The Innovation Engine Podcast

On this episode, we look at how to craft a successful innovation strategy. Among the topics we discuss are why strategy and planning are decidedly not the same thing, how the future impacts strategy and vice versa, and why you have to be comfortable incorporating change into your innovation strategy. Dr. Max McKeown, award-winning author of The Strategy Book and The Innovation Book, joins us to discuss those topics and more. Dr. McKeown works with some of the world’s most successful global brands to help leaders across sectors develop innovative, cultures, products, and services. 

Looking to turn your company into an innovation factory? Scott Anthony, Managing Partner of Innosight, joins us on this week's episode to discuss how to build your company's very own innovation engine. We talk about the 4 component pieces that drive an innovation factory, what the first 90 days of building your innovation engine should look like, and why it's important to kill "zombie projects" that drain valuable time and resources. In addition to serving as Manager Partner at Innosight, Scott is the author of a number of books, including The First Mile: A Launch Manual for Getting Great Ideas Into the Market, The Little Black Book of Innovation, and the Harvard Business Review Single Building A Growth Factory. Scott is a frequent speaker on the topics of innovation and success, having delivered keynote addresses on five different continents. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @ScottDAnthony. 

"Riding the innovation cycle" is the topic of discussion on this week's episode of the podcast. Dr. Christopher Wasden, Executive Director of the Sorenson Center for Discovery & Innovation at the University of Utah, joins us to talk about: Why fast, frequent, frugal failure can be a recipe for innovation successThe types of brain waves necessary for any of us to innovate successfullyWhat to expect from the next wave of innovation in the world of health care.As a global thought leader on Innovation and Digital Health, Dr. Wasden has written and published over 60 articles, book chapters, and reports on the topic. He speaks often on how Innovation and Digital Health are transforming the practice of medicine, the delivery of care, and the creation of an entirely new wellness paradigm. Dr. Wasden is a named inventor on 11 issued patents and has been a leader in 10 different startups, where he developed many of his ideas around the innovation cycle and lifecycle and which he outlines in his forthcoming book, Tension: The Energy of Innovation – How Harnessing Tension Fuels Your Creative Genius.   

On this week’s episode of the podcast we take a look at why it’s important to get past some of the most common myths surrounding creativity in order to drive innovation. Among the topics we discuss are why creativity isn’t merely limited to those with “the creative gene,” the 4 conditions that must be met for creativity to flourish, and why the quest to build a better mousetrap is a mousetrap in and of itself.David Burkus joins us to discuss those topics and many more. David is the author of The Myths of Creativity: The Truth About How Innovative Companies Generate Great Ideas. He is also an assistant professor of management at Oral Roberts University, where he teaches courses on organizational behavior, creativity and innovation, and strategic leadership. David writes regularly for the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, PsychologyToday, and 99U. His writing has also appeared in Fast Company, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and an assortment of author publications. He’s also the founder and host of LDRLB, a podcast that shares insights on leadership, innovation, and strategy.

On this week's episode of the podcast, we look at our collective obsession with "screen-based thinking" and how to get past it. Among the topics we talk about are:Why “There’s an app for that” are the 5 most insidious words in the English language3 principles anyone can follow to create products that don’t force us to interact with yet another screenWhy it's important to establish and understand the difference between User Experience and User Interface.Golden Krishna, author of the recently released design manifesto The Best Interface is No Interface, joins us to discuss all that and more. For more than a year Golden has been at Zappos, where he works with small teams in the company’s research and development labs to "build & explore new opportunities to push one of the world’s greatest customer service companies toward new directions that deliver happiness." Prior to Zappos, Golden served as a Senior Designer at Samsung, where he worked in their innovation lab alongside engineers, industrial designers, and business strategists to create new products and services that could ship within 18-24 months.Show Notes: Follow Golden Krishna on Twitter: @GoldenKrishnaVisit the website for Golden's book: www.nointerface.com/bookVisit Golden’s website: www.GoldenKrishna.com 

Organizing for innovation is the topic of discussion on this week's episode of the podcast. We talk about why corporate innovation is fundamentally broken on a number of levels, what you can do to fix that within your own organization, and what a typical “innovation team” should look like. David Bland joins us this week to discuss those topics and more. David is a Principal at Neo, a “full-stack innovation consulting firm,” where he advises corporations and startups alike on how to create and deliver value to their customers. Prior to Neo, David was a pioneer in lean startup and innovation services at BigVisible, where he worked with Fortune 500 companies to establish entrepreneurial teams within huge companies. He worked with Lean Startup author Eric Ries to start FastWorks at GE and is an author and speaker who helps turn the concepts of lean startup, business model generation, and customer development into actions. You can find him on Twitter and Medium and @DavidJBland. 

On this week’s episode of the podcast we look at innovation and haptic touch. We talk about why touch is a powerful untapped sense, how touch technology may eventually enable entirely new forms of communication, and why you shouldn’t be alarmed to hear that your clothes may soon reach out and touch you.Chris Ullrich, Vice President of User Experience at Immersion Corporation, joins us to talk about these topics and more. Immersion is one of the worldwide leaders in haptic touch technology. At Immersion, Chris is responsible for ensuring that haptic products and technologies designed by the company are highly valued by users, developers, and OEM customers. Since joining Immersion in 2000, Chris has worked across departments to innovate, develop, and bring to market a variety of technologies. He has also directed software research and development in 3-D, directed the medical simulation engineering team, and led the design and development of next-generation surgical instruments. 

Managing innovation is the topic of discussion on this week's podcast. We discuss what network science tells us about corporate hierarchies, how to know what kind of innovation your company is best equipped to pursue, and what “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” means. Greg Satell joins us to talk about these topics and more. Greg's work is published frequently on sites like Forbes.com and InnovationExcellence.com, and in publications like the Harvard Business Review. He also blogs often on issues at the crossroads of media, marketing, and technology at www.DigitalTonto.com. Read Greg's work on Forbes.comRead Greg's work on the Harvard Business Review Read Greg's work on Innovation Excellence.com 

On this week's episode, we discuss why we'll soon find ourselves in the “post-development language” world, what it means when we talk about being in an age of micro-framework systems, and what skill sets will be most important for developers, product managers, marketers, and members of the C-suite to possess 5 years from now. 3Pillar's Adi Chikara joins us to talk about these topics and more. Adi is part of the Advanced Technology Group at 3Pillar Global. In his role with the Advanced Technology Group, Adi is responsible for helping drive 3Pillar’s R&D efforts, providing technical mentorship across the organization, shaping our technology strategy, and executing on technical consulting engagements for clients. Prior to joining 3Pillar, he held key research and consulting roles in European Union-funded research endeavors. In the private sector, he has served in various technical roles at Reuters and product roles at multiple startups. When he’s not creating world-changing products, you can find him at the local motor race tracks breaking lap records.  

Entrepreneur, innovator, and MIT Sloan Fellow Stephanie Rowe joins us on this week's podcast to talk about creating organizational change that lasts. We talk about why it's important that companies be able to implement change successfully at scale, the role of design thinking and human-centered design in bringing about lasting organizational change, and what anyone in the government space should know about affecting change at government organizations. Stephanie Rowe is the founder of the Design Thinking: DC Meetup, which has more than 2000 members with backgrounds in business, design, technology, and beyond. She has more than 20 years of management experience, including 15 years as a Senior Executive at Accenture, where she specialized in managing complex, large-scale transformation initiatives for Fortune 100 companies across multiple industries. Stephanie also spent just over 3 years at the TSA, where she led a complete re-engineering of the passenger screening process and culturally transformed the 50,000-plus TSA security operations workforce.