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)

incentive2innovate - Tool #1: Open Collaboration

The first panel at the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations was on open collaboration. The panel was moderated by Don Tapscott (Author, "Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything" and "Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing the World"):

Arianna Huffington, Author, Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief, Huffington Post
Rob McEwen, Founder, Goldcorp, and CEO/Chairman, US Gold
Marthin de Beer, SVP, Emerging Technologies Group, Cisco
Filippo Passerini, Chief Information & Global Services Officer, Procter & Gamble
Karim R. Lakhani, Assistant Professor, Richard Hodgson Fellow, Harvard Business School


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

1. "People who know how to network effectively with other organizations will win as innovation becomes more open" - Filippo Passerini of P&G


2. "A lot of the Solvers want to signal to the community that they are very qualified people (even if they don't win). Open innovation also provides an outlet for collaboration that Solvers are potentially not getting in their current organization." - Karim Lakhani of HBS


3. The key to incenting innovation is how you define the problem and whether or not you encourage collaboration in launching the challenge.


4. "You have to identify the win-win in open innovation and remember that though it is a new business model, it still requires the same major components." - Filippo Passerini


5. "You have to build upon the contributions from open innovation and be open to failure." - Karim Lakhani of HBS

What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate - Keith Ferrazzi and Don Tapscott

After the welcome speeches concluded, Keith Ferrazzi came out and tried to get people to loosen up and get ready to take risks and collaborate for the greater good during the conference. Keith made several key points including the fact that you can't have innovation unless you have the ability to take social risk.

Keith Ferrazzi talked to the audience about how telling a story is emotional transportation to a place where someone actually cares. He then began to tell a story about his upbringing and being the poorest kid in the best school and how that influenced his life. He linked that to how real innovation requires people to let their guards down, take risks, and care about their teams.

Keith had the audience do two interaction exercises by turning to their neighbors and asking each other "What are you passionate about?" and "What holds you back?" He did this to force people to think about it and to express it.

Don Tapscott, author of "Wikinomics", "Growing up Digital", and "Grown up Digital" took the stage after Keith Ferrazzi. Don started by talking about technology and interconnectedness. Don talked about how the door to his hotel room probably has an IP address, before moving onto a story about a friend who's fence talks to his sprinkler because if a burglar jumps the fence, the sprinkler is the first line of defense.

Don's next topic was the exploration of how generations impact society, and how the digital generation just elected their first President of the United States - Barack Obama. The defining characteristic of the Digital Generation is that they grew up bathed in bits. They turn on their PC when they get home instead of their television. Spending time online instead of watching television changes the way people think and the way their brains function.

From there Don moved on to talk about how the Digital Generation is probably the first generation where kids occupy the position of expert on a subject in the household. He also made the point that just because today's kids don't read the newspaper, it doesn't mean they are not current on the news. The Digital Generation tends to triangulate its news using 60-70 rss feeds instead of picking up a dead tree. Plus, The Daily Show is only funny if you know what is going on in the news.

Don Tapscott talked about how the Net Generation will be characterized by innovation, and how your organization shouldn't have a web site, but instead it should create a self-organizing, vibrant community. Self-organization has been around since human history, but what used to happen over months or centuries now happens over days or weeks. Obama used a platform for self-organization to get elected, but now he is also using it as a platform to govern.

According to Don we are in the era of mass collaboration. So why in this era of self-organization isn't everyone an independent contractor? Well, the costs of search and collaboration are still one reason. As a result, organizations will still be better served by having employees for some time. They will however turn increasingly to open innovation. What is going to be one of the keys for organizations as they move to open innovation?

Well, if you're going to be naked, fitness is no longer optional - Moving to open innovation means being innovationally fit. Idea Connection and Innocentive are just a couple of the companies out there helping to facilitate open innovation.

Don Tapscott closed by talking about how organizations are going to have to adapt to the new generations and to the new realities. He spoke about how education is in trouble, and how the smartest kids try to get an 'A' without going to lecture. With so many existing institutions facing paradigm shifts, will new leaders emerge with new ideas to successfully lead the transformation?


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

incentive2innovate - Peter Diamandis and Matt Bross

Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman/CEO of Xprize Foundation kicked off the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations with the promise that incentivized innovation and open innovation would be the focus for the two days of the conference.

Incentivized innovation is not just about winning the prize, but about driving innovation beyond the goal of the contest - beyond the attainment of that goal to create tangible benefits for society.

Dr. Diamandis talked about how the teams spent $100+ million competing to win the original $10 million Xprize, and about how over $1 billion has been invested in the private space industry (thanks in part to the $10 million Xprize). They then showed an Xprize video.

Matt Bross, CEO of BT Innovate took the stage and talked about how commercial success and corporate social responsibility are no longer in conflict. He then went on talk about how it is difficult for us as a people to grasp that the 10x improvements that are occurring now, and how these improvements actually increase the sphere of innovation possibilities. Matt Bross likes to call what is going on now an "Innovation Big Bang."

BT invests $1 Billion in R&D and used to spend that internally, but now they are looking beyond the boundaries of their own payroll. At the same time, BT has added internal incentives of up to GBP 30,000 to unleash hundreds of million of dollars of cost reductions and product ideas from their employees.

Matt Bross then closed by talking about how when we look at the reality of most people in the world, it is far different from what most of us would think - 70% of the world's population can't read. If innovation can come from anywhere, how much innovation potential are we losing out on if 70% of the world can't read?

NOTE: I'm not sure about these numbers - a quick Bing search showed figures of around 1 Billion adults (~26%), but the point is still valid no matter what.


What do you think?


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)

Live Coverage from incentive2innovate

Hello all,

Next week I will be attending the incentive2innovate conference at the United Nations in New York City (June 8-9, 2009) and live blogging and tweeting. The star-studded roster of speakers will include:

- Peter Diamandis - X PRIZE Foundation
- Reid Hoffman - LinkedIn
- Dean Kamen - DEKA R&D Corporation
- Arianna Huffington - Huffington Post
- Marthin de Beer - Cisco Emerging Technologies Group (ETG)
- Matt Bross - BT Innovate
- Judy Estrin - JLABS, LLC
- Don Tapscott - Author "Wikinomics"


I will also have my video camera and hope to record some video segments for my blog.

If you'd like to be interviewed on camera at the World Innovation Forum about the innovation efforts at your company, please contact me. If you live in the UK, I am especially interested in interviewing you for potential Survival of the Fastest segments.


Or if you'd just like to meet-up at the event, then please also contact me.


You can track the conference proceedings by:

1. Following me on Twitter


2. Watching the #i2i hashtag during the event (ideally with TweetGrid or TweetChat or Twitter Search)


3. Subscribing by RSS or E-Mail to this blog for the latest articles

Stay tuned!


Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)