Turning Vision into Value

If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series…

SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting

SVII’s August 4th Society dinner will feature Chris Miller, co-founder of LifePlays—a company “created to bring the transformative skills of connective, embodied improvisation to communities and innovative workplaces.”

LifePlays’ corporate improv workshops have fostered creativity, innovation, team development, and leadership at many companies, including Google, Microsoft, Genentech, and Whole Foods Markets.

Chris Miller on Creativity and Innovation:

Innovation often involves a leap, trust, and risk. A leap of making new connections. Trust that support and encouragement are there. And the risk, that it might not work. To function in this way, you need to grow a culture that supports it.

In this ideal culture your aim is to bring out the best in everyone else; you listen to in order to support; you know that critical thinking is crucial and valuable, but there’s a time to suspend it and purely explore ideas; everyone sees the larger goal, not just personal gain. This is a generative, innovative culture. This is the culture and skill-set of improv.

Improv is a skill-set way beyond “being funny,” or just “making it up.” Come see how the skills that allow improvisers to create seamlessly on stage can be applied to creating seamlessly in other domains.

This will be a fun and highly participatory session.

Education Initiative: Moving Forward

Because of the high level of interest, we will dedicate a portion (7:00-7:30) of our August 4th event to sharing some of the insights we’ve gathered so far about the current state of education and the impact that we can make as innovators.

6:00 – Doors open for registration and networking.

6:30 – Dinner is served.

7:00 – Education Initiative Update

7:30 – Feature Presentation—Improv: Off the Stage and into Your Life.

Location

Bay Cafe, Bayshore Ballroom
1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto
www.BayCafeRestaurant.com
650-856-0999

In Palo Alto, take Embarcadero East past Ming’s restaurant, then turn left into the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course driveway; from the parking lot, walk up the wide path toward the golf course buildings; the restaurant will be on the right.

You can pre-pay using PayPal.

REGISTER

Drop-in $35.00 Member $25.00

enter email address

July Event Recap

The July 7th SVII event featured an excellent, in-depth panel discussion on technology and innovation barriers in K-12 education. Our expert panelists discussed some of the barriers that prevent modern classrooms from utilizing the vast technological resources currently available, and what we might do to reduce those barriers. Based on the exciting and challenging dialog that resulted, SVII has started work on an Education Initiative that will tackle some of the problems discussed.

Education Initiative

Our education initiative is off to a great start! We have used Ken Ketch’s Group Mind Express tool to create a collaborative space to work on this initiative. If you attended the session and had further insights to add, head over to the SVII Collaboration Center and make your voice heard. We will be adding more tools to that space as the initiative develops, so stay tuned.

Building on the insights gathered, we hope to make a concrete, positive contribution to the world of education in the Silicon Valley. If you’d like to receive all updates about the education initiative, please email brenna@svii.org to be added to the list.

Archives and Outlook

Please note that the SVII Ning group has been replaced by the following social networks:

You can now follow SVII on Twitter @sviihq

Join the new SVII Facebook group and the LinkedIn group.

You can also use Eventbrite to register.

Stay in Touch

For more information, and to join the e-list, email friends@svii.org. Plan to join the SVII Innovation Society each “first Wednesday” of the month.

Keep checking here for program updates.
SVII is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization.
Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder, CEO and Chief Imagination Officer of Creative Sage™, is a member of SVII.

Back to the blog front page…

Return to the Creative Sage Home Page

Turning Vision into Value

If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series…

SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting Topic:

Technologist’s Perspective:
Breaking the software glass ceiling for educators. Where is the “innovative” software infrastructure for education?

July 7, 2010
6:00-9:30 p.m.

Panel Presentation:

The speaker panel, focused upon specific software implementations, not abstractions, will bring to light barriers that have kept this from happening at the faster pace technology is adopted in commercial sectors.

K-12 and higher education applications are both lacking, except in specialized areas of research that have “practical” applications (e.g., Genomics).

Is it just a matter of money? What are the success stories (e.g., Tuft’s Perseus)? What are the blockers and why can’t we unblock them?

Please bring your laptops for an interactive discussion.

Please email questions for the panel to Howard at hlieberman@svii.org.

Moderator:
Howard Lieberman, Founder of the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute

Panelists:

Ruben Kleiman of Netflix
A software developer, philosopher, artist, linguistics scholar, and math wizard, Ruben joined Apple in 1987 where he was part of Apple’s Advanced Technology Group, developing multimedia systems, creating the first interprocess-communication module, and co-designing and prototyping the Applescript language. He has also worked at SGI, Commerce Games, Climbin’ Design, and most recently Netflix where he works with metadata to develop movie matching and movie categorization rule systems.

Murugan Pal of CK-12 Foundation

Murugan is the Co-Founder and President of CK-12 Foundation, a non-profit that aims to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market worldwide. Prior to CK-12, Murugan was the Entrepreneur-In-Residence for the Foundation Capital. He has also founded SpikeSource and worked at the software companies Asera, Inc. and Oracle, and was one of the lead developers of Versant Corporation’s Object Database.

Mark Miller of The Miller Institute for Learning with Technology
Mark is the Founder, President, and Executive Director of The Miller Institute, an organization aimed at helping children use technology more effectively for learning. Prior to founding the Institute, Mark served as Lab Director for Learning and Tools at Apple Computer where he was head of educational technology investigations. Mark has also worked at Texas Instruments, Inc., Central Research Labs and taught courses at the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University.
Blog: http://blog.thatshouldntmatter.com/

Jim Spohrer of IBM
Director of IBM University Programs (IBM UP) since 2009, Jim founded IBM’s first Service Research group in 2003 at the Almaden Research Center with a focus on STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) for Service Sector innovations. He led this group to attain ten times return on investment with four IBM outstanding and eleven accomplishment awards over seven years. Working with service research pioneers from many academic disciplines, Jim advocates for Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Design (SSMED) as an integrative extended-STEM framework for global competency development, economic growth, and advancement of science.

UPDATE, July 6, 2010

A message from Howard Lieberman:

Wednesday night’s program has taken on a life of its own, and in a departure from the traditional presentation/dialog, our panel members have driven the decision to begin a working group on education to accomplish something concrete in the form of an innovation initiative. They want results, in addition to conversation. This has resulted in two additions to our program:

Cameron Curry. Cameron is the Executive Director of a group of three Independent Study Charter Schools. These schools use an approach to home schooling that tries to balance traditional schooling with the flexibility of independent study at home, including strong parental involvement. This group of schools also happens to do a lot with technology. Even though Cameron is based in San Diego, he is flying up here to join our panel.

Ken Ketch, who presented Group Mind Express, a wonderful cloud-based collaboration tool earlier this year, has generously offered to help us capture, prioritize, and organize some of the insights this dialog will yield for the purpose of turning the rich conversation into an initiative. Please bring your laptop for this interactive portion of the evening.

Five panel members and a Group Mind capture session require a bit more time, so we have expanded the program to two full hours, from 7:00-9:00 p.m. This means we will begin serving dinner at 6:30 so the program can begin at 7:00.

The flexible new program structure for tomorrow is:

6:00 – Doors open for registration and networking. Please pre-register at our website at svii.net!

6:30 – Dinner is served.

7:00 CALIBRATION – Program begins with calibrating panel presentations to set the stage for the following conversation about technology innovation and education.

7:45 CONVERSATION – Begin an interactive group dialog or conversation, of which Jitendra will try to capture significant portions with a digital flip chart built into Group Mind Express.

8:30 CAPTURE – Group Mind session to capture insights from the group, which we will evolve into an innovation initiative.

Please register here.

Location

Bay Cafe, Bayshore Ballroom
1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto
www.BayCafeRestaurant.com
650-856-0999

In Palo Alto, take Embarcadero East past Ming’s restaurant, then turn left into the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course driveway; from the parking lot, walk up the wide path toward the golf course buildings; the restaurant will be on the right.

Archives and Outlook

Please note that the SVII Ning group has been replaced by the following social networks:

You can now follow SVII on Twitter @sviihq

Join the new SVII Facebook group and the LinkedIn group.

You can also use Eventbrite to register.

Stay in Touch

For more information, and to join the e-list, email friends@svii.org. Plan to join the SVII Innovation Society each “first Wednesday” of the month.

Keep checking here for program updates.
SVII is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization.

Back to the blog front page…

Return to the Creative Sage Home Page

Turning Vision into Value

If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series…

SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting

June 2nd, 2010
6:00 – 9:30 pm

Featuring a Panel Discussion on:

Trim the Fat: Applying Lean Startup Concepts to Entrepreneurship, Life, and the Creative Process

“Every entrepreneur must learn how to run a lean startup. It’s how you do more with less money.”
-Babak Nivi

The Lean Startup movement is taking Silicon Valley by storm, following the recent recession. (Some might say this should have been normal operating procedure all along.) Its concepts, such as “minimum viable product” and “customer development,” have helped startups turn their vision into a profitable reality faster.

But do they have a broader relevance? How could they apply to personal growth?

Does such a rigorous methodology have its place in the creative process?

Join SVII for an engaging conversation on June 2nd—the discussion is usually interactive, and audience questions and comments are encouraged.

Panelists:

Dr. Bernard Mont-Reynaud

After graduating from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, France, Bernard Mont-Reynaud did research at INRIA, then left for Stanford University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He taught CS at UC Berkeley, until called to join research in music analysis at CCRMA. The analysis, visualization and perception of music and audio have been major themes of his work over the years, along with image processing, real-time systems and advanced UI design. Places he has worked include Lucasfilm, TDW, Xerox PARC, Studer Editech and FXPAL. He is also the former Chief Software Architect at Sony’s “Super Audio Project” R&D facility in San Francisco.

Jordy Mont-Reynaud

After becoming the youngest ever chess master in the United States at the age of 10, Jordy attended Stanford University, where he received a B.S. in Symbolic Systems. After graduating he worked as a Software Engineer/Product Manager for Digital Chocolate. Jordy is currently the Mobile Developer for the social networking site Bebo, located in San Francisco.

Lukas Biewald

Lukas founded CrowdFlower, a “labor on demand” startup, in 2007. Prior to that he was a Senior Scientist and Manager within the Ranking and Management Team at Powerset, Inc., a natural language search technology company that was acquired by Microsoft. Lukas has also led the Search Relevance Team for Yahoo! Japan. He graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Mathematics and an M.S. in Computer Science. He is an expert-level Go player.

Please pre-register for this event here.

Program Schedule

6:00   Arrival and networking
6:45  Community buffet dinner
7:15   SVII Business—Howard Richard Lieberman, Chairman
7:30  Feature Panel Presentation
8:30  Followup discussion, showing up as an Innovation Advocate
9:30 Closing

Event fee: $35 drop-ins, and $25 members.

Drinks are available on a no-host basis.

If you do not pre-register, please be sure to RSVP at friends@svii.org.

SVII accepts cash, checks and credit cards on-site.

Or, you can pre-pay using the PayPal drop down button below.

Memberships have recently become available and can also be purchased using the same secure PayPal cart below.

SVII Society Offerings

Current program drop in $35.00 Current program member $25.00 Annual Membership $100.00 Initiation Fee (waived through August 31, 2010) $500.00

Enter email address

Location

Bay Cafe, Bayshore Ballroom
1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto
www.BayCafeRestaurant.com
650-856-0999

In Palo Alto, take Embarcadero East past Ming’s restaurant, then turn left into the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course driveway; from the parking lot, walk up the wide path toward the golf course buildings; the restaurant will be on the right.

Archives and Outlook

For developing Archives, check out the
SVII “First Wednesday” group at
SVII Society Online.

Please note that the SVII Ning group is being replaced soon by the following social networks:

You can now follow SVII on Twitter @sviihq

Join the new SVII Facebook group and the LinkedIn group.

You can also use Eventbrite to register.

Stay in Touch

For more information, and to join the e-list, email friends@svii.org. Plan to join the SVII Innovation Society each “first Wednesday” of the month.

Keep checking here for program updates.
SVII is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization.

Back to the blog front page…

Return to the Creative Sage Home Page

Turning Vision into Value

If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or if you’re visiting, please invite your friends and colleagues and join us for the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute’s Innovation Society 2010 Series…

SVII “First Wednesday” Innovation Society Meeting
May 5th, 2010
6:00 – 9:30 p.m.

Vitaly Golomb, Entrepreneur, Designer and Information Architect

Most people choose the corporate route in their careers. Some branch out and start lifestyle businesses. But true innovations are brought to market by scrappy entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs sometimes stumble on to a problem, and other times they will go looking for problems to solve. The resulting solutions they develop create new companies, categories, and sometimes, industries. Many things have to go right for these new ventures to succeed, and it takes a special group of people who have the perspective and tenacity required to lead the charge.

Vitaly Golomb is an entrepreneur who has been involved with a number of software and professional services start-ups throughout his career. He has spent the few years building an innovative software company to disrupt one of the oldest industries in the world: print. He will discuss latest lessons he has learned in the areas of venture fund-raising, hiring talent, finding the right partners, and bringing software products to market.

About Vitaly M. Golomb

Vitaly began his career in the graphic arts industry when he was hired in one of Kinko’s first computer services departments as a teenager. Soon after, he co-founded a graphic design service bureau and commercial printing company with his father.

While still in college, Vitaly additionally juggled design clients and a technology leadership role at an enterprise software start-up. He returned to the family print business as President during the dotcom nuclear winter and managed to greatly improve both sales and productivity. During this time he was involved with several early stage software start-ups in the mobile, health, and social media sectors. Upon selling the print business in 2005, Vitaly started a branding, web design, and online marketing firm that quickly landed a number of big name clients and expanded operations to Southern California.

In late 2007, Vitaly began development on a next-generation e-commerce solution for the printing industry, which later became Keen Systems. Currently in private beta, the company has already received industry acclaim after its announcement at the DEMOfall ‘09 conference.

Vitaly is an expert on branding, analytics-driven online marketing, e-commerce, information architecture, and software interface design. He is an award-winning web, multimedia and print designer. In the past, he has guest lectured at Northwestern Polytechnic University, Cal State Hayward, and UC Berkeley. He is currently the Communications Director for the non-profit Silicon Valley Innovation Instituteand is an active member of the Bay Area start-up ecosystem. Vitaly studied Communications at Santa Clara University and holds a BA in Computer & Video Imaging from Cogswell Polytechnical College. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Joyce, son Ari, and has a daughter on the way.

Blog: www.vitalyg.com Twitter: @vitalyg

Program Schedule

6:00 Arrival and networking
6:45 Community dinner
7:15 SVII Business
7:30 Feature Presentation
9:30 Closing

Event fee: $35 drop-ins, and $25 members.

Drinks are available on a no-host basis.

Please be sure to RSVP at friends@svii.org.

SVII accepts cash, checks and credit cards on-site.

Or, you can pre-pay using the PayPal drop down button below.

Memberships have recently become available and can also be purchased using the same secure PayPal cart below.

SVII Society Offerings

Current program drop in $35.00 Current program member $25.00 Annual Membership $100.00 Initiation Fee (waived through August 31, 2010) $500.00

Enter email address

Location

Bay Cafe, Bayshore Ballroom
1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto
www.BayCafeRestaurant.com
650-856-0999

In Palo Alto, take Embarcadero East past Ming’s restaurant, then turn left into the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course driveway; from the parking lot, walk up the wide path toward the golf course buildings; the restaurant will be on the right.

Archives and Outlook

For developing Archives, check out the
SVII “First Wednesday” group at
SVII Society Online.

Please note that the SVII Ning group is being replaced soon by the following social networks:

You can now follow SVII on Twitter @sviihq

Join the new SVII Facebook group and the LinkedIn group.

You can also use Eventbrite to register, and subscribe to Vitaly Golomb on Plancast.

Stay in Touch

For more information, and to join the e-list, email friends@svii.org. Plan to join the SVII Innovation Society each “first Wednesday” of the month.

Keep checking here for program updates.
SVII is a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization.

Back to the blog front page…

Return to the Creative Sage Home Page