Kaplan: Welcome to #BIF2018

Thursday, August 30, 2018

Saul Kaplan, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

Saul Kaplan

September is a beacon of light for us every year. At BIF, we pride ourselves in living and breathing the human side of innovation day in and day out, but it’s really our Annual Collaborative Innovation Summit that reminds us every year of our shared purpose. It touches our souls, refreshes our outlook, and energizes us for the hard transformation work ahead. For those of you that are new faces in the crowd, you’ll soon experience what we mean. And for those who have returned year after year, I can’t thank you enough for strengthening our growing network of human-centered innovation junkies. Together we can change the world.

We believe in the power of random collisions of unusual suspects, or what we at BIF like to call making a RCUS, to tap the limitless potential in the gray spaces between us. There’s no telling the heights we can reach together by coming here and connecting outside our usual silos, from all walks of life, experiences, and viewpoints — all catalyzed by the 32 incredible personal stories of transformation we’re about to experience on the #BIF2018 stage. Every year I’m reminded that this isn’t just about who attends or even who is up on stage, but that it’s about catalyzing something bigger than any one of us. It’s about engaging and collaborating as a purposeful network to unleash the adjacent possible. To connect, inspire, and transform.

True to our vision, #BIF2018 continues to remain more community than event. Our community knows that innovation is a team sport and understands the value of connectivity. We can’t get better, faster if we don’t do it together. To make change a reality, it’s up to all of us to make it happen. I believe in the untapped potential in all of us and look forward to these two days every year, knowing that the best is yet to come. Let the inspiration begin!

One of our core beliefs is that a good story can change the world. We’ve never prescribed what our storytellers have to say and nor will we. At #BIF2018 we are modeling how to enable self-organized purposeful networks. It’s up to us to accept the responsibility to convert random collisions from the Summit into powerful and purposeful collaborations. You decide what your takeaways are, what insights to act on. How to engage and inspire others. Inspiration is personal and it’s up to participants to decide where it comes from, who to connect with, and how to emerge with a renewed sense of purpose. Let’s make a RCUS at #BIF2018, because that’s how the magic happens.

I have high expectations for where we can go from here. Transformation requires an emotional connection to the work. When we feel connected and involved in the story, there’s no telling what we can do together. The time for transformation is now. Let’s make our networks more purposeful and committed to transforming our important social systems, including healthcare, education, and public services.

Together we will catalyze something bigger than any of us individually. The more we connect, share, and experiment together, the greater our impact will have on more people’s lives. What if innovation isn’t about inventing anything new after all? What if it’s about creating the conditions for all of us to more freely combine and recombine our capabilities to make the world a better place?

If a good story can change the world, let’s start with our own. Welcome to #BIF2018!

Saul Kaplan is the Founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory (BIF). Saul shares innovation musings on his blog at It’s Saul Connected and on Twitter at @skap5.