Crossing Disciplines
Steven Johnson at BIF (Excerpt)
It was a great pleasure to welcome Steve Johnson to BIF on March 16, 2009 for a conversation about his new book, "The Invention of Air." In a forum with a few dozen members of the BIF community, Johnson discussed the story of Enlightenment-era innovator Joseph Priestly and the emerging social networks that enabled his ideas to flourish. Here's a quick video of Steven talking about the book.
Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt at BIF-4
This duo shares their experience creating Best Buy’s successful Blue Shirt Nation employee engagement program.
Alph Bingham at BIF-2
"Crowdsourcing" pioneer Alph Bingham talks about designing a research business to produce quick solutions to problems. As a co-founder of Innocentive they took challenges from Fortune 500 companies and posted them as contests for the world to solve.
Eric Bonabeau at BIF-3
The founder and Chairman of Icosystem Corporation, Bonabeau is one of the world's leading experts in complexity. His book Swarm Intelligence has been a scientific bestseller for eight years and provided the inspiration for Michael Chrichton's Prey.
Charlie Cannon at BIF-1
Charlie Cannon is an architect by training who uses design thinking as "urban acupuncture" to catalyze community improvement. For the past six years he has developed and refined tools of collaboration in the Rhode Island School of Design's Innovation Studio Program. The Program aims to develop ecologically sound infrastructures such as eco-industrial parks, power plants and municipal waste systems through interdisciplinary teamwork.
Diane Hessan at BIF-2
Diane Hessan truly understands the customer. As president and CEO of Communispace she is facilitating conversations between companies and customers through private online communities.
Peter Gloor at BIF-2
"Don't be a star, be a galaxy." Peter Gloor talks about his work mapping social networks by creating visualizations of the seemingly intangible relationships between people, ideas and organizations.
Frans Johansson at BIF-2
Author Frans Johansson discusses the premise behind his bestselling book "The Medici Effect". He believes that all new ideas are a combination of existing ideas. The more random ideas people and teams bring together the more possible combinations for innovation are produced.
Frans Johansson at BIF-4
Medici Effect author talks about innovation at the convergence of risk, passion and luck.
Steven Johnson at BIF-3
Johnson is the best-selling author of five books. His most recent work The Ghost Map. Johnson is a contributing editor to Wired magazine and is a Distinguished Writer In Residence at the New York University Department of Journalism.