Commentary by Ellen Domb

Day 3 Report: First International Conference on Systematic Innovation

The conference banquet on Monday night was held in the university's reception hall. We sat at large round tables and shared many dishes, which enhanced the opportunities for conference delegates to get to know each other. The banquet was an educational and cultural opportunity which introduced many of us to a variety of cultural elements. The entertainment included music, dance, and demonsrations of classical caligraphy (See 3 Pictures--more will be on the ICSI website soon) followed by members' talents--I was serenaded in Mongolian, and we were all amazed by Daniel Sheu's karaoke skills.

I gave the day 3 keynote speech on global success stories in TRIZ and Systematic Innovation, which led to significant discussions throughout the day about whether other companies' success stories are useful or not in getting people to try something new. The keynote was followed by 3 parallel technical sessions--I heard some very interesting follow-up to topics from the Computer-aided innovation conference in August by Denis Cavallucci and Derek Tate, among others.

The conference concluded with a tour of local technology site: The Realtek company showed us their approach to innovation and employee education, and part of their art collection, we toured the headquarters of the Hsinchu Science Park, and we visited the ITRI Creativity Lab, a cooperative for companies that want to learn to "play" with ideas.

Start planning now--the Second International Systematic Innovation Conference will be in Shanghai March 24-26, 2011, and the organizing committee is already working to make it even better than this one!

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