Matt Greeley, CEO of Brightidea, sets the tone for each Birds of a Feather Event (BOF) event by stating the mission statement for BOF. Here is a summary:

 

The Brightidea Innovation Leaders "Birds of a Feather" Meeting is not a sales event. It is a peer to peer discussion on innovation management among Innovation Executives and Managers at top global corporations. BOF allows a forum to exchange ideas and best practices on implementing innovation in large organizations. The ability to share experiences is what makes BOF powerful.

 

This year, BOF's "A Next Step for Every Idea" tour was launched in New York City. Hosted by Nielsen at their NYC Headquarters, the first of several planned workshops filled to capacity with 45+ attendees that included innovation practioners from Adobe, AMEX, Bristol-Meyer Squibb, Cabot, Kraft, UBS, among others. The day provided a unique interactive forum which offered innovation leaders and experts the opportunity to discuss relevant topics and trends in an intimate, open setting. André St-Martin of Emerson felt that the event offered "innovation facilitators a chance to interact with other folks faced with similar challenges in their organization, and exchange on learning's and best practices."

 

The caliber of presenters was also a major draw. Ann Marie Dumais, Senior Vice President of New Product Introductions at Nielsen, Lisa Underkoffler, Principal Product Manager at Adobe, and Nicholas J. Webb, the CEO of Lassen Innovation and author of The Innovation Playbook each presented unique perspectives and real-world experiences that gave attendees incredible insight into how innovation is practiced and cultivated.

Ann Marie Dumais kicked off the morning with a presentation on the "Road to Innovation." She highlighted the four important types of people that are vital to the innovation process: creators, challengers, helpers and doers, and the BPQ (Better Products Quicker) and Innovation Platform which addresses the steps required to successfully launch a new product. Additionally, she touched upon lessons of innovation which included having an effective manager, clearly defining the problem you need to solve and the necessary steps you will take, and recognizing the different strengths and weaknesses of your team members.

Lisa Underkoffler introduced the attendees to the capabilities of the Adobe Acrobat website. She discussed the positives and negatives of managing an online service in which "updating on-line applications can be done as needed," but "how do you let people know what's new?" Lisa then discussed how Adobe is utilizing Brightidea's Webstorm to promote open conversation with users of acrobat.com through its Acrobat Ideas site. Adobe hoped that Brightidea's Webstorm would foster a sense of community, create an open interface for communication and feedback, as well as assist the company in learning about social media. Currently, the widely successful Adobe Ideas gathers new ideas from an active community of users, offers product managers a sense of what features are needed, and helps set priorities in the product development roadmap.

Nicholas Webb highlighted a few key topics addressed in his upcoming book The Innovation Playbook. Among the most important themes were how to bulletproof your company against competition, how to grow sales in our innovation driven economy, and how to take advantage of the down-turned economy. Nicholas pointed out some important facts in his presentation including that "85% of business leaders agree that traditional differentiators are no longer a sustainable business strategy," and "71% of business leaders believe that customer experience is the next corporate battleground."

 

In addition to the presentations, the afternoon included small breakout sessions where attendees shared experiences and asked questions on topics including 'improving participation', 'post campaign communication', and 'running external campaigns'.

 

Keep an eye out for more information on upcoming stops in the "A Next Step for Every Idea" tour.

 

UPCOMING BOF'S:

West Region:    August 13^th, location TBD

European Region: October 19^th, Zurich (Hosted by UBS)

Asia Pacific Region:   Date TBD, Hong Kong (Hosted by China Light & Power)

Remember, you too can get involved and stay engaged. Become a part of the leading community of innovation leaders. Visit the online Birds of a Feather community and register for this and upcoming events while keeping up-to-date on innovation activities and sharing ideas.

Connect Online: @brightideaBOF  &  Linkedin

We look forward to seeing you at future BOF events.

 

To see more photos of the event visit our Flickr page.