Innovation is more important then ever as the country emerges out of the “great recession,” acknowledges 61-year-old Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity.com and chairman of Kayak.com. “A lot of people confuse innovation with invention. According to Wikipedia, invention is the art of creating something new. Innovation is taking a good idea and putting it to work.”
That’s exactly what Jones did when he created a Web site in the Seventies where consumers could check airfares, a first in the world of the Internet that was still in its infancy. His brainchild went on to become Travelocity.com, a national brand with over 40 million members, 1,200 employees, and over five billion in travel bookings at the time he left. Today, the company is even bigger.
He calls himself an “intrapreneur,” as he started Travelocity as a department inside multi-billion dollar Sabre Holdings, part of American Airlines. Intrapreneurs face different challenges than entrepreneurs, he explains. Competitors are as likely to be internal as external. In this world, who you report to can be as important to an intrapreneur as building a brand is to the entrepreneur.
“Usually new ideas are like a little flame on a candle. They’re kind of easy to blow out,” says Jones. That didn’t happen in his department where the flame of innovation was ignited. He created his own culture to foster it.
“It was more like baseball then the Olympics,” he says. “My employees had a lot of chances at bat. Think about it. Great baseball players strike out 70 percent of the time. With the Olympics, you get one chance every four years. I created a culture where you could experiment, where I allowed failure. I tried to be their coach. A coach doesn’t just throw people off a team. He trains them to be better and welds them into a good team.”
He moved his team out of American Airlines headquarters building into its own space. He started with 12 and by the time he left had 1,200 employees. “I made sure we had a mix of people. I had older, experienced people working with young kids. When you take old world experience and mix it with youthful exuberance they’ll fight like crazy but you’ll get some great ideas,” he explains. “I also believe in hiring people who don’t fit in. If everyone in a company is exactly the same, you’re not going to get many new ideas. Plus, I always listen to all levels of employees.”
A side job as a speaker resulted in funds for a new gym, beautiful art in the office, and great company meetings. His speaking career started as a “pinch hitter.” A meeting planner was desperate. She had the president of Priceline lined up to speak at her conference who dropped out the last minute. The rule at American was that you couldn’t get paid outside of the company so Jones worked out a deal that the money he earned went into a fund for his employees. “I told the higher ups, you can audit the fund, but you can’t tell me how to spend it,” he says with a laugh.
No longer a pinch hitter, he’s now in the starting lineup as a speaker, making about 30 speeches a year focusing on innovation and leadership. He is also a managing principal of Essential Ideas, a consultancy he co-founded to help companies in their transition to the digital economy. He serves on the board of directors of Earthlink, Inc., Rearden Commerce Inc., Smart Destinations Inc, is chairman of Kayak.com, and is a special venture partner with General Catalyst Partners.
Digital Relationship Building
Successful companies use the Web as a tool to help form digital relationships. Zappos, America’s leading online shoe retailer, is a company that does this well. “I recently got an e-mail from Zappos stating that they were no longer going to carry a pair of shoes I bought in the past. They had two pairs left in my size and wanted to know if I would like to buy them,” is an example Jones shares. “Another company that does this successfully is Amazon as they send you recommendations of new books you may like based on your past purchases. That’s how you make money. You turn what could have been a one-time transaction into a long term relationship.”
The Internet has been a powerful force in the entire Jones family. His son, 28-year-old Ben Sawtell-Jones, created a video game during high school with five contemporaries in the United States, five in Europe, and one in Canada, all 15- to 18-years-old, by using a chat room and Internet messaging. They never met in person. Their game, “Day of Defeat” was sold for $300,000. Today, he works for Sony in game design.
His 26-year-old daughter, Vanessa Sawtell-Jones, a gifted vocalist who was a voice major at Boston University who lost her singing voice as a result of Lyme disease, is now a virtuoso travel agent.
The Internet has impacted his personal life as well. Divorced and living in Incline, Nevada, a tourist community, Jones was having trouble meeting people so he gave Match.com a try. “I met this wonderful woman Ginny and fell in love,” he extols.
Today, Ginny helps others write profiles for Match.com.
Although Jones is a master of the Internet, he is also a proponent of face-to-face meetings. “Today, meetings are more important then ever. You can’t get people going in the same direction, unless you get them together. You can’t manage that with e-mail.”
Not only is it important to listen to all levels of employees but your customers as well. At Travelocity, Jones had a phone booth installed in the hallway where employees could listen to live conversations between consumers and the help desk. Every employee in the company had to listen to at least two conversations a month. They were then discussed at staff meetings about how the company could be improved so people didn’t have to call for help.
These days, Jones’ greatest thrill is “being engaged and helping others be successful.” Born blind in one eye doesn’t stop him as he is a voracious reader. He takes college courses in his car via his iPod. Most recently, he is studying the Roman Empire. “I’m always trying to learn from the past but at the same time am keeping up with the future.”