Meet MIT Tech Review's Innovator of the Year: David Berry

I first met BIF-4 storyteller David Berry last fall during a ‘Green Design’ symposium at the offices of Continuum in Boston. David is a principle at Flagship Ventures, a company well known for funding clean and environmentally sound technologies and he shared some mind boggling possibilities for the future. His firm is looking at everything from carbon nanotubes to solar quantum dots to synthetic biology. David is more than just a venture capitalist – he’s also an innovator with 44 patents under his belt. His talk highlighted some of the many untapped possibilities in the future of living green.

He’s one of the brightest guys I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know. BIF sat down recently with David and here’s his game-changer story…

Continue reading "Meet MIT Tech Review's Innovator of the Year: David Berry" »

Posted August 19, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Changing Business Models: Courage, Confidence, and Cloninger

Kathy Cloninger is an ENFP. In Myers-Briggs terminology, that makes her an “Idealist Champion” personality who values personal authenticity, is a keen and probing observer of others, and is always on the lookout for what’s possible. By her own account, she loves to be in a room full of people, developing relationships, collaborating, or as she explained during a recent BIF interview, being “constantly surrounded by the voices of the organization” she heads. Only 5% to 10% of all CEOs have this personality type, which perfectly suits the special group of customers she aims to please: the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA). In fact, Cloninger epitomizes the Girl Scout mission statement: Courage, Confidence, and Character.

Continue reading "Changing Business Models: Courage, Confidence, and Cloninger" »

Posted August 07, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back to basics: For a good time, call Zappos.com

Four million pairs of shoes of all shapes, sizes, colors and trends currently reside in a warehouse in Kentucky. Twenty-four hours a day the shoes are being shipped out to consumers all across the country to the comfort of their own homes. Don't like the pair once they arrive? No problem. You can ship them back, free-of-charge. That's the allure of online retailer Zappos.com.

Tony Hsieh is Zappos.com's rising star CEO and he'll be sharing his story at the BIF-4 summit in October. His back-to-basics approach to company building has propelled Zappos to the near billion dollar mark in revenue sales.

How did he do it?

Continue reading "Back to basics: For a good time, call Zappos.com" »

Posted July 29, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Meet BIF-4 Storyteller Marc Ecko: Fashion icon turned business mogul (with heart)

I first met Marc Ecko last year during a symposium I attended in Providence on vocational and technical education. You might think it a strange place to be for a billion dollar fashion empire mogul but quite refreshingly, Ecko was low-key, down-to-earth, and really passionate about the youth development program he created called Sweat Equity Enterprises.

This fall, Ecko will take the BIF-4 stage to share his personal story of innovation: Although it may not be the case that everything Marc Ecko touches turns to gold, it sure does seem that way.

Continue reading "Meet BIF-4 Storyteller Marc Ecko: Fashion icon turned business mogul (with heart)" »

Posted July 16, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Meet a pioneer in surgical robotics and telemedicine: Dr. Richard Satava

I spent the holiday weekend with a close friend from Minnesota who is a physician. I happen to have a BIF-4 flyer lying around (ha-ha) and mentioned to my friend that Dr. Richard Satava was going to be one of our storytellers at the summit in the fall. Initially, the name didn't mean anything to her. Then I said he co-developed the first surgical robot. That's when her eyes lit up: "that's a serious game-changing surgical technology," she said.

I've profiled many storytellers over the years. Satava is prone to neither hyperbole nor rhetoric - but honestly, it's hard to tame down his story.

He's done many things in his life – from deciding which cutting-edge medical technologies the U.S. military will pursue, to saving lives as a surgeon in the heat of battle, to teaching surgery at Yale and the University of Washington, to serving on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy – yet he would have you believe that all his accomplishments stem from one thing: failure.

Continue reading "Meet a pioneer in surgical robotics and telemedicine: Dr. Richard Satava" »

Posted July 09, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Meet BIF-4 Storyteller Debi Brooks: Medical Research Change Agent

Benjamin Franklin said if you don’t watch your workers, you might as well leave a bag of money in their midst and walk away. Applying this principle of oversight to a group of scientists from esteemed institutions is surprisingly unconventional,. And that's exactly what Debi Brooks, co-founder of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research is trying to do.

Brooks will be a storyteller at our upcoming BIF-4 Summit in October where she'll talk about the "shockingly unmonitored" medical research funding process and the new model MJFF has created during the past eight years, positioning itself as a “strategic intermediary” between science and its funders — private philanthropists as well as industry — in an urgent effort to find a cure for Parkinson's disease.

Continue reading "Meet BIF-4 Storyteller Debi Brooks: Medical Research Change Agent" »

Posted June 27, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congratulations to BIF-4 Storyteller Jacqueline Novogratz

BIF-4 storyteller Jacqueliine Novogratz was named one of the 73 biggest brains in business by Portfolio magazine. Novogratz is the CEO of Acumen Fund, a private equity company she founded in 2001 that has invested in 32 entrepreneurs who are building systems to bring affordable basic services to low income people in India, Pakistan, Kenya and Tanzania.

By applying business metrics to philanthropy, Novogratz is changing the model for catalyzing change in developing countries. She does not treat the poor as passive recipients. Instead, she sees them as customers and uses the market to understand their needs and preferences. For instance, she's learned over the years that people don’t want technology per se; they want services. Understanding what services are in demand requires an accurate perception of the people who will use them—even if they are poor.

Continue reading "Congratulations to BIF-4 Storyteller Jacqueline Novogratz" »

Posted June 20, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Meet BIF-4 Storyteller Cat Lainé: Disruptive Innovator in the Social Sector

When I first spoke with Cat Lainé a few months ago I was so impressed with her passion and conviction. She doesn’t shy away from the underside of life, a personality trait that led to her decision to leave academia, where she was studying infectious disease epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. A self-described “autodidact,” she prefers to be in the field, analyzing problems and creating solutions from the ground up. Today, she’s trying to solve some of our world’s most pressing problems. We knew she had to be a BIF-4 storyteller.

Continue reading "Meet BIF-4 Storyteller Cat Lainé: Disruptive Innovator in the Social Sector" »

Posted June 11, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Register now for BIF-4: Meet Mark Ecko, Jason Fried, Tony Hsieh, Bruce Nussbaum, David Yaun and many more

Last year's sold out BIF-3 Summit hosted 300 participants from 174 organizations for an intimate 2-day conversation about collaborative innovation. This year, we will meet again for our fourth annual Summit taking place on October 15th and 16th in Providence, Rhode Island.

I am so excited about this year's lineup. We're bringing together many of today’s most compelling innovators, business model renegades and true transformers who will reveal their secrets of success through personal storytelling.

Continue reading "Register now for BIF-4: Meet Mark Ecko, Jason Fried, Tony Hsieh, Bruce Nussbaum, David Yaun and many more" »

Posted June 09, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

IBM’s David Yaun Joins BIF Research Advisory Council

I'm thrilled to announce that David Yaun has joined our research advisory council. He will also be a storyteller at the BIF-4 Collaborative Innovation Summit in October.

Continue reading "IBM’s David Yaun Joins BIF Research Advisory Council" »

Posted June 03, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

BIF Research Advisor Bruce Nussbaum on the need for a national innovation policy

BIF-4 co-host and BIF research advisor Bruce Nussbaum writes about America's need for a national innovation policy. In Time For a National Innovation Policy. McCain And Obama Need To Get Real Bruce challenges his readers - and our presidential contenders - to start a conversation in earnest on the need for a policy that goes beyond federal government support of technology, math and science.

Continue reading "BIF Research Advisor Bruce Nussbaum on the need for a national innovation policy" »

Posted by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

BIF Research Advisor John Wolpert's Top Three Innovation Books

During the course of a recent conversation, BIF research advisor John Wolpert offered his top three innovation books of all time:

Continue reading "BIF Research Advisor John Wolpert's Top Three Innovation Books" »

Posted June 02, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday Linkage from our BIF community

Following are a few noteworthy blog entries from members of our BIF community reflecting processes of innovation which I don't think get enough attention these days: talent and trust.

Continue reading "Friday Linkage from our BIF community" »

Posted May 30, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Book by P&G CEO A.G. Lafley

Bruce Nussbaum of BusinessWeek has written a glowing review of A.G. Lafley's new book co-written with Ram Charan called "The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation." Writes Bruce: "Lafley, the remarkable CEO of Procter & Gamble, gives us the state-of-the-art in innovation. It tells you exactly what the best practices are in the one non-techie company that has embraced innovation as a total corporate strategy and as an organizational culture."

I wrote an article about P&G a couple of years ago called ‘Even Giants Start Small’ In it, I use a quote by Elting Morrison to describe the company: “No intellectual heroism or psychic leap will take you from the development of the wheel immediately to the internal-combustion engine and the automobile.”

Continue reading "New Book by P&G CEO A.G. Lafley" »

Posted April 15, 2008 by Chris Flanagan | Permalink | Comments (0)

BusinessWeek Editor Bruce Nussbaum and Mavericks at Work Author Bill Taylor to Co-Host BIF-4 Summit

Duo to take stage at the Business Innovation Factory's fourth annual Collaborative Innovation Summit on October 15-16

BIF announced today that BusinessWeek Assistant Managing Editor Bruce Nussbaum and "Mavericks at Work" author Bill Taylor will co-host the BIF-4 Collaborative Innovation Summit on October 15-16, 2008 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Now in its fourth year, the BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit has earned a national reputation for its unique storytelling approach to an event that has been described as more conversation than conference. BIF-4 will bring together many of today's most compelling innovators, business model renegades and true transformers to reveal the secrets of innovation success through personal storytelling.

"I'm looking forward to co-hosting BIF-4," says Nussbaum. "The Collaborative Innovation Summit brings together a diverse line up of original thinkers to share stories in an intimate way – stories that are personal but have deep business value, too. BIF-4 will surely be memorable for all who attend — storytellers and participants alike."

Continue reading "BusinessWeek Editor Bruce Nussbaum and Mavericks at Work Author Bill Taylor to Co-Host BIF-4 Summit" »

Posted February 06, 2008 by Melissa Withers | Permalink | Comments (0)