Information Playground: Innovation Field Trip to NYC

Several weeks ago Stu and I received an invite to attend the 2009 World Innovation Forum. Next week we're both going (registration fee of 3K waived!) to sit in the "Bloggers Hub" at the Nokia theater in NYC and cover the event.

Because we blog. And tweet.

My daughter came home from school the other day and told me that one of her teachers thinks that Twitter is "a stupid waste of time". I said "Tell him that Twitter just won me a trip to New York City". To which she said "Can I go?"

Stu and I are technical by trade; he works in EMC's office of the CTO, I work as a software engineer developing storage products. Stu has covered conferences via Twitter before; this will be my first time. I don't think software engineers typically cover world innovation conferences; doing so is proof positive that deciding to blog can lead to some great opportunities.

So what am I going to write about? I've thought about the angle I'm going to use, and here it is:

Intrapreneur - defined on WikiAnswers as: a person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation.

I am going to listen to the speakers and apply their messages to the topic of intrapreneurship.

Many of the posts on my blog have been about ideas that I've helped turn into product. Or perhaps I've written some posts which highlight the efforts that my company is taking to encourage innovation from the people in the trenches. It's an area of great interest to me because it's my day-to-day job.

Often times messages about corporate innovation are targeted towards managers and/or corporate executives. I'm looking to pull out a few ideas that relate to the people in the trenches who daily carry the responsibility of turning an idea into a product. I'm interested to see what the tone and tenor of the speakers will be!

I will also be joining a diverse group of innovation bloggers who have a great interest in consuming pizza before, during, and after the event. I've listed several of their twitter accounts below in case you want to give them a follow.

By the way the organizers of the conference rang the opening bell at the NASDAQ on Tuesday.

Steve

Twitter accounts for bloggers/tweeters at #wif09 (in addition to @SteveTodd and @stu):

@hsmamericas (George Levy)

@innovate (Braden Kelley, http://blogginginnovation.com)

@reneecallahan

@andreaMeyer (http://workingknowledge.com)

@chrisflanagan

@pinnovation (Jeff De Cagna)

@yourboot (Julie Lenzer Kirk)

@katiekonrath (www.getFreshMinds.com)

Michael Lee Stallard (www.michaelleestallard.com )