Do you voluntarily develop long-term projects on the job?

[John Posada <JPosada -at- book -dot- com>]

I know that most of us are up to our eyeballs in keeping up with the
incoming workload.

However, I'd like to know how you approach working on side projects that
require long term development before introducing tem to your boss.

I'll give you an example. My documentation provides a subset of information
in a certain way, over a span of 200+ pages of static information. The users
like it and they use it. However, I know that if presented in a different
way, it could be so much more valuable. Therefore, when I get a chance to
work on it, maybe 30 minutes a day, I'm converting static pages of
information to a searchable database.

I've been working on this for about a month and nobody here knows about
this, though I'll be ready to introduce it in about 2 weeks.

Does anyone do this type of thing? If so, do you tell anyone or do you
surprise them with this?

If you've done this, what has been the reaction of your management. Do they
like this/ Do they mind not having been informed every step? This is the
third time I'm doing something like this here and my manager loves it. 

What has been the reaction to those around you?  

John Posada
Information Hunter-Gatherer
Special Projects; Information Technology
Barnes&Noble.com
NY: 212-414-6656 



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