BIF-2 co-host Richard Saul Wurman was right when he told us that if we brought interesting people together under one roof to share very personal stories, magic would happen.

"At my conferences,” he said, “the best speeches were always by brilliant, vulnerable individuals who could tell a fresh story about their passions, ideas and failures. They don't spoon-feed information or talk down to the audience. They let people taste and experience their ideas for themselves. And the audience creates its own intelligent connections among all the different ideas presented."

Wurman’s concept of “intelligent connections” is significant. Our own chief catalyst, Saul Kaplan, had perhaps one of the defining quotes of the event when he said that "innovation takes place in the space between people." After two days of interacting live, without email, text-messaging, or skyping, it became clear that the space Saul is referring to must be filled with conversation. That’s how things get done.

Yet innovation requires explanation. And that’s not an easy thing to do. Because for as many people who approached me during the summit telling me how wonderful the experience was, the same number of folks couldn’t make the connection between the event and the Business Innovation Factory. “I don’t get it,” someone said. “What exactly do you do,” another asked?

To answer that question, let me segue for a moment and remark on storyteller Bob Ballard. The stories he shared were probably the same stories he’s shared hundreds of times over during the past couple decades. But you know what? It didn’t matter. Through his passion and conviction, we all felt he was telling his story for the very first time. And more importantly, we believed him.

For those of us on the BIF team, including our members, partners, and research advisors, we truly believe in what we’re doing. We just have to do a better job sharing it and, more importantly, bringing people into the conversation. Whether he knows it or not, after last week, I’m part of Bob Ballard’s conversation. I’ve retold his story with several people I know, I’m emotionally engaged in what he’s trying to do and I want to know more. If he were to make the leap and ask me for help tomorrow, I’d be there.

So who is the Business Innovation Factory? If BIF-2 represented the 'who' of innovation, the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) represents the 'how'. The idea is to transform the entire state of Rhode Island into an innovation laboratory-specifically a laboratory to test new business models. Rhode Island has, to say the least, a very compact geography. We have densely concentrated resources that serve just over one million people. (Thanks to Larry Keeley who delivered the funniest line of the summit–“What’s not to love about Rhode Island? All their maps are drawn actual size.”)

Bill Taylor, who is one of our research advisors, recently said, “RI is never going to out-muscle the bigger states, but it can out-think the bigger states.” Through BIF, our size becomes a competitive advantage as Rhode Island serves as a real world test-bed for companies who want to prototype and study new business models—models that require the networking of various capabilities and ideas across the public and private sector. We’re currently managing a small portfolio of innovation projects through our four 'experience' labs focused on the student, patient, citizen and consumer.

BIF-2 was an opportunity for us to continue making “intelligent connections.” Next up is turning those connections into meaningful interactions. We invite you to join the conversation and in the coming weeks, promise to deliver on specific ways for you to get involved. In the meantime, if you have anything you’d like to say, about BIF, about the event, please send them to me. Or better yet, pick up the phone. I can be reached at 401.359.1979.

After digesting all the stories from BIF-2, there seems that innovators have one trait in common: they look at gnawing problems -- whether it's how to get more kids invovled in science and engineering like Dean Kamen's First program or how to get more innovative ideas from teams really fast like Ivy Ross at Old Navy -- and then figure out the problem. With two parts logic and analytical thinking and eight parts passion, determination and relenetlessness.

If organizations want to be more innovative maybe it's time to hardwire these qualities into more hiring practices, and performance and reward systems. Just because someone has experience in a field or industry with a a name organization doesn't mean that that person is a good hire -- or its the least bit creative, passionate or, well, innovative. Most hiring requirements are Neanderthal, and seem to be designed to eliminate risk-taking, problem solving types who could make a difference. Executive recruiters exacerbate the problem.

Case in point: Alph Bingham of InnoCentive remarked at the conference that many of the brilliant "solvers" in his network would never be hired by companies whose most difficult problems they just solved.

Maybe the questions to ask people as we look to hire or partner with them are the two questions that Randy Antik asked all of us at the conference: "What's the next great idea for you? What is the next big chapter in your life?"

For more on good questions and provocative quotes from the conference, please check out this post.