75 finalists honored at Innovation Awards

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Updated: November 10, 2011 2:00PM

The 10th Annual Chicago Innovation Awards drew 410 nominations this year — 100 more than last year’s competition — and the 75 preliminary finalists were feted Monday night by more than 800 celebrants at the House of Blues.

A judging committee narrowed the list to 75 companies that best represented the results of a sustained commitment to innovation. The committee’s criteria focused on a company’s product or service’s ability to meet an unmet need, its uniqueness, whether the product or service created a “me-too” response from imitators and quantifiable evidence of success, said Tom Kuczmarski, founder and co-chair of the Chicago Innovation Awards and president of Chicago consulting firm Kuczmarski & Associates.

The final 10 winners will be announced Nov. 8.

The final winners’ ceremony will coincide with the release of a book, Innovating Chicago-Style: How Local Innovators are Building the National Economy, by Kuczmarski, Dan Miller and Luke Tannen. The book features innovators telling their stories of Chicago’s most impressive success stories of the past decade, including T-shirt design crowdsourcing pioneer Threadless, daily-deal site Groupon and continued breakthroughs from established companies such as wallboard maker USG Corp. and pharmaceuticals giant Abbott Laboratories.

The Sun-Times Media Group is a media partner for the awards.