Munich is the perfect city to host this event. Everything seems to work perfectly here, like in the good old bavarian engine tradition.
Networking was huge today. People passionate about Innovation are curious, inquiring minds about other people.
One of our speakers today talked precisely about the major importance of being connected to his costumers. Connected. Bonded enough to know their actual needs and be aware of trends that most likely will have an influence on that costumer's behavior.
Being connected and aware of our customers, but also of the permanent need to push innovation further is the challenge in a noisy society disputing our short term attention. What we've learned today is that successful innovators do it systematically.
The end of innovation as everyday unfocused talk is likely. It still is a long way journey but the future of innovation relies on its ubiquity. Hopefully, someday innovation will become embedded throughout organizational structure, job roles, departments and teams to actually become the atmosphere where everything happens.
Until then, we have to keep reminding us to innovate and challenge our blinkers just like in the famous David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" Commencement Speech.
It's our status quo and old thinking that blinds us from what's new. That's why we have to keep reminding us to think of innovation and challenge conventional wisdom and the atmosphere where we live in.
Keep connecting. Keep asking. Which of the Wallace's speech fish do you [or your company] want to be?
Excerpt from David Foster Wallace "This is water" speech: "There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys, how's the water'? And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?'
Day 1 out of 3 is over. It was of great value and the best is that we have still two more days to go!