From the Editor – A spring of inspiration

As the days turn warmer, the grass turns greener and everything blooms back to life, the calendar also begins to buzz with activity. Event planners play “beat the clock” before the lazy days of summer wreak havoc with everyone’s schedules. So it is from now through early June. At Insight, we’re going into high gear for our fourth annual THINC! event from 3 to 6 p.m., May 19, at UW-Fox Valley. Last month I shared some background about our internationally-acclaimed keynote speaker Dan Barnett, who will address “Make or Break Execution.” Since then the judges of our Insight Innovation Awards contest have met and selected five winners out of a pool of 23 companies that applied. It was quite humbling to learn about all the innovation going on in the New North — and tough to select the best among them. They will be named at THINC! after our keynote, just before our networking. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to put it on your calendar! Look for details in our Connections feature and elsewhere in this issue. One interesting twist among our Insight Innovation Award applicants this year is that we had several non-profit organizations apply. Leaders of the most successful nonprofits will tell you their success is precisely because they run their operations like any other business. And why not? All the same skills apply — all the focus on strategy, people and metrics that can make or break an organization. This in mind, our region is fortunate to have excellent resources for our nonprofit companies. Among them is the second annual Enterprising Nonprofits conference in Appleton, hosted May 6, with smaller followup events the same week in Neenah and Green Bay. Julie Drobeck, executive director of the Volunteer Center of East Central Wisconsin — who planned the event with the help of coordinating sponsor First Business Bank — says the conference fills a void for training everyone from staff members to volunteers and board members. Then on May 20, the Fox Cities Stadium hosts a day-long conference with a focus on connecting and inspiring business and community leaders and professionals. Cultivate, which started a few years ago with an emphasis on “practical, tactical tips,” has evolved into a day that aims to challenge people to build a better community. Senior Associate Editor Sean Johnson has served on the Cultivate planning committee this year, and with Insight as a media sponsor we were treated to a sneak preview of some of the speakers courtesy of Adrienne Palm’s laptop. Palm, director of Pulse, the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce Young Professionals group, (and our December Insight cover subject), was excited to share videos of the TEDx speakers who will keynote: Patti Dobrowolski, a nationally acclaimed comic performer, high-performance business consultant, speaker, strategic illustrator and newly minted author; and Greg Tehven, who helped change the perception of his hometown of Fargo, N.D. The Greater Green Bay Chamber hosts its annual Business Recognition Awards Luncheon on June 4. Then June 10, the Fox Cities Chamber hosts its annual Trifecta event. And soon, of course, we’ll be in the thick of the golf outing season. If you’re like many people and you hope to pencil in a vacation, there’s no time like now to work on your calendar. I hope to see you at THINC! — and many of the other events coming up. Happy spring!