The Chief Innovation Officer

This week I participated in a first of its kind course titled, “The Chief Innovation Officer.”

It’s a course that was designed to meet a very specific and rapidly growing need.  And in fact many of the course participants noted that they had been searching for some time to find a course just like it.

Anyone reading this blog already knows the statistics.  A bazillion percent of CEOs say innovation is their top priority; IBM, Booz Allen, and others have launched innovation practices; business magazines are writing about innovation every week; and “best practices in innovation” conferences are popping up everywhere.  And, companies are assigning top executives responsibility for their innovation efforts.

But, despite all the attention (and hype) few companies—or people—really understand what it (innovation) really means.  I’ve run into people at conferences that say to me, “if I just pick up one golden nugget—one best practice—that I can take home with me, I’ll consider this conference to be a great success.  My response:  “wow, you don’t really value two days of your time very much, do you?”

So the faculty for the course:  Dr. Phil Samuel of Breakthrough Management Group, Cheryl Perkins, of the Innovation Edge, Robert Tucker of the Innovation Resource Center, and myself (of course) set out to design a course that would truly teach people what they needed to know to become their companies Chief Innovation Officer, whether they carry the title or not.  The intent was that 100% of the two days be filled with valuable insights and that instead of going home with a golden nugget, the attendees leave with a full treasure chest.

And that’s just what happened.  In the words of one participant, an Executive Vice President for a $16B company, “ . . .reflecting on the last 2 days. It may very well be that you just held the best session I have ever attended.”

Sentiment from others was similar.  Participants came from major healthcare organizations (boy can we use some innovation there), large distributors of products from cars to semiconductors, the paper industry and large insurance companies.  One participant, when asked what he would do when he left answered by saying, “ask my CEO to change my title to Chief Innovation Officer.”

The next "Chief Innovation Course" will be held on October 1-2, 2007 in Denver, CO.

My hope is that we’ve started to bring some clarity to an otherwise murky area of business—because the success of business in the United States depends on it.

I’ll let you know . . .

Comments

[Michael Cyger]

It sounds like a great course and I'm glad to hear that leaders across many industries are embracing a more rigorous and systematic structure for their organizations. They'll be the leaders of the next wave of business transformation. It's an exciting time!