chicago and leadership

This is the beginning of a very cool adventure: the creation of a community-produced “blook” – an interactive blog that will be transformed into a published book . . . with your help.  We will be regularly soliciting your ideas, should you choose to share them, and grow a powerful and collaborative center of the future that, we intend to make a reality very soon.  How we’re going about positioning this effort in time is itself a little innovative.  Rather than write it from the present forward, we are collectively writing it from the future backwards — looking back in time to describe how we got there.  We call this process “managing from the future” and it will have us (with lots of ideas from you) writing about what the center does, what it will look, sound and feel like, how it came into being – and by doing so, we intend to drive this process so it will take on a transformative quality, enabling you and us to test drive a novel way of innovating.

You will read about how we came up with the idea of a 21^st century Innovation Center; how the Center will be entirely different from incubators and tech parks; how it will not be a competitor to other innovation initiatives or organizations, but, rather, a facilitator of innovation activities and events – a connection point for Chicago’s innovators to link among themselves as well as other innovators around the country and the world. We intend to be inclusive, connective and collaborative in our work.

So, imagine you’re now on Michigan Avenue – in the heart of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, and it’s October 10, 2010.  You’re inside a retail environment unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before . . . . Led by a team of passionate, highly collaborative innovation professionals and 10 corporate sponsors who are also an integral part of the new center, kiosks and other electronic stations redefine retail establishments where high tech coaching and facilitation services replace retail inventory that sometimes would languish in stores, without strong turnover, for months.  In this 21^st century retail space, the inventory is mostly online.  Espresso bars, pontification platforms, tele-presence suites, virtual reality pods and intelligent, interactive work surfaces strategically positioned at various locations throughout the three floors of the Center serve as innovation acceleration facilities and create natural gathering points for individuals with shared areas of interest.

Now imagine further that you are free to walk into the store and innovate new ideas, products and services for your own organization!  Imagine connecting with other supportive professionals who help you or co-create with you.  Imagine that this former purely retail location is now redefined as a site that combines a vibrant high-touch innovation experience with the best leading-edge high-tech tools available and connects to online resources and other innovation centers around the world. Imagine also that you can interact with thirty of the most innovative companies in Chicago and the U.S. that are regularly sponsoring contests to find the best new products and services for their customers through the strategic use of open innovation.   Imagine that these companies then showcase the winners of these contests and their ideas at the center — helping others gain insight as to what it takes to innovate more effectively – and on demand.

Join us, Peter Balbus and myself, Melissa Giovagnoli, as we journey together to define and evolve a new concept in retail . . . The Networlding Center for Innovation and Collaboration . . . redefining retail for the 21^st century, first in Chicago and then as a template in key cities around the world.

So what ten top innovation companies today do you see in the center when it open on 10/10/2010? Weigh in and let’s have the ones voted as the choices by the majority help us decide how we begin. Will it be:

1. Apple
2. Google
3. Toyota Motor
4. Microsoft
5. Nintendo
6. IBM
7. Hewlett-Packard
8. Research In Motion
9. Nokia
10. Wal-Mart Stores *

*Business Week’s 2009 Most Innovative Companies List- Note: for more help visit Business Week’s list offer one or more on your personal radar screen!

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