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Thank You, Sabres

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 18:17:00 +0000

The measure of an organization is often what it does when no one is looking. This week, I was fortunate enough to experience this firsthand from a local organization.

It all started when I learned last week that Jake* -- the 11 year-old son of some family friends -- was experiencing serious health problems due to a degenerative liver condition. I was told that Jake had been in and out of the hospital for the past few weeks, and that the prevailing opinion was that he would need some medical/surgical intervention or a liver transplant. Understandably, Jake was a little down and out of sorts because of all the health complications.

I was saddened by the news but resigned that there was little I could do to help or improve the situation. Then I recalled that Jake loved the Buffalo Sabres, and I thought perhaps I could contact them. I'd heard Ted Black speak on WGR-550 and was very impressed with his willingness to make himself available and always answer questions.

So I contacted the Sabres and told them about Jake and mentioned that he was a huge Sabres fan and asked, could they perhaps mail him a holiday card from the Sabres or something?

Not only did the Sabres respond, but they sent a package to Jake the next day that included a holiday card, an autographed yearbook, and other memorabilia. As it turned out, Jake was returning home from the hospital when he received the items. He was simply ecstatic, and at least for a little while forgot all about his health problems.

I know the Sabres chose to do this and did not ask for any acknowledgement in return. But I was so impressed by their kindness that I felt compelled to post about this.

Thank you, Sabres.

* Name has been changed

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Acknowledgements

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:42:00 +0000

To close out this blog series, I wanted to express my appreciation for everyone who's stopped by and provided feedback. Thanks so much. Writing a daily blog post about a different BIF speaker every day turned out be more difficult and time consuming that I thought, and I appreciate the interest.

In addition to a general thank you, I also want to call out four people:

Sandy Maxey - For all the RTs and mentions. Thanks!
http://sandymaxey.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @sandymaxey

Jessica Esch - For sharing her wonderful BIF sketches that helped jog my ossifying memory as I was writing the recaps.
http://www.sayitbest.com/
Twitter: @jesch30

Amanda Fenton - For those crystallizing and invaluable mindmaps that captured the essence of each BIF storyteller and help me refine the posts with appropriate detail.

Twitter: @AmandaFenton

Deborah Mills-Scofield - For promoting BIF like no other and tweeting all my posts. Thanks, ninja fairy god mother.

Twitter: @dscofield

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 +1 - Saul Kaplan

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:35:00 +0000

You can't do a blog series about BIF without mentioning Saul Kaplan and the outstanding BIF team.

Saul self-identifies as the "Chief Catalyst" of the Business Innovation Factory, but he's much more than that. He's smart, professional, friendly, inventive, and, most of all, always open to "random collisions of unusual suspects".

There was a telling moment toward the end of BIF-7 when the audience stood as one to show appreciation to Saul with a standing ovation. Saul looked horrified, but not because he's uncomfortable with public speaking. He's just the kind of leader who would rather deflect praise to his team, or talk about the inspiring stories shared at BIF, or make that next connection with a suspect he hasn't met yet.

Thank you, Saul, and thank you, BIF team.

The BIF Team

Saul Kaplan
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/saul-kaplan
Twitter: @skap5

Christine Costello
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/projects/elab/about/team/christine-costello

Tori Drew
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/tori-drew
Twitter: @toridrew

Jeff Drury
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/jeff-drury
Twitter: @druryjeff

Christine Flanagan
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/christine-flanagan
Twitter: @chrisflanagan

James Hamar
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/james-hamar
Twitter: @jameshamar

Katherine Hypolite
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/katherine-hypolite
Twitter: @KatherineBIF

Samantha Kowalczyk
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/sam-kowalczyk

Eli Stefanski
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/about/leadership-team/eli-stefanski
Twitter: @elithechef

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 31 - Dan Pink

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 03:18:00 +0000

I don't know how much Dan Pink personally likes Halloween, but it sure corroborates the talk he gave at BIF-7. People love to innovate and push the envelope with costumes. Just on our street this Halloween I saw someone dressed up as a cell phone, a meticulously made up geisha, and a Facebook profile page. Some of the creative costumes worked and others failed, but the point is that creative thinking and a willingness to try new things accompany innovative costume-making.

This is strikingly similar to the point Dan made at BIF-7, that unconventional and non-commissioned work can lead to breakthroughs and innovation. As an example, Dan cited Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov who won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for groundbreaking experiments with graphene during their free "Friday evening experiment" time. (Note: Dan explores the potency and value of non-commissioned work in more detail in his newest book, Drive.)

Most unconventional and non-commissioned experiments do not lead to breakthroughs, though, and Dan indicated that the failure rate might be as high as 90%. This recalls Sturgeon's Law, the famous adage from American speculative fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon that states "ninety percent of everything is crap".

Dan deftly closed out BIF-7 by relating how Andre Geim previously won an Ig Noble Prize (years before he won the Nobel Prize) for work on the magnetic levitation of frogs. Dan's conclusion: "If you really want to change the world, you need to levitate some frogs".

Additional information:
http://www.danpink.com/

My Review of Drive:
http://ravenhost.blogspot.com/2010/12/drive-by-daniel-pink-book-review.html

Dan Pink on Twitter:
@danielpink

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/dan-pink

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 30 - Duncan Watts

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 02:24:00 +0000

I would love to listen to a debate someday between Duncan Watts and Malcolm Gladwell. Because, in his BIF-7 story, Duncan came across very much as an anti-Gladwell: precise, deliberate, and respectful of the difficulties and complexities involved with attempts to influence and predict behavior.

During his BIF-7 talk, Duncan talked about the problem of obviousness and common sense -- basically, that "the way we make sense of the world can actually prevent us from understanding it." This is also the hypothesis Duncan delineates in his new book, Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer.

As Duncan elaborated, we are susceptible to errors of reasoning when we rely on common sense:

When we think about why people do what they do, we place too much emphasis on incentives, motivations, and beliefs, and not enough on the thousands of other influencing factors
Groups are extremely complicated to predict -- we erroneously apply the logic of "individual" action to groups
We learn much less from history than we think and are prone to make the same mistakes over and over

The way forward, Duncan intimated at BIF and flushed out in Everything Is Obvious, is less reliance on common sense and more on psychohistory-like computational social science.

Additional information:
http://research.yahoo.com/Duncan_Watts

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/duncan-watts

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 29 - Jim Mellado

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 00:50:00 +0000

What are the greatest innovations and accomplishments from organized religion?

I ask this question as a response to Jim Mellado, who in his BIF-7 story talked about how the church can be a contributor and innovator to society. Jim's claim was fascinating and foreign to me, as I've always equated the church and organized religion with the status quo (at its best) and repression (at its worst).

My intent with this post was to list out the most commonly agreed upon innovations/accomplishments of religion from a number of sources. Unfortunately, my searches turned up very little about this topic. I've reproduced the best items I could find, but I welcome additions to this list:

Preservation of historical documents
Preserving writing and intellectual inquiry in Western Europe after the collapse of Roman administration
Revived interest in Classical Greek and Latin from the lead up to the Protestant Reformation
Islam: the notion and push for universal education, algebra, the mathematical concept of zero
China: orderly civil administration via Confucianism

Note: This list was summarized from this extended Reddit thread about the Accomplishments of Religion.

Additional information:

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/jim-mellado

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 28 - Matthew Moniz

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:52:00 +0000

Matthew Moniz's story was probably the most heartwarming and life affirming of all the stories at BIF-7. An accomplished mountain climber at 13, Matthew described the major peaks and summits he's climbed, including Everest and 50 peaks in 50 states in 50 days. It was even more revealing when Matthew talked about one of his best friends with a medical condition and symptoms that ironically emulated the effects of high-altitude environments Matthew typically encounters while climbing.

Like everyone in the audience at BIF, I was pretty much blown away by Matthew. He was so focused, yet modest; engaged and driven to be great.

As the days passed and I reflected about Matthew and his story, I realized that one of the reasons his story stood out is he's exceptional, a true outlier, and I wondered why that is. Why aren't more kids like him?

Is it that schools educate for compliance and not creativity and innovation? It's noteworthy how much Matthew has learned outside of the traditional classroom.
Is it that many of Matthew's peers are now medicated, for ODD or other disorders?
Is it that media consumption -- encompassing television, computers, and cell phones -- helps pacify and subdue kids?
Is it consumerism, which weakens self-reliance and independent decision making?

I don't know, but as a parent, I'll continue to think about Matthew's story and possible reasons more kids aren't like him.

Additional information:

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/matthew-moniz

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 27 - Christopher Meyer

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 02:46:00 +0000

Talking about the evolution of capitalism seems like a daunting task, even for an innovator. But that's exactly what Christopher Meyer did at BIF-7.

Capitalism is moving, Chris suggested, and the genome is going to shift as emerging economies like Brazil, India, and China grow and begin to dominate the global economic system. Organizations that maximize growth in change over time, Chris suggested, will benefit the most from a new prevailing version of capitalism.

I brought up Isaac Asimov and the Foundation Series in reference to another BIF storyteller, and I thought of speculative fiction when Chris presented as well. Here, it was China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen McHugh, a celebrated near-future novel where America has gone through a socialist revolution, China is the new superpower, and a hybrid of capitalism and socialism has become the major economic system. The future described in the book seemed to fit the evolution Chris described.

Additional information:
http://www.monitortalent.com/talent/Christopher-Meyer-Profile.html

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/christopher-meyer

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 26 - Whitney Johnson

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 03:13:00 +0000

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets, rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

You look up from the two documents on your desk. One is a business plan, and the other is a resignation letter. You are anxious and diaphoretic. Totally afraid of making the wrong decision. Of failing.

As you acknowledge your fear of failure and let it sit for a while in your gut, you begin to calm down, and then, eventually, smile. Because, in the words of Whitney Johnson, "If it feels scary and lonely, you're probably on the right track."

During her BIF-7 talk, Whitney focused on disruption as a key trigger for personal transformation. Fittingly, her anchor quotes crystallized her points and recalled some of the other BIF speakers.

"If it feels scary and lonely, you're probably on the right track"
We work to build up financial stability and status, and eventually accrue dependents and responsibility. It takes courage to make a change, especially mid-career, but if we don't, the odds are high that we'll eventually stagnate. This point made me think of Angus Davis and his emphasis on embracing failure.

"Be assured that you have no idea what will come next"
Because disruption dislodges us from embedded roles, environments, and situational patterns, anything is possible. We can't predict with any reliability what will happen or who will figure prominently next in our life. In this context, ambiguity and uncertainty fuel innovation and personal growth. Here I recalled Mari Kuraish, who literally had no idea where her path would lead.

"Throw out the performance metrics you've always relied on"
Whitney cited Moneyball and mentioned that for 90% of successful ventures, the strategy that leads to success is not the strategy originally pursued. This brought to mind Dennis Littky who -- like the GM of the Oakland A's -- recast the methods of nurturing talent and growing value.

"Your odds of success will improve when you pursue a disruptive course"
The differentiator here, as Whitney elaborated in her talk, is to disrupt in new versus established spaces. Alexander Osterwalder would no doubt agree, who achieved a business bestseller by finding a niche in book creation: collaborative authoring and publishing.

You can read Whitney's blog post that was the basis for her BIF-7 talk about disruption here: http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/2011/08/disrupt-yourself.html

Additional information:
http://blogs.hbr.org/johnson/

Whitney Johnson on Twitter
@johnsonwhitney

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/whitney-johnson

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 25 - Angus Davis

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:22:00 +0000

Though a successful entrepreneur by any measure, at BIF-7 Angus Davis talked repeatedly about failure. Like Graham Milner who emphasized that innovation can take multiple tries (sometimes 40!) before a breakthrough, Angus went even further and indicated that the secret to success is failure and managing your fear of it.

In this context, failure is to be expected and even embraced. It's an interesting notion -- and given that Angus has been failing (and then succeeding) since the early days of the Internet when he worked at Netscape as an intern -- I don't doubt the veracity of the claim. I do wonder though if this might suggest that some people are more likely to succeed at entrepreneurship and innovation not so much because of attributes like creativity or imagination, but because of a heightened capacity to accept failure and move on.

Additional information:
http://angusdavis.com

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/angus-davis

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 24 - Alex Jadad

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:43:00 +0000

I searched for definitions of "health" on the Internet today. Below is a sampling of the top results:

The state of being free from illness or injury: "he was restored to health"; "a health risk". A person's mental or physical condition.
- from http://www.takesteps.univerahealthcare.com

Health is the level of functional and (or) metabolic efficiency of a living being.
- from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health

The condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit; especially : freedom from physical disease or pain.
- from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/health

And, now, here is the definition of health offered by Alex Jadad during his BIF-7 talk:

"The capacity of an individual and a community of people to adapt and direct their own lives."

This sentence explodes the old, normative definitions of health because Alex and innovators like him in the healthcare industry have crafted it deliberately by rebuilding the notion and language of "health". This shift in the definition of health expands from semantics to the paradigm of what's expected and possible in healthcare, including "creating a platform for wellness instead of sick care" and attempting to "turn unavoidable suffering to meaning".

For Alex Jadad, this mission has taken form at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation in Toronto where he works to help create “... a world in which people, regardless of who they are or where they live, use state- of-the-art information and communications technologies (ICTs) with enthusiasm, proficiency and confidence, to achieve the highest possible levels of health and to help health systems make the most efficient use of available resources.”

Additional information:
http://www.ehealthinnovation.org

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/alex-jadad

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

Guest Post on Career Rocketeer

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:16:00 +0000

Check out my guest post on Career Rocketeer:

Recession-Proof Yourself
http://www.careerrocketeer.com/2011/10/recession-proof-yourself.html

For more of my guest posts on other blogs, access my Writing page.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 23 - Andries van Dam

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:05:00 +0000

Think about the last time you visited a museum and the painting that most interested you. Now imagine you can view that artwork in a digital display using touch screen technology and pan and zoom the image as much as you want.

Thanks to Andries van Dam, this kind of interactive technology is becoming viable for access in museums and other exhibit spaces.

Andries van Dam enticed the audience at BIF-7 with a demonstration of the software (Microsoft Surface) he and his Brown students are employing to display images the size of "a football field" and zoom in "as close as digitization allows". It was pretty cool and, along with the smaller-scale iPad, a glimpse into the future of display technology.

Additional information:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/~avd/

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/andries-van-dam

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 22 - John Hagel

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 01:17:00 +0000

I was fortunate enough to hear John Hagel speak at BIF-6 and BIF-7. During both of his talks, he shared personal stories that helped contextualize and illuminate the framework of pull, which he has elaborated (with co-authors John Seely Brown and Lang Davison) in The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion.

For anyone reading this who hasn't heard of John Hagel or The Power of Pull, I encourage you to research the text and consider reading it. In brief, the authors posit that social media and collaborative technology platforms have fundamentally changed the rules and costs of exchanging information and forming groups. The consequence of this shift is that people are now able to "pull" information/resources they require as needed and on-demand instead of in the old "push" model, where organizations disseminated information to clusters of people, often based on forecasts, market research, and guesses.

Additional information:
http://www.johnhagel.com/

John Hagel on Twitter:
@jhagel

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/john-hagel

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 21 - Chris Van Allsburg

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 03:06:00 +0000

Of all the BIF-7 storytellers, Chris Van Allsburg stood out as the only author who wrote fiction (children's fiction, specifically). Naturally, he was an accomplished storyteller, with most of us familiar with his crowning work, The Polar Express. But did that make him an innovator? I wasn't sure.

As it turns out, during his BIF-7 story, Chris's revealed that he knows a few things about innovation.

First, there was the focus of his talk, his new book, Queen of the Falls. This is a children's story about Annie Edson Taylor, the sixty-two-year-old charm school instructor who became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. Annie's plan to go over the Falls was conceived to earn her fame and fortune, but there's no doubt that it was audacious and innovative.

Chris's conceit to spin a mature story about a confidence woman as a children's book was also innovative. On the surface, Annie's story is not really suitable for children, and without a happy ending, but Chris found a way to make it work.

Finally, the scale and grandeur of the Falls themselves forced Chris to innovate and experiment in the illustrations for the book. He faced a tough challenge to represent the size and height of the Falls and used juxtaposed buildings to depict relational scale.

Additional information:
http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/chris-van-allsburg

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 20 - Dennis Littky

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 03:43:00 +0000

I have to be honest. When Dennis Littky walked across the stage to speak at BIF-7, I was a little scared. The signifiers perplexed me. He looked happily crazy, and had on tie-dye shoes of sorts. I could only think, "here comes a seriously worked-up ex-hippie."

But then he started talking about kids and school and it became evident immediately that he was committed to bringing dramatic change to education. At one point, he pulled out all these little pieces of paper and started tossing them into the air. Every 12 seconds, he related, a kid drops out of school. 9,600 drop out every 24 hours.

"Something's not right about that," he said.

The good news is that Littky created an organization to help stem the tide of dropouts by "encouraging, inciting and effecting change in the U.S. educational system." The Big Picture Company was founded in 1995 and now has 72 high-schools across the country. Littky is now also involved with collegiate education reform via a College Unbound collaboration with Big Picture Learning.

Note: During his BIF-7 talk, Dennis mentioned that he's always looking for e-mentors for students and encouraged anyone interested to tweet at him @dennis_littky and let him know.

Additional information:
http://www.bigpicture.org/

Dennis Littky on Twitter:
@dennis_littky

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/dennis-littky

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 19 - Byron Reeves

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:19:00 +0000

You start up and get an instant message almost immediately:

"Quest notice: find all 14 unclaimed invs and bring them back to _Reeves (Player 411) for processing to Accounting. Time completion bonus and one hidden power up."

You gear up and prepare your Avatar, and then head toward the center of town where transport rigs can take you anywhere you need -- to the Tea Room, where you can meet up with co-workers, to the Library containing every administrative and quality form, and to the Towers, residence of the c-suite.

Game on. Time to track down and pay those vendor invoices.

If only work were as enjoyable as exploring a MMORPG. But might it become so?

During his BIF-7 talk, Byron Reeves elaborated the growing phenomenon of gamification and explored the prospect of interjecting gameplay into traditional work modes and processes. Byron summarized the reasons we enjoy games (achievement, immersion, exploration, competition, and socializing) and posited that the same base dimensions apply at work such that gameplay can make work more enjoyable.

For corroboration, he listed several examples from the edge of this space, how sales people are gaming at Cisco, how IBM has used games for client meetings, and how Oracle has experimented with several game applications.

Additional information:
http://www.stanford.edu/~reeves/Byron_Reeves/Home.html

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/byron-reeves

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 18 - Rebecca Onie

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:30:00 +0000

Sometimes I wonder how anyone can muster the energy to work for change in our massive, bureaucratic, and sometimes sisyphean healthcare system. But then I hear people like Rebecca Onie speak, who helped found Health Leads, and I get inspired that you can reform from within.

Health Leads mobilizes volunteers in urban clinics to connect low-income patients with basic resources, including food, housing, and heating assistance. This works with a simple resource checklist: physicians can check food, housing, health insurance, job training, fuel assistance, or other resources their patients need. Health Leads volunteers then work to connect patients with key resources.

It's a classic case of shrinking change to a small and manageable scale.

Additional information:
http://www.healthleadsusa.org/

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/rebecca-onie

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 17 - Valdis Krebs

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:59:00 +0000

What does Isaac Asimov have to do with BIF? The answer: Valdis Krebs.

You see, Valdis looks at network topology and sees all kinds of innovative possibilities for analysis and extrapolation, not unlike Asimov's Hari Seldon, who famously developed psychohistory, the science of predicting the future in probabilistic terms.

During his BIF-7 talk, Valdis explained the guiding principles involved with social and organizational network analysis:

Birds of a feather flock together
What you know depends on who you know (and vice versa)

Valdis demonstrated the depth and utility of this analysis by showing a network genome of BIF-7 attendees who had completed a pre-conference survey. The algorithm depicted a connected system and suggested recommended connections based on interest. Valdis was kind enough to send me the visual, and I've reproduced it below:

The demonstration was impressive, even though Valdis had extremely limited input data and an incomplete sample set (not everyone who attended BIF-7 completed the survey, including me apparently). With a rich data-set, the implications for this kind of network analysis are staggering and more than a little frightening. Forgot the nascent connection suggestions LinkedIn and Facebook make now, tomorrow's network analysis won't suggest connections, they will predict the people we'll connect with in the future.

"His name was Gaal Dornick, and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before."
-- Isaac Asimov, Foundation

Additional information:
http://www.orgnet.com/

Twitter:
@ValdisKrebs

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/valdis-krebs

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

Big Bang Sustainability?

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 03:49:00 +0000

I love The Big Bang Theory and think it's hands-down the funniest show on television, but there's one thing about it that puzzles and bothers me.

The characters frequently use plastic water bottles and other consumables (paper cups, take-out cartons, etc).

Given the intelligence of the main characters (Penny gets a pass) and their affiliations with the sciences, you would think at least one of them would have enough conviction about climate change and sustainability to try out a metal water bottle, order from restaurants with less packaging (and no styrofoam), and maybe even experiment with composting.

I understand the show is a comedy and is not pursuing a cause or seeking to change the world. But Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj are scientists and uber nerds and the show does a fabulous job showing all the painful and obsessive details -- you just expect reusability and recycling to come up more than it does.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 16 - Dale Stephens

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:55:00 +0000

Everyone at BIF-7 was feeling it. You could feel the positive energy when the storytellers were onstage and how people were listening intently, connected. During the breaks I observed -- from both my own experiences and the conversations I overheard -- how most of the attendees were assiduously following the telos of BIF-7, and striving to "connect, inspire, and transform". It was all nods and smiles.

And then Dale Stephens slapped the audience in the face. Dale's story focused on his decision to drop out of college. He explained why he did it (he wasn't learning enough and wasn't challenged) and provided reasons why others should consider dropping out too (students accrue massive college debt, college teaches conformity, life itself provides better field trips than college, and more). Even as he was speaking, I knew that some members of the audience were growing uncomfortable. You could sense the nervous energy and shifting body language in the theater. Perhaps some people were considering the colleges their children were attending and becoming defensive. Or maybe Dale's comment that "the purpose of Harvard University was to produce alumni to enrich Harvard University" was a little too irreverent even for BIF. Whatever the causes: it was about time, I thought.

Since innovation often takes place on the edge and pushes dramatic change, there are inevitably moments of disagreement, opposition, and uneasiness. I savor the discomfort and am glad Dale brought it to BIF-7. His challenge to the accepted norm that everyone needs a college degree inspired debate and pushed some people to consider a point of view outside of their paradigm and comfort zone. And it is exactly this kind of openness (to uncomfortable, contrarian viewpoints) that keeps us mentally sharp and combats ossification.

Additional information:
http://www.uncollege.org/

Twitter: @DaleJStephens

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/len-schlesinger

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 15 - Len Schlesinger

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 01:28:00 +0000

Here's what was like to hear Len Schlesinger speak at BIF-7:

He comes on stage and acknowledges the audience. While all the other BIF-7 storytellers remained standing while presenting, he looks around for seating. Quickly, he finds a stool and makes himself comfortable. Okay, you think, he wants to dial it down, and this will be a subdued, intimate talk.

And then Len begins speaking -- and it's brilliant and non-stop, one point after another, in succession, with quick segues and turns and you have to work to keep up, but fortunately all those people in the audience have laptops and are taking notes and capturing what he's saying, so you can put your notepad away and just listen, and focus as Len talks about Babson and how they are the the only school that do what they do, with a unique method to be able to impact the world, how there are ten elements of the entrepreneurial experience, how entrepreneurship is becoming a life skill, and how Babson continues to work with BIF and we are all welcome to immerse in the data at http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/projects/elab.

Additional information:
http://www.babson.edu/

Twitter: @lschlesinger

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/len-schlesinger

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 14 - Jon Cropper

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 03:19:00 +0000

With today's weak job market and the maturation of multiple easy-to-use social media vehicles, personal branding is on the rise. People are deliberately branding themselves to find employment, make connections, broadcast their message, and express themselves, and they are becoming increasingly innovative and creative in their efforts. Take, for example, Matthew Epstein and his brilliantly branded Google, please hire me website.

Of course, as Jon Cropper would tell you, this is nothing new. Branding has been an part of his professional persona since he started working in the advertising industry, and his BIF-7 story reflected the facets which he synthesized in the acronym SEDUCTION:

S = Self-awareness. What do you represent? Jon said that he stood for four c's: compassion, communication, creativity, and curiosity.
E = Environment. What's going on in the world?
D = Design. Looks and presentation matter.
U = Understanding. Listen and ask the right questions.
C = Communication. Tell stories.
T = Trust. Mean what you say and follow through. Earn trust.
I = Inspiration. Create effective messages and out-teach (not out-sell).
O = Open. Inject optimism into the world.
N = New. Constant renewal. Innovation is seductive.

Additional information:
http://joncropper.com/

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/jon-cropper

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 13 - Sebastian Ruth

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 02:53:00 +0000

I've come to associate BIF with acts of innovation large and small, and passionate storytellers who test the edge and embrace failure. As I was prepping what has become my daily BIF post, I realized I wasn't doing nearly enough of that myself. While I've enjoyed writing all the posts, they've mostly followed the same format: a few paragraphs, maybe an opinion, and some links.

I needed to deviate from form, and while embedding videos is hardly original, it's the most immediate and appropriate method I could think of to share the story and music of Sebastian Ruth and Community Music Works.

Additional information:
http://www.communitymusicworks.org/

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/sebastian-ruth

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.

31 (More) Days of #BIF7 - Day 12 - Mari Kuraishi

noreply@blogger.com (Raven) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:35:00 +0000

I know several high-performing professionals who plan everything out. They set goals, maintain lists, document their ideas, and follow a personal development plan. It works for them. Some are even able to manage really challenging projects with tons of moving parts and, in the end, drive innovation and business transformation.

But, as Mari Kuraishi revealed in her BIF-7 story, innovation isn't always planned. In Mari's case, the path took form, as it often does for many of us, out of necessity and by coincidence. Mari went to grad school in Russia because she didn't want to serve tea in Japan. When she found herself finishing school with diminishing options due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, she reached out to her connections and was able to obtain a job at the World Bank. When the World Bank put her in charge of their tiny innovation department, she opened it up to the world and "all these people showed up." When Mari realized the need in the world and possibilities of a philanthropic marketplace, she worked to create Global Giving.

That Mari (like many other innovators) didn't plan her course or even set out to innovate makes sense intuitively, but it's nonetheless tempting to try to connect the dots and find connections between the singular decisions and unrelated actions. We do this, of course, because we want to reverse engineer the path so we can reproduce innovative ideas like Global Giving.

It doesn't work that way, though. At least not in a measurable, practical way. There might be connections between the decision points in Mari's story, but if there are, they are similar to the connections between the Titanic and the iceberg that Hardy wrote about in his 1915 poem, The Convergence of the Twain. If you shift your orientation and are far enough away, you can see from a long way off that the ship is assuredly going to hit the iceberg.

Prepared a sinister mate
For her -- so gaily great --
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

Till the Spinner of the Years
Said 'Now!' And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

Additional information:
http://www.globalgiving.org/

Global Giving on Twitter:
@GlobalGiving

BIF Profile Page
http://businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/innovators/mari-kuraishi

This is part of my 31 (More) Days of #BIF7 blog series.