Principled Innovation LLC

My Top Ten Favorite Things About #BIF5 Day One

October 7th, 2009

Sitting in my hotel room in Providence, I’ve been thinking about the first day of the BIF-5 Summit.  Wow, what a day!  I missed BIF-4, and in my two-year absence, I think I forgot about the incredible richness of this experience.  I’m inspired, and I’m thinking about even more new possibilities for my work.

I’d like to share some of the experience, so here is my quick top ten list of favorite things from BIF-5 (#BIF5) Day One, with some help from my fellow Twitterers. (FYI, I’m @pinnovation) Thank you all for being so terrific.

10.  We talked openly about breasts and testicles, and everyone made it through any embarrassment they were feeling around those conversations, especially me.  (The common denominator:  take the early detection of cancer very seriously.)

9.  17 presentations. Not a single bullet point. Not a podium in sight. (via @tjsondermann)

When you’re right, you’re right.

8.  Roger Martin quotes The Economist: “MBA programs churn out jargon-spewing economic vandals” (via @chimoose)

Ditto.

7.  I am honored to be in presence of so many smart, accomplished people at BIF Summit. Wow. Brain spinning. Looking forward to tomorrow. (via @ericadriver)

The level of the intellects in the room, both on stage and in the seats, is quite staggering and quite humbling.  I was especially excited to meet Alex Osterwalder (@business_design), the lead author of the new book, Business Model Innovation, an extraordinary work in the creation of which I was privileged to participate along with 400+ community members around the world.  If you’re planning to be here tomorrow, try to meet Alex.  Great guy, great book.

6. Although we talk about velocity, sometimes an entrepreneur’s story is about way-finding, a journey over time, like @sweetriot (via @aptuscollab)

The notion of discovery or “finding” was present throughout the day, and it raises what I think is an important question about innovation we need to be able to answer:  if innovation truly is about discovery, i.e., finding, tinkering, experimenting/learning over time, how do we build organizational patience for discovery as an element of innovation capacity building?

5. Neri Oxman: manmade designs: model/simulate/fabricate=different systems. Biosystems simultaneously model/simulate/fabricate (via @kippworks) 

Neri Oxman totally blew me away with her talk.  It was incredibly thought-provoking, complex and nuanced.  Without trying to trivialize Neri’s work by extrapolating in a different direction, I believe the notion of design as “form-finding” rather than “form-making” has important implications for our organizations, especially as we think about business model innovation. 

4.  I heard more people use the word “generative” here today than I usually do in a month outside of this community.  We’re so caught up in being effective and productive, especially right now, I’m concerned that our organizations have forgotten what it means to originate, i.e., to be generative.  It really doesn’t have to be an either/or choice.

3.  Innovation requires a level of vulnerability that most are not comfortable with - Saul Kaplan (@skap5) (via @aphaneuf)

I think this is observation is spot on, and for me it is the flip side of the passion that innovators feel for their work.  Passionate people naturally want to share that passion with others, which creates vulnerability.  Saul has written eloquently on the subject of passion and innovation.

2.  Michael Samuelson: as an innovator, let the hubris go. Ask the stupid questiions don’t be practical. (via @jpamental)

Permission to defy conventional wisdom and standard expectations…exactly what we needed to set the tone for the two days.

1. Common theme at BIF:  you never know what creativity might come from disparate groups of people (via @rcorke)

I was especially excited at the diversity of disciplines represented by today’s storytellers…a very powerful mix of personal and professional reflections.

If you’re here at BIF-5, I hope you’ll share your top five or ten things from the first day.  If you don’t have your own blog where you can post them, you can always add your list as a comment below.  Can’t wait for tomorrow!

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