NIH vs. EYODF

I was listening in a new corporate culture session. During the session, audience raised a point about NIH mentality. NIH stands for Not Invented Here. It is belived that people have that mentality tend to be arrogant about technologies invented from outside.

For me, there is nothing wrong to fight NIH mentality. However, for any company who is good at EYODF (Eating Your Own Dog Food), I think this goal is hard to achieve. When people are committed to their own tools or inventions, they become familiar with and expert in their own technologies within the marketplace they compete. Thus, Microsoft will obviously be disconcerned about google, who is in the advertising marketplace with a totally different tool. Hence, another version of innovator’s dilemma.

In terms of corporate culture, I believe companies that are EYODF are mostly likely to fail to innovate when paradigm shift happens, while truly innovators are most likely to fail when technology progresses in normal fashion.