Caught a great panel on January 12 on the topic of Retail Innovation. Especially wanted to hear Kal Patel, Best Buy’s EVP of strategy, a guy I’d heard great things about. Those folks were right, and I’m happy I got a chance to chat with Kal afterwards. Here’s a look at what he’s about, from a conference called Unlocking Innovation held last September in Minneapolis. In his presentation last week, Kal said ” ‘One-Minute Innovation’ is a book a lot of our employees are writing.” Though a survey found 80% of BBY’s employees think they’re innovating enough, the other 20% think not. My sense is Kal’s focusing on the latter (but probably trying simultaneously to change the thinking of the former). He said constant disruption is the goal at Best Buy, “always playing, experimenting.” Here’s another blogger’s take at what they call “bottom-up innovation” at Best Buy. Kal is definitely driving a lot of energy at this retail powerhouse, and one his favorite things to talk about these days is the Wiki they set up for their employees — one of the first major companies to do so. Any employee can set up a web page. Turns out the guy who championed it was Robert Stephens, the founder of Best Buy’s Geek Squad unit. It’s still in the early, experimental stage, another BBY manager told me, but employees are getting into it. One set up an online “Best Buy Acronym Dictionary,” which will surely help new employees get up to speed! (What big company couldn’t use that?) The entire panel discussion was fascinating. I also met the moderator, Mary Meehan, a co-founder of locally based trend-watcher Iconoculture, and Chuck Mooty, the CEO of one of the better known brand icons in these parts, Dairy Queen. Hey, now I’m only one apart from Warren Buffet!