UA Hosts Arizona Technology Council Forum on the Intersections of Innovation

By Arizona Technology Council - August 18, 2009, 11:30 am

logo

The UA is hosting an Arizona Technology Council breakfast forum Sep. 2 in the Union Kiva.

According to ATC’s Web site, the talk will focus on how intersecting talents and expertise can create solutions that pirates of innovation find hard to disrupt.

The speaker will be Mary Contini Gordon, who spent 20 years at Hughes, then Raytheon. She was the executive director of the Hughes Institute for Professional Development.

Registration will be between 7:15 a.m. and 8 a.m., during which time continental breakfast will be served. Presentations and panel discussions usually last about 75 minutes, to allow for a short question and answer session at 9:15 a.m.

The details below are reproduced (mostly unedited) from the council’s Web site.

Council Connect in Tucson: Innovation through Intersections

Date : Sep. 2, 2009 • Time: 7:30-9:30 a.m.

Event Description

What do the Renaissance, the Medici family and cognitive psychology have to do with innovation?

The answer has to do with how intersecting talents and expertise create innovative solutions that become hard to disrupt, and it includes understanding of what causes us to think creatively. The answer takes us a step beyond disruptive innovation.

The Medici family brought together a broad range of talents to create some of the world’s great works in both art and science.

Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492) was an Italian statesman and ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance.

Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (Lorenzo il Magnifico) by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists, and poets.

His life coincided with the high point of the early Italian Renaissance; his death marked the end of the Golden Age of Florence.

The fragile peace he helped maintain between the various Italian states collapsed with his death. Portrait by Agnolo Bronzino.

With our increasingly complex technical endeavors further complicated by changing customer environments, no one individual expert has all the knowledge for understanding the needs or problems, let alone creating optimum innovative solutions.

Even more challenging, once needs or problems are understood and solutions launched, competitors watch and wait for the right time to overtake any gains, and adversaries with lesser technologies can outwit some very sophisticated systems. Think pirates -- of all kinds.

Intersections provide perspectives. Many perspectives are needed to uncover hidden possibilities to solve complex challenges. These perspectives may include working across hardware and software boundaries but also with engineering, manufacturing, finance and the end user at critical junctures to uncover disconnects, opportunities, and splinter innovations.

They may include disciplines outside the norm and comfort zone; and yet, they usually need to include a conducive mental set for fostering innovation.

This presentation will

• discuss why intersections provide the best chance to innovate and lay ground for securing the market,
• explain how to find and/or create intersections,
• examine how to leverage those intersections for innovation,
• explore the mental set needed,
• share an example, and
• demonstrate integrative thinking.

The concepts build throughout the fast-paced presentation through the use of photos, graphics, and the use of rhetorical questions. Time is left for actual questions and discussion. Maximizing Your Company’s Value is a dynamic, information-packed program designed for business owners and senior managers.

During this comprehensive program, you will learn how to optimize your corporate value, improve general operational efficiencies, and properly utilize your legal and financial advisors to the fullest extent.

Further, if you are contemplating financing and/or selling your business in the future, this program can help you position yourself to obtain the best return possible.

Presenter

Mary Contini Gordon spent 20 years at Hughes/Raytheon. She was the executive director of the Hughes Institute for Professional Development. The Institute served all five Hughes companies worldwide in executive development, advanced technology education, professional enrichment, and corporate initiatives such as information protection and ethics. At the Hughes/Raytheon merger she served on a transition team and then redeployed to commercial business development with assignments in California, Italy and South Africa. She spent the last seven years in Tucson where she led an innovation center staff and partnered with technology and business development leads to create and apply approaches to solve tough problems. In addition, throughout her career, Gordon has been called upon to lead research and assessment teams on diverse topics and to lead and orient professional facilitation teams. The company received several Department of Defense commendations based on her work.

Council Connect Series

The Council Connect Series is a monthly program produced by the Arizona Technology Council in conjunction with a member company. The series provides an in-depth analysis of technologies, including best practices and solutions pertinent to the technology community. Events in the series usually consist of a panel of industry professionals, and cover topics as diverse as public relations insider know-how to stages of product development.


	College of Engineering		Infinite Possibilities