Lunch & Learn
The Innovation Imperative: What Every Business Needs to Know
April 26, 2017 at Noon
Please join us for this highly interactive presentation on innovation in the environmental field with Andrea Ramage, with Somersault Consulting, LLC.
The event will be held in-person in Seattle at:
Anchor QEA, LLC
720 Olive Way, Ste 1900 (Sterling conference room)
Contact: Josh Jensen jjensen@anchorqea.com
Join us in Portland for a live streaming of the event:
Assessment Associates, Inc. (AAI)
2420 NE Sandy Blvd (large conference room in back)
Contact: Mike O'Connor mike@aaiconsulting.com
This event is being hosted in collaboration with the Sustainable Path Foundation.
Innovation entered the spotlight when high tech products entered our daily lives – computers, smart phones, learning thermostats, and more. Working at the heart of product design, the brilliant founders of IDEO (Tom and David Kelley) realized that their method of solving design problems was both powerful and universally applicable to almost any kind of problem-solving situation. Their method went viral, for the simple reason that it gave smart people in any industry an innovation recipe that works. The business community took note; so did academics. Money began to pour into innovation. While these are only the broad outlines of an important modern movement, they are the roots of the innovation imperative that exists today.
What do we mean by innovation? Why it has become an imperative for business in all types of industries? What does it look like for environmental businesses? How can your company meet the innovation imperative?
This presentation will offer some answers. Learn what industry leaders are saying; discover how they are reacting. Using case studies and Andrea’s experience in the environmental/engineering field, we’ll discuss how innovation relates to environmental business activities – from technical problem solving to proposal strategy to service design. We’ll conclude by introducing the key elements to successful business innovation, giving you a chance to evaluate your own organization’s ability to meet the innovation imperative. The presentation format will encourage audience participation and dialogue.
A Little Bit About Andrea:
Bringing new ideas to life is the golden thread woven throughout Andrea’s 25-year career, both as an intrapreneur within a large corporation and now as an entrepreneur. She is the founder of Somersault Consulting LLC, a strategy-making and innovation-sparking firm that helps companies to succeed in their growth initiatives. Nothing makes her happier than catalyzing the reservoir of creativity in her clients, so that they can realize their aspirations and discover inventive solutions to their pressing challenges. Her “power tools” are advanced strategy and innovation methods, used with precision to help her clients create solutions that propel their companies forward and upward.
She works with clients to:
- Develop Vision & Strategy
- Build New Programs, Services, and Products
- Improve Business Models
- Solve Tough Challenges
- Train Teams for Innovation Performance
- Build a Culture of Innovation
Andrea has served in corporate leadership, program management, consultant, and innovator roles. Her clients span a surprising range of industries. They include CH2M, cities and utilities, food manufacturing, global mining, NASA, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Andrea holds advanced engineering degrees from Princeton University and Virginia Tech. She loves to hike the Cascade Mountains and go wild with art supplies.
