Honoring Innovation and Losing Inhibitions

Mingling with the suits at the 2011 Innovation Awards

I entered early through the underground door of the Harris Theater in Millennium Park for this Tuesday night's Chicago Innovation Awards to find an already packed room and a ridiculously long open bar line (My thirst would have to wait; can you see why, right?) -- and three other floors just like it on my way up to get my name tag.  But I didn't mind.  The largest crowd ever in its 10-year history had gathered to honor innovation in Chicago, and we were entertained and inspired by the Academy-awards-like evening of comedy bits, video overviews, cool new products and grateful CEOs.

As founders and emcees Tom Kuczmarski and Dan Miller emphasized, the crowd had come together to give kudos to "Chicago-style innovators" and support what they called the "innovation ecosystem" that has had a huge impact on our region. Long-time Chicago companies were rewarded for their innovation chops, including 90+-year-old Elkay with its newfangled water fountain/bottle filler and century-old Illinois Tool Works with its cap-less gas cap on cars.  And new start-ups also made their mark, including Narrative Science's software that can turn any data into human-seeming written stories (goodbye journalists?) and Fresh Moves, a much-needed non-profit converting CTA busses into mobile veggie produce providers to underserved neighborhoods.  Click here or on the banner below to read more about all the winners.  

While I applaud this outstanding event tribute to innovation, we can't can't forget that creativity is the great engine of innovation, and that we in Chicago still have a ways to go to truly reflect on ecosystem that supports the originality and subversiveness that make up the creative DNA.  I was a bit itchy sitting in my seat too long as a passive spectator listening to more corporate sponsor thank you's and seeing more men in dark suits per capita than I can stomach without rebellion stirring in my solar plexus.

Luckily I've had a chance these last couple weeks to get some ga-ga's out as creative participator, and not just spectator, around town. Formal awards of innovation need to be balanced by unpredictable episodes of losing inhibition or innovation ain't never gonna emerge, Serge.  So I made my way last Saturday night to a remarkable lakefront party featuring Near Hemisphere, a drumming ensemble that can transform any space into a rhythmic rocket ship.  A living room became a full participation boogie palace and I had a chance to pound my own drums and move my body to the inner beat we all share. No dark suits in attendance this time.

Near Hemisphere banging it out at  house party

Of course, Halloween is also a time for creative experimentation and the weekend previous I consulted my imagination and found an inner nomad, transforming myself into Panos, a Greek wanderer of the woods and son of Hermes, in search of my long lost love Gosia of the Forest (there is a longer story of kidnapping and nymphs...some other time), with whom I was finally reunited with at a party (right).

Most often innovation--and I'm talking the business-type now--happens by bringing together different perspectives and even polar opposites to discover new combinations that lead to creative services and products that can impact our lives.  That's what the Innovation Awards is celebrating. In the same way we cultivate our own creativity by embracing our polarities, taking risks in engaging more fully in our different sides and interests. This means making time not just for our dark suits and business pursuits, but also boogie balloons and Halloween costumes.  What inhibitions might you give up next to liberate your inner innovation?