Sterling Commerce Acquisition and Best-Selling Author Highlight Second Annual TechColumbus Innovation Summit

Fresh off a $1.4 billion sale to IBM Corp., Sterling Commerce was one of the stars of the Second Annual TechColumbus Innovation Summit May 27 held at The Ohio State University’s Ohio Union.

With its seeds planted in Upper Arlington in the mid-1970s, Sterling Commerce has grown from a tech startup to a software and business-to-business tech company employing about 700 workers in Central Ohio. Bob Irwin, Sterling's president and CEO, spoke to more than 225 Summit attendees --- CEOs, business founders, entrepreneurs, strategy and technology leaders, CFOs and HR leaders --- about innovation. 

"If you peel the onion, the innovators are already sitting in your company,” he said. “Let them run free with their ideas. Press the button, and they’ll take it from there.”

Best-selling author and motivational speaker Daniel Pink closed the Summit with a look at the changing nature of business innovation. In today’s business world, right-brain functions --- the creative, artistic, processing information in its context and synthesizing it --- are undervalued, Pink said.

“An astonishing number of white-collar workers are relying on right-brain skills,” Pink said.

More details about the Second Annual Innovation Summit are available in this month’s TechColumbus newsletter published in Business First.Download the pdf here