Any ideas for Bruce?

Bruce Nussbaum from BusinessWeek is participating in a few sessions at the Annual Meeting. He asks for help below:

Design in Davos

This has been a year of travel and learning about design and innovation for me and it will continue into '06 with a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It's a snazzy conference where the world's political, business and increasingly, cultural elites come to formally and informally exchange ideas and network madly. It's a great place to protest against globalization and a great place to discuss fairness and upward mobility in the world economy. Bill Clinton gives incredible late-nite soirees and the Bush Administration sends hoardes of officials and Republican Congress people to talk to the French and other Europeans. And there is incredible skiing, although there is usually one really bad accident a conference and it usually happens to an American. So I cross-country.

This year the conference may as well be called Design in Davos because for the first time there is an entire category of programs, meetings, dinners and late-nite talks called "Innovation, Creativity and Design Strategy." Is that cool or what? The program says that "Business, government and social innovators are taking on new creative capabilities and innovation strategies in response to a rapidly changing global landscape." OK. For those designers out there still seeking validation for what you do--this is it folks! And for those folks battling it out in the innovation vs. design arena, well, there's meat for discussion here for you as well.

Davos is just discovering innovation and design stuff so the panels are all over the place. There one on Doubt and Decision-Making that talks about CEOs and risk. OK. There's also one about Biomimicry--Nature's Innovation. "What has biomimicry taught us about design in nature?" Interesting? There's a panel on Innovating in Innovation that sounds like Larry Keeley (I don't see him listed as a participant). There's one called Video Game Zombies and New Innovation that I am going to attend for sure. Another on Basic Solutions For Africa that will probably be CK Prahalad stuff on designing for the Bottom of the Pyramid.

There's another on Prepping for the Post-Knowledge Economy that I am moderating with a pretty innovative cast of characters. Here is the writeup:

Prepping for the Post-Knowledge Economy
Saturday 28 January 17:00 - 18:15
Congress Centre, Sanada 1+ 2
Preparatory discussion: 16:30 - 17:00
Having digitized, "right-sized" and globalized, companies are competing
through innovation and differentiation. Design strategy offers the
opportunity to build not only better products but also better systems and
processes.
1) How can companies measure the effectiveness of creativity and design
strategies?
2) How can a design strategy be a tool for organizational change?
3) As innovation cycles shorten, what strategies will companies adopt in
order to compete?
The session will include:
· Sir Richard Branson (Considered), Founder and Chairman, Virgin Group,
United Kingdom
· Tim Brown**, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ideo, USA
· Klaus Kleinfeld*, President and Chief Executive Officer, Siemens,
Germany
· Philip H. Knight (Considered), Chairman of the Board, Nike, USA
· Barry S. Sternlicht*, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Starwood
Capital Group, USA
· Edward J. Zander (Idea), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
Motorola, USA
Rapporteur
· Richard Quest**, Anchor, CNN International, United Kingdom
Moderated by
· Bruce Nussbaum*, Editorial Page Editor, BusinessWeek, USA

I sure could use some help in questions for these heavy-weights. Help! Send me a couple of deep zingers would you?

And have a great holiday. 2005 was a landmark year in design and innovation and 2006 promises to be yet another one.

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[Dominik Holenstein]

1) How do we know what the people really want and need? What do these leaders to make sure they don't lose the connection to the public?

2) Is the word 'Innovation' missued? A lot of 'new' products and services are sold as 'innovative' but are not more than (little) improvements of an older version.

3) Do you know TRIZ? For more information on TRIZ look here: http://www.triz.org/downloads/40Ptriz.pdf

[Paul Walker]

Here's a question on the evolution of creativity: With the Internet at their fingertips, are consumers starting to put more value in information they need when they need it over more traditional brand and product advertising? Is click-through advertising largely placed without the advice of advertising agencies the "new creative?" Companies like Google are talking about "automating creativity" and allowing companies to place print, radio and TV ads based on templates via the Internet . What do the brand and media masters on the panel think about these trends?

[Jonathan Sturtridge]

How about: "Innovation is nothing unless execution is perfect" ... discuss.

A great example of this is Apple's iPod - surely an "innovation" classic - or is it? At the time that it was created there were several other MP3 players on the market - so what was so revolutionary about Apple's incarnation? It wasn't the big idea ("Let's build an MP3 player" - since they already existed). The success of Apple's iPod was down to the *execution* of the idea - i.e. what interface shall we use - what should it look like - how should we market it - how should we package it ... ?

So is "innovation" really needed or do we need "execution excellence"?