Articles of Interest: Using Innovation To Transform Your Business

Two great articles about small business innovation were featured recently in The Wall Street Journal and we wanted to make sure you saw them:

Tapping the Creativity of Downtime

Productive Brainstorms Take The Right Mix of Elements

If you have a story to share relative to how you use innovation to speed ahead of the curve with your business and are close to a million in annual revenue, we'll take it.

Send us an email (ldelaneyatglobetrade.com) describing what you did and how it has made a difference transforming your business. We'll feature you on this blog as a soon-to-be WPO Chicago member!

News of Interest: Eved Services Wins Stevie Award

Eved Services won a Stevie Award for Best Overall Company under 100 employees in The 2008 American Business Awards.

In accepting the Stevie, WPO Chicago member Talia Mashiach (pictured at microphone) said, "This is for the entire Eved team in Chicago who has worked so hard to make Eved Services the #1 Event Services company.”

Stevie Awards were presented in over 40 categories including Best Overall Company, Best Executive, and Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program. More than 2,600 entries from companies of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration.

This award means an incredible amount to Eved Services. At only four years old, the company has grown 1200% and continues to redefine the event space with new technology and exceptional service quality.

Videoclips of the award presentations are available online here (look for Eved Services under 8 p.m. ceremony -- in order of presentation).

We congratulate Talia and are extremely proud of her!

Article of Interest: Would You Hire Your Husband?

Are you comfortable running your own show and having your "life partner" work for you?

If you are, then you don't need to go any further. If you are not or are seriously considering it, read this interesting article to see if you have what it takes to delineate respective roles that play to each others' strengths and keep a relationship happy over the long haul.

Event of Interest: 5th Annual WPO Chicago Summit and No-Host Dinner

Thursday, August 14, 2008
11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.

IBM Innovation Center
71 South Wacker Drive, 6th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606

Sponsored By:








We are in the final stages of planning our Summit -- sponsored by Harris N.A. and IBM -- and are proud to announce our lineup of keynote speakers:

Jack Stack (generously underwritten by Harris N.A.): Jack Stack will talk about what it really takes to build a business of business people by harnessing the most powerful management tool a company has.

He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SRC Holdings Corporation, an award-winning, employee-owned organization based in Springfield, Missouri. Under Jack’s stewardship, SRC has experienced phenomenal growth, spawning more than 40 new business ventures—and creating hundreds of new jobs—in only 22 years. Today SRC employs 1,200 people and generates annual revenue of $230 million.

Jack is the co-author of the best-selling business books The Great Game of Business (Doubleday/Currency, 1992) and A Stake in the Outcome (Doubleday/Currency, 2002). As a regular columnist for Inc. magazine, he writes about the business world, entrepreneurship, authentic leadership, employee ownership, and what it takes to succeed in today’s ever-changing marketplace.

Susan Hed, VP General Business, Oracle Alliance, IBM Corporation: Sue Hed will speak to us about the influence of leadership.

She is currently Vice President, General Business, Global Oracle Alliance. She is responsible for strategic growth of IBM Hardware, Software and Services business associated with Oracle’s application software in General Business. In this role she works closely with our Oracle and IBM Business partners to deliver best of breed solutions to midsize clients.

Sue brings more than twenty years of global leadership expertise in alliances and software solution sales to her current position. Prior to this position she was VP Global ISV Solution Sales in NE EMEA, responsible sales with strategic global ISV partners and IBM technology and services. She joined IBM in 1998, with prior sales experience in business consulting services with a specialization in CRM.

Holly Hunt: Inspiring design entrepreneur Holly Hunt will talk about what it takes to build a successful enterprise.

Holly runs an upscale design house that makes and markets home and office furnishings, fabrics, and lighting fixtures. The company has showrooms in Chicago, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. It also shows its products in other selected furniture stores.

Holly's introduction of French designer, Christian Liaigre, helped to secure the company's position in the furniture-with-flair niche. Other showcased furniture designers include Alison Berger, John Hutton, and Studio H. Holly Hunt founded the design firm as a single store in 1984.

Learn more about her company here.

We have three (3) WPO Chicago members sponsoring our reception immediately following our program and dinner is pre-arranged too.

This is a for-members-only event but it is not too late to join provided you pre-qualify and we have space in a chapter. Contact Laurel Delaney at the email address shown on our blog (right sidebar) or call 773-381-1700 for further information.

Special thanks to Harris N.A. and IBM for helping us make this year's event the best ever.

We look forward to seeing you or hearing from you soon!

P.S. WPO Chicago private wiki members register here.