Summit Offers Innovators Inspiration in Tough Economic Times

Melissa Withers
May 5, 2009

(May 4, 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.

“The BIF Summit is all about making connections and sharing personal stories about what it takes to really innovate,” says Kaplan. “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.  Today, the need for innovation is so great that people are hungry for bold, new ideas. The BIF Summit is the perfect forum for exactly that kind of conversation.”

The BIF Summit replaces traditional “keynote” presentations with two days of rapid-fire storytelling from across industries and disciplines.   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
• 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
• Keith Wilmot, creative insights Director, Coca-Cola
• 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.  “We’re in a beautiful historical theater, instead of a convention complex.  We have our Summit celebrations at a local restaurant, instead of a corporate dining hall. If you want to connect with someone you don’t have to fight crowds to do it.  In a room this intimate, everyone is equally empowered to make connections.”

The Summit is open to 300 participants. In addition to early registration discounts ($1,000 versus $1,200 after June 15), BIF also offers a Summit scholarship program for students, young entrepreneurs and social innovators.

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.

Drawing inspiration from Bill's new book, "Practically Radical," BIF will select six innovators from the BIF-5 audience who understand that you can't innovate by being "a little bit" better than everybody else. As Bill puts it, "in an era of hyper-competition and non-stop innovation….the most successful companies today don't just out-compete their rivals. They redefine the terms of competition by embracing one-of-a-kind ideas in a world filled with me-too thinking."

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.  “People need to be prepared for the Bob Barker moment and ready to ‘come on down,” says Withers, when asked how participants will be notified. Get on stage at BIF-5

Additional Information

• Registration for the BIF-5 Summit is now open.
• 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.
• 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

Contact

Melissa Withers
Executive Director
melissa@businessinnovationfactory.com
401.270.8796