Your Innovation Challenge: How Can Firms Drive Growth Through Innovation?

A fundamental tenant of the Innovation Movement is that innovation must become a systematic all-enterprise-involving process, rather than a department. Today, as the credit crisis and economic downturn crimp earnings, many fledgling innovation programs face their first real test of sustainability. In this presentation, a noted innovation guru revisits the Innovation Vanguard Companies he and his team studied in the early 2000s to see how they are doing. He’ll discuss successes and messes with an eye towards helping you accelerate growth through innovation. He’ll also reveal what we now know about what works and what doesn’t, and where the field is headed.

Key innovation learning points:

• How can you effectively make the case for innovation in turbulent times?
• What are the fundamental do’s and don’ts for getting your initiative off the ground – and keeping it going?
• What best practices are producing the most results and which ones aren’t?

Innovation Leader: Robert B. Tucker, President, The Innovation Resource Consulting Group, Author, DRIVING GROWTH THROUGH INNOVATION

Your Innovation Challenge: Become A “Champion of Innovation”

Learn from 3 leaders named to Business Week’s list of the “Top 25 Champions of Innovations” to discover how they’ve fostered innovation in their field. First, hear their personal stories. Then, benefit from their collective knowledge in an interactive Q&A panel.

Part I: Build a Playground for Innovation (Laying the Foundation for a Culture of Playful Creativity)

Learn the importance of ongoing learning and enrichment for the "kids". Learn ways to promote playing together and the value of sharing. Find out about the value of "putting your toys" away so they can be used another day. It's really all about how to set the conditions for a culture of innovation.

Innovation Leader: Tina Zinter-Chahin, Senior Vice President, Research & Development, FISHER-PRICE (MATTELL)

Part II: Use Open Innovation to Find Ideas

Open Innovation has been somewhat focused on solving technical problems. How can we use Open Innovation to find ideas using external sources and networks? How do we create the internal capabilities to "catch" what's found and build into business opportunities your company can use?

Innovation Leader: Mary Jo Cook, Vice President, Innovation, THE CLOROX COMPANY

Part III: How Can Unleashing Innovation Change the Game?

For a company to be truly innovative, ideas must flow naturally and they must come from everywhere. But how do we create leaders in every facet of the organization? Learn how Whirlpool changed an industry through encouraging leadership in ideas by giving people permission to dream- which led to delivering true solutions to consumers, not just another appliance. Specifically, what is a management system and is it really necessary to create a culture of innovators? What value does it drive? Why are heroes and their mythology important to any culture?

Innovation Leader: Dr. Nancy Tennant, Corporate Vice President for Leadership and Strategic Competencies reporting to the Chairman and CEO, WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION

Morning Networking & Refreshment Break in the Innovation Plaza

Featured “Experience”: Book Signings with Morning Keynotes: Hot off the presses! We know you’ll want MORE after hearing from Robert Tucker and Nancy Snyder, so they’re sticking around for book signings and off-the-record conversations. Don’t miss Robert’s newly revised edition of Driving Growth through Innovation or Nancy’s just released book “Unleashing Innovation: How Whirlpool Transformed an Industry.”

Your Innovation Challenge: How Can I Predict the Future to Plan for the Present?

Through technology forecasting, Eric Haseltine provides you with a unique vision of what’s on (and over) the horizon for the next 5-10 years. Gain insights into 10 predictions for the future of technology that you can “bank on” affecting your company, your products, and your industry. To innovate, you must take into account these new technologies and forces of nature, and imagine how they’ll play out for your customers. In doing so, you gain the knowledge to arm yourself with a competitive edge in delivering innovations that take advantage of interactions between new technologies and human nature. From Entertainment & Media, to Aerospace & Defense, to Healthcare, to Consumer Goods, learn from concrete examples of how these technology predictions will play out across all industries- from where we need to be going to how we get there.

Innovation Leader: Eric Haseltine, Former CTO for the US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

Your Innovation Challenge: How Can I Reveal My Inner Genius?

In this fun and highly interactive session, you’ll stimulate creativity and come up with a wide range of ideas and solutions for your business. You’ll learn more about yourself and the people you work with and how to improve communication, innovation and problem-solving. You'll learn the most effective ways to implement ideas. We’ll explore team interaction dynamics, and how to create high-performance teams. Each participant will receive a free DrawSuccess Team Development Assessment their team.

Key Innovation Learning Points:

• Learn, recognize and appreciate diversity of thought, personality and style within the individuals of a team and how each contribute to innovation, problem-solving and organizational success
• Generate ideas and solutions in several areas, including marketing, sales, customer service, new products and competitive strategy.
• Have Fun!

Innovation Leader: Brownell Landrum, CEO, DRAWSUCCESS