Win a Ticket to Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5)

Would you like to go to the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) conference October 7-8, 2009 in Providence, RI, but can’t afford the $1,200 ticket price?

I have a ticket to the Business Innovation Factory conference (a $1,200 value) that I can’t use because of a scheduling conflict, and so I am offering this ticket as the grand prize to an innovation contest here on Blogging Innovation. The event sold out last year and despite the economy, the limited number of spots this year will go quickly. If you’re unfamiliar with this excellent event, here is a video of Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com (@zappos) from last year’s conference (BIF-4):

Here is how you enter the contest:

“Write an interesting blog entry (1,000 words or less) that tells the story of a barrier to innovation and how it was overcome either by your company or by another company (citing sources if this isn’t your personal experience) and submit it using our contact us page.”

Grand Prize (1): One ticket to the Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5) conference (NOTE: Travel expenses are NOT included and are the responsibility of the winner)

Finalists (3): All three finalists (including the Grand Prize Winner) will have their articles published on Blogging Innovation

The logistics of the contest will be:

1. July 29, 2009 – Open submissions until 23:59 GMT
2. July 30, 2009 – Announcement and publishing of the three finalists’ articles – Voting begins by Twitter @reply to @innovate or by blog comments (no anonymous votes will count)
3. July 31, 2009 – Voting by Twitter @reply to @innovate or by blog comments concludes at 23:59
4. August 1, 2009 – Grand Prize winner announced

For those who just want to go to the conference – as a special bonus for my loyal readers I’ve negotiated a special $50 discount when you enter “BK110” in the payment code field on the payment options page during registration – this will get you in for $1,150. Groups of five or more can get extra discounts.

New storytellers are added each week, but so far they include:

• Don Tapscott, “Wikinomics”
• Jeff Jarvis, “What Would Google Do?”, buzzmachine.com
• Bill Buxton, Microsoft Research, “Sketching User Experiences”
• Grant Harrison, VP of Consumer Innovation, Humana
• John Maeda, President, Rhode Island School of Design
• Jonah Lehrer, “How We Decide”
• Keith Wilmot, Global Director Insights, Ideas & Creativity, Coca Cola

I look forward to receiving everyone’s submissions and awarding one lucky winner a ticket to Business Innovation Factory (BIF-5)!

Good luck!

If you’d like to explore some of these issues and discuss them further, please join our Continuous Innovation group on LinkedIn.

Braden Kelley is the founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.