Innovation makes business world tick; nominate yours for 2004 IQ Awards

The Business Report is looking for innovators. The search is all part of our fifth annual IQ (Innovation Quotient) Awards, scheduled for the evening of Thursday, July 22.

After four years of chairing a panel of judges who have pored over hundreds of nominations from Boulder Valley companies, the question did arise — are we going to be able to continue to find new innovations?

It’s a valid question, I think. I’ve sat on my fair share of awards committees, and sometimes many of the same names come across the judges’ desks.

The one thing I’m convinced about is the IQ Awards might not work everywhere.

Not that there isn’t always innovation — new ideas, methods or devices — popping out of just about every corner of the world. But here in the Boulder Valley, and our awards selection extends into the Denver/Boulder Corridor, it seems to me that the idea of a new “idea” is practically contagious.

They fly at me daily. PR releases, e-mails, PDFs, media kits, people just walking into my office unannounced. I’m not saying all of these ideas knock me out of my chair; at this point I’m probably somewhat jaded. But I don’t think there’s been a single week here in my 14 years at The Business Report — and I really mean this — that I haven’t somehow found someone who was doing something very innovative.

I’m also on the committee for the Boulder Chamber’s Esprit Awards — we’ll be celebrating 20 years of honoring local entrepreneurs. After two decades, you’d think you might run out of entrepreneurs to honor. But you should see the “possibles” list that builds from year to year. It’s not getting any smaller.

As I was pondering what to say about innovation, a Boulder friend Ben Binder e-mailed me something he found in some old files — the original product announcement of the IBM PC from 1981, the same year his company Digital Design Group was founded. The price list showed for only $540 you could purchase the 64KB memory expansion option. You also could pick up the 160 KB disk drive for only $790. Today’s 160 GB drive, he wrote me, with a million times more storage only costs $120.

Certainly innovation can be defined by the introduction of a new or improved product. If you asked people today to define innovation, guess what they would do? Go to Google — an innovation in itself.

I’m just guessing, but of course that’s what I did. I found things like the light bulb, the Pentium chip, Remington typewriter and genetically modified foods listed as innovations. Oh yes, nuclear weapons were on one list, too.

Our IQ Awards — nomination form and event details at www.IQAwards.com — seek not only innovative products but also services. Innovation can be applied to new types of business organizations — who came up with the innovation of franchising or co-op housing? And every year we’ve named finalists for innovation in the category of nonprofits.

I liked what I read at the Web site of the London Development Agency, which has a page called London Innovation at www.london-innovation.org.uk. It said innovation is “a vital ingredient for competitiveness, productivity and social gain within businesses and organizations.”

If you think about it, innovation is what makes the business world tick. Without innovation, your job would be pretty boring very fast. I’d just sit at my desk, never getting a single new piece of PR from anyone because everyone was doing the same old thing.

So I know you are out there. Lots of you. Perhaps you aren’t quite ready to share your innovation — maybe it’s still a company secret. OK. But what about all of you dying to get the word out about your company’s brightest new idea.

I honestly believe there have to be hundreds of new innovations waiting to be unveiled here locally.

It’s our event so this might sound like I am bragging, but I rank our IQ Awards one of the most fun and enjoyable business events you can attend locally. Why? The innovations designed, developed and hopefully leading to new or better businesses or organizations are just really very interesting. So are the people behind them.

But we have to find you to honor you.

The deadline to nominate your innovative product or service is Friday, May 7. Winners will be featured in a special Business Report section July 23.

Your business also can create public and customer awareness of its dedication to innovation by becoming a corporate sponsor of the 2004 IQ Awards. Just call us, and we’ll send you a kit detailing the benefits of event marketing with the IQ Awards.

on Facebook on LinkedIn