1st R&D-Product Development Innovation Summit

The basic agenda and demographics of GGI's first Innovation Summit have been finalized. It is possible to register at this time. Eight modules will be presented during the three-day Summit. GGI is actively constructing the detailed course book that will be used for this Summit. The Brochure, downloadable elsewhere on this page, shows roughly how the eight modules and associated group exercises will flow over the three-day period.

In the early 1990s, when time-to-market pressures swept across the globe, it created a backlash on the subject of innovation. Individual developers and their corporations alike asked and continue to ask, "how can I/we be more innovative when I/we have less time? Overlapping the projects is not a practical answer." This backlash resulted in a great deal of invention on the subject of innovation during the past fifteen years. As much literature was published on innovation as was published on time-to-market during this period. In the 1980s, only a few innovation techniques existed. Today, there are dozens of techniques and some software packages that facilitate innovation and innovative thinking. Yet, companies struggle with how to innovate. Many have simply renamed their "product development processes" to be "innovation processes" in the hope that a new identity will facilitate innovative thinking. This struggle has come to the forefront of industry issues in 2005. To address this rapidly growing industry need, GGI decided to package some of the approaches and materials that we use in our consulting practice into a public seminar that we are calling the Innovation Summit.

The Innovation Summit consists of 8 modules. Discounts are offered for teams of 2 or more people from the same company.

Eight Modules

The goals of the Innovation Summit are to help corporate innovation leaders: to sort out "innovation processes" from "innovation tools and techniques," to understand what has happened during the past fifteen years on innovation, to inventory the range and population of tools/techniques/software available today, to put it all in a context for corporate leaders so specific actions may be taken to improve a company's innovativeness and inventive abilities.

Summit Dates

Summit Faculty

Bradford L. Goldense, NPDP, CMfgE, CPIM, CCP, [seminar leader] is Founder and CEO of Goldense Group, Inc. [GGI], a nineteen-year old Needham Massachusetts consulting and education firm concentrating in advanced business and technology management practices for line management functions. Mr. Goldense has consulted to over 150 of the Fortune 1000 and has worked on productivity improvement and automation projects in over 400 manufacturing locations in North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East. Abbott Laboratories, Bayer, S.C. Johnson, Ford, General Motors, John Deere, Phillips, Carrier, Molex, United Technologies, Bose, and Shure are representative among GGI’s clients. Mr. Goldense is an internationally recognized expert on both rapid product development and R&D metrics. Brad has been an invited guest on Alexander Haig’s World Business Review, and has appeared on PBS The Business & Technology Network, and on CNBC, and has authored or been quoted in over 150 articles in industry trade press. Brad is the Worldwide President of the Society of Concurrent Product Development [SCPD], and on the Worldwide Board of Directors for the American Society of Engineering Management [ASME]. View a more complete biography on GGI Staff page.

John R. (Dick) Power, PMP, CFP, [instructor] is Director of Executive Education at GGI. Mr. Power has been practicing in the advanced and new product development and production areas for over 30 years. He is highly experienced in project management of large and complex high technology products from Initial phases through production, distribution and sustaining support. As a US Army Signal Corps Officer, retiring as a Colonel in 1992, he was a leader in acquisition of electronic systems. More recently, Dick worked at GTE (before its merger with Bell Atlantic to form Verizon) as Director of Total Quality for the Government Systems Group and later as Corporate-wide program manager for information security. View a more complete biography on GGI Staff page.

Donald M. Stewart [instructor] has been practicing in the marketing and new-product business strategy areas for the past thirty-five years, and in the concurrent engineering area for the past fifteen years. Mr. Stewart worked for twenty years with Teradyne, Inc. Teradyne is the leading U.S. designer and manufacturer of semiconductor test systems. Don held a variety of positions at Teradyne including product manager, sales manager, sales engineer, and market support engineer. Mr. Stewart holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. View a more complete biography on GGI Staff page.

Summit Location

The seminar will be held at the Four Points Sheraton in Norwood, Massachusetts. The Four Points/Norwood is equidistant between Boston and Providence on major U.S. Route 1. One can fly into either Logan Airport in Massachusetts or T.F. Green Airport in Rhode Island, each about a 45 minute ride. (Less expensive airfares are potentially possible through T.F. Green Airport, as well as less traffic congestion en route.) There are several fine restaurants within walking distance, more within a short hotel shuttle ride. A major attraction of this hotel is its food. The General Manager is a former chef and the head chef is a name in the Northeast. "One Bistro," at the Four Points/Norwood, is a locally renowned restaurant and nighttime hotspot. One of New England's largest brand name discount shopping malls is just a short ride south on Route 1.

A block of rooms have been reserved for this conference. Hotel reservations must be made by Monday, December 19, 2005 to ensure availability. GGI's block of rooms will be released back to the hotel after this date.

Summit Brochure

There is a single brochure for the Innovation Summit. The brochure includes a brief description of each module. Discounts are available for teams with 2 or more people registering from the same company.

Register

Please visit The Wisdom iStore for pricing and registration information. [Registration is closed. Folks wishing to register at the last minute should please contact GGI directly at 781-444-5400.]

In the event your plans change after you register, GGI will refund your registration through end-of-business EDT Monday December 19, 2005. Please note that a 5% credit processing fee will be deducted from your refund if you do choose to cancel.

Note: Currently, The Wisdom iStore cannot distinguish between services and physical products for sale. If you type in 'MA' as your state in the Shipping Information, the system will automatically add a 5% tax onto your total. The Innovation Summit is a service. When we settle your transaction, we will credit the sales tax added and you will not be charged a sales tax. We will not charge sales tax on services.