At the best companies, innovation is everyone’s job

Yesterday we were proud to have our CEO Clara Shih (@clarashih) join other business and technology thought leaders at the 2014 Wired Business Conference in New York City.

The theme of the conference was “Rethink” because businesses today need to rethink everything. From eCommerce and the arts to architecture and surgical robotics, from repurposing plastic and clothing production to gaming and the social enterprise, no industry or idea can remain stagnant.

We enjoyed seeing all the insights shared by great industry minds, including David Karp (founder and CEO, Tumblr, @davidkarp), Nolan Bushnell (founder, Atari, @NolanBushnell), Lawrence Lessig (professor at Harvard Law School and founder of Creative Commons, @lessig) and Andrew McAfee (principal research scientist at MIT and cofounder of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, @amcafee).

Highlights from the conference include:

• In the “Mr. Green Jeans” session, founders from Parley for the Oceans and Bionic Yarn demonstrated how they’re making jeans out of plastic (i.e. bionic yarn). Using the jeans’ cool factor, they deliver a message of sustainability: retrieve and recycle, reduce and replace.
• Hardeep Walia (founder of Motif Investing and a friend of Clara’s) demoed his platform, which enables people to invest in concepts and ideas rather than individual stocks.
• In a special one-to-one chat with Jill Schlesinger (CBS News Business Analyst, Host of Jill on Money, @jillonmoney), Clara spoke about how Hearsay Social empowers financial services representatives with an authentic, trusted voice. She also shared early stories of building the platform’s first prototype with her co-founder Steve Garrity (@stgarrity). Finally, Clara discussed with Jill how an organization’s success hinges on its people: innovation is everyone’s job, from the CEO on down.

Watch Clara’s session here and see tweets from the event below: