Take it to the next level

INNOVATION | Award will honor local 'better mousetraps'

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 likely a candidate for one of 10 Chicago Innovation Awards.

For more information on nominations and the awards, go to www.chicagoinnovationawards.com

"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 region'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."

Tom Kuczmarski, co-founder and name partner of new-product consultancy Kuczmarski & Associates, said, "We've discovered that 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" response from competitors;

•  •  Solved unmet customer and consumer needs.

Honorees of the 2006 award will be feted at a reception Oct. 22 on the mainstage of the Goodman Theatre, profiled in a special section of the Chicago Sun-Times, and featured on WBBM-AM News Radio 780.

Nominations for the 2006 Chicago Innovation Award close on July 31.

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

Additional 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.

And also from the American Electronics Association (AeA), BMA, the Illinois I.T. Association, the Chicago Entrepreneurial Center, the Illinois Venture Capital Associationk, IIT, Kellogg, PR Newswire, World Business Chicago and the Technology Executives Club.