World Innovation Forum

June 8-9, 2010

Nokia Theatre - New York City - www.wifny.com

 World Innovation Forum - June 8-9, 2010 - New York City

World Innovation Forum 2010: Where Innovation Meets Business

In today’s global business ecosystem, organizations are looking to innovators to turn risks into rewards and opportunities into bottom-line
performance drivers.

If the creative instincts of the hundreds of global executives who convened in New York on June 8 and 9, 2010 were any indication, the
seeds of innovation can be found in functions as dynamic as technology and marketing and in industries ranging from healthcare and
education to manufacturing and life sciences.

The highly interactive forum, regarded as one of the world’s largest innovation events of the year, highlighted presentations by
innovation thought leaders and practitioners and provided significant insight on the alchemy of environmental, leadership and risk-
taking elements required to seize on new innovations.

It is clear, the speakers agreed, that business leaders the world over must now balance the sustainability of their enterprises with the
need to challenge operating assumptions and disrupt inefficient organizational models, structures and systems. The world, it seems,
is spinning faster on its axis. Innovation is seen as a means to accelerate decision-making and bring clarity to a competitive and
regulatory landscape that remains volatile, fluid and, in some cases, ever more ambiguous. Yet the challenge for innovators, business
leaders and employees remains:

• Don’t stop exploring consumer demands, even if it means challenging the shelf life of mature but
extremely profitable products and services.

• Large-scale change needn’t be over-communicated from the top. Provide the vision and framework,
and let leaders convert their peers and partners.

• Give innovators the freedom and intellectual authority to challenge boundaries and find fault not in
failure, but rather, repeated failure.

• Driving change requires a deeply human connection to individuals who will be asked to shed their
doubts as they drive toward new destinations.

Recognizing the very individual roots of successful change, said speaker Chip Heath, requires a call to both analytical and emotional
motivators. “Really, people see something that makes them feel something that makes them want to change. If you want to change,
find the feeling.”

This executive summary was prepared by business analysts from ExecuNet: a private executive membership (www.execunet.com).
Contributing were Lauryn Franzoni, executive editor; Robyn Greenspan, editor-in-chief; Joseph Daniel McCool, senior contributing
editor; and Jeffrey Thompson, executive community coordinator. Since 1988, ExecuNet has helped connect nearly one-half million
chief and senior-level executives to the people, opportunities and expertise they need to be successful – in their leadership roles
and in their careers.

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 World Innovation Forum - June 8-9, 2010 - New York City

Imaginatik
Private Panel Discussion
Bringing innovation to an organization sounds like a great plan, until
the organization has to grapple with what innovation means and
how to manage it. “Chain of command problem-solving is simply
not as effective as tapping into a broader spectrum of minds,”
reports Jon Bidwell, chief innovation officer of the Chubb Group of
Insurance Companies. “You have to be highly iterative and find the
people who have the answers.” said Jeff Pierce, senior principal engineer with Pitney Bowes.
“People want the organization to succeed. If you challenge them
to think about how we can succeed, they will pitch in and help.
Don’t make it a special project; make it a new way to do the same
old work.”

Pizza in a cone, washing machines that wash vegetables and

clothes, the Subway $5.00 sub sandwich – all are innovations
that came from outside the normal chains of command in
various global companies. “Nobody has a monopoly on great
ideas,” said innovation expert and author Rowan Gibson.

“Creativity is out there, it’s not just for the people in the creative
department. If we can tap into that creativity and add it to our
own, the combinational chemistry itself can add to creativity.”

In example after example, Gibson explained how starting small

The 90-year-old insurance company has launched an innovation
program that seeks to engage its employees in continually
improving the competitive standing in an increasingly
fragmented and risk-averse market. Noting that innovation
requires a new structure to the approach, Bidwell told World
Innovation Forum attendees that 80 percent of most companies’
employees want to help. “But you have to give them a point of
purchase in order to empower them to help.”
with “ecosystems” of customers, alliance partners, employees,
ex-employees and governments, can be coordinated into
motivated teams. “The chance to make their idea happen is
one of the greatest incentives anyone can get.”
“Ideas that spread, win,” concluded Chubb’s Bidwell. “Don’t
think outside the box; find a good box and think inside it.” Q

Chubb has used internal and external sourcing programs to open

ideation and generate solutions for business challenges. “We
spend an obsessive amount of time assessing the problem we
want to solve first,” Bidwell explained, saying without that clarity,
ideation sessions can implode under the weight of the new ideas.

Using a systematic approach and enterprise crowdsourcing

techniques coupled with focused leadership and the right
processes in place to enable innovation to bubble up can create
“10X ROI,” reported Jim Borzumato, a senior solutions consultant
at Imaginatik.

Frequently, organizations choose to host an open innovation

event by inviting targeted sets or subsets of audiences to
participate. “Traditionally senior executives think they have to
have the answers and they aren’t used to getting people to help,”

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