More timely than ever, this volume features interviews with 80 of the most successful innovators of the past decade from the Chicago region, showing how the key to unlocking economic growth and recovery is through innovation. Each example highlights the consumer need being met, pinpoints the uniqueness of the innovation, covers the fascinating background story, reveals the extent of the impact on society, and takes a glimpse into what is in store for the future. Many of the innovators featured in this book are winners of the Chicago Innovation Awards, a yearly celebration of the most innovative products and services in the Chicago region.

Innovating . . . Chicago-Style: How Local Innovators Are Building the National Economy

Business & Money

Miller, Dan

Kuczmarski, Tom

Tanen, Luke

Management & Leadership

Book Ends Publishing

Featuring a foreword by Deepak Chopra and interviews with dozens of leadership pioneers, this book provides a seven-step prescription for creating a compassionately competitive work culture. This groundbreaking strategy shows how collaborators, not controllers, dare to create success by reshaping the workplace in unexpected ways, with a focus on topics such as humility, compassion, inclusiveness, and values-based decisiveness. The interviewees include Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; Mary Ellen Weber, former NASA astronaut; and Chris Zorich, former NFL star.

Apples Are Square: Thinking Differently About Leadership

Kuczmarski, Thomas D.

Smith Kuczmarski, Susan

About the Book
 There is no perfect family. We are all works in progress. This book is a must read for anyone searching for answers to the family happiness puzzle, which in many ways is all of us. It serves as a guide to find the "sticky glue" that supports the family bond, to enhance the family's spirit and energy, and to deepen connections across the family network, which is today refreshingly diverse in membership and structure.
 Every family has some degree of imbalance (some more than others) and every reader of this book can gain a clearer picture of how to nurture happiness, care for a family's soul and, just as importantly, engage and encourage other family members in this quest.
 You can't touch the soul of the family, but you are touched by it every day. Family soul is the memories and traits that make the family unique, including rituals, stories, experiences, conflicts, and love. It is the family's complex network of relationships, values and activities. It is how we talk, feel and interact when we're together. Through this book, you will learn how to:
 - Fortify the family soul with six vitamins or strengtheners: humor, emotion, acceptance, renewal, togetherness, and struggle - Identify and applaud the caretaker the champion of the family soul - Use the happiness tool kit ten tangible ways to help families think and do differently - Recognize and apply practices that are integral to carving out happy and dynamic families: start a family of one's own, welcome in-laws and special people, bond with friends, discover a soul friend and add pets to the scene.
 The exercises and tools are practical, accessible, and easy to implement. The author weaves together dozens of colorful, funny, and tender anecdotes that surfaced in her research, with illustrations that capture their spirit and theme. Written with empathy and good humor, the inspiring ideas and tips found here will motivate you to listen selflessly, speak from the heart, and practice whooping and praising descriptively - starting now!
PRAISE FOR Becoming A Happy Family: Pathways to the Family Soul
The secret to making yourself happy is to make someone else happy. The author lays out a clear step-by-step path for bringing happiness home. - Deepak Chopra, author of over sixty books on spirituality
Family is the foundation of our lives. The values we learn from these early, intimate relationships guide our choices for many years. Dr. Kuczmarski understands the vital importance of family and offers valuable insights and tools to cultivate greater connection. Her expertise will help any family grow stronger and discover its soul. - Dipak C. Jain, the INSEAD Chaired Professor of Marketing
With insight and empathy, Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski charts new ground in helping families discover and nourish the soul that makes them unique. - Mary W. Quigley, mothering21.com and author, Going Back to Work: A Survival Guide for Comeback Moms
 This book will help American families in all their beautiful and diverse forms thrive and prosper in the ever-changing landscape of today. In embracing the uniqueness of modern families, Dr. Kuczmarski powerfully navigates the truths that define family life for us all: insecurity and confidence, doubt and courage, empathy and love. - Zach Wahls, author of My Two Moms, and LGBTQ advocate
In a time when much attention is being paid to families falling apart, the author focuses on how we can keep our families together. At the core is what she calls the family soul - a concept ephemeral to most of us, but Dr. Kuczmarski makes it real. This book provides a practical prescription and tools for restoring the soul in our ever-changing families. - Michele Moeller Chandler, Ph.D., Compose A Life Professor, Williams College

Becoming a Happy Family: Pathways to the Family Soul

Susan Smith Kuczmarski

Adolescence is a time of confusion and contradictions for teens and parents alike. Dozens of organizations are devoted to the problems of dysfunctional families and adolescents...as they should be. But few resources are available for parents struggling to proactively deal with the everyday probems of raising teenagers. The Sacred Flight of the Teenager provides the gentle, yet enthusiastic support parents need to help their teenagers devleop strength, become independent, and grow into responsible adults. 
The Sacred Flight is filled with practical guidance on how to nurture a teen's confidence within a loving, supportive family environment. Though based on sound theory, formed in the author's 25 years' experience as an authority on family culture, this book doesn't dwell in abstraction. Interviews with more than 100 "veteran" parents and with teens who earned their wings by meeting the daily challenges of real-life flight -- as well as anecdotes from her own home front -- all combine to infuse the book with a sense of reality and relatability that can only come from voices out of the "front lines." 
This book gives its profound insights and down-to-earth tools in short, easy-to-read vignettes that illulminate the "sacred flight" -- the life journey every child takes through adolescence and into adulthood. Written with kindliness, empathy, and good humor, in prose that speaks to the heart and gets to the heart of the matter, The Sacred Flight of the Teenager willl be a wise and supportive guide to every parent who reads it.

The Sacred Flight of the Teenager: A Parent's Guide to Stepping Back and Letting Go.

Parenting & Relationships

Parenting

Employees need values they can believe in. But due to the mergers and downsizings of previous years, age-old norms of employment security have gone by the wayside--leaving workers betrayed and confused and apathetic about their jobs. As a result, many American organizations have lost the spirit and loyalty of their workforce as well as their competitive edge. "Values-Based Leadership" offers a powerful vision for reinvigorating and restoring the heart and soul of organizations. This timely book demonstrates how to replace the feeling of "anomie"--disillusionment, isolation, and hopelessness--and reenergize employees with a renewed sense of belonging, commitment, and connection to their organizations. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Values-Based Leadership

Kuczmarski, Susan Smith

People are the heart and soul of every organization. They make the place. By tapping into the power of praise and recognition, every leader can learn to lift people up. Discover how to get the most out of people and give them the most in return--a process the authors call peopleship. Written with empathy and energy, the game-changing ideas and tips found here will motivate you to listen carefully, trust respectfully, and praise authentically starting now! Lifting People Up is a must read for any leader searching for techniques to cultivate and motivate people, a team's most valuable asset. Innovation consultants and authors Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski and Thomas D. Kuczmarski share the secrets of how to become a people leader. You will learn how to: ---Activate six leadership tools--listen, include, free, trust, use rewards, and praise ---Help people unleash their inner leader ---Create a caring, high-performing culture, and just as importantly, engage and encourage co-workers in this quest. The leadership methodology is practical and easy to implement. The authors weave together dozens of anecdotes that surfaced in their field research, with stories that capture the spirit and theme of lifting up others. You will discover ways to: ---Build strong and effective relationships and teams within an organization ---Foster a culture of innovation and shared leadership ---Create a small start-up mindset within a large organization ---Spread leaders throughout the organization, not group them at the top ---Pay people on performance, not tenure nor title ---Nurture self-discovery, collaboration and recognition.

Lifting People Up: The Power of Recognition

Thomas D. Kuczmarski

What is an innovation ecosystem? It is a blueprint for the city of the future. An environment that not only supports innovation, but makes it inevitable. Over the last twenty years, Chicago has seen a revolutionary change in business culture and success, largely in part to the formation of an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship. The city has become a top-ten global innovation hub, and leads the country in diversity of industry and foreign direct investment. Rising Together shares the story of the people, organizations, and culture that led to this regional growth, as told through the lens of those who lived it. Combining insights from over thirty industry leaders and founders playing outsized roles in its development, the authors weave together a narrative of the formation, growth, and potential future of the Chicago innovation ecosystem. This book is a must read for anyone in search of ways to build or grow a community fueled by collaboration, growth, and innovation. Learn first-hand:	---Which shared values can inspire an entire city to innovate: The C.H.I.C.A.G.O. Way	---How collaboration across-industry and sector breeds innovation	---Why individuals play a critical role in leading and inspiring a region-wide movement

Rising Together: The Story of Chicago's Innovation Ecosystem

Tom Kuczmarski

Luke Tanen

Paul Kitti

Jacob Sherman

Avery Stone Fish

Risk is all around us. Every single organization deals with risk on a daily basis. They manufacture products that have defects. They create marketing initiatives that fail to resonate with customers. Our everyday actions are littered with risks, and yet they do not stop us from marketing or manufacturing. Why should innovation be any different?One of the biggest barriers to innovation success for companies of all types is an aversion to risk and a fear of failure. But in today's hyper-paced business world, you either innovate or you die; there is no alternative. Risk-Free Innovation provides a framework that dismantles the fear of risk-taking in innovation by providing a framework to help companies confidently manage uncertainty. The authors blend experience with technology to deliver their ten innovation risk reducers in a dynamic, insight-rich combination of text and augmented reality. This isn't just a book about innovation; it's an innovative book. Throughout the pages of this book are augmented reality experiences and links to supplemental content. Readers will not only learn from the text, but also gain access to a continuous supply of new content and resources to ensure they can turn insights into action. This book is a must-read for anyone hoping to boost their innovation efforts, conquer a fear of risk, and sustain their organization's growth long term.

Risk-Free Innovation: 10 Ways to Manage Uncertainty

Jacob T. Sherman

Business Culture

JESUS, His Angels and Apple Jelly

Larry R. King

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