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November 2009

From Innovation To Inspired Action:
The Business Innovation Factory Summit

 

 

How do you deliver value…to your customers, your clients, your constituents, your patients? What is the innovation you are longing for…the one that could make a significant difference? All nine IPI partners recently participated in the 5th annual Business Innovation Factory “Collaborative Innovation Summit”. 

This intimate two day event featured an impressive mix of storytellers - artists and scientists, designers and entrepreneurs, social and political boundary busters, technology wizards and well traveled explorers of the human spirit, from around the world.  Each person shared a highly personal experience of innovation in the way value is delivered.  The experience has sparked many new conversations among us … What does innovation really mean?  What are the questions that we haven’t yet thought of asking? How can we take insights from other disciplines into the design of agile, high performance organizations? 

In this newsletter we invite our readers into the conversation by sharing some of the highlights from BIF-5.  

 

Collaboration is the only way to get outside the box.  According to storyteller Bill Taylor, founder of Fast Company magazine “The most creative CEO’s aspire to learn from companies far outside their field as a way to shake things up and make real change.” Innovation happens in the space BETWEEN the things and people we already know, and perhaps the most important space today is the space between generations. New entrants to the workforce are the first generation whose only experience is an information rich, media-converged world. They are uniquely poised to tap a wealth of possibility as traditional boundaries fall away. If you want to be more innovative…listen to your kids! If we desire change that matters, we must put skin in the game. Carne Ross, a non-conventional leader in international diplomacy, said “Innovation requires a vulnerability that most of us are not comfortable with.” In order to think differently, we must doubt what we know. Do you remember how to play? The importance of play in innovation was featured in several powerful stories including GE’s adventure-inspired redesign of intimidating medical imaging equipment for pediatric hospitals and learning from computer simulated battles on Spike TV’s “Deadliest Warrior”. As Helmut Traitler, VP of Innovation Partnership at Nestle said “it’s time to return to tinkering”. Disruptive change is possible even in the context of large traditional industries. BIF-5 stories of  radical innovation came from small entrepreneurial organizations and academia, but they also came from health insurance companies, the education sector, and the automobile industry. The key, according to influential health care change leader Michael Samuelson, is to maintain a “healthy uncertainty”. Samuelson, a cancer survivor and mountaineer says “Tell me it’s impossible – that’s physics. But tell me it’s improbable and that’s a question of the human spirit”. Technology-enabled collaboration allows more diverse perspectives to participate in the work of design. Two compelling speakers – Helmut Traitler of Nestlé and John B. Rogers, CEO of Local Motors offered stories of “open-source” designing, in which people who are truly passionate about creating a better product have direct input into the design of the product they will purchase. How can we leverage their experience to engage more and more diverse perspectives in the design of our organizations? We are more likely to have moments of insight that lead to innovation when our minds are relaxed.  Jonah Lehrer, author of the book “how we decide” shared empirical research on brain functioning that explains how relaxation helps us make associations between seemingly disparate ideas.

More hot quotes from BIF-5:

“It’s not an innovation until it delivers value”
- Saul Kaplan, BIF founder and Chief Catalyst

“Tough times are a great time to differentiate yourself”
– Bill Taylor, co-Founder of Fast Company and BIF co-host

“Anything that’s new was already seeded ten years ago...innovation is not just about inventing, it’s about prospecting”
– Bill Buxton, Chief Scientist, Microsoft Research 

“Speed is the best way to avoid being copied”
- Kris Halvorsen, Chief Innovation Officer, Intuit

“Rule #52: Stay alert. There are teachers everywhere.”
- Alan Webber, co-founder of Fast Company and author of the book “Rules of Thumb”

 

 

Article provided by Catherine McKenna, Partner, Innovation Partners International

 

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Of Special Interest:
Videos of the BIF storytellers are now available live on the BIF website.
 

Free Newsletter Subscription! Email:

November 2009

From Innovation To Inspired Action:
The Business Innovation Factory Summit

 

 

How do you deliver value…to your customers, your clients, your constituents, your patients? What is the innovation you are longing for…the one that could make a significant difference? All nine IPI partners recently participated in the 5th annual Business Innovation Factory “Collaborative Innovation Summit”. 

This intimate two day event featured an impressive mix of storytellers - artists and scientists, designers and entrepreneurs, social and political boundary busters, technology wizards and well traveled explorers of the human spirit, from around the world.  Each person shared a highly personal experience of innovation in the way value is delivered.  The experience has sparked many new conversations among us … What does innovation really mean?  What are the questions that we haven’t yet thought of asking? How can we take insights from other disciplines into the design of agile, high performance organizations? 

In this newsletter we invite our readers into the conversation by sharing some of the highlights from BIF-5.  

 

Collaboration is the only way to get outside the box.  According to storyteller Bill Taylor, founder of Fast Company magazine “The most creative CEO’s aspire to learn from companies far outside their field as a way to shake things up and make real change.” Innovation happens in the space BETWEEN the things and people we already know, and perhaps the most important space today is the space between generations. New entrants to the workforce are the first generation whose only experience is an information rich, media-converged world. They are uniquely poised to tap a wealth of possibility as traditional boundaries fall away. If you want to be more innovative…listen to your kids! If we desire change that matters, we must put skin in the game. Carne Ross, a non-conventional leader in international diplomacy, said “Innovation requires a vulnerability that most of us are not comfortable with.” In order to think differently, we must doubt what we know. Do you remember how to play? The importance of play in innovation was featured in several powerful stories including GE’s adventure-inspired redesign of intimidating medical imaging equipment for pediatric hospitals and learning from computer simulated battles on Spike TV’s “Deadliest Warrior”. As Helmut Traitler, VP of Innovation Partnership at Nestle said “it’s time to return to tinkering”. Disruptive change is possible even in the context of large traditional industries. BIF-5 stories of  radical innovation came from small entrepreneurial organizations and academia, but they also came from health insurance companies, the education sector, and the automobile industry. The key, according to influential health care change leader Michael Samuelson, is to maintain a “healthy uncertainty”. Samuelson, a cancer survivor and mountaineer says “Tell me it’s impossible – that’s physics. But tell me it’s improbable and that’s a question of the human spirit”. Technology-enabled collaboration allows more diverse perspectives to participate in the work of design. Two compelling speakers – Helmut Traitler of Nestlé and John B. Rogers, CEO of Local Motors offered stories of “open-source” designing, in which people who are truly passionate about creating a better product have direct input into the design of the product they will purchase. How can we leverage their experience to engage more and more diverse perspectives in the design of our organizations? We are more likely to have moments of insight that lead to innovation when our minds are relaxed.  Jonah Lehrer, author of the book “how we decide” shared empirical research on brain functioning that explains how relaxation helps us make associations between seemingly disparate ideas.

More hot quotes from BIF-5:

“It’s not an innovation until it delivers value”
- Saul Kaplan, BIF founder and Chief Catalyst

“Tough times are a great time to differentiate yourself”
– Bill Taylor, co-Founder of Fast Company and BIF co-host

“Anything that’s new was already seeded ten years ago...innovation is not just about inventing, it’s about prospecting”
– Bill Buxton, Chief Scientist, Microsoft Research 

“Speed is the best way to avoid being copied”
- Kris Halvorsen, Chief Innovation Officer, Intuit

“Rule #52: Stay alert. There are teachers everywhere.”
- Alan Webber, co-founder of Fast Company and author of the book “Rules of Thumb”

 

 

Article provided by Catherine McKenna, Partner, Innovation Partners International

 

---

Of Special Interest:
Videos of the BIF storytellers are now available live on the BIF website.