A Year of Harvest, a Day of Thanks

In August, Innovation Excellence marked its first birthday and now three months later, Thanksgiving Day feels like the right moment to express some heartfelt thanks. As many remember, this global innovation community did not spring forth overnight, but grew from the efforts of Braden Kelley, and all of you who embraced Blogging Innovation.  Braden’s site was a labor of love and as we’ve built it together, up and out, into the platform Innovation Excellence — there is much to be thankful for.

Amazing isn’t it what tiny seeds and big ideas together can do?  Not just here, but all around us. The seasonal metaphors of seeding, working, tilling, towing, even praying for a yield…a new harvest…or a better way to do what we do,  is what innovating has always been about.

We choose many words to describe innovation — nearly 5,000 articles worth of your words to date (this is Innovation Excellence article no. 4972). As a writer and editor, I admit I love words. Meaningful, carefully chosen words. Insightful and evocative words.

Words that show and share your stories, ideas — reflections and revelations — about innovation at work, and innovation in the world. Hmmm, if I had to choose two words to put together that express innovating, I know what they would be: serious fun.

I have never been inside P&G or 3M, but I’ve been inside national labs, universities, enterprise and organizations (large and small), and most recently “behind the curtain” at USAA’s innovation lab where serious fun was taking place —  from front to back end and the many timeframes in between. The beauty of innovation is that you know it when you see it. We feel it in our bones when we are a part of it. We can hold it in our hand…occasionally or often but not forever. The discipline of innovation are those perplexing nouns, inquisitive verbs, and formative adjectives that we practice, and it punctuates our days. We collaborate around it, compete with it, and are often wading through it.  Innovation can be lonely or enlivening and for all that it is, and is not, we are thankful.

Personally, I am so very grateful for our IX team of leaders and mentors for their intelligence, experience, humor and heart for getting us here, and for what remains unseen.

The real point of my message today is that we here because of you.

The Innovation Excellence global community represents 170 countries and the best part, from where I sit, is the fluidity of conversations, intersections, connections and drive that take Innovation Excellence from one day (one hour, one minute) to the next. Speaking of “next”, where we are headed as an innovation platform — your innovation platform — is what is most important.

One way of saying thanks to you, is to continue to value your input and continue to invite you to shape Innovation Excellence as we move forward. Frankly, we know that last year is nothing compared to what lies ahead and we want your help.  From exactly where you are and what you do, your opinions matter most in how and where we innovate and advance.

On behalf of Innovation Excellence’s executive creative team, this has been a great year of harvest.        –Our thanks to you.

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Mari Anixter is Managing Editor for Innovation Excellence. She is a communications professional living in New Mexico.