Our next Brightidea Innovation Leaders Birds of a Feather (BOF) event is approaching! June 6-7, Brightidea and innovation experts from across the world are heading to Schaumburg, Illinois, just outside of Chicago and home to the world headquarters of our host, Motorola Solutions.

Heidi Hattendorf Director, Innovation Development at Motorola Solutions states, "the BOF event is an excellent opportunity for industry leaders of global brands to compare best in class Innovation practices and exchange ideas. We're pleased to be hosting this year's BOF."

The 2-day event will kickoff with an insider look at the Motorola Solutions Innovation Center for a hands-on experience with many of today's most advanced products and solutions. The following day, participants will enjoy several TED-style presentations and interactive sessions at Motorola Solutions. Speakers include Heidi Hattendorf, Director of Innovation Development at Motorola Solutions and Jeffrey Philips, author of 'Relentless Innovation'. Similar to previous BOFs, attendees with have a chance to participate in interactive breakout sessions on important topics in innovation management and connect with peers throughout the day.

Paul Tran, Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships, says, "I am proud to announce that Motorola Solutions is hosting our BOF AMERICAS Innovation Leaders Conference this year. They have been a pioneer of technological innovation for over 80 years. What makes this event unique is that attendees will have the great opportunity to tour their Innovation Center and learn how their innovation programs help drive an effective and sustainable company's culture. This is a tremendous opportunity for Innovation Executives to get first hand knowledge from globally recognized brand."

Register today, spots are limited for this exclusive event. Please note, while we try to accommodate all requests, Brightidea customers are given priority access to all BOF events.Want to know more? Check out this video on BOF below!

This is part of our One-on-One at BOF video series, featuring interviews from innovation leaders who presented at Kraft's Birds of a Feather Innovation Leaders (BOF) event.

EllisDon, one of the largest building contractors in Canada, was present with their Web Application Manager, Christine Zakrajsek, to discuss the company's innovation strategies. After her presentation we had a chance to catch up with Christine for a quick interview and when asked about how the company defines success, she responded, "We define success at EllisDon about engagement because we believe that engaged employees are happy employees and happy employees are successful business." Christine continued by saying, "once you get the sharing and the engagement, the innovation almost happens naturally, and once you have that natural organic innovation the ROI bubbles up."

Take a look at her exclusive interview below.

Join our BOF Community of Innovation Leaders today and get insights, access, and instant connections to practitioners around the world.

As Europe's largest economy and leader in patent registrations, Germany has been a hub of cutting-edge research and technologies. German businesses traditionally team up with academic institutions to drive technological progress. In recent years, more enterprises have opened their innovation processes to harness the collective wisdom of their workforces, customers, and partners.

Handelsblatt Open Innovation conference is Europe's flagship event on Open Innovation. This year's event in Berlin attracted participants from companies like Bayer, Cisco, Ford, Google, Nestlé and Procter&Gamble who discussed practical knowledge and best practices.

Among the keynote speakers was Matt Asman, Head of Innovation at Cisco Europe. Matt gave a fascinating insight into Cisco's innovation program that has driven impressive results.

As a core discipline, innovation at Cisco is embedded on all levels, from corporate vision to execution. In his presentation, Matt described how people, processes, and technology were taken into account when developing the comprehensive program. Talking about securing internal support and participation, he said: "For innovation managers it is dangerous to lean back. They need to be pro-active and constantly reach out to the company's stakeholders to stimulate collaboration."

Brightidea's software to power the I-Zone, an internal hub for employees to share and discuss ideas. "The I-Zone has been fundamental to the program's success," explained Matt. "It enables us to tap into our employees' knowledge and surface ideas that would otherwise remain unknown."

The results are impressive. The current innovation portfolio that has emerged from the hundreds of ideas submitted to the I-Zone is expected to generate over 360 million U.S. dollars in revenue over the next three years.

Other presentations at the conference included Procter & Gamble's Connect + Develop initiative and Nestle's Sharing is Winning Open Innovation program.

Frank Mattes, CEO of innovation-3, German Open Innovation thought-leader, and Premier Brightidea Partner, also spoke at the conference. In his presentation, he outlined the five key Open Innovation trends in Germany.

The Handelsblatt Open Innovation conference provided participants with hands-on insights from peers and confirmed the value of collaboration in driving – and managing – innovation processes.

Guest Post by Vicki Catalina:

Open Innovation & Idea Manager,
Owens-Illinois(O-I)

Owens-Illinois (NYSE: OI), was in the midst of our internal innovation program, "FURNACE", rollout when I attend the latest Birds of a Feather (BOF) meeting in Chicago hosted by Kraft. At BOF, my picture of what and how we could use the site to ignite and expand collaborative innovation was quickly enhanced.

Take-aways from the BOF event:

1. Making friends with your 'likes'. Innovators and believers in innovation tend to see things differently. The diversity of companies (HP, Cisco, Avnet, Farm Credit, Emerson, Ellis Don, Kraft, GE); smaller, new, larger…from hospital systems, insurance, electronic, foods…a true testament that the majority of business types know that to be successful over the long term a strong innovative culture is a top priority. Great diverse group of people with common visions for innovation; as Paul said, "You are what you share."

2. Success and Failure is part of the game. Inspiring people to CONTRIBUTE, especially in grey areas or farther-out-there ideas, has to be continually encouraged and awarded. Interestingly, I just read "Better Ideas Through Failure" in WSJ, where the Grey Group in New York developed the "Heroic Failure" award to encourage risk-taking, to award ideas that are "edgier or riskier, or new and totally unproven." Recognition and promotion are crucial for insistent and compelling involvement, though most importantly "know your company's style".

   Tools of the trade. Tweet ups, site teasers, events, blasts, video, quotes, Iphones for immediate interaction, all become forms of communication to keep collaboration continuing. Companies shared unique applications they used to keep things new and exciting, like photo challenges, design competitions, brainstorming sessions, consumer studies like 'A Day in the Life of" or "Show me how you…"

3. Inspiration – Sarah Muller Caldicott, granddaughter of Edison, President of PowerPatterns, and author, Innovate Like Edison. Her stories and passion for innovation was moving and inspiring. One of Edison's mantras: Focus on business results.

I left the session excited and proud of the Innovation Program at O-I. By attending BOF I realized FURNACE can be developed to the likes of an Ecomagination, highly productive and participative. Brightidea provided a comfortable, open environment that top line companies openly shared their failures, successes, innovative challenges and organizations. Kraft, as to be expected, did a fantastic job at hosting the event.

About the Author: Vicki Catalina is an Open Innovation & Idea Manager at Owens-Illinois and is based in Toledo, OH and likes a challenge (anything from a business solution to running a marathon) and family-time.

Avnet, (NYSE:AVT), a Fortune 500 company founded in 1921, is one of the world's largest trans-national distributors of electronic components and computer products with 10,000 employees worldwide. Using Brightidea software, Avnet steers its business culture towards continual innovation through THINKTank, an social innovation management platform which allows employees to collaborate around ideas that identify and resolve critical business challenges. Change is never easy for large companies, especially ones with long established histories. Avnet's focus on change management, of which THINKTank is a critical part, is a multi-facetted approach to smooth the transition of the company to actively embrace innovation and make it a central part of every employee's day job.

At our most recent Birds of a Feather (BOF) event hosted by Kraft, Terry Cain, VP of Global Customer Engagement at Avnet discussed THINKTank and its successes saying, "We just celebrated 2,600 results worldwide and these are employee implemented process improvements with $93 million in financial audited benefits."

Watch Terry's exclusive presentation, along with his colleague Art Klaum, while they discuss change management and implementing innovation initiatives.

And don't forget to join our BOF Community of Innovation Leaders to get exclusive insights, access, and instant connections to practitioners around the world.

A.T. Kearney, a global management consulting firm based in Chicago, Illinois, recently launched a Brightidea-powered community for its Best Innovator Club (BIC), comprised of the winners of the various national Best Innovator Competitions held over the past years recognizing leaders in innovation management. Winners include global leaders in innovation and technology management, as well as research and development.

The BIC has been meeting yearly around the world since 2003 to network and allow for idea exchanges among its select members to focus on specific  innovation-related business topics. This year's meeting in Torino, Italy featured innovation leaders from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland.

“The opportunity to virtually brainstorm on selected topics among the participants from all around Europe prior to our event with a tool such as Brightidea increased not only the quality of discussion throughout the event but also fostered networking,” stated Dr. Kai Engel, Partner Innovation practice ATKearney, Germany.

The Brighitdea-powered online community facilitates discussions on topics of interest to participants including identifying customer needs and how social media affects innovation.

Now, with Brightidea, BIC can extend important discussions and continue communications with members between annual meetings in the months and years to come.

Find out more on how Brightidea creates innovation success, download an exclusive case study.

Our Brightidea Innovation Leaders Birds of a Feather (BOF) Roadshow Series brought enthusiastic innovation managers from around the country to Kraft headquarters in Northfield, IL for two days filled with speakers from leading companies, interactive sessions, and networking events.

The event kicked off Monday August 22^nd with a networking event hosted at Kraft Kitchen where participants were given a tour of the kitchen and a chance to learn how the company tests, creates and works with new products.

Next up was a fun kitchen activity where participants broke up into teams to make recipes with Kraft products and come up with innovative names for the food, such as chicken Parmesan bundles and freestyle apple tart. After cooking, attendees sat together to enjoy their food in a fun and creative way to meet one another.

The following day presentations from Kraft, Avnet, EllisDon, Bosch, and Abbott Nutrition discussed their best practices for innovation.

Avnet, one of the largest distributors of electronic components, talked about its cross-departmental THINKTank community, which brought a significant increase in the rate of results from ideas, while increasing business performance and customer engagement. Our host, Kraft, joined the presentations with Dave Diedrich, VP of Information Systems, saying, "Our job is not status quo, our job is to constantly change…When we switched from Sharepoint to Brightidea our employee engagement went up 5 fold."

EllisDon, an employee owned construction services firm, discussed its Uprising community to bring employees from around the globe together to share and collaborate on problems. Abbot Nutrition, a global health care conglomerate, presented their innovation challenge powered by Brightidea to engage its employees and create customer value. Tom Mottola, Senior Business Systems Manager at Abbot, said, "We are incentivizing collaboration, encourage globally dispersed teams, such as Ohio and Singapore, to work together."

Sarah Miller Caldicott, great grandniece of Thomas Edison and an innovation thought leader also spoke encouraging people to "innovate like Edison" and notice his Five Competencies of Innovation™. Lastly, Bosch, the leading global supplier of automotive and industrial technology, talked about the myths of innovation's rigidness and how "Brightidea software supports the Bosch innovation process," said Peter Neumann, engineer at Bosch.

The remainder of the hands-on workshop allowed for participants to share their own knowledge through interactive sessions, followed by a happy hour. Once again, our BOF was a success as attendees got a chance to network with one another, learn from innovation practitioners and participate in creative interactive activities with Kraft.

"As the 8th Innovation Leaders Birds of a Feather (BOF) Event, we have 9x more participation than our first BOF and nearly twice as large as any other BOF in history. We've really got a lot of momentum behind this. It's an exciting time to be part of the BOF Community," states Paul Tran, Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Brightidea.

Join other leading innovation practitioners at http://bi.brightidea.com/bof. Don't forget to check out Facebook for even more exclusive photos and get involved with innovation discussions on LinkedIn.

In this last spot of our video series, Dr. Benjamin Hamilton, Business Innovation & Quality Manager at Amadeus, discusses the challenge of adapting to the different business practices in Asian culture. See how he is addressing the challenge in the video below.

This and our prior insights on innovation from prominent practitioners were captured during Brightidea's recent two-day Birds of Feather Innovation Leaders (BOF) event in Hong Kong where we posed the question "What do you believe your biggest challenge is to drive innovation?".

Join other Innovation Leaders and connect, share, and gain insights on best practices in innovation management through the BOF community. Want to attend a BOF event? Register for the upcoming BOF hosted by Kraft coming up in August 2011 here.

Recently, China Light and Power (CLP) hosted Brightidea's Birds of a Feather Innovation Leaders (BOF) event in Hong Kong. The event brought experts and innovators from around the Asia Pacific Region to share ideas about their innovation processes and challenges. This exciting tour continues with Kraft hosting our next BOF in August. Check out the below insightful recaps and links to full video presentations by CLP, Nielsen, Amadeus, and THINKERGY!

CLP's CIO Joe Locandro examines one of the biggest challenges discussed at the event: the need to work with the region's unique culture so as to foster a sense of community amongst all employees and encourage open idea exchanges. Many Asian countries have a hierarchical culture that is conveyed within business relationships where employees simply agree with their supervisor's ideas with little to no input, which is not conducive to driving others to voice their ideas. Locandro sought to appeal to everybody within the company by establishing a Facebook-style community powered by Brightidea software, which is accessible to everybody at CLP. The community utilizes crowdsourcing in which the masses judge and moderate ideas, as well as a rewards point system with prizes. Take a look at a video of the presentation here.

Dale Preston at Nielsen sees motivation as the biggest challenge in developing an online community where employees can share their ideas, so he started the initiative offline by holding an interactive "Innovation Day" in which the company learned about the importance of innovation. Preston admits that initially take up was slow, but soon enough people began getting excited by sharing, supporting, and building on ideas on the company's Brightidea-powered platform. Seed capital also aided in motivation, as Nielsen had cash up for grabs for those who submitted the best ideas. Check out a video of Preston's entire presentation here.

Across Europe, companies have been adopting innovation models in order to engage their employees and find creative new solutions and products. European Business leaders such as British Telecom and UBS and others top brands around the world including GE work with Brightidea to turn innovation into a managed process. This growing trend was the focus of Open Innovation: The Next Wave?, a conference for innovation practitioners and experts to share findings and discuss future trends in Open Innovation. The event was held last week in Stuttgart by Fraunhofer IAO, a renowned German applied research organization. Brightidea was in attendance for this great opportunity to meet with innovation practitioners and thought-leaders from Europe and around the world.

Magnus Karlsson, Director of New Business Development and Innovation at Ericsson, shared interesting insights on the company's approach to innovation. Two years ago, Ericsson executives saw the need to introduce a collaborative approach of managing innovation as a process. But with its IT group reluctant to rely on cloud-based services at the time, the company built its own in-house solution, Idea Boxes. To date, the program has run for over a year and conducted over 250 successful "ideaboxes," or individual campaigns. With the concept validated, Karlsson is setting his sights higher, reaching out to corporate suppliers and end-customers to co-drive innovation. However, realizing the restraints of on-premise software and current security standards of hosted cloud services, Ericsson is beginning to entertain cloud-based, scalable solutions for the innovation process.

Amongst many other insightful presentations, another highlight was a presentation by Frank Mattes, one of Germany's leading consultants on Open Innovation and CEO of innovation-3. Mattes proposed that real open innovation requires a culture change within the company. This topic is of particular interest in many countries, including Germany, where companies tend to show resistance to openness and transparency in the decision making process. Despite these hurdles, companies like Ericsson are making the cultural changes needed for open innovation to happen, and are benefiting from the results.

The final speaker of the day was Solomon Darwin, Associate Director of the Center for Open Innovation at UC Berkeley. We found his presentation very inspiring, as it was not just about the business benefits of open innovation. He spoke of its potential benefits for Earth's balance sheet, one of the concepts he developed at UC Berkeley. Darwin saw open innovation as key to developing a green approach to managing global resources and mitigating pollution. This was a refreshing final key note and a great way to look at OI with a global focus.

Brightidea's Max Partl and
Reinhard Anton

Overall, the event's presentations and conversations supported the increasing trend toward understanding and leveraging the benefits of open innovation in companies and government agencies. Max Partl, Brightidea's Director of Business Development, Europe, found it was a "great event to deepen the understanding of Open Innovation industry practices and possibilities in the European market."

Brightidea left the Fraunhofer IAO conference inspired by the different perspectives and future opportunities for open innovation in Germany and throughout Europe.

For more information on Open Innovation,
Download the case study on the largest open innovation challenge in history, GE's Ecomagination Challenge, powered by Brightidea software.