Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

The magic of BIF’s annual collaborative innovation summit is what my friends at Smartstorming call “popcorning.”

It is a kind of intellectual mashup where ideas begin to sizzle and pop and new insights come from the most unexpected of places.  Where else can you find the Deputy Director of the CIA talking to a skateboarder turned genome expert from Harvard University. Or a 12-year old entrepreneur chatting it up with the creator of the TED conferences.

Where else will you find Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) giving a tour of his Happiness Bus?  Hear digital visionary Don Tapscott tell his story of a runaway golf cart and a brush with mortality. Or Rita King talk about her inspiring project with Joshua Fouts “Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds.”

As Saul Kaplin, Chief Catalyst of BIF often says, “It’s bringing together the unusual suspects.”  The Business Innovation Factory may have business in its name, but perhaps business as unusual is truer to its mission. 

In most conferences, people are ultimately looking for relevancy.  At BIF, people are looking for serendipity or perhaps 350 pairs of fresh eyes.   Sometimes it’s relevant, sometimes it’s inspiration.  And sometimes it’s both.

Magic?  It’s just what you’ll find once a year at the Trinity Theater courtesy of BIF.