A Fascinating Model for the Auto Industry

by Vyoma Kapur

When you hear the word 'crowdsourcing', what comes to mind? Most people list ideas, tee-shirts, logos and advertisements. If you are familiar with InnoCentive, the world's largest open innovation platform, you would know product development, design projects and campaigns can be crowdsourced too.

It was at the Business Innovation Factory conference earlier this week I first heard of a 'crowdsourced' car. Jay Rogers, the founder of Local Motors, amazed the audience with his story of launching a unique automotive business that taps into a community to design and develop cars through regular competitions.

Running Colspark LLC, a company that crowdsources for ideas and solutions, I certainly found this concept bizarre. A few questions sprung up. What is the community made of? How are the winners selected and rewarded? In what way are Local Motors cars different from regular cars?

Rogers explained that the Local Motors community consists of over 3,000 designers, engineers and car enthusiasts. Local Motors organizes monthly competitions focusing on making car designs 'local'. These competitions can focus on either the exterior or the interior of a vehicle. Community members pick up competition briefs along with engineering guidelines to create their designs. Submitted designs are critiqued and selected by the community, which keeps in mind which designs will fit best in which region.

Once a design gains enough popularity, Local Motors, after determining that it is 'manufacturable' and takes them to the next phase of development. The community is kept involved in every step of the developmental process.

Local Motors is, hence, dedicated to COOL - Community, Open, Ownership and Local. Its cars are built in regional micro-factories which are also picked by the community. Once design and engineering has been completed, members of the community are able to go to a micro-factory of their choice to build their own vehicle. With the possibility of such customization, Local Motors customers are able to develop cars with higher horsepower, greater fuel efficiency and have other advantages over regular cars.

The open innovation model has numerous benefits for companies that adopt it. The most apparent one is the output it helps create, in terms of both quality and quantity. In just a few years, Local Motors has built a repository of thousands of original car designs.

Another less apparent benefit pertains to marketing. By leveraging car enthusiasts, Local Motors effectively addresses the disconnectedness there tends to be between the automotive manufacturing industry and their consumers. In this day and age of consumer sovereignty, it is important to involve consumers in decisions that have a direct impact on them. The power of a community lies in its dedication to a brand, a concept or a company. Local Motors has benefited vastly from the word-of-mouth awareness generated by its community.

Being a huge believer and practitioner of crowdsourcing, I definitely see Local Motors going far. It has revolutionized the age-old car manufacturing process and sets an example of others in the industry.

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A marketing professional turned entrepreneur, Vyoma avidly supports and practices open innovation. Earlier this year, she founded Colspark LLC (www.colspark.com), a crowdsourcing platform to help companies tap into student talent for ideas and solutions.

Rethinking Innovation

by Vyoma Kapur

Riveting innovation stories were told during the Business Innovation Factory conference held in Providence, Rhode Island. In its fifth year now, the conference attracted brilliant people from all over the country hungry to learn and discover. Over twenty speakers from different industries, professions and backgrounds were gathered to share how they have 'innovated' in their own unique way and created an impact. I made my way to Providence full of curiosity.

Here is where I ask you to broaden your definition of innovation. I think we've become too accustomed to think of innovation as an effort that either reduces the bottom line or enhances the top line. Innovation is not only about processes; it also encompasses radical diversions of existing products, ideas built from scratch as well as bottom-up social change.

Neri Oxman's story was unique, astounding and opened my mind. Oxman, a designer and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looks to nature to for practical design answers. Through understanding nature's relationship with things around her, she is able to visualize new and better structures. Her work has been described as "establishing a new approach to design at the interface of computer science, material engineering and ecology."

Simply, Oxman's mission is to change the world by proving how technology can live in harmony with nature. Oxman studies the form, substance and behaviour of a leaf and how these attributes change with the environment. Then, moving from the scale of natural world to the scale of human design, Oxman envisions a building which will endure various environmental conditions in ways such as bending like trees in strong wind to avoid collapsing.

One of Oxman's ingenious innovations is a chair that shapes itself into a human body. This, to me, gives a whole new dimension to ergonomics. Her work is displayed in the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York.

Oxman is a thinker who challenges our definition of innovation. Is innovation only about increasing efficiency, lowering costs and making improved versions of existing products? Or is it about changing the way we think and ask questions - from "what can we do to make something better", to "why has something always been done in a certain way."

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A marketing professional turned entrepreneur, Vyoma avidly supports and practices open innovation. Earlier this year, she founded Colspark LLC (www.colspark.com), a crowdsourcing platform to help companies tap into student talent for ideas and solutions.

Congratulations to the BIF-5 Contest Winner

Voting is now closed, and we have a winner for my ticket to the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) conference October 7-8, 2009 in Providence, RI. Here again were the Three Finalists:

1. Creating a Bachelor of Innovation by Dr. Terrance E. Boult, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs


2. Breaking Innovation Barriers by Looking Beyond by Vyoma Kapur, Colspark LLC


3. A Nightmare on Innovation Street by Brad Barbera, KAB Business Research

And the winner is...


Vyoma Kapur of Colspark LLC!

• Colspark seeks to foster greater collaboration between academia and businesses. They believe in creating a dynamic knowledge and information flow between colleges and companies. They do this by giving college students a platform to solve companies' sales, marketing and business problems. By bringing students and companies closer together, they create an environment where the best and the brightest are rewarded. Using the principles of open innovation, effective ideas and solutions are generated for companies. Colspark endorses open communication and open innovation while operating in a secure environment. Companies have rights to confidentiality, while participating students can be rest assured that their intellectual property is protected.

Vyoma wins my ticket to the Business Innovation Factory conference after her article "Break Innovation Barriers by Looking Beyond" received the most comment votes and @reply votes on Twitter.

(NOTE: Travel expenses are NOT included and are the responsibility of the winner)

For those who would still like to go to the conference before it sells out, as a special bonus for my loyal readers I've negotiated a special $50 discount when you enter "BK110" in the payment code field on the payment options page during registration - this will get you in for $1,150. Groups of five or more can get extra discounts.

New storytellers are added each week, but so far they include:

• Don Tapscott, "Wikinomics"


• Jeff Jarvis, "What Would Google Do?", buzzmachine.com


• John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design


• Jonah Lehrer, "How We Decide"


• Keith Wilmot, Global Director Insights, Ideas & Creativity, Coca Cola

If you'd like to explore and discuss innovation issues further, please join our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

BIF-5 Ticket Contest Finalists Announced

Lots of people wanted the chance to win a $1,200 ticket to the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) conference October 7-8, 2009 in Providence, RI, but here are the best entry submissions, the Three Finalists:

1. Creating a Bachelor of Innovation by Dr. Terrance E. Boult, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs


2. Breaking Innovation Barriers by Looking Beyond by Vyoma Kapur, Colspark LLC


3. A Nightmare on Innovation Street by Brad Barbera, KAB Business Research

Voting is now open and you can vote for your favorite entry in one of two ways:

1. Vote by adding a comment to the 1 of 3 blog posts you like best


2. Vote by sending an @reply with "I vote for #x" to @innovate on Twitter

July 31, 2009 - Voting by Twitter @reply to @innovate or by blog comments concludes at 23:59 (no anonymous votes will count)

August 1, 2009 - Grand Prize winner announced


If you're unfamiliar with this excellent event, here is a video of Jason Fried, Founder of 37Signals.com from last year's conference (BIF-4):



For those who just want to go to the conference - as a special bonus for my loyal readers I've negotiated a special $50 discount when you enter "BK110" in the payment code field on the payment options page during registration - this will get you in for $1,150. Groups of five or more can get extra discounts.

New storytellers are added each week, but so far they include:

• Don Tapscott, "Wikinomics"


• Jeff Jarvis, "What Would Google Do?", buzzmachine.com


• John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design


• Jonah Lehrer, "How We Decide"


• Keith Wilmot, Global Director Insights, Ideas & Creativity, Coca Cola

I look forward to awarding one lucky winner a ticket to Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5)!
(NOTE: Travel expenses are NOT included and are the responsibility of the winner)

If you'd like to explore and discuss innovation issues further, please join our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Creating a Bachelor of Innovation

This is Finalist #1 of 3 in the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) Ticket Contest

• Vote for this entry by leaving a comment or sending an @reply to @innovate on Twitter with "I vote for #1" in it.

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This entry is about a ongoing educational innovation, a paradigm shift, offering new degrees with a common core focused on teams of students learning and practicing the key elements of the innovation process. It crosses department and college boundaries and changes the product at the very core of the university, replacing the centuries old BA and BS educational silos with a new Bachelor of Innovation™ (BI) degree family with a core built around multi-disciplinary multi-year teaming with real companies.

In business, innovation from new startups is common, maybe even the norm. Yet people almost exclusively look/point to the old estabilished research universities when it comes to innovation. Many among the academe, and even the government and public, mistakenly consider research universities cornerstones of innovation. They confuse invention and innovation. As Ray Mears of 3M has stated back in 2001, "Research is the transformation of money into knowledge - Innovation is the transformation of knowledge into money!" The top 100 universities produce and teach knowledge and research, not innovation. When innovations spring forth from universities it is usually because there is a concentration of the innovation raw materials - an abundant diversity of ideas and people. Innovation happens in spite of the university's educational programs, not because of them.

I had tried, with limited success, to introduce ideas changing how and what we teach, first at Columbia University and then at Lehigh University, where one administrator's response was along the lines of "why should we change, we've been doing it this way for over 100 years and are doing well." Classic market leader innovation blindness. Looking deeper one sees that despite the research output, universities are, with only a few exceptions, the antitheses of models of innovation: they cling to centuries old models of how to operate and what "products" to offer. A "new product" takes 4-6 years to produce and 2-5 more for market assessment after release, so change presents serious investment and risk. Academic processes change slower than the ivy growing over their buildings.

The barrier to our innovation was the long product cycles, ultra-conservative and territorial model of universities combined with their sense of superiority and resistance to change. So how did we successfully achieve the Bachelor of Innovation family of degrees? The answer, not surprisingly, was to look at the proven innovation processes we would be teaching and adapt/apply them to the university:

1. First, find somewhere where the culture is partially willing to embrace change and innovation. I moved from being the endowed department chair at a stodgy top 40 university to a young aggressive growth university, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where I saw the core quality/talent with the potential for accepting change.


2. Start off in "stealth mode". I quietly laid the groundwork for the change, introducing key elements as small changes and proving they would work.


3. Design a Value Innovation strategy by identifying elements of performance and the most important customers then analying their needs and designing using the new performance dimensions to deliver more value to the customer. This included developing story lines designed for each different customer segment and major personality types in those groups.


4. Form an initial team that engaged key influencers and administrators in discussions on program elements and implementation issues, all to ensure high-level management engagement and buy in. We needed them to develop ideas on their own (often being led into them) so they could take ownership of the ideas and champion the process.


5. Gather market data, including asking the hard questions about competitive (dis)advantages. That market research introduced a new space of possible ideas to the broader community who in turn put pressure on many otherwise uninterested people in the organization to take change seriously. People like to think they know what the market needs. Real data is sometimes a critical revelation.


6. Seek external validation and seed funding. We went after, and won, grants from NCIIA and NSF Partner for Innovation Program.


7. Design to co-exist with existing product lines and minimize the number of people impacted by implementing the change. Build strong support and minimize detractors.


8. Anticipate roadblocks and develop strategies and partners to ensure one can get through or around them. We capitalized on strong external fiscal threats to catalyze open discussions and negotiated with stakeholders, initially asking for an idealized package, but settling on something that was still very viable.


9. Build on market data and the early success, to develop an exciting pitch backed with a detailed business/program plan. We used these to sell the BI in the many-stage campus/state approval process. The pitch was for the intuitive types where passion and ideas matter most. The detailed 60-page plan addressed the data-driven, judging people, which seem to dominate academia.


10. Under promise and over deliver, while aggressively managing growth and resources. The result, our BI Family of degrees, is a unique program focused on teaching innovation, with awards from the American Society of Engineering Educators, and Innovation India. Our growth has been more than double the initial plan, with over 120 students across five majors. We have more partner companies, and have had more funding for student teams than we have had qualified students willing to work for pay.

Does the BI work? Only time will tell for sure, but the first two years have exceeded almost everyone's expectations. In our first term we had one team's first business plan get "defunded" at the first pitch half way though the term, only to have their second idea/pitch be good enough that we then partnered with a local company to go after, and win, a $100,000 Navy SBIR contract. The freshman/sophomores produced about 80% of the project's deliverables, and the company has asked the BI to partner on other contracts. In the past year, student teams have supported over $2M in grant/contract proposals, with multiple ongoing funded projects. Not bad for a "startup" program of freshman and sophomores at a campus founded after the microchip, word processing, hypertext and the mouse were already invented.

Maybe we can partner with your organization to help support your innovation, as we transform the next generation of students into experienced innovators.

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Dr. Terrance E. Boult is the El Pomar Professor of Innovation and Security at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and @dr_innovation on Twitter.

Breaking Innovation Barriers by Looking Beyond

This is Finalist #2 of 3 in the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) Ticket Contest

• Vote for this entry by leaving a comment or sending an @reply to @innovate on Twitter with "I vote for #2" in it.

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If you are a scientist or an engineer, you know firsthand that innovation is neither inexpensive nor straightforward. It is a long convoluted process that starts with investing copious amounts of money into scientific and market research. Furthermore, the desired end result is not always guaranteed. Several projects, if proven less than commercially viable, are halted before they even reach the developmental stage. Others that make it through the new product life cycle take years to be completed.

The importance of innovation is apparent everywhere. Companies need to constantly be in innovation-mode to remain competitive and become more productive. Government and non-government organizations, too, need to embrace innovation to progress forward.

So when innovation doesn't come easy, what can a company do? What can large multinationals manufacturing hosts of products do to prevent being "out-innovated"?

Proctor and Gamble was in a serious situation. At the turn of the millennium, its R&D productivity had somewhat stabilized, yet costs were increasing beyond top-line growth. Inflationary effects were being seen in everything, from labor costs to prices of equipment and raw materials Their existing innovation model, where pretty much everything from conceptualization to development was done in-house in their global research facilities, was proving to be costly.

The P&G management made a bold but wise move. It broke through its "invent-it-ourselves" model and started looking for innovation beyond its walls. It started actively tapping into the open innovation marketplace for patentable research projects. By offering prizes for valuable research data, inventions and other milestones to innovation, P&G was suddenly attracting qualified scientists all over the world.

Open innovation sounds like a rosy concept, but there are several challenges in adopting that model. For one, building awareness and reaching out to the right crowd of industry leaders with total credibility cannot happen overnight. Even for a Fortune 500 company such as P&G, building a global network of professionals in itself requires time and resources. It took P&G years to identify and grow its network of technology entrepreneurs, suppliers and scientists. Not only that, P&G was also tapping into other R&D companies to license research studies which did not get carried to the developmental stage.

To make things easier, P&G approached a third party agent, InnoCentive. The poster child of open innovation and crowdsourcing, InnoCentive provides research and development driven companies with an avenue to leverage its global pool of talent. With over 150,000 members possessing a variety of backgrounds and expertise, InnoCentive was an incredibly powerful tool for P&G to find solutions.

InnoCentive gave P&G the ability to post challenges at any stage of the development lifecycle. Hence, it can engage outside solvers across four different stages of the product development process - ideation, design, product prototype and final product delivery.

Partnering InnoCentive enabled P&G to circulate its technology briefs around in its network and receive hundreds of proposals for each. After careful evaluation, if a solutions is found, P&G's business development team contacts the producer to begin negotiations for licensing, collaboration or other deals.

A number of successful innovations have resulted from the P&G's open innovation efforts. Here are some remarkable ones:

• P&G wanted to boost sales of Pringles potato chips. Its executives came up with a unique idea - to print trivia questions right on the chips and lure consumers into buying them for more than just the taste. To do that, however, they needed ink which wasn't only edible, but that did not break or change the taste of the chips. They did not know if it was worth investing into R&D for this unproven idea. So P&G sought solutions through global networks of scientists, academia and researchers. Eventually, an Italian professor came forth. He already had the ink-jet technology to printing images on cookies and cakes with edible dyes. P&G engaged him and adapted his technology to Pringles potato chips at a much smaller price and time scale.


• In 2006, there was another product upgrade P&G wanted to develop. It wanted to product a "smart" dishwashing detergent, one that effectively displays when the amount of soap dropped into to a sink full of dirty plates is optimal. As with the first challenge, the in-house research required for this project was colossal. Through InnoCentive, P&G found a solution. Another Italian came up with a whole new invention. Right from her home laboratory, she created a dye that would turn the dishwater blue when the right amount of soap is added. For this ingenious solution, P&G awarded her $30,000 in prize money.


• Another successful product was invented when an open innovation technology entrepreneur recommended a special material to P&G. The material, a type of foam produced by a German chemical giant is used for soundproofing and insulation in factories. Seeing that it was being sold in Japan, the entrepreneur contacted P&G wondering if it could be of any other use. P&G, recognizing its potential, approached the German firm to license the material. What followed was incredible- P&G and the German firm co-developed a hit product, the Magic Eraser.

In 2000, only 15% of P&G's new products had elements that came from outside the company. Today, the figure has gone up to 35%. Academia, subject matter experts, government laboratories, and research institutes all over the world are working with P&G to create and license their product innovations. By reaching out to a global pool of talent, P&G has truly overcome several barriers to innovation.


References

http://www.federicibusiness.com/images/Federici_PG0208.pdf

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5258.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS215811+22-Apr-2008+MW20080422

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A marketing professional turned entrepreneur, Vyoma avidly supports and practices open innovation. Earlier this year, she founded Colspark LLC (www.colspark.com), a crowdsourcing platform to help companies tap into student talent for ideas and solutions.

A Nightmare on Innovation Street

This is Finalist #3 of 3 in the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) Ticket Contest

• Vote for this entry by leaving a comment or sending an @reply to @innovate on Twitter with "I vote for #3" in it.

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"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."
- Arthur Ashe

Picture this. You're in a large, dark basement. You need to find your way out before the boogeyman gets you. You've watched this boogeyman get people you know, people like you. The threat is real, and imminent. While fumbling around for a light switch that you can't find, you stumble upon a pack of matches. You know that a match will not possibly light the entire basement. It may just light up a corridor that looks promising, but leads to a dead end. It may serve as no more than a signal to the boogeyman of where you are. But sitting in the total dark doesn't seem like the best of options, either. Your heart pounds, almost audibly. What do you do? Do you light the match and see where it can lead you? Or do you remain in the dark until you find the light switch?

If you are operating under tight resource constraints (and these days, who isn't?), you may recognize that this is the innovation world you face every day. You desperately want to - need to - innovate, but you are in the dark about emerging technologies, consumer trends, and competitive movements. Optimally, you'd like to throw on the light switch and see clearly into all of those areas, but the costs of market research studies, consumer testing, innovation management software, and outside consultants are beyond your reach. You can study innovation best practices, but how do you implement processes that come from the perspective of an organization that has more global R&D centers than you have employees?

Before trying to answer that, let's evaluate if this is really a general problem worth worrying about. Here are some statistics from the US Small Business Administration:

• Small businesses represent 99.7% of all US employer firms.


• Those small businesses employ about half of the US private sector workforce, and 40% of the high-tech scientists, engineers and computer workers.


• Small businesses generate over 50% of the innovations that come from US companies

According to research by the National Federation of Independent Business, the top concerns among independent business owners are business costs - particularly those such as health insurance, energy and inflation. Those things must get paid before any investments in innovation. This really is a crucial dilemma faced by the majority of the business world.

History has much to teach us about situations in which an individual or group must battle against bigger, better-equipped adversaries. Think David vs. Goliath. Leonidas vs. Xerxes. William Wallace vs. Edward Longshanks. Rocky Balboa vs. Apollo Creed, Mr. T, and Drago the Soviet Giant.

On the political battlefield, it's called guerrilla warfare. Translated to the innovation space, this viable and important strategy is "Guerrilla Product Development." Adapting the lessons of guerrilla warfare to innovation leads to a number of important tactics:

• Arming your personnel with the resource of time.


• Learning astute anthropological observation and online survey tools.


• Leveraging available online information.


• Engaging actively in online social networks.


• Listening to and using customer feedback.


• Building a network of thought leaders and experts can advise you.


• Conducting ideation and concept development by training internal facilitators.


• Enhancing rapid decision-making and adaptability.


• Attacking niches that bigger players overlook or avoid.

While space does not permit a full exposition of such tactics, let me offer some true success stories of such guerrilla NPD.

While developing innovative ergonomic products, a business team wanted to get into the minds of ergonomists and purchasers of ergonomic products. Taking the standard research approach was going to cost tens of thousands of dollars, which was tens of thousands more than was in the budget.

Time for guerrilla tactics! An ergonomics convention was taking place in Las Vegas. After the team developed a questionnaire, a team member flew out to the convention. Armed with $250 in poker chips, this guerrilla operative stood outside the event and offered a $5 token to anyone willing to spend ten minutes on a survey. During the two-day event, over fifty professional ergonomists, consultants, and corporate representatives were interviewed, often volunteering far more than the requested ten minutes of their time. The interviewer, having both subject matter and specific business expertise, was able to probe deeply on questions that arose during the interview process. The total cost was less than $1,000 in expenses, while the information was worth tens of times that.

When resource constraints prohibited the use of outside market research, a business team became their own ethnographers. Forming pairs of cross-functional colleagues, including engineers, designers, marketers, and supply chain professionals, the group networked with local businesses, suppliers, and customers. At the cost of a few business lunches, some personal car mileage, and $100 in digital voice recorders, critical information was gathered, synthesized it into key unmet needs, and translated into unique new products that you will see in the market in the not-too-distant future.

When purchasing relevant market data was cost prohibitive, another business team conducted internal online research. The hard work was not in collecting the information, but rather in piecing the information together into a cohesive whole. The results of that research led to a successful entry into one profitable and growing business category, while wisely avoiding another category that started out with promise, but went quickly into decline.

These guerilla tactics are like matches in the dark. They are not intended to replace the light switch, but rather to provide whatever light is available when that switch is not an option. Please note that any financial cost savings don't come for free! The financial costs are replaced by opportunity costs. For example, when engineers are engaged in market research, it is at the expense of their engineering time, for which they are presumably better trained and inclined. These suggestions are not intended to replace traditional methods, but are rather meant to supplement them.

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Brad Barbera is the founder of KAB Business Research, a consultancy focusing on Innovation Training, Ideation Facilitation and Management, and Business Intelligence.

Win a Ticket to Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5)

Would you like to go to the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) conference October 7-8, 2009 in Providence, RI, but can't afford the $1,200 ticket price?

I have a ticket to the Business Innovation Factory conference (a $1,200 value) that I can't use because of a scheduling conflict, and so I am offering this ticket as the grand prize to an innovation contest here on Blogging Innovation. The event sold out last year and despite the economy, the limited number of spots this year will go quickly. If you're unfamiliar with this excellent event, here is a video of Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com (@zappos) from last year's conference (BIF-4):




Here is how you enter the contest:

"Write an interesting blog entry (1,000 words or less) that tells the story of a barrier to innovation and how it was overcome either by your company or by another company (citing sources if this isn't your personal experience) and submit it using our contact us page."


Grand Prize (1): One ticket to the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) conference (NOTE: Travel expenses are NOT included and are the responsibility of the winner)

Finalists (3): All three finalists (including the Grand Prize Winner) will have their articles published on Blogging Innovation


The logistics of the contest will be:

1. July 29, 2009 - Open submissions until 23:59 GMT


2. July 30, 2009 - Announcement and publishing of the three finalists' articles - Voting begins by Twitter @reply to @innovate or by blog comments (no anonymous votes will count)


3. July 31, 2009 - Voting by Twitter @reply to @innovate or by blog comments concludes at 23:59


4. August 1, 2009 - Grand Prize winner announced

For those who just want to go to the conference - as a special bonus for my loyal readers I've negotiated a special $50 discount when you enter "BK110" in the payment code field on the payment options page during registration - this will get you in for $1,150. Groups of five or more can get extra discounts.

New storytellers are added each week, but so far they include:

• Don Tapscott, "Wikinomics"


• Jeff Jarvis, "What Would Google Do?", buzzmachine.com


• Bill Buxton, Microsoft Research, "Sketching User Experiences"


• Grant Harrison, VP of Consumer Innovation, Humana


• John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design


• Jonah Lehrer, "How We Decide"


• Keith Wilmot, Global Director Insights, Ideas & Creativity, Coca Cola

I look forward to receiving everyone's submissions and awarding one lucky winner a ticket to Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5)!

Good luck!



If you'd like to explore some of these issues and discuss them further, please join our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.

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Braden Kelley is the founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Business Innovation Factory 5 (BiF-5) - Discount Code

Registration for Business Innovation Factory 5 (BiF-5) is now open. It will take place October 7-8, 2009 in Providence, RI.

I attended BiF-4 last year and it was an outstanding event - both for the quality of the event and the attendee interactions. My blog posts and session videos from the event can be found here.

The event sold out last year and despite the economy, the limited number of spots this year will go quickly.

As a special bonus for my loyal readers I've negotiated a special $50 discount when you enter "BK110" in the payment code field on the payment options page during registration - this will get you in for $1,150. Groups of five or more can get extra discounts.

New storytellers are added each week, but so far they include:

• Richard Saul Wurman, Founder of TED conferences


• Jeff Jarvis, "What Would Google Do?", buzzmachine.com


• Bill Buxton, Microsoft Research, "Sketching User Experiences"


• Grant Harrison, VP of Consumer Innovation, Humana


• John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design


• Jonah Lehrer, "How We Decide"


• Don Tapscott, "Wikinomics"


• Keith Wilmot, Global Director Insights, Ideas & Creativity, Coca Cola

Here is a video from Marc Ecko's talk last year to give you a flavor of the storytelling format:




Who's going to go?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)