PIM 2014: Starbucks and Novozymes Featured as Outstanding Corporate Innovators, PIM Advanced Program and More

PIM 2014 is going big places! Check out just a few recent highlights.

Starbucks, Novozymes Named 2014 Outstanding Corporate Innovator (OCI) Winners

PDMA will present the 2014 Outstanding Corporate Innovator (OCI) Award to Seattle-based Starbucks and the Danish bioinnovation firm Novozymes at a special session at PIM 2014. The OCI Award Presentation will provide a rare peek under the hood of the winning companies' processes and cultures, while demonstrating how they have driven sustained, quantifiable business results through innovation.

Read more.

Innovation Management Standard Featured in the Media

PDMA Board Member Steve Uban spoke recently with Investor's Business Daily and Fast Company on the Innovation Management Standard. 

Check out the full article, entitled "New International Innovation Management Standard Increases Ideas," highlighted in both Investor's Business Daily and Fast Company.

Product Innovation Management Conference (PIM) 2014 Advance Program

PDMA has just released the Product Innovation Management Conference (PIM) 2014 Advance Program. Download your digital copy of the program today to view the conference schedule, lineup of companies and individuals speaking and the list of confirmed interactive sessions that will give you the tools you need to innovate at your company.

Read more here on Advance Program here.

Ready to make the leap? Register now for PIM 2014: October 18-22 in Denver, Colorado and listen to keynote speakers from Intel, USC, GE and more. Follow #PIM14 on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for real-time conference updates!

2015 PDMA Board of Directors Nominations Due Tomorrow!

As a reminder, the deadline for nominations for the 2015 PDMA Board of Directors is tomorrow, Friday, August 22, 2014. All individual members in good standing are eligible for nomination.

To review the complete 2015 Nomination Packet including Candidate Recommendation Form and the open Position Descriptions for 2015, please click here. Completed nominations may be sent via email to pdma@pdma.org or via fax to (312) 673-6885.

The Nominating Committee is charged, to the best of its ability, with taking into consideration the experience, and demographics of the membership as it formulates the slate. The Committee will select one candidate for each position available for the slate of three (3) directors-at-large and that slate will be available to all PDMA members for vote.

The new directors-at-large will take office on January 1, 2015 for a three (3) year term.

For questions regarding the nominations process or submissions, please contact Martha O' Hanlon at PDMA Headquarters at (800) 232-5241 or via email at mohanlon@pdma.org.

Free NPD-RiskAssessor™ Demo

Understanding and responding to the specifics of risks on individual NPD projects or across a portfolio of projects is major gap in capabilities for many organizations. NPD-RiskAssessor™ is a software tool and statistical model, coupled to experience tested methods and approaches, which enables the very important advancement of risk assessment and management capabilities.

Sign up for a free demo specific to your project today!

Register Now for the Product Innovation Management Standard Training Session

"Flexible Framework for Accelerating Your Product Innovation"

The Innovation Management Standard Training is a 2 1/2 day training session designed to increase education regarding the Innovation Standard and how one can implement it. PDMA's upcoming training is being held October 17-19, 2014 in conjunction with PDMA's Product Innovation Management (PIM) 2014 Conference taking place at the Grand Hyatt in Denver, Colorado.

Please click here for more information regarding the Product Innovation Management Standard Training Session. If attending the PIM Conference, consider adding on the Product Innovation Management Standard Training Sessions beforehand for an additional $999.00 (a 50% discount only for PIM Conference attendees).

•  What does the Introductory Training Offer? This workshop offered allows prospective users and consulting/auditing partners to quickly get a firm grasp on its contents and be able to scale the required knowledge in their organizations.

•  What value do we get out of participating? Individuals will receive PDMA's core set of standards documentation, various tools and templates needed to assess or train customers in the essentials of the Innovation Management Standard. They will also receive all the slides of the session.

•  Why is this standard so special? It is the first truly international public standard of its kind, and offers an integrated, coherent view on how organizations, of any kind (profit, non-profit, public) can become and stay innovative. The standards are universal, meaning any organization can adopt it.

•  How will attending these sessions help me and my organization? The Product Innovation Management Standard is a first-class tool to generate new business for auditing and consulting businesses. Why? Essentially because most organizations still have along path to go when it comes to becoming truly innovative. That becomes very apparent if you compare their performance against the standards. Where there is room for improvement, there is opportunity for new business.

For additional information about the upcoming training course sesion, please contact the Tim Foundation.

Book Review: Mega Project Management: Lessons on Risk and Project Management from the Big Dig

By Virginia A. Greiman, Review by Gerald Mulenburg

Although, as this book's title indicates, author Virginia Greiman uses the Big Dig project in Boston as the basis for discussing mega project management, she does so from her vantage as an active participant in this project, first as the deputy counsel, and then as head of risk management. Thus, the guiding basis for the book has many references to that project, but the lessons discussed are just as applicable to any mega project of great complexity and uncertainty, or across multiple mega projects.  

Her goal is to ensure understanding of the importance of aligning large projects to meet their business strategy.  Her cogent discussion about mega project management and leadership needs, and their applications, make the book well worth reading if you have interest in large, complex projects in any industry.  

Read more.

Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM) Highlights from the Editor

By Gloria Barczak, Northeastern University, Editor of Journal of Product Innovation Management

Welcome to the Editor's column in Connections! Every other month, I will provide highlights of upcoming articles in JPIM that, hopefully, will be of interest to PDMA members. The September issue of JPIM is available online now.

Although there are a number of thought-provoking articles, I would like to draw your attention to two articles in particular.

• Visit p. 1023 by Kumar Sarangee, Jennifer Woolley, Jeffrey Schmidt and Eileen Long on de-escalation mechanisms; that is, “ways to discontinue or redirect poorly performing projects”. The authors uncover several unique mechanisms not identified previously and suggest that encouraging failure and terminating poorly performing projects can have positive benefits for a firm. A translation of the study's findings for our practitioner audience will be featured in the upcoming issue of Visions .
• Check out p. 973 by Lisa Scholer, Bernd Skiera and Gerard Tellis. Focusing on financial innovations, the authors' findings show that innovations manifesting greater risk and radicalness have higher abnormal returns and innovations with greater complexity have lower abnormal stock market returns. As well, radical financial innovations have “lower cumulative abnormal stock market returns in recessions than in expansions”.

Don't forget to check out the “Early View” option on the JPIM website. All articles listed on “Early View” have a digital object identifier (DOI) assigned by our publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, and are available electronically and free-of-charge to all PDMA members as part of your membership benefits. This year, articles have been placed on “Early View” as soon as they have passed through the production process.

We will continue doing this in the future; so check out “Early View” and find articles before they are printed! Also be on the lookout for JPIM highlighted in the upcoming issue of Visions .

Sustainable Innovation SIG Webinar: "Subaru - To Zero Landfill and Beyond"

Please join the Sustainable Innovation SIG to listen to Michelle Young discuss how Subaru was the first automotive company to achieve zero waste to landfill at a manufacturing facility in the United States. Michelle will talk about the path they took to achieving this goal, how they were able to get engagement from all of the employees in the plant, and what Subaru's future goals for sustainability entail.

Date/Time: Tuesday September 16, 2014 at 11:00 AM ET

Registration is free for members and $10 for nonmembers. Register here.

Upcoming PDMA Chapter Events

• Southern California Chapter: Managing the 5 Key Tradeoffs in NPD
• PDMA Arizona - August 2014
• August PDMA Chicago Downtown Breakfast Club
• SI Webcast: " Subaru - To zero landfill and beyond " - Michelle Long
• Portland Oregon Event: Digital Research Beyond Google
• September PDMA Chicago Downtown Breakfast Club
• Portland Oregon October Event: Don't Monkey Around With Surveys: Creating Effective Surveys Us