Who inspires your team? Who develops the ideas, promotes an environment that fosters creative camaraderie, nourishes esprit de corps -- and steers the organization toward greatness? In short, who is your Chief Innovation Officer? Every organization that grows by creating new products or services or aspires to out-class the competition needs a Chief Innovation Officer, or CIO.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? This paradox has perplexed philosophers for millennia. In the progressive workplace, a similar dilemma confounds executives. In the pursuit of open innovation, what comes first: Innovation created internally, or innovation developed beyond the organization?