Nominations sought for 2007 Innovation Awards

SIXTH YEAR | Honorees to be feted on Goodman main stage in fall

If your business or organization has introduced a new product or service during the two years and has rung up revenues -- but not necessarily profits -- it's probably a candidate for one of 10 Chicago Innovation Awards.

"In the past five years, we've learned that innovation comes in all shapes and sizes," said Dan Miller, business editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, co-founder of the Chicago Innovation Awards. "Past winners have included the Chicago area's very largest firms and some of its very smallest. High-tech companies have received Innovation Awards; low-tech companies, and companies with no technology at all have been honored. We've recognized non-profit organizations, for-profit and public-sector innovations. It's innovation we're after, regardless where it comes from."

Tom Kuczmarski, co-founder and name partner of new-product consultancy Kuczmarski & Associates, added, "The key ingredient in innovation is the Chicago area itself. It provides the combustible material for the innovators who make the flame, and for the spark-makers in the companies who nurture it."

The award honors innovations that:

•  •  Created a new category of business activity.

•  •  Triggered a "me-too" responses from competitors.

•  •  Solved unmet customer and consumer needs.

Honorees of the 2007 award will be profiled in a special section of the Chicago Sun-Times, featured on WBBM-AM Newsradio 780, and feted at a reception Oct. 22 on the main stage of the Goodman Theatre.

For more information on the award and a nomination form, go to www.chicagoinnovationawards.com.

Nominations for the 2007 Chicago Innovation Award close on July 31.

The Chicago Innovation Award program is sponsored by Wm. Wrigley, Jr. Co., the Chicago Board of Trade and Microsoft Corp.

Other support comes from Slack-Barshinger, Boka/ Landmark Restaurants, Maggiano's Little Italy, 4Door Films, Anheuser-Busch, Alice White Wines, the Market Strategy Group and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.