Take a look inside Pfizers pretty non-Pfizer innovation room

Up on the seventh floor of Pfizers cold, black-and-gray exteriored world headquarters in New York is a weird little room with a quirky little poster that will be used (and copied) more and more if Pfizer does things right.

Its the Innovation Room for Pfizers innovation team, which occupies the seventh floor in New York. The space has germinated many of Pfizers Dare To Try initiatives the project Pfizers used to try and encourage innovation within the company.

It seemed out of place a room more likely to be a found in a bootstrapping accelerator than a Big Pharma company. A poster on the door to the room has caricatures of Pfizer team members who offer practical (put the furniture back where you found it) to inspirational (bring freshness) advice. Exercise balls blend with post-it notes about policy and vision.

Creating a more innovative mindset is an ongoing obsession with large healthcare companies. Pfizers no exception. They host worldwide internal conferences on the topic, push projects such as Dare to Try and keep tinkering with ways to bring startups into Pfizer. So its interesting to see where some of this thinking is hatched.

I took some photos earlier this year and Wendy Mayer, Pfizers vice president for worldwide innovation, answered some questions about the space and where Pfizers heading with innovation. She even shared a little Pfizer innovation slang. Below are some excerpts from that interview.

Q. How long had the Innovation Room been around and what is the goal?

A. We introduced the innovation room last year because most of our space in the New York headquarters is currently configured as private or semi-private offices and traditional conference rooms. Our direct team needed this space because so much of what we do requires collaboration and team brainstorming. We needed a space that would allow the team to work together in an environment that was more conducive to creative development.

We also need to set an example and create a space as a demonstration for what an innovation space should look like and give them the availability of the space for their own innovation/creative discussions.

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Take a look inside Pfizers pretty non-Pfizer innovation room