Wednesday, October 27, 2010

MHT All-Stars: The heart of innovation

By E. Douglas Banks

Innovation can happen through evolution or revolution. Sometimes, after a technological breakthrough, the challenge becomes whether that innovation can be made commercially viable. Sometimes, a technology improves slowly, iteratively, and it isn’t until a business-model breakthrough occurs that a new world of possibility opens. In either case, a new challenge soon follows — not of evolution or revolution, but of repetition. How do you make success repeatable?

Since time immemorial, cultures have passed down stories from one generation to the next as a means of cultural preservation, education, and even entertainment. Yet, when it comes to business the goal is not much different. In a knowledge economy, high value is placed on intellectual property, knowledge management and a company’s culture. And I believe, through stories, such capital is preserved. It’s one of the reasons I am in this business, and for 15 years now, it’s why Mass High Tech has celebrated the High Tech All-Stars in New England, those people who have been the most successful at building the processes, the technologies and the industries that comprise the culture where we work and live each day.

The All-Stars program is all about the people and their stories. No programs, no pomp, no vanities, just a big party to celebrate the people behind the successes you read in our pages and on our web site each day. It is why we dedicate an entire issue to the All-Stars — a collection of personal stories that put faces to the names you see in headlines and earnings releases.

It’s one of the reasons that the All-Stars event, and its related stories online and in print, is our most popular program of the year. The lessons to be learned are plentiful, and the ways in which we can remember them are profuse.