If you want to be on the cutting edge of the latest industry trends and insights for your company’s strategic partnerships, here’s a conference you won’t want to miss this year. I’m chairing the 8th Annual MRT/PDMA International Congress on Open Innovation and Co-Development (Also known as CoDev 09!)

This year’s program will be held January 26 - 28, 2009 in Scottsdale, AZ at the Radisson Fort McDowell Resort.

We’re focusing on how to build the core components of a successful open innovation capability, and we’ve already lined up a compelling faculty with open innovation ambassadors from Cadbury, Frito-Lay, HP, Booz & Company, Kraft, P&G, R.J. Reynolds, Colgate, WD-40 and many more.

I’m very excited to kick off the conference with a candid one-to-one interview with Henry Chesbrough, author of Open Innovation and Open Business Models and acclaimed thought leader on Open Innovation – we’ll find out his perspectives on how companies can take their open innovation activities to the next level, how early adopters have excelled and discover the key ingredients of their success!

We’re also building in more time for attendees to connect with conference faculty, top experts and attendees of the event to ensure that you’re able to make networking connections for future discussions and possible partnership opportunities. We’ll even have an open innovation mentoring program to bring you up to speed quickly and ensure that you leave the conference with an action plan for getting started on the right path.

I highly encourage you to join us for what promises to be another exceptional program!

I’m gearing up for the Corporate Portfolio Management conference Clearwater Beach, Forida, where I will be talking about how to organize to deliver a pipeline of innovative solutions.

PDMA and IIRUSA are putting it together, and I’m excited to be gathering with presentors from corporations like Intel, Johnson & Johnson, American Express and Motorola as well as Harvard Business Review, llinois Institute of Technology and Tufts Universities.

A lot of my clients want to know how to structure thier organization to actually deliver innovation. It’s a holistic approach that does not exclude the corporate culture element. You need to foster a culture of creativity and forward- thinking initiatives. I’ll be sharing a lot of case studies from companies like Kimberly-Clark, P&G, Hewlett-Packard, Visa and others who have designed unique org structures to build the critical innovation capabilities required to disrupt today’s marketplace and create economic value.

If you’ve never attended one of these conferences, I highly recommend it for next year!

The very nature of innovation demands all those involved to constantly be on the look out for the next big thing. But how do you identify it? How do you know it’s not just a fad? How can you ensure that innovation is at the heart of your corporate values?

Those are some of the questions I’ll be answering in a few days when I present at the Indira India Summit in Mumbai. The Indira India Innovation Summit is presented by the Indira College of Engineering and Management (ICEM), Pune.

ICEM has one of the finest infrastructures in the region, with the residential campus spread over 20 acres and comprising of modern hi-tech laboratories in a wi-fi computing environment. The learning philosophy of ICEM has a strong emphasis on application oriented learning, with an attempt to inculcate innovative thinking among the aspiring engineers of tomorrow.

The Indira India Innovation Summit exposes academia to the world’s leading-edge innovation practices and to create a platform for intellectual exchange of ideas, which would drive future innovation in Industry.
My topic is about fostering and promoting a culture of innovation to drive revenue and growth. Companies want to know how to deliver high impact, sustained innovation that successfully capitalizes on new markets and consumer expectations. I’m very excited to share the principles that cutting-edge leaders use to develop a culture of innovation.

I’ll also be focusing on another favorite area of mine: how to develop an Open Innovation platform for knowledge-sharing. India is one of those nations whose business leaders have a lot of great ideas for partnerships, and there is so much potential for future collaboration that global corporations haven’t yet tapped.