Harnessing Innovation
July 13-14, 2004 - Berlin, Germany

special members' field trip
Fraunhofer Institute
Monday, July 12, 2004

conference overview
Innovation means different things to different people. Some find it difficult. Others, natural. Yet more often than not, innovation is truly invigorating.

By its very nature, innovation is risky and can be disruptive to organizations. While it produces by far the most wealth from both old and new resources, innovation can be undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic ... sometimes nourishing itself on confusion and contradiction. It's been said that being innovative flies in the face of what many CEOs want for their companies and heads of state want for their countries. But without innovation, where would these organizations and nations be?

So if innovation is the answer, one might ask, what's the question? Is it possible to create a model for nurturing and breeding innovation? Can we instill, measure, leverage, or even institutionalize "innovation competencies" within an organization? What are the cultural, staffing, financial, and market costs of innovating in today's global context?

This meeting will look at innovation: how to have it, how to breed it, where and why it happens, and how to capitalize on its promises. We'll explore new technologies and developments that will affect how innovation can be stimulated, incubated, fostered, and made a reality as this decade progresses. We'll focus on incumbent issues resulting from the notion of making change. We'll think collaboratively about creativity, risk, investment, partnerships, and - paradoxically - the discipline adaptive organizations may need to exercise to "win" through innovation.

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speakers
Mr. Bhaskar Chakravorti, Principal, Monitor Group and Author of "The Slow Pace of Fast Change"
Dr. Nikolaus Franke, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
Mr. Matthew Growney, Managing Director, Motorola Ventures
Mr. Richard Harriman, Managing Partner, Synectics, Inc. and Co-author, Creativity, Inc: Building an Inventive Organization
Dr. Hermann Hauser, Co-founder, Amadeus Capital Partners Limited
Ms. Natalie Jeremijenko, Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Arts, University of California San Diego
Mr. Mark Leiter, Managing Director and Chairman, Leiter & Company
Dr. George Metakides, Professor of Mathematics, University of Patras
Dr. Tom Nicholas, Associate, The Brattle Group
Dr. Kazuhiko Nishi, Founder, ASCII Corporation
Mr. Dennis Roberson, Vice Provost and Executive Director, Institute of Business and Interprofessional Programs, Illinois Institute of Technology
Dr. Joseph Vardi, Principal, International Technology Ventures

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