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Chicago gave the world:

The first steel-frame skyscraper (1885).

The modern futures exchange (1864).

Mail-order retailing (1870s-1890s).

Progressive education (1890s).

The birth control pill (1960).

These are just a few examples of innovations created here that have shaped modern life, says Libby Mahoney, chief curator at the Chicago History Museum.

"Even after the 1871 fire, Chicago was a young city that didn't have many traditions and rules and regulations saying, 'No, you cannot do this or that,' " said Mahoney, who has captured Chicago's historic inventions in an exhibition at the museum, "Chicago: Crossroads of America."

Telecommunications is another hallmark of Chicago innovation, with Motorola's lead in developing a commercially successful car radio (1930), the Handie-Talkie two-way radio (1940) and the first commercial FM two-way radio system (1941). Western Electric, the world's largest manufacturer of phone equipment, pioneered the operator-assisted telephone switchboard (1880s) and air-to-ground communications (1917), and introduced the science of industrial management (1920s).

"Chicago was a crossroads where inventors, highly skilled technicians and representatives of telephone operating systems came together," said Richard R. John, author of Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications.

The Chicago region continues its tradition of ingenuity, now with globally expanding biotechnology, nanotechnology, crowdsourcing and social marketing websites, and even everyday workers' tools with a unique edge.

Technology job trends offer a glimpse into how solar power, data transfer, medical breakthroughs, global networking and video sharing are taking their proper roles in the Chicago-area tech pantheon. The number of technology establishments, including companies and other sites, grew 10 percent from 2004 to 2008, to more than 11,700, while the tech workforce has remained at about 4.4 percent of the private-sector workforce during that time, according to TechAmerica, a technology trade and advocacy nonprofit with an office in Oakbrook Terrace.

The shift has empowered small and start-up companies to become the main sources of tech-job growth, compared with yesterday's dependence on technology giants and manufacturers. Indeed, technology manufacturing jobs dropped 7 percent from 2004-2008, while software services employment grew 22 percent during the same time period, according to TechAmerica statistics.

Tom Kuczmarski, president of Chicago-based management consulting firm Kuczmarski & Associates and co-founder of the Chicago Innovation Awards with Dan Miller, said there is a clear shift here to service innovation from product innovation.

"Products are tangible. Now, with our communications mechanisms, social media and new kinds of services, we're seeing a different type of innovation, to those that are intangible," he said.

Groupon, the online coupon and shopping company that took home an Innovation Award last year, "went from a $7 million company [in revenue] to become one of the fastest-growing companies ever," Kuczmarksi said. Groupon has grown from seven employees in 2008 to more than 900 in Chicago and 2,500 worldwide.

A second shift comes from technology itself giving young people the opportunity to more easily start technology companies.

"It's a huge difference from 20 to 40 years ago," Kuczmarski said. "Many people running these small, entrepreneurial businesses are people in their 20s and 30s."

The Chicago area long has benefitted from having a wide breadth of innovators rather than depending upon a single kind of technology, Kuczmarski said.

Among Chicago startup innovators winning recognition this year are companies that allow video to be shared on mobile devices; solar panels to become more affordable and mobile, and creative professionals to match their skills online with jobs.

"We in the Chicago area have the 'refrigerator' impact -- it makes people sharp, crystallizes their thinking, and enables people to become even better and smarter," said Kuczmarski.