Nicole Lander - An Innovation Maven

This year, Nicole Lander from Battlefield Sports was asked to be one of the cohort of business leaders and innovators - the "Mavens" - have been tasked with judging this Smart 100 for 2018. 

Who are Innovation Mavens?  

The word maven comes from the Yiddish "meyvn" (מבין) meaning "one who understands." 

The judging cohort of the Smart 100 are mavens in their field and have created remarkable businesses of their own.

The 2018 cohort features judges from academia and industry with expertise in venture capital, marketing, science and medicine, philanthropy, and technology. 

As an expert on innovation and a former Smart 100 winner, Nicole Lander was one of the Smart 100 judges. 

According to James Tuckerman from Anthill, a maven also means a person who seeks to pass on this knowledge to others – an intense gatherer of information and impressions, the first to pick up on new or nascent trends and share them.

Mavens play a vital role in the commercial success of new products and services.

Unlike early-adopters, who are attracted to any new technology, mavens are more discerning. They are thoughtful in their approach to the adoption of innovations and that is why they are often turned to as trusted advisers.

A successful innovation may be attractive to your average early-adopter but mavens are the people who will bring a successful innovation into the mainstream.

As a result, Anthill’s SMART 100 are not chosen simply due to the novel or unique nature of the innovations but because of the potential of each to achieve consumer adoption and commercial success.

With more than 700 nominations and 100 innovations profiled and ranked each year, the SMART 100 Index is the largest awards program dedicated to innovation in Australia.

Nominated innovations were invited to submit a detailed application featuring open-ended questions that focused on how the innovation improves the status-quo. 

The outcomes of these applications were then amalgamated and short-listed to assemble the Top 100.

In order to rank the Top 100, the 100 ‘maven’ judges evaluated the entries, across eight criteria.

The judging favored commercially focused innovations.

The combined 'crowd-sourced' wisdom of the maven judges provided the resulting ranked list.

"On behalf of James Tuckerman, we would like to sincerely thank you for being a part of this prestigious competition," said Faye from the Anthill Team.