So my couple of adds:

Clueless Clive/Chloe the CEO – Invited by the conference organisers as a Big Name (more so their company than him/her). They spend 20 minutes presenting the company – just in case you hadn’t heard of Mega-Corp the largest company in the world. Then probably 10-15 minutes for videos from the marketing team – showing you how cool they are. Then 5-10 minutes on products/services everyone knows about that are kinda innovative/yesterdays news. No insight into anything useful to share or explains how the company did anything of interest to the audience. Hopefully no time for questions and then a quick exit to a waiting limo!

Professor Pete the Academic – (now this is not a dig at Academics I assure you all). This innovation presentation presents reams and reams of quantitative research, standard deviations – table after table, graph after graph – none of it readable in a conference presentation. Where it started no-one knows – where it will end is anyones guess but by slide 60 you neither care or want to know what is relevant anymore or why you actually decided to show up? – For me this is the best reason to have Innovation’s Got Talent – 3 Big Red Crosses and you have to meet Ant & Dec!

Companies would also have better outcomes if they were on the lookout for some of these characteristics in their internal innovation teams. There are a list of characteristics that are important to look for when monitoring the “health” of an organization’s Innovation Culture. These characteristics are innovation-hampering because they create walls, and, Boris, you’re right that in many respects “it’s about openness.”

Innovation-Hampering Wall Creators:
* Smugness – Boris’ “Sammy Satisfaction”
* Cynicism – Paul’s “Muttering Jim”
* Zealotry – Boris’ “Tommy the Toolman”
* Distrust – Boris’ “Peter Private”
* Defensiveness – Maybe the real issue with Renee’s “Nancy Know-It-All”
* Disrespect – Boris’ “Christopher Clueless” thinking that big-value Innovation is easy (unfortunately those 2 innovation books that he read may have told him that explicitly).

Weren’t you looking for a book idea?

Or “muttering Jim”- the one that has seen it all, only comes because its a day out of the office and goes on and on about that one conference in 1999 that really was a conference

or “clever Penny’ the one that knows it all, period!

I have, however, said pretty much that “innovation is part of everyone’s job” before! I’ve never meant it to mean you don’t need leadership. I think strong in innovation leadership is required, even in a very holistically innovative organization. I’ll be sure to say both from now on! One of the reasons I say it is because there are some great examples of big ideas coming from employees who aren’t typically involved, who are outside of product development, or are actually isolated rebels, troublemakers, and oddballs. Also, if you set an expectation in an organization that you really want ideas, and they are honored, you tend to get them.

I’m also resonating with jheuristic’s remark about Method Mary. One way to spot value at a conference is to look at the BIO and see if the speaker has ever met a payroll, started a company, or actually created a product. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s a bit of proof.

Wisdom can often be found between the lines.