Innovation is a tough word to define, but most would say they know it when they see it. At a recent Wharton Women in Business conference, participants were asked to discuss their personal definitions of the term and give a concrete example from their own experiences. Here is a look at what they had to say.

Julie Anixter
CIO of MagaDesign

Anixter works for a visual information mapping and communications firm. “My definition until about two years ago was doing something game-changing,” she says. “But with the financial free-fall that the world is in today, my new definition is saving our great companies, saving ourselves, and creating our futures by doing something really game-changing.”

An example: “The last great project that we did was with the CIO of the Air Force, who has lost a lot of budget and influence with the changes at the Department of Defense, but nonetheless needs to finance his strategy for an integrated Air Force,” she says. “We worked with him to do a series of 18 maps where we got leaders in the room to co-create a visual strategy for the next couple of years for the Air Force.”

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