedicated new research and development department. So how do you stay competitive and innovative in your market? I think it takes a combination of two things: hire entrepreneurs and promote intrapreneurship. When you are looking to develop new products and services, who better to hire than entrepreneurs, those who are always looking for a better solution. Entrepreneurs can provide a unique insight into your company's products, services, business processes, etc. However, you can't hire an entrepreneur without knowing the risks. Entrepreneurs will most likely be working on something on the side other than their current tasks with your company, and if they are in fact working on something on the side and serious about what they are doing, they will be leveraging their hard-earned cash to fund their side projects. You may see this as a very bad thing, but it comes with the territory. That is why they are entrepreneurs. If they had rich uncles, they wouldn't be working for you anyways. Instead of fighting it, have the policies in place to deal with the issue. Intrapreneurship is very similar to entrepreneurship but it is more specific. Intrapreneurship is entrepreneurship focused on a particular organization's core business. Promoting intrapreneurship in your organization is more than just hiring entrepreneur types. Without creating venues where your entrepreneurs can display their new ideas, providing incentives for their successes and ultimately providing the resources needed to implement the new ideas, your entrepreneurs on staff will become bored, feel ignored and probably leave. The underlying key in all the points of the last sentence is simply to listen. Let your entrepreneurs know you are listening and value their thought, time and effort. I don't want to paint a picture of entrepreneurs as prima donna, know-it-alls, because they aren't. I simply paint it this way to bring up the point, you have to approach entrepreneurs in a different light, just as you would for developers, a sales team, executives, etc. To give an example of creating venues for your intrapreneurs to show off their new ideas and implementations, Milsoft, a leader in Smart Grid Software and my employer, held several internal presentations yesterday showcasing their summer interns' projects. The interns were given a project specification, but how they implemented their projects was open-ended. They were allowed to be creative and innovative. I can't think of a better way to kick-start a young entrepreneur's career by encouraging intrapreneurship from the onset. Kudos to Milsoft and their internship program. What are your thoughts on intrapreneurship?