Startups

What innovations would give your company superpowers?

On Wednesday, former GE innovator Beth Comstock will reveal to the world her superpowers (and discuss her new book). What are yours?

A crumpled paper ball with mutant powers. (Illustration from the cover of Imagine It Forward)

If we counted a thousand metaphors used to explain innovation and how it changes business, we’d probably have missed counting another million.

Innovation is a light bulb. A beacon. It’s a seed, or a thousand seeds. Innovation is a lens. Innovation is an ocean. A waterfall. Innovation is teaching someone to fish.

But what if innovation was a superhero movie?

That’d be a lot more relatable, to us anyway. We just wrapped Black Panther on 4K Ultra HDR this weekend, so it’s timely.

Technical.ly will be hanging out with all kinds of innovators this Wednesday morning. Beth Comstock, who led marketing and innovation at GE, is touring to promote her new book Imagine It Forward, and will be sharing her story with members of the Arts + Business Council.

These days, because innovators are the new rock stars, the event is being hosted at World Cafe Life (not to mention, sold out). But that’s another metaphor for another day.

Comstock is already a known superhero. Forbes twice voted her one of the most powerful women in the world a few years back.

We tell stories at Technical.ly. Lately, we’ve been thinking about how we tell our own, especially about how we connect smart people to great companies. We’ll be at the event with a fun design-thinking activation. We’re learning, too, how stories can become frameworks for innovation and change.

Vanguard’s head of talent development, Kathryn A. Himsworth, will be asking Comstock about her new book, and her time leading GE’s business innovations unit. Himsworth knows a few things about why great talent means good business.

Storytelling is a favorite topic of Comstock’s. See below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ_zQEeU1ag]

So, what guides you and your organization? What are your superpowers? How do you tell your company’s story?

As a part of the event, we’re giving away a free sponsored content campaign for one lucky company.

We created a short three-question exercise we’ll be asking attendees on Wednesday, but you can participate too. It’s on the right-hand side of this article, if you didn’t see it already. Answer the two-minute survey to enter to win.

  • Which roles would give your organization super powers?
  • If you were a character in your organization’s story, who would you be?
  • How well is your organization telling its innovation story?

So, let us know. After the event, we’ll share a bit more about Comstock’s perspective on innovation, and what all of you creative folks had to say to us.

This may be the last chance you have to save the world.

Just kidding, there’s still time to get tickets for Arts + Business Council’s next event, a Q&A with MIT Leadership Center’s Hal Gregersen on Dec. 6.

This event is sponsored by Vanguard Innovation Studio, SEI, CRW Graphics, KSS Architects, The Richman Group at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, Navigate and the University City Science Center.

Technical.ly is a media partner of this week's Arts + Business Council event. This article was reviewed by A+BC before publication.

Companies: Vanguard / SEI / Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia / University City Science Center

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