Chicago, the common thread
Chicago itself provides fuel that sparks innovation
The most astonishing thing about the Chicago Innovation Award winners -- all 60 winners going back to 2002 -- is their diversity.
The innovators for 2007 come in all sizes and from all sectors of the Chicago economy: high-tech, low-tech and no-tech. From the public sector and the private sector. They came on wheels, from the laboratory and in organizations.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
As diverse as the winners have been since the Chicago Innovation Awards were co-founded by the Chicago Sun-Times and new-product consultants Kuczmarski & Associates, they share a key ingredient in innovation: 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.
This year, judges sifted through more than 240 nominations of products and services, and selected 10 for this special honor. In addition to Tom Kuczmarski and me, the judges panel included Robert (Bob) D. Blackwell Sr., chairman of Blackwell Consulting Services; Michael Krauss, head of Market Strategy Group; Maura O'Hara, executive director of the Illinois Venture Capital Association; Gary Slack, chairman and chief experience officer of Slack Barshinger, and Howard Wolinsky, business reporter for the Sun-Times.
We sought successfully developed and marketed ideas that in the past two years have:
• Created a new category of business activity.
• Triggered a competitive response from the marketplace.
• Solved unmet customer and consumer needs.
• Generated revenue, although not necessarily a profit.
The honorees of the 2007 Chicago Innovation Award will be feted at a reception tonight at the Goodman Theatre.
The Chicago Innovation Awards received strong support from all sectors of the Chicago business community, and especially these sponsors:
The CME Group, a CME/Chicago Board of Trade company; InterOcean Financial Group; Microsoft Corp.; North Community Bank; the Chicago chapter of SIM, the Society for Information Management, and Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.
Additional crucial support came from: the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce; the Goodman Theatre; Four Door Films; Maggiano's Little Italy; Market Strategy Group; Slack Barshinger, and WBBM Newsradio 780.
For more information about the Chicago Innovation Awards program and the 2008 program, go to chicagoinnnovationawards.com