The New Polymath Wow Candidate Contest

Abbie Lundberg, former editor-in-chief at CIO magazine in her review of my book, The New Polymath called it a “veritable firehose of innovation examples”. The book covers wide innovation ground across industries, countries and technologies. 150+ innovators – people, products, places -are interviewed or profiled. Which puts me in a difficult position when I am asked “who’s your favorite?”

I would rather my readers decide. My publisher, Wiley agrees. It is kindly offering any 3 books (single titles) from its online store to the individual who most convincingly describes their favorite “wow” candidate from a read of the book.

It could be Charlie Wood who supports his 40,000+ SpanningSync customers using mostly free Google applications or it could be the ChARM network, set up by 2 mothers of autistic children. It could be the Hospira Symbiq Infusion Pump or a Plantronics headset. It could be the new football league, UFL with plans for kicker brainwave activity displays and sensors in pads. It could be Masdar, the planned carbon free city in the UAE.

Your choice – just describe your candidate as succinctly and as passionately as you can in 100 words or less.

In addition, we will pick another entry on a random basis. That person will qualify for 1 title of their choice from the Wiley store.

Importantly, we will tally all the entries and the candidate with the most “wow” votes will also qualify for a Wiley 3 title offer and of course, the recognition.

Please submit your entries to thenewpolymath AT gmail DOT com by July 31. Only one entry per person. Format your entry as follows:
·         Your first/last name
·         Where you got the book – e.g. from amazon in uk, from a friend
·         Your “wow” candidate
·         Your reasoning for picking your candidate (in no more than 100 words)

Two very innovative people that I admire (but are not profiled in the book so are independent) have agreed to help me judge the entries. Peter Fingar is a former CIO and author of 9 technology books and creative as anything as this video shows. Bob Warfield is a software entrepreneur and former executive at Oracle and Borland. He is also a polymath in his personal pursuits which range from astronomy to hot rodding as this column vividly shows.

Please be aware we may use some of the quotes in the responses and we may summarize patterns from the responses in the book publicity campaign.

So, buy, beg, borrow a copy of the book and get your entries in by July 31. amazon has it on Kindle and has been shipping hardbacks for a couple of weeks in US/Canada/Japan and will start to this week in UK and Europe.  Barnes and Noble and Borders have similar shipping dates. Distributors around the world like this and this in India are also shipping.

Thanks for your participation! Let’s celebrate and recognize the innovators.