Commentary by Ellen Domb

Business Innovation Conference Day 2

Thanks to Jorge Oliveira Teixeira for these notes on Day 2 of the Business Innovation Conference:

The day started with keynote speaker Steve Shapiro, Vice President of Innocentive, and Author of "24x7 Innovations." His challenge to the group is: How to post the right questions when you ask to a "crowd" for possible solution for your problem. They explain this with the recent oil disaster from BP. The site that was created by BP, received about 80.000 possible solutions for the problem. Can we treat this amount of information? They think not, and they figure that only 0,5% of the possible solutions are viewed by a group of people in charge of the management of the site expressely create by BP. In his terms, they incentivize us to first quote the right questions and maybe we can have the right answers.

Well, I attend one of the first morning sessions with Alcantaro Correa, coming from Brazil with a suggestive theme, BUSINESS RESONANCE. They made a parallel with physics theory of resonance, and the different types of communication that occurs in the organization in different levels, from CEO to managers, managers to employees and the relation with suppliers and customers. They showed an interactive and well done presentation, demonstrating how the communication flows in organizations and the problems created when this information doesn’t flow . At the end of his presentation the debate was very interesting, when attendees show some interest in future developments in this field of studies, then Alcantaro made the promise that next year his presentation will be rich in data about this subject. We are waiting Alcantaro.

The highest moment of the day,and for the 3rd Innovation Conference was the presence of Chris Galvin, former Chairman/CEO of Motorola, and now CEO of Harrison Street, introduced by Martin Swarbrick, CEO of BISON Gear. They give us an excellent presentation about the Galvin family, "A Business History," and I agree with this title from his presentation. 75 years of history, some members of the same family, some major innovations that totally change the world and industry and of course history of Motorola is mixed with the development and image of America industry´s age.They brilliantly explain to the audience the failures and success of the company, the two bankruptcies that his father survived, and the turnaround that he made an more recently, himself, when they took charge of company. Also explain to the audience the movement of the board in his substitution from the company, and the moves that they made like dismantle the museum. Well, two years ago, I have the privilege to visit this museum, and erase this part of history, for me his like the same of erasing a very important part of America Industry.

They taledk about the rule of the 4 E´s.
Envision
Energize
Edge
Execute
but they don´t forget to mention that management process in years of Motorola, his family never forget to be always Ethical. Someone in the audience told a little story that defined the ethics of the members of this family: Some years ago, when Motorola was closing a business deal with a certain country, a week after the deal was closed, they receive a message that the price was changed because they must pay some bribery to a certain people.The management start to questioning Mr. Galvin, about what they intend to do. They simple answer that they resolve the problem with this deal, they must never do any deal with this country, because even they do not pay the bribery, nobody believes in this, well it is a country to close forever any deal with them.I think this little story tell´s a lot about the ethics of this family. It was a privilege to know someone like this gentleman.

After this stimulating session I attend the presentation from Pat Banergee, professor of industrial Engineering, Computer science and Bioengineering university of Illinois Chicago, about, Virtual Reality and Haptics based High-Fidelity Surgical Simulation. They explain to the audience how his company provide training in medical surgery and the difficulties that future doctors have to practice, due to the lack of cadavers, the price and the risk from real surgery not well performed by doctors. This could be a step in helping training and development of skills from future surgery doctors.

To finish my day, I attend the session with Drew Mitchell, Head of industry Local, from Google, about Google´s 9 Notions of innovation.They talk about the culture of innovation in Google and his clear mission. In Google they have nine notions of innovation, as they prefer to refer:
1. Innovation, not instant
2. Share everything you can
3. you're brilliant, we're hiring
4. A license to pursue dreams
5. Ideas come from everywhere
6. Don´t politic: use data
7. Creativity loves restraint
8. User´s before money
9. Don´t kill projects- better to morph
They presented some projects from Google and the rule of 70/20/10. 70% of the time is for current activities, 20% is for projects that an employee self-assigns and develops, and 10% is for share.

This year the conference has increased value for attendees, and we expect than next year, Praveen Gupta and the IIT team will surprise us with a continuously improving and innovative conference.
Until next year Praveen! Reported by Jorge OliveiraTeixeira

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