How SEA Created a Culture of Innovation

This is the first blog in a series that features SEA's entrepreneurial Shark Tank Program and the Port of Seattle employee innovations that make your travel easier, safer, and more fun and efficient.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) is committed to making your trip through SEA Airport better, so Port leaders are working hard to cultivate a culture of innovation at the airport, starting with our most valuable resource — employees. In 2017, the SEA Airport Innovation Team, led by Dave Wilson, the (now-retired) SEA Director of Airport Innovation, worked with SEA Managing Director Lance Lyttle to create and launch the Shark Tank Program, loosely based on the award-winning ABC Network’s Shark Tank series to facilitate and encourage new ideas from Port of Seattle employees.

Cultivating innovation

Through a collaborative process, employees are shaping the future of SEA and the Port. Employees are invited and encouraged to present their ideas and put them into practice. Today, many improvements that you see in plain sight and others behind the scenes were developed by employees.

Shark Tank empowers employees to use their unique perspectives to share, develop, test, and implement ideas that align with Port goals and objectives. As a result, the entrepreneurial program has sparked engagement and an innovative spirit in employees that has quickly become an integral part of the Port’s culture.

“Innovation is important to any organization,” said Lance Lyttle, SEA Managing Director. “It’s more than just a values statement posted on a wall. The mechanisms have to be in place to make sure innovation is part of an organization’s culture.”

Here are a few examples of Shark Tank innovations you might see around the SEA Airport:

• T-coil hearing aid loop — a project that uses hearing loop technology to amplify sound for passengers with T-coil hearing aids, which can be helpful in areas where there is background noise, such as a gate hold room
   
• Port partnership with a service called Aira to help people who are blind and have low vision to safely navigate the airport. Aira connects users to live agents via a mobile app and/or assistive smart glasses. Aira use at SEA Airport is free
   
• SEA Visitor Pass Program, which allows people who are not flying that day to enter security and enjoy restaurants and shops or accompany departing passengers 
   
• Two Little Free Libraries installed at SEA and painted by two local artists that feature books on diversity topics
   
• Ask SEA, a voice app that helps you prepare for your trip using Google Assistant or  Amazon Alexa
   
• SEA Spot Saver, which allows passengers to sign up for timed entry to the security checkpoints at SEA rather than waiting in the security line

Port employee Amy Dressler helped launch two Little Free Libraries at SEA through the Shark Tank Program after previously starting a Little Free Library in her own neighborhood.

“I thought it was a fantastic idea but I didn’t have a clue about how to execute it, so being able to develop the idea through Shark Tank was extremely helpful,” Dressler said.

She said Shark Tank offered an opportunity to get involved in something outside of her day-to-day responsibilities.

“My day-to-day work is important for the organization and personally fulfilling, but you have to be a special type of nerd to get excited about records management.  But most people enjoy books and public art,” she said. “It’s refreshing to have something fun and visible to point to and say, ‘I helped make that happen.’”

Idea incubator

Shark Tank has become a supportive and creative forum for incubating employee ideas. Since its 2017 launch, 68 employees and groups of employees have pitched their ideas to the aviation leadership team, who serve as Shark Tank judges. The team evaluates each idea, prioritizing projects by their connection to Port and airport goals and ease of implementation. To date, 44 percent of ideas have been implemented or are in the process of being executed.

The secret to the program's success lies with the support from across the organization and the direct involvement of senior leadership. The program was created with the philosophy that ideas don’t come from just five or six people in the organization — they come from everyone.

Once an employee submits an initial idea, they develop and evolve their idea with Innovation Team staff and staff subject matter experts, and it truly becomes a team effort. This sets the innovation program apart from programs at other airports which often rely on an official innovation team to generate ideas.

Here’s how Shark Tank turns great ideas into a reality:

1.  Port staff submits ideas through a Microsoft SharePoint site
2. If an idea is selected, the Innovation team meets with staff to help expand on their initial concept, develop a business case, and support presentation development
3. Airport subject matter experts provide advice and information for Port staff as they develop their business case
4.  Employees pitch their ideas to airport senior management. The SEA Airport leadership team serves as judges (Sharks) for the Shark Tank presentation
5. Successful ideas move on to testing and implementation
6. Implemented ideas are intended to make your airport travel better and consistently excellent

Pandemic innovation

When COVID-19 brought in-person meetings and events to a halt in March 2020, Shark Tank presentations moved from and in-person to a virtual format that was well-suited for a large audience working from several locations.

The pandemic fueled employee enthusiasm about the future of work, and ideas presented included turning the AOB Conference Center into a WeWork-style co-working space, and using a hybrid work model going forward to manage the existing office space for a growing workforce.  

What’s next

As the Port focuses on innovation in the future, the plans are to implement more employee-generated ideas that will create a better experience for everyone who uses Port facilities. In 2021, the Innovation Team created an Innovation Challenge to crowdsource ideas on improving productivity for Port employees. For instance, employees were challenged to develop ideas that address a specific challenge the organization faces. In 2022, the Port adopted the idea of setting aside a weekly block of time with no meetings to enable deep work.

Watch for more coverage of innovation at SEA Airport and the Port.