Keynote Presentations

The Future of Innovation:
Metrics and Mindsets

Tom Kuczmarski
Conference Co-Chair
President
Kuczmarski & Associates

Tom Kuczmarski, a pioneer in the innovation field and author of three books on this important product development topic, will address his vision of the key pillars required for successful innovation in the future. To win, every company will need to adopt:

• Metrics that diagnose performance and measure returns
   
• A mindset that encourages risk-taking and nurtures an innovative environment

In order to improve success rates of new products and services launched and better allocate resources, innovation must be measured – for you cannot manage, what you do not measure.  Similarly, unless employees and managers experience a culture of "disciplined freedom" where failure is celebrated, risk-taking is valued, and success is shared, innovation will not be optimized.  Leadership needs to undergo a major mindset shift in order to change company cultures to better embrace the milieu needed for successful innovation.

Tom will provide participants with ways to get there, best practices for innovation success, and tips on how each individual can make an impact on both metrics and mindsets.

BOOK BONUS! All conference participants will receive a FREE COPY of Tom Kuczmarski's: Managing New Products: Using the MAP System to Accelerate Growth

Thomas Kuczmarski, President of Kuczmarski & Associates, is a nationally recognized expert in the management of new products and services, innovation, and marketing strategy.  He has worked extensively advising clients on how leadership in innovation serves as the foundation for the firm’s values-based leadership expertise. Prior to founding Kuczmarski & Associates, he was a Principal at Booz • Allen & Hamilton and assisted more than 100 U.S. consumer and industrial goods companies in the areas of marketing, new product development, strategic business analysis and organizational planning.Mr. Kuczmarski’s has written three books and his most recent book, Innovating the Corporation, reveals the seven key steps for achieving growth through innovation.  He is also extensively published and cited in radio, television and leading-edge national periodicals including:  The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Newsweek, Marketing News,CIO Magazine, Sales and Marketing Management, Technology Review, Business Marketing, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.  Mr. Kuczmarski is an Adjunct Professor of New Products and Services at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Innovating through Co-Development—Key Approaches, Tools and Metrics

Larraine Segil
Partner, Vantage Partners
Author, Measuring the Value of Partnering

Since partnering and/or outsourcing are part of almost every NPD effort these days, you need reliable co-development metrics -- starting with the decision to partner through to selection, implementation and eventual termination. Otherwise it's tough to track progress, achieve goals and ensure mutuality.

It's also important to have a roadmap for the handoffs that inevitably occur after the alliance is formed. As Larraine writes in Measuring the Value of Partnering, "development metrics need to be communicated to all future members of the alliance implementation team to answer the often heard
question: 'What idiot got us into this mess?'"

Whether you've inherited a "mess" or just want to avoid one, Larraine Segil's keynote talk will give you a template which is repeatable, proactive and can be shared. She will outline a clear, practical and concise approach to managing and measuring co-development projects - an approach based on her extensive work with companies around the world as well as her academic research (Caltech).

Larraine Segil is a Partner at Vantage Partners, a consulting firm with expertise in building corporate relationship management capabilities.  Prior to joining Vantage Partners, Ms. Segil was cofounder of the Lared Group, international consulting firm, specializing in helping companies develop and maintain successful domestic and global business alliances.  She conducts programs and provides consulting on alliances, on-line alliances, and developing global competency for over 3,000 corporations through Caltech, Stanford’s CEO Series, and in Europe, China, Singapore, Argentina and Chile.  Clients include HP, Praxair, Sun Microsystems, Starbucks, Cisco and others. 

Ms. Segil is recognized by Business Week and The Corporate Strategy Board as an expert in alliances, and is a regular commentator for CNN and CNBC on alliances in the on-line and off-line economies.  She has authored five business books, her most recent book, Measuring the Value of Partnering (published January 2004 by AMACOM) is the first book on Alliance Metrics.  Ms. Segil holds JD and MBA degrees.