The Innovation Engine Podcast

Physician, healthcare executive, and author Dr. John Kenagy joins us on this week’s episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast to discuss using Adaptive Design as a means to fuel innovation efforts. Adaptive Design is Dr. Kenagy’s method for business improvement that puts the power to make change in the hands of those closest to the customer. Adaptive Design was influenced by tenets of the Toyota Production System and Clayton Christensen’s teachings on disruptive innovation. On this episode of the podcast, we discuss how businesses of all stripes can use Adaptive Design to drive innovation, how a life-changing experience led to the formation of Adaptive Design, and the 5 characteristics of great adaptive leaders.

Author and journalist Warren Berger joins us for the 26th episode of "The Innovation Engine" podcast to discuss the transformative power asking the right questions can have for businesses. We take a look at the five most important questions any business leader should know the answer to and discuss examples of billion dollar companies that were borne from seeking answers to seemingly simple questions. Warren's most recent book, A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas, was named one of Business Insider’s “20 Best Business Books to Read This Summer.” It has received acclaim from NY Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Daniel Pink and pioneer of the Lean Startup movement Eric Ries. Warren’s thoughts on innovation and related topics can be found in notable publications like Wired, the New York Times, Fast Company, the Harvard Business Review, and the Wall Street Journal. He’s also the author of CAD Monkeys, Dinosaur Babies and T-Shaped People: Inside the World of Design Thinking and How It Can Spark Creativity and Innovation and Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your World. 

On the 25th episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast, we discuss the future of software and how it will continue to be the driving force behind innovative new products and services. We look at how software is driving results in industries we never could’ve foreseen, the impact software will have on the next generation of smart products, and talk about trends that were being discussed at the recent Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen. David DeWolf, Founder and CEO of 3Pillar Global, joins us to discuss these topics and more. He shares his thoughts on some of the trends prevalent in the industry like digital currencies, the Internet of Things, and the coming boom of big data that will enable entirely new applications, products, and services. David is passionate about software products, entrepreneurship, and principled leadership. His thought leadership has appeared in publications like Fast Company, Pando Daily, ZDNet, and many more. In 2012, David was named one of SmartCEO Magazine’s “Future 50.” In 2011, he was recognized by the Washington Business Journal as one of “40 Under 40” who are Washington, D.C.’s brightest young business leaders. 

Lecturer, author, and cloud computing expert Dr. Timothy Chou joins us for the 24th episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast to discuss how advancements in cloud computing and the dramatically different economics will fuel the next generation of data-intensive software applications. We also look at how the cloud has already changed the way many current business and consumer applications are packaged, sold, hosted, and maintained. Dr. Chou has been a pioneer in the enterprise's move to the cloud for the better part of 2 decades. From 1999 to 2005 he served as President of Oracle On Demand, who delivered Oracle business applications as a cloud service, using modern terminology. For the last 8 years he has been a lecturer at Stanford University, where he created Stanford’s widely acclaimed Cloud Computing course, CS309A. He’s also taken on the role as a member of the board of two new application cloud service companies: Burstorm, a provider of CAD applications for cloud architects and Cloudbook, a provider of storytelling software. He has appeared in numerous publications, including Forbes and The Economist, as well as delivered keynote speeches on cloud computing on six continents. 

Author, investor, and innovation expert Whitney Johnson joins us to discuss how listeners can drive disruptive innovation both professionally and personally. On this episode, we discuss the meaning of disruptive innovation, the importance of taking market risk versus competitive risk, why it’s important to fight entitlement within corporations, and much more. Whitney Johnson is the author of Dare, Dream, Do; Remarkable Things happen When You Dare & Dream. She co-launched Rose Park Advisors, an investment firm that had $75 million under management when she left in 2012, with innovation guru Clayton Christensen. Whitney was named one of Inc. Magazine’s “12 People to Follow on Twitter in 2012,” Business Insider’s “54 Smart Thinkers to Follow” and Huffington Post’s “100 Business, Leadership and Technology People to Follow on Twitter.” You can find her online at whitneyjohnson.com, and on Twitter at @johnsonwhitney.

Innovation and the future of mobile is the topic of discussion on the 22nd episode of "The Innovation Engine" podcast. Among the topics we tackle are what the "post-mobile" world will look like; how Apple, Google, and others are shaping the mobile experience of the future; and the next frontiers of mobile after health and fitness. Joining us to discuss those topics and more is Horace Dediu. Horace is a noted Apple analyst, a prolific writer, a student of innovation pioneer Clayton Christensen, and since 2010 the proprietor of Asymco. Horace writes often about innovation-related topics at Asymco.com, and along with Moises Chiullan he hosts the Critical Path, a talk show contemplating the causality of success and failure in the evolving story of mobile computing and related industries. 

On the 21st episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast, we look at the connection between innovation and customer experience. Among the topics we discuss are how to create the optimal customer experience in a world where interactions between company and consumer increasingly occur online; what customer experience means for companies in the services space, which account for 80% of the American economy; and why it is so important for any company looking to achieve long-term success to leave a lasting impression with their customers. Jeneanne Rae, Founder and CEO of Motiv Strategies and a widely recognized expert on customer experience and services innovation, joins us as this week's guest. Bloomberg Businessweek named Jeneanne one of its “Magnificent Seven Innovation Gurus” and “Best Leaders of the Year” based on her groundbreaking work in the study of service innovation. Jeneanne writes frequently for the Harvard Business Review, and her work has also appeared in publications like Design Management Review and Fast Company. Over her more than 20 year career she has worked with some of the most beloved and well-respected companies both large and small, to help deliver meaningful innovation in their respective markets.

Innovation pioneer Blair Miller joins us for the 20th episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast to discuss how companies can keep their product pipeline full of innovative offerings. Among the topics we discuss are how to keep a steady flow of innovative ideas flowing, the metrics that any company needs to track when launching new products to the market, and learning how to have the foresight to know when it's time to put existing products out to pasture.Blair Miller has served numerous Fortune 500 companies since founding Blair Miller Innovation in 1990. Companies with which he has worked include Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, Dupont, Deloitte, and Kodak. Among Blair's most notable contributions to the innovation field is the creation and publication of his one-of-a-kind diagnostic tool Foursight: The Breakthrough Thinking Profile. Foursight has offered thousands of individuals and teams the ability to see how their personal approaches to problem solving affects their creative output.

We are in a day and age where Gartner's so-called Nexus of Forces - cloud, mobile, social, and big data - is fundamentally changing the way we interact with the world around us and standing traditional industries on their heads. Shubber Ali, VP of Strategic Innovation at SalesForce, joins us on the 19th episode of "The Innovation Engine" to discuss some of the ways this "Nexus of Forces" is disrupting business as we know it, and how to harness this sea change for competitive advantage.  

Renowned technology futurist and best-selling author Daniel Burrus joins us for the 18th episode of "The Innovation Engine" podcast to talk about why anticipating the future can be the difference between companies that stand the test of time and those that collapse over time. On this episode of the podcast, we discuss the difference between Hard Trends - trends that will happen - and Soft Trends - trends that might happen, how you can harness that knowledge to anticipate cyclical business trends and opportunities, and why you're sometimes better off skipping your company's biggest problem rather than solving it.Daniel Burrus is the author of six books, including the #1 Amazon bestesller Flash Foresight: How to See the Invisible and Do the Impossible. He started Burrus Research 31 years ago and is one of the most popular Influencers on LinkedIn, with more than 370,000 followers of his profile page as of this writing.