INNOVATION in the PUGET SOUND TODAY: A Panel Discussion on Current Practices

In a time of tremendous change and economic turbulence, there is no greater or more important need than to help our organizations become more innovative, to develop the capacity to come up with new solutions to today’s challenges.  Register Now! Join us for a provocative panel discussion on applied creativity –aka innovation -- from three diverse Puget Sound-based organizations: a major business unit of one company in the top 50 of the Fortune 500, an award-winning small company with under 200 employees, and a local government agency recently recognized nationally for innovation:

• Pierce Transit, Project Innovation- National Transit Institute Model Program Award Winner, 2009, represented by Manager of Organizational Learning, Kelly Johnston,
• General Plastics Manufacturing Co., Winner of the World Trade Center Globe Award for Export Excellence, and Co-winner, Governor's Award for Workforce Development: represented by Vice President Eric Hahn
• Microsoft Security Business Unit, whose innovation projects have been featured on CNBC, in the London Business School’s prestigious Management Lab journal, and at the Google Zurich Test Automation Conference, among other places, represented by Ross Smith, Director, Windows Security Test Team

The panel members will tell their stories about how their organizations successfully innovated, and offer their candid views on what practices have worked -- and what has not worked. From these divergent experiences, the panel, with help from the audience, will try to identify similarities and differences in the approaches.Register Now!WHY THIS MATTERS: There is a nearly universal consensus among management experts and futurists that applied creativity is increasingly becoming the dominant driver of economic activity and wealth creation around the world. The successful organization of the future will be one that is able to tap the creativity of their employees and apply this invaluable resource to produce practical innovations. In the process, the organization will constantly invent and reinvent its products and services and how it produces and delivers them.Yet getting to this new future will be a challenge. Even here in the Puget Sound area, widely acknowledged to be one of the most innovative regions in the world, there is no consensus on what the best practices are for making an organization more innovative. Most current organizational structures, processes, and cultures are still predicated on outdated industrial-era beliefs and norms antagonistic to the idea-generation and information-sharing fundamentals underlying high rates of innovation.Still, innovation is happening. What is working now, and how can this knowledge be used to begin to develop a more workable model of the creative organization to guide future practice is the subject of this fascinating discussion. You’ll want to be there.Register Now!DATE/TIMEThursday, April 29th, 8 to 9:30 AM LOCATION, DIRECTIONS AND PARKINGPIERCE TRANSITRAINIER ROOM3720 96th St. SW.Lakewood, WA   98499From Tacoma and north:From I-5 Southbound (Portland/Tacoma), take Exit #127 (SR 512).  Keep moving over to the farthest right lane.  Turn right at first light (SR 512).  Again, stay in the far right lane and turn right onto South Tacoma Way.  Keep right and proceed straight (don’t turn onto 100th St. SW).  At the next traffic light, turn left onto 96th St. SW.  Turn left into the driveway as you approach the Pierce Transit Training Building and park in any of the “Visitor” parking spaces.  Enter the building through the doors facing 96th St. SW.  The Rainier Room doors open to the lobby space.From Olympia and south:From I-5 Northbound (Tacoma/Seattle), take Exit #127 (SR 512).  Stay to the left and then exit right up onto cloverleaf and cross over the freeway.  Keep to the far right and turn right onto South Tacoma Way.  Keep right and proceed straight (don’t turn onto 100th St. SW).  At the next traffic light, turn left onto 96th St. SW.  Turn left into the driveway as you approach the Pierce Transit Training Building and park in any of the “Visitor” parking spaces.  Enter the building through the doors facing 96th St. SW.  The Rainier Room doors open to the lobby space.Register Now!