Chance to win a $3,690 Front End of Innovation Ticket

You've been waiting patiently, and now the time has come...

We have one (1) $3,690 Front End of Innovation ALL ACCESS PASS up for grabs. The winner will get:

• access to all three days of the event (May 3-5, 2010)
  
• access to four additional conferences taking place simultaneously on-site
  
  • The Beyond "Open"... Summit
    
  • Eco-Innovation
    
  • The Annual VOC Summit
    
  • Service Innovation
  
  
• and more

To enter our contest and have the chance to win this ticket you must be on Facebook, but the rest is easy:

1. Head over to our new Facebook page and become a fan


2. Then answer the following question in your own words - What is the 'Front End of Innovation'?, by either:


• Clicking on the discussions tab and responding to the topic there


• Clicking on the videos tab and recording a video answer to the above question (or upload a video file)


3. Do this by midnight GMT on March 21, 2010


4. We will select and announce five (5) finalists on March 22, 2010


5. Everyone will then be able to vote for their favorite until midnight GMT on March 28, 2010


6. We will announce the one (1) winner on March 29, 2010

I will personally select the five finalists based on the clarity, passion, and potentially the humor of the entry (bonus points for video). So, pretty much anything goes, but anyone posting anything indecent or offensive will not only have it deleted but will be harrassed mercilessly by me and the rest of the community until the end of time.

The winner will be chosen from the five finalists by my tabulation of votes from you the Blogging Innovation readers across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter @replies, and blog comments here on the five finalists announcement.

There will only be one (1) winner, but for those who don't win, you still can save 20% on event registration when you use our discount code "FEI2010BRADEN".


Editors's note: The ticket for the contest is being provided by the event organizers, not Blogging Innovation, and is conveyed at their discretion not ours. Winner is responsible for paying their own travel costs to the event and any other expenses.


Don't miss an article - Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

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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.

Top Innovation Conferences of 2010

Hello all. I just thought I would share with you a list of the top innovation conferences I'm aware of for 2010. I've also indicated which one's Blogging Innovation will be involved with by placing a "(BI)" at the end of each relevant entry, and indicated where we have negotiated special discounts for our loyal readers.


March 2010

• March 17-18 - Breakthrough Innovation 2010 - Barcelona, Spain


• March 23-24 - The Economist's - "Innovation - Fresh Thinking for the Ideas Economy" - Berkeley, CA, USA - (BI)


• Save $150 with our discount code "BLINN"

April 2010

• April 8 - NESTA Open for Business - London, UK


• April 9 - Washington Innovation Summit 2010 - Tacoma, WA, USA - (BI)


• April 21 - Fast Company Innovation Uncensored - New York, NY, USA

May 2010

• May 3-5 - Front End of Innovation USA - Boston, MA, USA - (BI)


• Save 20% with our discount code "FEI2010BRADEN"


• May 26-28 - World Innovation Convention - Ibiza, Spain

June 2010

• June 6-9 - The XXI ISPIM Conference - Bilbao, Spain


• June 9-10 - InnoTown 2010 - Aalesund, Norway


• June 8-9 - World Innovation Forum - New York, NY, USA - (BI)


• Save $200 with our discount code "INNOVATE" (plus additional early bird savings until April 23)

August 2010

• August 11-12 - Open Innovation Summit - Chicago, IL, USA - (BI)


• Save $400 with our discount code "BEC858" (plus additional early bird savings until June 4)

September 2010

• September 15-16 - Business Innovation Factory - Providence, RI, USA


• We may participate in this one and have a Discount Code for you soon

October 2010

• October 16-20 - PDMA Conference on Product Innovation Management - Orlando, FL, USA


• We may participate in this one this year

If you're attending one of these that we are not and would like to cover the conference for Blogging Innovation, please contact us.

If your event is not listed here, please feel free to submit it as a comment.

If you are an event organizer for an event listed here and you would like to offer our readers a discount code, please contact us.


Don't miss an article - Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

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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.

Enter to Win a Free Ticket to The Economist's March Event

Want a chance to win a free ticket ($1,500 value) to The Economist's event - "Innovation Fresh Thinking For the Ideas Economy" at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley on March 23-24, 2010?

It's easy, here is all you need to do is fill in the blank on our LinkedIn or Facebook discussion:

1. When it comes to innovation, I wish somebody would write about ______________.


• Fill in the blank in our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.
  
• Fill in the blank in our brand new Facebook page (and become a fan)

Enter by midnight GMT on March 2, 2010. Winner will be announced March 3, 2010.

If you don't want to enter the contest but would like to save $150 off event registration, see the discount code at the bottom of this article.


There will be a lot of great, top-flight speakers at this event, including:

• Clayton Christensen and Michael Porter (by Video Link)
  
• Arianna Huffington - Editor in Chief, Huffington Post
  
• Tim Brown - CEO, IDEO
  
• David Kelley - Head, Stanford Design School
  
• Judy Estrin - Author, "Closing the Innovation Gap"
  
• Scott Berkun - Author, "Myths of Innovation"
  
• Roger Martin - Dean, Rotman School of Business
  
• Paul Saffo - Visiting Scholar, Stanford Media X Network
  
• Matt Mullenweg - Founder, Wordpress
  
• John Kao - Author, "Innovation Nation"

As an added value for our loyal Blogging Innovation readers, we have negotiated a $150 discount when you register using our discount code - "BLINN" - register now.

We hope to see you there!


EDITOR'S NOTE: Winner is still responsible for all travel costs and the ticket is granted at The Economist's discretion not ours. There is only ONE (1) ticket up for grabs in this contest and it will be awarded to ONE (1) winner.


Don't miss an article - signup for our rss feed or our Continous Innovation group today!

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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.

7 Keys to Innovation - European Style

by Kathy Robison

Two weeks ago, I attended the Front End Innovation Europe Conference (FEI Europe) held in Amsterdam. One of the highlights was seeing the car in the picture above in person. Yes, they drove it into a large conference room inside the Hilton Hotel. It is the 2010 BMW Vision EfficientDynamics Concept car, and it is even more cool in person than in the photo. It's BMW's answer to the green car revolution. Though perhaps a little late to the game, I suspect it will eventually prove to be a huge success as they continue to do engineering with more style than most other car makers. In addition to seeing the car, we got to hear directly from Adrian van Hooydonk, the Director of Design of BMW Group and mastermind behind the group that developed the car. They clearly rose to the challenge of eloquently working Future Sustainability into their brand of the Joy of Mobility in a record amount of time.

We also received a lesson from Josephine Green, a well-known leader in trends and strategy from Philips Design, on Engaging with the Future Differently. It was a real eye opener for many. We also heard fantastic examples of innovation in conjunction with universities from Sigvald Harryson with Copenhagen Business School that left us all realizing the vastness of the untapped resources lurking around our universities. The event concluded with a superb presentation from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and an interactive session that literally no one wanted to leave. All in all... a huge success! If you missed FEI Europe, don't miss FEI USA 2010 in Boston this coming May (see editor's note for 20% off). I suspect it to be equally as tantalizing.

I've written previously about the Pitfalls of Innovation, and I still believe that far more talk about innovation occurs than actual innovation because true innovation comes from doing not talking. Just go to any third world country where people are forced to live with minimal resources and you will see what true innovation is all about. It comes more from unmet needs and a gap in resources than heavily padded budgets purposed toward the never-ending replacement of old gadgets with new gadgets. None-the-less, well done conferences such as FEI, are well worth it.

Below are the 7 Keys to an Innovative Business. Some are my standard favorites, and others I picked up at the FEI Europe Conference.

7 Keys to an Innovative Business

1. Multiple Approaches to Innovation Provide the Best Results


• Hire people with innovative characteristics
  
• Seek partnerships - the more unlikely, the better
  
• Lead users and co-invention can be extremely useful in some sectors
  
• Complex Coalitions (public/private/univ/venture/research) are coming


2. Don't Overlook the Importance of an Innovative Business Model


• Ensure culture and vision include a commitment to innovation
  
• Business as usual is no longer an option for 21st century success
  
• Traditional hierarchical and rigid organizations don't foster creativity
  
• Change should be the fuel of your business model not what creates a crisis


3. Find the Right Balance Between Old, Adjacent, and New Business/Products/Services


• Varies between industries, companies, and brands
  
• Don't chuck out the old, just for the sake of it
  
• How much of the value of your firm is based on its future potential?


4. Innovation Requires Optimism, Curiosity, and a Splash of the Future


• Spend more time studying the fringe - the middle is already known
  
• Analyze what isn't and not what is - finding the gaps
  
• Understand the "big think" trends
  
• Get to know younger generations, they will be running things soon


5. From Linear, to Exponential, to Circular


• From "out of the box thinking" to "thinking without boxes"
  
• Renewable and sustainable are circular concepts and here to stay
  
• Constant feedback loops are critical to staying ahead of the curve


6. Cultivating the Right Mindset is 90% of the Battle


• Learning from failure is a key to success
  
• Blur the lines and anxiety around internal vs external
  
• Collaboration with competitors can be the best option in some situations


7. Leadership Sans Egos


• Cultivating trust requires the courage to be vulnerable
  
• Constructive conflict produces the best answers
  
• Business model intimacy - creating solutions with customers
  
• Money is a low-level motivator... find out what really motivates your employees

Editor's Note: As an added value to our Blogging Innovation subscribers, we have negotiated a 20% discount for you. Just register using the discount code - FEI2010BRADEN.


Don't miss a post - Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

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Kathy Robison is the CEO of YURU, (The Guru Is You), dedicated to assisting businesses to realize the full potential of their success through innovative business strategies, executive coaching and leadership development.

Economist - "Fresh Thinking For The Ideas Economy"

Blogging Innovation will be covering The Economist's event - "Innovation Fresh Thinking For the Ideas Economy" (see discount code below) at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley on March 23-24, 2010.

There will be a lot of great, top-flight speakers at this event, including:

• Clayton Christensen and Michael Porter (by Video Link)
  
• Arianna Huffington - Editor in Chief, Huffington Post
  
• Tim Brown - CEO, IDEO
  
• David Kelley - Head, Stanford Design School
  
• Judy Estrin - Author, "Closing the Innovation Gap"
  
• Scott Berkun - Author, "Myths of Innovation"
  
• Roger Martin - Dean, Rotman School of Business
  
• Paul Saffo - Visiting Scholar, Stanford Media X Network
  
• Matt Mullenweg - Founder, Wordpress
  
• John Kao - Author, "Innovation Nation"

As an added value for our loyal Blogging Innovation readers, we have negotiated a $150 discount when you register using our discount code - "BLINN" - register now.

We hope to see you there!

Don't miss an article - signup for our rss feed or our Continous Innovation group today!

---

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.

Making Your Organization Understand Open Innovation

A Lesson from General Mills

by Stefan Lindegaard

Changing organizational culture is one of the most difficult tasks when it comes to open innovation. What can you do? Well, General Mills gave a great example at the recent CoDev conference. By sending more than 20 people to the conference, they sent a strong signal - internally as well as externally - that they are committed to open innovation.

I really liked this move and thus I did an interview with Mike Antinone, who is Sr. R&D Manager, Connected Innovation in General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network, in order to get a better understanding on this.


What made you decide to send this delegation to CoDev?

We had two main reasons for sending our GWIN team to CoDev this year. The first was really around team building. We have added several new team members as we expand our global innovation entrepreneur program and we wanted to have some time away from the daily demands of the office to foster an added sense of community.

The second area for us was to collectively learn and leverage the insights and best practices of other open innovation leaders represented at the conference and then create a plan of action to determine how we can best incorporate those insights and practices into our group.


What were the objectives?

We feel great about the progress that we have made with our Connected Innovation program, but we also wanted to put some serious thinking into "Next Practices" - those practices that we will need in the future to drive our program ahead and distance ourselves from competitors. We did not want to just go and listen, take notes, have a quick discussion then go back to our daily routine. Our goal was to create tangible action steps that we would incorporate into our development plans for our program.

We began our preparations about six to eight weeks before the conference. We divided the group into four teams with each team being responsible for a given topic. We chose to focus on three key objectives for our company. These were:

1. Driving profitable growth through Connected Innovation


2. Creating and leveraging more successful partnerships


3. Driving Connected Innovation throughout our company

Each team then created a list of questions they wanted answered about how we as innovation entrepreneurs could dramatically impact the three objectives outlined above. Our goal was to collect as many facts as possible.

The fourth team set up a series of networking opportunities, both before and after the conference to provide stimulus for answers to our questions. Some of those networking opportunities included:

• Smaller match-making events at the conference. We prearranged a series of discussions with conference participants. We met during breaks, at lunch, etc. to engage in a dialog about areas we wanted to advance and grow as an organization.


• Utilization of CoDev LinkedIn site. We posted several questions on the LinkedIn site to gain additional insights and make connections


• We also made sure we had prepared germane questions for each of the speakers to ensure we were tapping into their area of expertise.

Our team stayed in Scottsdale an extra day after the conference ended to have a working breakout session to summarize our key findings and to create an action plan going forward. During this session, we created list of "we-should" statements in our breakout sessions that were then reduced to three major areas of focus for each category as we continue to develop our program.


Which lessons have you learned so far?

It was very powerful to have our entire group at such a stimulating event. We had many opportunities to interact with each other, build on what we heard, and engage thought leaders with differing points of view. The conference provided us with a great opportunity to assess our program, consider new elements and chart a course as we continue our Connected Innovation journey.


Conclusion

I am impressed. Such an initiative can anchor open innovation in your company as it provides a great opportunity to build a common language based on what the team learned at the conference. This can really help develop the next practices of open innovation at General Mills.

Can you talk your executives into this kind of commitment?


Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and join our Continuous Innovation group!

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Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks

by Kevin Roberts

Newspapers are up against it in the Participation Economy, the Internet-powered revolution of joining in, taking part, sharing and joy. For the modern consumer, the idea of reading newspapers full of day-old news hand-picked by faceless editors seems, well, very early 90's.

These days we get to be our own editor-in-chief, selecting the bits of news, opinion and analysis that best suit our tastes, politics or predilections. The news business still hasn't worked out a way to make this work financially, but I suspect that will change soon. Free is not sustainable. Walter Isaacson, former editor of Time, proposed one possible approach to the issue of payment here.

There may be some spark in the old format yet. On the first day of the climate talks in Copenhagen, 56 newspapers in 20 languages pulled off a dramatic and high-impact stunt. They simultaneously published a front-page editorial calling for action on climate change. Papers included The Guardian (which got the ball rolling), the Toronto Star, the Jakarta Globe, Le Monde, The Brunei Times, la Repubblica and The Cambodia Daily.

This degree of collaboration across geographical and political boundaries carries a high degree of difficulty. Whatever you think about the editorial itself, the scale and audacity of the maneuver is impressive. The old-school newspaper editorial is long past its heyday, but - on this occasion at least - some creative thinking and collaboration breathed some life back into the art-form.


Image Source: http://babycreativeblog.com/copenhagen/

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Kevin Roberts is the CEO worldwide of The Lovemarks Company, Saatchi & Saatchi. For more information on Kevin, please go to www.saatchikevin.com. To see this blog at its original source, please go to www.krconnect.blogspot.com.

Barriers to Innovation Workshop

by Braden Kelley

This week I will be leading Workshop B on identifying and removing barriers to innovation on December 2, 2009 at the Open Innovation Summit in Orlando, Florida at the Crowne Plaza Orlando Universal.

Adding a front line perspective to the workshop will be:

• Greg Fox (Cisco Systems) - Chief Marketing Officer, Strategic Alliances, WW Operations & Business Development


• Helene F. Rutledge (GSK Consumer Healthcare) - Director of Open Innovations


• Hutch Carpenter (Spigit) - Vice President of Product

The workshop will be a discussion with participants about identifying the barriers to innovation that can cripple the innovation capabilities that make organizations successful. This interactive workshop will also examine how to make immediate changes in your organization to start removing participants' particular barriers to innovation and accelerate their organizations' innovation capabilities.

Highlights will include:

• An examination of how successful organizations go from nimble David to sluggish Goliath


• An introduction of a framework for identifying barriers to innovation


• Group Exercise - How to identify the barriers to innovation within your organization


• An analysis of how others have removed barriers to innovation in their own organizations


• Group Exercise - How to remove barriers to innovation in your organization

There is still time to register for the Open Innovation Summit and my Workshop B for $1000 off with code YPY692 online or by phone at 781-939-2500.

After the workshop I will be covering the rest of the Open Innovation Summit on Twitter as @innovate at the hashtag #OIS09, and will be writing up some blog entries after the event for Blogging Innovation.

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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.

Conference Report - The Power to Innovate

by Drew Boyd

Congratulations to the team at Invention Machine for hosting this week's conference, Power to Innovate, at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. The theme of the conference centered around the Innovation Intelligence EcosystemTM and how companies can boost performance by coordinating information, communities, and innovation activities. Invention Machine's premier product, Goldfire, is at the center of this ecosystem.


"Goldfire is a unique innovation software platform that transforms ideas into commercial products - generating and validating concepts and making innovation a sustainable process. Designed with engineers, scientists and researchers in mind, Goldfire automates every day innovation tasks - from identifying a new market to developing a new product to improving existing product offerings - and empowering users with a repeatable process. Fusing proven innovation methods for generating ideas along with advanced technologies for accessing precise concepts from corporate and worldwide knowledge sources, Goldfire stimulates creative thinking and speeds inventive problem solving—helping product development engineers, scientists and researchers to quickly conceive and validate ideas thus fueling product pipelines."


The latest release, 5.5, should greatly enhance usability of the product especially by groups outside of R&D such as marketing and M&A. Jim Belfiore, Certified Innovation Master & Senior Director at Invention Machine, demonstrated how he researched the disease, lymphoma. I was amazed at the depth and breadth of insights he created using Goldfire 5.5.

The entire conference was followed on Twitter compliments of Andrea Meyer. Check it out at #P2I09. Here are some other highlights from the conference:

• Jim Todhunter, Chief Technology Officer at Invention Machine, shared their technology roadmap and how Goldfire will enhance research, not just search capability around a topic. He shared a sneak peak at release 6.0 and some of the new features to enhance collaboration, both internally and externally. Jim also presented an "Innovation Practice Maturity Model." This four level model helps companies understand where they need to head to increase and sustain innovation.


• Randy Schiestl, VP Research and Development of Boston Scientific, shared their collective experience adopting Goldfire and using it across the enterprise.


• Jim Belfiore presented "Collaborative Innovation" and how to leverage Goldfire's capabilities in team settings. Later, Jim Todhunter addressed it head on with a presentation on Open Innovation.

I am impressed with Goldfire, and I am particularly interested in how it could intersect with other technologies such as:

• Virtual reality like Second Life and the simulations from Visual Purple. As Edward Tufte notes, we need to escape "Flatland" and get ourselves out of two dimensional computer screens and into richer learning and sensing environments. Embedding the output of Goldfire into a three dimensional world could add context and usability.


• Preferencing systems such as those used by Amazon, Pandora, and others that allow users to continuously refine and enhance choices by "thumbs up/thumbs down" voting.


• Pattern recognition approaches. Marketers particularly need to see patterns emerging about their brands within the social web and within formal literature. Combining the output of Goldfire with data visualization might help marketers do this quicker and more effectively.


• Mass scaling. Goldfire aggregates information from multiple sources, both internally and externally. Could it be used in a more domestic, non-corporate setting to enhance people's standard of living? A simple tool like Google Reader aggregates pre-selected website information using RSS feeds. Goldfire far outstrips this. Could individuals use a lighter version of Goldfire to collect their daily news given the shortcomings of traditional printed newspapers?

Invention Machine's CMO, Jeff Boehm, shared an interesting statistic about the companies participating at this conference. Those companies have outperformed the market 11.5% over the last 13 months.

Message: innovate to grow.

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Drew Boyd is Director of Marketing Mastery for Johnson & Johnson (Ethicon Endo-Surgery division). He is also Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Cincinnati and Executive Director of the MS-Marketing program. Follow him at www.innovationinpractice.com and at http://twitter.com/drewboyd

Optimizing Innovation Conference Wrapup

by Braden Kelley

We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from all of the speakers at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.

The speakers at this intimate conference were the innovation directors from several Fortune 500 companies, who shared their approaches to topics as varied as innovation management, process, innovation metrics, and more.

Click the link of the speaker you are most interested in, or read them all!

• Microsoft - Joe Boggio and Michael Steep


• AT&T - Rajendra Seksaria


• Anheuser Busch-InBev - Patrick O'Riordan


• Panel Discussion


• Alcatel-Lucent - Dr. Guido Petit


• 3M - Mauro Porcini


• CogniStreamer - Wim Soens


• Xerox - Francois Ragnet


• Kraft Foods - Dr. Stephen K. Goers


• SmartOrg - Dr. David Matheson and Don Creswell


• Chevron - Jack Anderson


• Google - Dr. Daniel Sturman


• American Express - Steve Faktor


• Creax - Simon Dewulf


• Pfizer - Roopa Unnikrishnan


• Whirlpool - Moises Norena


• LinkedIn - Dr. Ellen Levy

Overall, it was a great conference. The Connecting Group will be hosting a European version next year called 'Breakthrough Innovation 2010' in Barcelona, Spain from March 17-18, 2010.

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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.

Optimizing Innovation - Dr. Ellen Levy of LinkedIn

by Braden Kelley

We are happy to bring you some of the key points and insights from Dr. Ellen Levy's talk at the Optimizing Innovation Conference, which was held October 21-22, 2009 in New York City.

Dr. Ellen Levy, VP of Corporate Development and Strategy at LinkedIn was the opening speaker at the event. She set the stage by talking about how social networking is not a fad, and how the key elements of a successful network are identity (authenticity/ownership), trust, and reputation.

As an example of the importance of trust, she described how on the same day that LinkedIn started allowing people to add headshot photos to their profile, they also launched a feature that allowed other users to say "never show me a photo." This is of course key for people like HR managers who need to systematically avoid being biased by things like photos in their screening processes.

Dr. Levy went on to describe how the problem now is not access to information, but information overload. Now of course the manual solution would be to spend more time doing things like answering email, but at the same time there could also be technology solutions like having artificial intelligence determine which emails to answer. There is of course a third way, and that would be to solve the problem using social inferences. Think about the Amazon recommendation engine as an example, and think about extending that to show you books that were also purchased by other heads of innovation.

Switching our attention to open innovation, there is a very real reason for having a broad range of sources for ideas, and companies are trying to figure out how to handle this. A lot of business books assume you will have the ability to look up information about people, that they are trustworthy, and that you will be able to reach out them. These same books also assume that people halfway around the world will actually want to work with you. This is one of the keys to open innovation - identifying how to make these trusted connections and finding ways to grab their attention.

She closed by admitting that their iPhone application is not as good as it could be. She did say however that they not only have a newer iPhone application coming, but they are also building an API for site owners to use.

So, how can you take advantage of the things that are taking place on the consumer internet in your business?

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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.

Live Coverage of Optimizing Innovation - October 21-22, 2009

by Braden Kelley

We had hoped to bring you live coverage on Twitter of the Optimizing Innovation Conference (October 21-22, 2009) from the Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan in New York City, but unfortunately there is no WiFi in the hotel.

During the event we do still plan to secure video or text interviews with several of the speakers, and post them after the event along with blog entries with key insights from the speakers' presentations.

Here is a partial list of the corporate innovation leaders speaking at the event:

• Whirlpool - Moises Norena - Director of Global Innovation & PMR


• American Express - Steven Faktor - VP, Head of Chairman's Innovation Fund and Portfolio Management


• Wyeth Biotech - Robert Repetto - Director, New Technology and Innovation


• 3M - Mauro Porcini - Head of Global Design Consumer & Office Business


• Diageo - Randy Carlson - Global Innovation Director


• Kraft Foods - Dr. Steven Goers - VP of Open Innovation & Investments


• Anheuser Busch-InBev - Patrick O'Riordan - Global Director of Insights and Innovation


• AXA Equitable - Halina Karachuk - VP of Innovation


• BAE Systems - John Paul Parker - Director of Intelligence Innovation


• Microsoft - Joe Boggio - Director of Innovation Management Solutions

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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.

Live Coverage of Optimizing Innovation

by Braden Kelley

We will be bringing you live coverage on Twitter of Optimizing Innovation (October 21-22, 2009) from the Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan in New York City.

During the event we hope to do video interviews with several of the speakers.

And, after the event we will post our video interviews and blog entries with key insights from the speakers' presentations.

Here is a partial list of the corporate innovation leaders speaking at the event:

• Whirlpool - Moises Norena - Director of Global Innovation & PMR


• American Express - Steven Faktor - VP, Head of Chairman's Innovation Fund and Portfolio Management


• Wyeth Biotech - Robert Repetto - Director, New Technology and Innovation


• 3M - Mauro Porcini - Head of Global Design Consumer & Office Business


• Diageo - Randy Carlson - Global Innovation Director


• Kraft Foods - Dr. Steven Goers - VP of Open Innovation & Investments


• Anheuser Busch-InBev - Patrick O'Riordan - Global Director of Insights and Innovation


• AXA Equitable - Halina Karachuk - VP of Innovation


• BAE Systems - John Paul Parker - Director of Intelligence Innovation


• Microsoft - Joe Boggio - Director of Innovation Management Solutions

Follow along with us during the event on Twitter for the blow-by-blow analysis.

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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.

The Front End Of Innovation Challenge

by Stefan Lindegaard

In a recent meeting in one of my network groups, we focused on the front end of innovation as a couple of the members have current challenges on how to identify and develop ideas in the very early stages.

I remember attending my first Front End Of Innovation conference in Boston five years ago. Hundreds of people participated and there was a great energy. At that time, front end of innovation was the talk of the town in the innovation community just as open innovation is today. Interestingly enough, the front end of innovation is still one of the key challenges for innovation leaders and the Front End of Innovation conferences continue to attract hundreds of participants.

I wonder why this is the case. Has the innovation community failed on developing models that provide answers to this? Are innovation leaders not good enough at learning from other's experiences on this?

In my talks with innovation leaders on this, the issues evolve around the funnel system and stage-gate like models; how to identify the ideas and get them from one stage to the next. Another key issue is how you organize for this. It is my experience that companies often make a couple of mistakes on this. They are:

1. Too much focus on internal sources

• Many innovation leaders mostly talk about internal and employee-driven ideas. There is not enough focus on how to involve external sources in the front end of innovation. This will change as open innovation moves ahead, but why not try to get a head start on this.

2. Too much focus on ideas and too little on processes and people

• I have always said that getting ideas is not an issue. There are plenty of them. If you do not find them internally, it is because you do not look in the right places or because you need to include external sources to a higher degree. The real issue on ideas is how you filter and later on mature them.

So a lot of ideas do not necessarily equal success. This only occurs when you have the proper processes in place and more importantly when you have the right people at the right time.

See this post: People First, Processes Next, Then Ideas


3. No filtering process in place

• The "everything goes" process does not work. You need to set up filters to make sure the early ideas fit the strategic intent you are working towards. You can get an idea of what it looks like when this is not the case in this blog post: How Not to Implement Open Innovation

4. Processes are too complex

• I have seen several cases where companies created processes that attended every issue related to getting ideas through the funnel and their stage gate processes. It looked very good on paper, but it did not work in the real world. Sometimes you need to keep things simple and leave room for "learn-as-you-go" development.

These are just some quick thoughts on this. It would be great to hear your perspectives on why the front end of innovation continues to be such a big challenge.

You can also check out this group at LinkedIn if you want to get an idea of the issues people discuss on this topic: Front End Of Innovation

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Stefan Lindegaard is a speaker, network facilitator and strategic advisor who focus on the topics of open innovation, intrapreneurship and how to identify and develop the people who drive innovation.

Calling All Media and Energy Innovators

The Economist is holding two innovation competitions to find the most exciting, game-changing innovations that will have a marked impact in two key areas: new media and energy. Twelve finalists will be invited to present their innovations to an audience of top executives in the field at events hosted by The Economist. Finalists will also receive complimentary conference registrations (value of up to $2,495). The winning presenter will receive exclusive bragging rights and a free subscription to The Economist.


1. Media Convergence

Do you have the next thrilling new interface, electronic reader, social media idea, mobile device or other novel way for people to interact with media? If you have a media or marketing innovation that you believe will change the way people behave, then you should enter to win the Media Convergence Innovation Competition, taking place in New York City, October 20-21, 2009.




The deadline for entries is September 8, 2009 in YouTube video format. Complete details and rules area available here or by email.


2. Carbon Economy

Do you have the game changing solution for climate change, the next renewable energy source, human-powered appliance or breakthrough use of nano-technology? If you have created a product or service that will improve energy efficiency or will add to the renewable energy industry, then you should enter to win the Carbon Innovation Competition, taking place in Washington DC, November 17-18, 2009.




The deadline for entries is September 30, 2009 in YouTube video format. Complete details and rules area available here or by email.


Good luck to any readers who decide to participate!

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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.

Conferences 3.0

To get the latest thinking and network with their peers, managers used to jump on a plane and go to an industry trade show or conference. Now with the Internet and Social Networks, managers can do a lot of the same things right from their desk. Conferences and trade shows are facing disruption from blogs, webinars, and social media. The economic downturn hasn't helped matters as companies have slashed education and travel budgets.

To survive, conferences will have to harness the power of the very tools that are threatening to kill them. This means the logistics requirements and characteristics of conference events are changing. In today's digital world, conferences have the ability to spill beyond the four walls of the event and grow their platform at the same time.

TED, with good reason, is widely considered the leader when it comes to utilizing digital media into their approach to events (including their wide distribution of recorded video content from their events). Outside of TED, of the different approaches to integrating digital and social media into conferences that I've seen, HSM Americas has the most innovative approach.

HSM Americas really seems to understand the important role that digital and social media can play in not only augmenting the experience for attendees, but also in expanding public awareness of the event and increasing the desire of non-attendees to attend the next event in person.

I had the opportunity to sit down with George Levy and Becky Gee of HSM Americas to discuss the Bloggers Hub concept from the World Innovation Forum and asked them the following five questions:

1. How did HSM Americas decide to do the Bloggers Hub at the World Innovation Forum?


• We wanted to expand the wisdom being shared by the speakers beyond the four walls, to expand the reach and impact to those that would like to come to the live event, but for whatever reason were unable to.



2. What were the key challenges to executing the Bloggers Hub concept?


• The greatest challenge was building a process - inventing as we went. The selection of the bloggers was particularly challenging.
  We had to look at what the make up of the group might be, where the Bloggers Hub would sit in the event space, and other big questions.



3. Do you feel that HSM Americas got a positive return on investment on the effort?


• This was a very good play, both from an exposure standpoint but also from a satisfaction standpoint (sponsors and bloggers). The value that attendees received from the event went beyond the timing of the event - "Continues after the curtain goes down."



4. Do you plan on repeating the Bloggers Hub concept?


• Yes, we will do it for the World Business Forum, although the organization will be more complicated because the conference will have more topics (more difficult to select the bloggers).



5. What were the biggest learnings for next time?


• We think that there are opportunities to better integrate the activities in the Bloggers Hub with what is happening on the stage. We will have to identify ways to expand the learning and interaction during and after the event.

The take-aways from my experiences and the conversation with HSM Americas, was that to put on a truly excellent conference today that is capable of extending beyond the four walls of the event, you should consider doing the following:

1. Create a selection process for inclusion of the digital press into your press strategy. Organize your digital press corps in advance of the event and arm them with digital media, speaker bios, discount codes, etc. so they can help build awareness for the event.


2. Make sure there are plenty of power plugins, WiFi, and suitable work surfaces


3. Build one community for the press and another for attendees on LinkedIn, Ning, or another social network in advance of the event so they can start familiarizing themselves with each other. Use these communities to also solicit feedback from both groups to help the speakers evolve their talks to be as interesting as possible for attendees.


4. Organize a face-to-face social event for all of the press you have invited to attend


5. Publish a list of web sites covering the event in advance so people know where to find videos, articles, and podcasts from the event (both before and after)


6. Create a Twitter strategy and a Twitter hashtag and begin using it in advance of the event. Announce the Twitter hashtag at the beginning of every event session, and display the Twitter feed on your event web site during the event, in public areas at the event and on the big screen during event breaks


7. Encourage mixing between attendees and the press. This will enrich the coverage of the event.


8. Consider working with the speaker to provide course-changing input based on audience sentiment from Twitter, but DO NOT put up a live Twitter feed up behind the speaker or let the speaker monitor the Twitter feed during the event - Too Distracting!

Can conference organizers avoid sharing the fate of COMDEX? Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure - leveraging digital and social media are the only ways to avoid being disrupted by them.


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate Conference Wrapup

I just returned from a great experience at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations in New York City. Hosting the conference at the United Nations seemed appropriate given that it was a gathering of people who are trying to change the world. The percentage of people representing non-profits and social capitalist organizations was much higher than I expected, and it made for fascinating discussions. The conference was hosted in a gigantic conference room at the United Nations where UN delegates recently discussed the current economic crisis and debated potential solutions.

The conference was a combination of keynotes, panel discussions, and group breakouts where the groups debated one particular topic and brought their collective reactions back to the bigger group. There was a high level of interaction between participants during the various breaks and meals - with the public, the private, and the charitable all coming together for some interesting conversations and debates.

I had the opportunity to record the following video interviews to share with you:

• Dean Kamen - Founder of DEKA Research and FIRST


• Alpheus Bingham and Dwayne Spradlin - Innocentive Founder and CEO


• Charlie Brown - Executive Director of Ashoka's Changemakers


• Neil Blakesley - VP, Strategy Marketing and Propositions for BT Americas

I have also published a collection of blog articles that highlight the top insights from the various sessions:

• Peter Diamandis and Matt Bross


• Keith Ferrazzi and Don Tapscott


• Tool #1: Open Collaboration


• Tool #2: Incentivized Competition


• Healthcare Industry Applications


• Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn


• Creating an Innovation Culture in Your Company


• Global Development and Partnerships

Here is a video from the Xprize Foundation from the conference to give you a quick inside look into what the conference was like:




I thought that incentive2innovate was a great conference and that the Xprize Foundation organizers put on a fantastic event in a historic location. But, I'm not sure how they can put on another compelling event next year without expanding the focus of the conference. Given the large number of social enterprises, charities, and NGO's at the conference this year, that might be one direction to go - "Innovation for the Greater Good." For people interested in this topic, I encourage you to download and read my white paper "Charitable Innovation - Disrupting for Good."


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate - Global Development & Partnerships

The final panel on the second day at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations was on global development and partnerships. The panel was moderated by Michael Green (Co-Author "Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World"):

Andreas Widmer, Co-Founder, S.E.VEN (Social Equity Venture) Fund
Amir Dossal, Executive Director, United Nations Office for Partnerships
Charlie Brown, Executive Director, Ashoka Changemakers
Carol Armistead Grigsby, Deputy Director, Office of Development Partners (ODP), US Agency for International Development (USAID)



Rather than trying to recount the discussion, I thought I would present the Top Insights from the panel:

1. "Innovation requires the use of appropriate technology for your target markets (whether corporate or non-profit)." - Andreas Widmer


2. "When a non-profit is looking to run a contest, it shouldn't be focused solely on the ideas or the solutions, but on the total impact." - Charlie Brown


3. Ashoka's Changemakers seeks to act as an accelerator for external foundations who provide sponsorship for its challenges.


4. "There are lots of social efforts going on and sometimes it can feel overwhelming but you have to get involved." - Charlie Brown


5. USAID plans to launch "innovation springs" similar to the "innovation jams" at IBM.

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate - Creating an Innovation Culture

The second panel on the second day at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations was on creating an innovation culture in your organization. The panel was moderated by Dwayne Spradlin, CEO, InnoCentive:

Neil Blakesley, VP, Strategy Marketing & Propositions, BT Americas
Marthin de Beer, SVP, Emerging Technologies Group, Cisco
John Gibson, CEO, Paradigm
Judy Estrin, Author, "Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy"



Rather than trying to recount the discussion, I thought I would present the Top Insights from the panel and the breakout session outcomes:

1. Thee most accurate lifeline on Who Wants to be a Millionaire is ask the audience, but most people use it first instead of saving it for later. The point is that even when people are presented with data or intrinsicly know something, they don't always modify behavior to their best strategic advantage.


2. "The shift in thinking behind Open Innovation is that companies don't have to originate the research to profit from it." - Dwayne Spradlin


3. "Culture eats strategy for lunch" - Dwayne Spradlin - For companies to be successful in Open Innovation a cultural transformation will be necessary.


4. 10 yrs ago Ford was #1 in R&D spend on planet, now they are 67th. R&D doesn't necessarily equal innovation.


5. "You must have assets & attributes in your organization, make the necessary structural changes, and secure the commitment of the organization to innovate successfully." -Neil Blakesley


6. Cisco's Innovation Model - Build, Buy, Partner, Collaborate - You must open up and be excellent at collaboration to innovate in today's world.


7. "If you don't already have innovation in your organizational DNA then you must do a lot of heavy lifting to get there." - Marthin de Beer


8. "Go to market is much more difficult than coming up with the idea (only 10% of great ideas make it)." - Marthin de Beer


9. "Sarbanes Oxley and the short-term profit focus of the markets have forced organizations to have managers at the helm instead of leaders who can drive the original vision forward." - John Gibson


10. "I brought in a clean slate of managers to turn the organization around, but ended up with the same culture at the end. The processes in a company drive most of the culture, you have to change them to change the culture." - John Gibson


11. "If you have the 'capacity for change' then you will have an environment in which real innovation can happen." - Judy Estrin


12. "Challenges motivate innovation - threats kill innovation" - Judy Estrin


13. "What is an innovation ecosystem? - You need right balance between research, development, application, & behavioral change capability." - Judy Estrin


14. "You should do the ratio between people that report/talk about the business versus people focused on innovation. The results will surprise you." - Neil Blakesley


15. "Companies need a culture of Internal Innovation to complement a culture of Open Innovation. Swinging too far towards Open Innovation could prevent you from attracting the talent you need for Internal Innovation." - Judy Estrin

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate - Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn

Day two at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations featured a keynote by Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn.

Reid Hoffman took the stage and began by speaking about how individiduals are now small businesses, before moving on to discuss how the venture capital industry started in Boston but has been eclipsed by Silicon Valley. Proliferation of open networks in the valley are the reason. Collaboration has driven the success of Silicon Valley, not just physical proximity - other locales have been more controlling of information.

Reid talked about how often entrepreneurs don't want to tell anyone about their idea. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur with a great idea, then identify the right people to talk with about your "secret" idea and spill the beans. You will get lots of useful feedback more often than competition. Fail fast!

On the topic of social networks, Reid Hoffman talked about how 2/3 of his network thought he was crazy when he pitched LinkedIn, but he persisted anyways. Reid doesn't think that LinkedIn and Facebook compete today, and that Twitter and Facebook aren't directly competitive either - Twitter does universal sharing and Facebook does limited sharing. One of the best quotes of the talk was:

"MySpace is the bar. Facebook is the backyard BBQ. LinkedIn is the office."


Reid Hoffman's final major point was that we still penalize people for failure when we need to let people say - "No I learned and now I'm ready to play again."


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate - Healthcare Industry Applications

The first panel on the second day at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations was on applying incentive prizes and open collaboration in the healthcare industry. The panel was moderated by Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Chairman & CEO, X PRIZE Foundation:

Eric Eisenstadt, Ph.D., Deputy Vice President for Research, J. Craig Venter Institute
Lisa Latts, M.D., Vice President, Clinical Excellence, WellPoint, Inc.
Yury Rozenman, Head of Strategy and Marketing, Healthcare & Life Sciences, BT Global Services
Dean Kamen, President, DEKA Research & Development Corporation



Rather than trying to recount the discussion, I thought I would present the Top Insights from the part of the panel and the breakout session outcomes that I was able to catch:

1. Interesting idea for healthcare - Connecting people to earn health points that would allow people and communities to compete on health.


2. Creating collaborative competition - Group 6 would like to encourage health insurers to compete for a prize for wellness improvements.


3. Group 7 would like to create a smart, immersive environment that people can use to educate themselves and to connect with other people facing the same procedure (pre-operation).


4. Group 10 focused on how you change people's behavior and changing the whole system around desired outcomes to support behavior change.


5. Persistence, compliance, and adherence are key in healthcare.

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate - Tool #2: Incentivized Competition

The second panel at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations was on incentivized competition. The panel was moderated by Matthew Bishop (Chief Business Writer/US Business Editor, The Economist; Co-Author "Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World"):

Paul Jansen, Partner, McKinsey & Company
Jonathan Bays, Social Sector Consultant, McKinsey & Company
Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Chairman & CEO, X PRIZE Foundation
Alpheus Bingham, Ph.D., Founder and Board Member, InnoCentive
Anthony J. Tether, Ph.D., Former Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)



Rather than trying to recount the discussion, I thought I would present the Top Insights from the panel:

1. McKinsey did a study of whether or not prizes work in philanthropy. They found that prizes are a unique & powerful tool to drive innovation. Prizes have been used for a long time - including the Orteig Prize that rewarded Lindbergh for his transatlantic flight with $25,000. Download the study as PDF


2. The growth rate in available prizes is running at 14% a year. Almost half has come from foundations or non-profits established between 1995 and now. The majority of prizes used to be for the arts and now they are for the sciences.


3. Prizes can employ as many as seven different mechanisms to achieve their goals. Here are seven ways that prizes deliver change:


1. Identify Excellence


2. Focus a Community


3. Influence Public Perception


4. Identify and Mobilize New Talent


5. Strengthen Community


6. Educate and Improve Skills


7. Mobilize Capital


4. Successful "Solvers" often are very distant from the solution. This a good reason to create interdisciplinary teams to seek solutions.


5. Achievement of a prize helps to transform what the broader population believes is possible. A hidden but powerful benefit!


6. There are six major prize types


1. Participation


2. Exemplar


3. Network


4. Exposition


5. Point Solution


6. Market Stimulation


7. The new healthcare Xprize could help transform healthcare from reactive medicine to proactive, personalized medicine.


8. We create stories around the Aha! moments that result in success, ignoring the unsuccessful attempts that helped drive that Aha! moment. We should celebrate the role of failures in successes.


9. "Money is not the reason for kids not getting into science. We haven't been giving them interesting, difficult challenges to inspire them." - Anthony Tether


10. The key to Open Innovation is defining the problem and then identifying the crucial barriers that need to be overcome to solve it.


11. DARPA Grand Challenge competitors were actually more interested in the trophy than the millions of dollars. When doing an innovation prize, it is important to understand what the motivation is of your potential competitors - money is not the only draw.


12. If there is not a sustainable community that will continue beyond prize achievement, then the prize may not succeed.


13. "Entities that underinvest in execution of the prize to offer a larger prize, will often be underwhelmed by the results." - Paul Jansen


14. Informational power is widely distributed, financial power is concentrated - both can be used to drive innovation - powerful together.

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)