What Recession?
CEOS from Fortunes Fast 50 Most Innovative Companies Interview Each Other…LIVE!
Michael Lewis, CEO, Real D interviews Bob Fishman, CEO, Ausra interviews Mark Norman, COO, Zipcar interviews Chris Larsen, CEO, Prosper interviews Brian Pope, COO, Virgin Charter
From visionary upstarts to storied stalwarts, these companies dazzle with new ideas, and prove beyond a doubt how innovation in business is the force for change.* And the driving force behind their investment in and dedication to innovation? The Chief Officers.
Get a front row seat as all these leaders share the stage for the first time in one room to interview each other, one-on-one. But stick around, because they’ll all be convening during a master panel to answer YOUR questions that you Tweet during the session.
Bringing Innovation to Life: From Furby, to Pleo, to… Empathetic Machines?
Caleb Chung, Inventor and Innovator
Caleb Chung knows how to create emotional connections to products. Starting his career as a mime in Hollywood, he learned early on that motion creates emotion, and later honed his R&D skills at Mattel (or ,what he calls, “toy college”). A serial inventor, Caleb is regarded as one of the premier product designers in the toy industry and holds over twenty separate patents. He started with Furby- which sold over 50m units worldwide and generated over $1.2bn in sales. Next came Pleo, an even further developed “life form”- with over 200 movements for various body parts it was named the 2007 PopSci coolest invention of the year. Chung's vision of lifelike robots now stretches far beyond toys. He believe the world is going to have more and more service bots, so they ought to be as physically and emotionally pleasing, and as lifelike as possible.
‘Fueling’ the Innovation Wagon through a Dedication to Innovation,
Quality and Meeting Consumer Demands
Robert Pasin, Chief Wagon Officer, Radio Flyer (E&Y ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR 2009 FINALIST)
Tom Schlegel, Vice President, Product Development, Radio Flyer
In 1917, Radio Flyer rolled out its Liberty Coaster wagon, a simple product reflecting the current needs of consumers. Fast-forward 92 years to a world class brand-driven consumer products company that has grown 15-20% annually, while average toy industry sales have been flat. Learn how Radio Flyer was transformed from a sleepy little factory that makes shiny red wagons into a market leader. Radio Flyer has stayed relevant by always looking at what the next key innovation is that they can bring to the market. By expanding their offerings (think prototypes with iPod connections, padded seats, air filled tires, speedometers), creating a working environment that fosters innovation through shared knowledge and learning, and engaging families in the design process, the company ensures they continually meet the demands of the constantly changing preferences and opinions of their customer base.
Borrowing Brilliance: Delivering Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others
David Kord Murray former aerospace engineer, Fortune 500 executive, inventor, and software entrepreneur, Author, Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others (release date: Sept 17, 2009)
Admit it, you’ve borrowed an idea before—from a competitor, a coworker, or that little red-haired girl who sat next to you in fifth grade. Newton, Darwin, and Einstein did it. So do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Page. Borrowing is much more than just intellectual theft—it’s actually the core creative thinking technique because all creative thought derives from it. New ideas are constructed out of existing ones. Thus, brilliance is borrowed. Once you submit to borrowed brilliance, it changes your relationship with creative thought. Instead of being mysterious and out of reach, creativity becomes deliberate and intentional, it becomes the search for an existing idea. Beware- borrow from your direct competitors and you are considered a thief, but cast a wider net to borrow beyond your field of interest and you are considered creative… maybe even a genius! Learn the six steps to harnessing your borrowed ideas: Defining, Borrowing, Combining, Incubating, Judging, Enhancing.
The Extreme Future: The Top Innovation Trends that Will Shape the 21st Century
James Canton, Author, The Extreme Future, Founder, Institute for Global Futures
This dynamic and information session provides a sweeping overview of the top trends that will shape the future of business and society.
Defending the Business of Innovation: Ignite your Innovation Competitive Edge through Powerful Creativity Tools
David Tanner, PhD., Founding Director, DuPont Company Center for Creativity & Innovation, Author, Igniting Innovation through the Power of Creative Thinking and Total Creativity in Business and Industry Creativity Tools
The Tools: A key factor in achieving competitive advantage is to ignite a stream of innovations sparked by the power of creative thinking, allowing us to think outside normal patterns of thought. Learn the six essential components essential in building a more innovative organization that produces bottom-line results, including: the creativity-innovation connection; sources of innovation; the most productive creative thinking tools with examples of practical application in achieving bottom-line innovations; a framework to create a supportive environment; an approach to maintain momentum in fostering innovation; and a proven process for accelerating protection of inventions
The Immersion: Participants interact during the session to illustrate the power of creative thinking in igniting innovation and experience the importance of a supportive environment for needs-driven and discovery-driven innovation.
Fighting Back with Innovation: When Saving Lives is your Innovation Inspiration
Brian Hart, Founder, Black-i Robotics
Richard Hart, Chief Product Designer, Black-i Robotics
When Brain Hart lost his son to a roadside ambush in Iraq, his family became the nation’s leading advocates for better protective gear for the troops, and Brian channeled his grief into creating an affordable robot that defuses bombs so the troops don’t have to. The result?: Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New” and “Top 100 Innovations of the Year”. With his brother Richard as chief product designer, and start-up capital from John’s military benefits, the two founded Black-i Robotics. This year, Black-i Robotics came out with a wheeled robot called the LandShark- a humble rig fashioned from motors, off-the-shelf computers, a car battery and even an Xbox controller- that can plow through soil to expose buried bombs and uses jets of water to detonate them. The company remains lean, by design. The more affordable the robot, the faster it can be made and the more likely it is to reach the front lines and save lives. Fully loaded, it costs less 50 percent cheaper than its competitors. One was delivered to Boston’s Logan Airport in November to detonate suspected car bombs, and another will ship out to either Afghanistan or Iraq next year, part of an $800,000 contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.