2006 Innovation Awards nominees
The winners of the 2006 Chicago Innovation Awards, selected from more than 227 nominees, will be honored at an awards ceremony Monday, Oct. 30, at The Goodman Theatre in downtown Chicago. The winners are (in alphabetical order):
* 37 Signals, Chicago. This company offers a portfolio of unique Web-based tools, including tools for project collaboration and communication, for personal and business uses. The company's Basecamp, Backpack, Campfire, WriteBoard and Ta-da List products provide users a more efficient and simple way to perform their tasks.
* "Check, Please!" WTTW-ch. 11's highest rated program ever provides viewers the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions on Chicago's diverse restaurants. The program is going national on PBS stations, and its format has been copied by many other television stations.
* The Community Energy Cooperative, Chicago. This company's Energy Smart Pricing Plan is the nation's first residential, market-based, hourly electricity pricing program. The pilot program has demonstrated that real-time pricing can be an effective tool for reducing residential electricity bills and lifting the strain on electricity infrastructure. It will become generally available in Illinois in 2007.
* FeedBurner, Chicago. With its Feed Management technology, FeedBurner helps publishers of blogs and podcasts measure their audiences and sell ads, as well as enhance normal, everyday feeds so that publishers have the ability to distribute the feed for use in any RSS reader.
* Goettsch Partners, Chicago. Goettsch's architectural design services have won multiple awards for environmentally friendly buildings. The firm designed the first project in the nation -- 111 S. Wacker -- to receive the national LEED CS Gold rating, a national standard for sustainable design. The design and construction focus on flexibility, efficiency and economy with some of the latest office building technologies.
* LoggerHead Tools, Palos Park, Ill. Loggerhead developed the Bionic Grip wrench, a new, open-ended gripping tool that combines the versatility of an adjustable wrench with the functionality of a pair of pliers. This hybrid universal tool symmetrically distributes force around the workload-distributing force over 240 degrees.
* Motorola Inc.,Schaumberg. The company's finger-writing technology brings the convenience of text messaging and email right into the user's finger by using a smooth keypad on the phone with special sensors and cutting-edge, finger-writing recognition software. The latest Ming PDA phone that uses this technology has quickly established itself as the best-selling smart phone in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
* Ocean Tomo, Chicago. The intellectual-capital merchant banking firm has created Live Intellectual Property Auctions, the world's first such system for auctioning intellectual property rights.
* Sara Lee Corp., Chicago. Sara Lee's new Soft and Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread looks, tastes and feels just like white bread but is made from a blend of enriched white flour and whole-grain flour.
* USG Corp, Chicago. USG's Sheetrock-brand joint compound with dust control has a special patented formula that binds up fine residue during drywall sanding to form heavier particles that fall to the floor instead of clouding the air coating workers and customers' homes with fine dust particles.
Also at the Oct. 30 awards ceremony, the program's 2006 Visionary Pioneer Award will be presented to Gerald Putnam, chairman and CEO of NYSE Arca Inc. Arca, formerly known as the Archipelago Exchange, is the nation's leading electronic stock exchange, and provided the corporate platform that made the New York Stock Exchange a publicly held company. In addition to accepting the Visionary Pioneer Award, Putnam will deliver the program's keynote address at the ceremony.