I cannot keep up with Allen's prolific live blogging efforts, so I thought I'd take a step back and try to make some connections in what I'm hearing and what I am thinking as we approach the end of BIF-2. Let me refer back to the three questions I posted yesterday morning:

+What is the real meaning of innovation?--The clear common thread running through most if not all of the storyteller talks is that the real meaning of innovation is about creating a better world, not in the Kumbaya sense of that phrase, but in an intelligent and focused fashion that leverages both essential elements of innovation activity: human imagination and the discipline of effective systems. Inherent in a focus on creating a better world is an awesome responsibility carried by the innovator is to be much more than a leader. Innovators must be stewards, not simply managers or creators, but orchestrators of diverse contributors and contributions toward a common good, whether that good is for a team, an organization, a region or for society.

I realize that for some of the business people reading this post, I may be offering an overly lofty way of talking about innovation. But if there is another key insight reconfirmed by the conversations over the last two days it is that language and the meaning it conveys matters, especially when it comes to something as important as innovation.

+What and where is the future of innovation?--Perhaps the most important frontiers of innovation are in the sciences and new technologies, and we have certainly heard from several excellent storytellers who are in the vanguard of those efforts. As someone who has enormous respect for science but less scientific literacy than is desirable, I urge all leaders to build their understanding of the new developments in science and technology. Being conversant in the trajectory of new ideas in these disciplines (as well as their intersections) is a supremely important capability for the 21st century leader.

Whether continued American leadership in innovation is a part of a realistic future vision remains an open question for me. We have many advantages, yet we face many obstacles as well, and chief among them at this time is the continuing challenge of engaging in productive and generative discourse around better and more effective ways to make innovation happen. The BIF-2 Collaborative Innovation Summit is a marvelous venue for creating this kind of dialogue by convening diverse minds who share a common goal: sustainable innovation that creates a better world. If we can have many more conversations like this one, we will drive our nation toward genuine success.

+What are we discovering about innovation that we didn't know before?--I'm still reflecting on this question, so let me instead write a few words on things we know about innovation that are not in dispute. We have repeatedly talked about the importance of personal and collective passion to the pursuit of innovation, as well as the fundamentally social nature of innovation. We have been reminded that innovation is not always about the big breakthrough. It can and should be about the small "aha" or the small "i" innovation, just as much as the big insights. Curiosity, care and the connectedness of ideas, people and groups are all elements of innovation we have spent time considering with our storytellers. These are important lessons for all of us to remember, even as we turn our attention to larger issues.

All innovators revel in the words of Marcel Proust who said, "the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." What I have learned, re-learned and unlearned in the last two days here at BIF-2 will help me see the world through new eyes, and I hope the perspectives the other bloggers and I have shared here will help you do the same.

Peter Durand of Alphachimp has been quietly doodling the conference. His work -- visual documentation of each session -- is posted up on the walls.

So imagine how surprised we all were when he took the stage dressed as a caveman (great story and one that will get blogged here, I am sure). The big news that needs to be shared ASAP is that his visual representations of the storytellers can be viewed freely by all at this link: http://alphachimp.missinglink.biz/business-innovation-factory/bif-2

It looks like a terrific interface he's developed, about which more later. Right now, just go in and enjoy!

Once you see the innovators speak and share their stories it becomes so obvious! The bulk of them share an uncontrollable and near infectious trait - a passion for what they do. It’s the stuff that makes them different from regular working folk and propels them ever forward.

In fact, BIF2 storytellers seem to drip with "innovation intent," a factor that Larry Keeley from Doblin considered essential to innovation at an organizational level.

Folks like Tim Westergren from Pandora has spent 7 years breaking down songs into 400 little bits that can be analyzed and used as a basis to recommend similar songs to curious listeners. He started small and grew, scaled the company back when times were tough, took no salary for 2 years and wham! … he's an overnight success.

Or take Curt Columbus, Creative Director of Trinity Rep Theater, who is bringing high quality theater back to the community at large. Curt knew he wanted to be in theater since he was 11 years old and it certainly took passion to get him to this point and incremental innovations for him to be successful in his efforts.

I guess the interesting thing about passion is that it is difficult to mask. Let's just say you know when you see it.

Michael Singer says "What If" a lot, in his presentation, and probably in his work too. An environmental and architectural artist, he is doing some amazingly cool stuff in designing sustainable infrastructure that is purposeful and beautiful.

What if you had a power generation facility as a community and environmental resource? was a question he asked for New York. The result was the reframing of an ugly urban power plant as a scaffolding for community neighborhood gardens, using the heat from the plant as a growth supercharger for the plants.

What if a Whole Foods could redefine the role of a shopping center in connecting to the community? Integrate green space and community gardens, use the flat plot for water collection, slant the plot catty-corner to the road so it isn't a rectangle next to a straight line. Singer's insights became the guidelines for site planning for Whole Foods, and the first stores are being built in Orlando.

 Singer says he's going beyond sustainability to regenerative design, where the building and infrastructure give back resources to their environment, not just consume less.

Rick Borovoy had a fascinating take on the innovation process as he experienced it in the creation of the nTAG Interactive. With only 15 minutes to speak (that's the length of all the stories being told here), he got right down to the essence of the dynamic, ever-shifting innovation process: you must please all the constituencies who are collaborating with you, but not by adding more and more to the idea. Instead you boil the idea down to the one thing it had to be in order not to be anything else.

This is fascinating to me because I spend a lot of my professional life working with clients and consumers to come up with new ideas. And a critical part of that process is trying to articulate exactly what the ideas are. Ideation is a messy business and works best that way, idea management software notwithstanding. But -- in any case, the idea is always exactly as Borovoy said -- it's the one thing that remains when you remove everything that isn't an essential part of it, or a variation of it, or a build on it.

It's absolutely critical to correctly identify ideas, becuase you can't move into any kind of building or evaluative phase unless you can articulate the ideas. An unarticulated idea is a lost idea.

Dean Kamen is an inventor extraordinaire. Most people know him from the Segway saga (remember "Ginger" in those heady days of '01?) But he's made his fortune, and a true difference in millions of lives, through innovations in medical devices (auto pumps for drug delivery, heart stents) and assisted mobility. Kamen is also passionate about kids, and how applied science can inspire learning and connection in kids. His FIRST program, which puts robotics competitions into high schools around the US, has grown dramatically over the past twenty years. Started with a few high schools in New Hampshire, it is now in every state in the US, and the annual championships fill the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. By borrowing a page from professional sports- teams, tournaments, standings - Kamen is making hands-on science competitive, exciting, and fun.

The results from FIRST are pretty amazing. Kamen had a bunch of stats from an independent study funded by the Ford Foundation, but the one that struck me is that kids who participate in FIRST are 50% more likely to go to college, and women who participate are 3 times more likely to pursue science and technology degrees.

So when Congressman Jim Langevin rolled onstage in his custom designed iBot wheelchair,  I could tell there was an announcement coming.  Another clue would have been  the robots set up in the front lobby, including the  transparent Lost In Space style basketball playing model from a high school team in Middletown, Rhode Island.  And the announcement was a good one, with  Kamen's FIRST program partnering with the RI Economic Development Corporation to roll out  VEXX robotic kits to every high school in the state. This makes RI the first state with every high school participating in FIRST, which enables Kamen to throw down the gauntlet for every other state.

Alph Bingham thinks innovation is a numbers game. If it springs from "a-ha" moments next to specific problems, why not increase the number of people exposed to any problem?

His company, Innocentive, is a leading light in the Open Innovation space, and has been successful in creating a bounty hunter market to solve science-based problems for companies. What I thought was interesting was that many of the successful solutions come from people who the companies would have never found on their own. They are outside the discipline, across the globe, in small towns, or working in their basements.

 Bingham thinks this is Globalization 3.0, the globalization of the individual, where we use the new platforms of communication and collaboration to meet talent where it lives. Close on the heels of Frans Johansson's presentation, it was fascinating to see a real life working example of the Medici Effect.

Peter Gloor is a geek's geek. He developed some of the first networking software at CERN in Switzerland, and spent time with Tim Berners Lee in '91 while he was prosletyzing his crazy world wide web idea (apparently no one would listen). But over his years at Price Waterhouse and several startups, he became fascinated with networks of other sorts - social networks.

He now maps social networks visually at his startup, iQuest, by tracking relationship connections and their strength. His central point is that innovation comes from having a galaxy of relationships, where "between-ness" is maximized. Between-ness puts you (an individual or an organization) in the middle of information flows, and enables cross-pollinization.