When I saw Fabian Tilmant‘s tweet this morning in which he regretted not being selected to go on a 10-day innovation trip in the USA and I hadn’t received any news yet, my hopes were up. After checking the website of EYIF, all hopes vanished immediately. They had already selected 10, I presume, very happy people. At that moment, I felt a bit sorry for the organizer not having the courtesy to have informed me in person. It’s not that I had just applied by leaving a name and number, no, I’ve spend a couple of hours on thinking how we could close the Innovation gap in Europa. The way they communicated, or the lack thereof disturbed me. But so be it.
I had a look at the names of the winning participants and one looked very familiar. I double checked and indeed, it was one of the co-founders of the EYIF I’ve come across over the weekend when researching what the EYIF was. I was surprised that a member of the EYIF could win a place in the InnotourUSA 2012… Apparently I wasn’t the only one with that feeling…
I decided to ask for some transparency (J’accuse!) and basically had 1 simple question: How ethical had the judging of InnotourUSA been?
I still haven’t got an answer to the questions raised but they did at least change the list of winners/participants to the Innotour USA as you can see below.
Anyway, I hope they still have the courtesy to send me an e-mail or, at least, leave me a comment in which they clarify their way of working.
I do believe there should be more of this initiatives. And in fact, there are. But I also believe that they shouldn’t raise as much confusion as this poor example did. One last piece of advice to the EYIF: Please do communicate more efficiently. Choose your channels. If you don’t know how to use them, don’t use them. If you can’t manage them, suppress them.
Have a great innovation tour! Make it happen. For all of us. Thanks.
webnu 
Nice post. Go dude!
Just one hour ago, I received an e-mail of the EYIF:
Dear Mr. De Coninck,
The first edition of Innotour USA revealed extraordinary young innovators and the huge potential that Europe has. We are grateful for that. We would like to thank everyone for their work and efforts put in writing the applications. We are overwhelmed by the high interest which can only give us hope to think that this is just the beginning of the Innotour USA series, which starts in February 2012.
Due to the large number of submissions and the lengthy selection process consisting of rounds of judging by different judges, arbitartion rounds with all the judges, skype interview calls with short-listed candidates and final decisions, the communication suffered delays and we would like to use the opportunity to thank you once again for your patience and understanding. The Innotour USA delegation is now available on http://www.eyif.eu
We thank you for the interest you have shown in Innotour USA and it was with great care that we have studied your application. Unfortunately, we have to inform you that you have not been short listed. We feel sad for you that your efforts have not been rewarded. But we want to clarify emphatically, that this denial is no negative valuation of your effort or skills.
We are looking forward to seeing you further on, on the innovation scene with EYIF, as more opportunities are yet to come.
With Best Wishes for 2012,
EYIF Innovator