I'm in New York tonight, getting ready for Corante's Innovative Marketing Conference (held in conjunction with Columbia University Business School's Center on Global Brand Leadership). Several of us who are blogging the conference will also be posting on the Fast Company blog, in an event we're called "the marketing blogjam". I'll cross-post or link to those posts as we go.

Family issues kept me from attending last week's Front End of Innovation Conference in Boston, a banner event in the innovation field and one at which a number of Corante Innovation Hub network members were present. Here's some of what they had to share:

Joyce Wycoff at Heads Up On Organizational Innovation wrote that Tom Kelley of Ideo says innovators should learn to squint:

"Tom...put the responsibility on the shoulders of management who can easily stifle the prototyping mindset with their demands for perfection. 'We need to learn to squint.... We need to learn to see the essence of the idea rather than looking at a prototype as a polished end result.' He also emphasized the importance of multiple prototypes so that people can see differences and make choices."

Along the same lines, Joyce noted that while Claudia Kotchka of Procter & Gamble admits that "Design Thinking" (from whence the prototyping notion comes) may be just another fad, she also discussed pratical ways people can take advantage of it in their innovation processes, including learning to think experimentally: "Use visual prototypes to stimulate a dialog with the user and advance the thinking process." She also recommended several ways to learn more about Design Thinking:

* Spend a day at a design school
* Take a field trip with a designer.
* Read magazines that are outside your normal field.
* Attend conferences outside your normal field.

Jeffrey Phillips of Innovate on Purpose offered a couple of thoughtful posts on his take on the current state of innovation based on his experience at the conference:

"There's a sense of anticipation in many of the attendees. I get the feeling that many of them are very interested in innovation, yet in many cases something is holding them back. Sometimes it's a lack of authority or feeling that they alone can't implement innovation. Some are in a learning process, discovering what "innovation" is all about. Some are battling a culture that is not open to new concepts and new ideas. I get the sense that some change in the market, or technology, or economy will occur and innovation in many firms will literally gush forth."

He followed that up with the thought, "What we need to do is give people a license to innovate."

"I got to thinking about this based on listening to Dr. Treacy (why do we think people are any good at innovating?) and talking with Joyce Wycoff (we ought to train people and provide them with tools to be more innovative). It also reminded me of a talk with my wife. She'd like to see a requirement to have a license to have a child, just like a license to drive or get married. At least that way we could ensure people had some preparation for parenthood.....
Seems to me that training should be in at least three dimensions: how does what you do align with corporate strategy, what processes do you follow for sustainable innovation and how do you work within the existing culture to change the culture and become more innovative. Once an individual has been through that kind of training, building small teams to deliver on innovation should be a no brainer."

I've also found a few non-hubbers who had conference coverage, including a series of podcasts from Da Innovise Gals and a set of well-done summaries of various conference speakers from a relatively new innovation blog, Chas Martin's Innovativeye. Martin's summaries include those of spearkers Renee Mauborgne, Claudia Kotchka, Clayton Christensen, Terry Jones, Burt Rutan, and a panel discussion by Evan Schwartz, Burt Rutan, and Rodney Brooks.