Summit Offers Innovators Inspiration in Tough Economic Times
Business Innovation Factory Summit on October 7-8 brings top innovation talent to Rhode Island, forgoes glam for intimate, accessible experience.
(June 22, 2009) Providence, R.I—“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” says Saul Kaplan, founder of the Business Innovation Factory, who insists that when times are tough, innovation is even more important. Although Kaplan doesn’t take credit for coining the phrase, he and his team expect the message to resonate at BIF’s fifth annual Collaborative Innovation Summit on October 7-8.
“For everything that is wrong with our economy right now, it’s a good time for innovators who are using the downturn to advance ideas that couldn’t get traction a year or two ago,” says Kaplan. “The need for innovation is so great that people are hungry for bold, new ideas. The BIF Summit is the perfect forum for exactly this conversation.”
This year, BIF-5 will be co-hosted by BusinessWeek contributing editor Bruce Nussbaum and bestselling author Bill Taylor.
The duo will oversee a program that includes stories from innovators such as:
• Paola Antonelli, senior curator in the department of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art
• Bill Buxton, principal researcher at Microsoft Research, a 30-year technology veteran and author of Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design
• Sarah Endline founded Sweetriot, which strives to build tasty little morsels in a different way for a different generation
• Jeff Jarvis, author, journalist, and blogger at Buzzmachine.com, his book, What Would Google Do? was published in January, 2009 to wide-acclaim
• Kris Halvorsen, Chief Innovation Officer, Intuit
• Grant Harrison, vice president of integrated consumer experience at Humana
• Jonah Lehrer editor-at-large for Seed magazine, Rhodes scholar and author of the bestseller How We Decide
• John Maeda, a world-renowned artist, graphic designer, and computer scientist is now president of the Rhode Island School of Design
• Neri Oxman, an architect and researcher at MIT. Her work is at the intersection of architecture, engineering, computation and ecology.
• Carne Ross, Former British diplomat and now co-founder and director, Independent Diplomat
• Leonard Schlesinger, president of Babson College and former vice chairman and COO of Limited Brands, overseeing Express, Limited Stores, Victoria’s Secret Beauty, Bath and Body Works, and Henri Bendel
• Bob Schwartz, GM of Global Design, GE Healthcare
• Patricia Seybold, an authority on customer experience innovation with more than three decades of experience and author of the acclaimed book Outside Innovation
• Don Tapscott, chairman of nGenera Insight, is the author of 13 books, including Wikinomics, the best selling management book in the U.S. in 2007, and his latest book, Grown Up Digital
• Helmut Traitler, Vice President of Innovation Partnerships, Nestlé
• Alan Webber, author, business journalist and all-around innovation guru
• Jocelyn Wyatt, who leads IDEO’s work building social enterprises and advising businesses in the developing world
• Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices, an international media network that offers training in podcasting and videocasting throughout the developing world and founder of Geekcorps, a non-profit technology volunteer corps that pairs volunteers with businesses in emerging nations.
“We stay laser focused on building an intimate, high value experience,” says BIF Executive Director Melissa Withers. “If you want to connect with someone at BIF-5 you don’t have to fight crowds to do it. In this environment, everyone is equally empowered to make connections.”
This year, BIF-5 will bring a new twist to its storytelling format. On each day of the Summit, three people will be selected from the audience to join BIF-5 co-host Bill Taylor to share their story on stage.
Participants apply for the opportunity to get on stage when they register for the Summit. Here’s the catch: winners will not be announced in advance. [More at http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/weblog/get-on-stage-at-bif-5]
The sold out BIF-4 Summit in 2008 attracted participants from 158 organizations. More than 80 percent of the attendees were CEOs, presidents, founders or senior leaders within their organizations.
Early registration discount for BIF-5 ends June 30, so register soon for maximum savings.
Watch a video trailer or register at: http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/bif-5
Videos from past summits can be viewed in BIF’s Innovation Story Studio at http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/iss
About the Business Innovation Factory
The Business Innovation Factory (BIF) focuses on solving major problems in areas like healthcare, education and energy independence by creating a place where partners can design and test new solutions in a real-world environment.
An independent, non-profit organization created in 2004, BIF brings partners together to collaborate across traditional boundaries on experiments that deliver transformative, systems-level innovation and address the most pressing problems of our time.
Through its programs, events and projects, BIF has created a national network of innovators who are passionate about radically rethinking how value is delivered across the public and private sectors.
www.businessinnovationfactory.com
Contact:
Melissa Withers
Executive Director
melissa@businessinnovationfactory.com
401.270.8796
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