Inside Outside Innovation

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Manbir Kaur, Author of the new book Get Your Next Promotion. Manbir and I explore what it takes for leaders to navigate today's changing work environment, the power of a growth mindset, and how you can set yourself up for success in the new year.Inside Outside Innovation is a podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Manbir KaurBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Manbir Kaur. She's a techno banking, corporate professional turned executive coach and author of the new book Get Your Next Promotion. Welcome to the show. Manbir Kaur: Hey Brian, thank you so much for inviting me. I'm so glad to be here with you today. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you as well. We were introduced by a mutual friend and she said that we needed to connect because you've helped many folks in your practice kind of navigate this new world of work. And we thought it'd be good to get you on the show. One of the key areas we're focusing on in 2021 for the show is some of the tools and techniques and mindset that individuals can use to become more innovation competent. And so, let's start there. Let's talk about innovation and how you got involved in your practice on coaching folks around this topic of innovation. Manbir Kaur: I started my career as you said in banking, moved to the FinTech world. And in the FinTech world, basically, I got exposed to the word innovation because as you know, tech world needs innovation all the time. And 10 years back, I moved to coaching. I got intrigued towards human behaviors, human mindset. Behaviors and mindset are two things which I really, really got attracted to. And that's how, you know, I transitioned to coaching side. So now it's been 25 years of working with people, including corporate and coaching. How I got involved into this is basically as that I got intrigued by human behaviors. And when we talk about human behavior, every day is new. Every day, especially in the world, every day is new. So, we need to innovate daily what's happening in our own life. How do we have conversations? How do we do stuff with other people. So that's what, you know, for me, innovation starts from there.Brian Ardinger: I agree. And everybody I think is facing it obviously more and more 2020 gave everybody a kick to the gut when it comes to innovation. I think people realize that it's part of the core competency that they've got to start building. So, you have a book, called Get Your Next Promotion and give me an overview of the book and what can our audience expect to get from it from reading that?Manbir Kaur: So, this is my second book, Brian, which launched in this year 2020. You know what happens is basically individuals, especially high-performing individuals, high-potential individuals, leaders, they get stuck at mid-level. And their point of view is I'm not getting promoted because other person who's not that capable is getting promoted because of politics because of something is happening there, which I'm not understanding. I'm performing at my best, but still are not getting promoted.So that's individual standpoint of view, but organizations have another point of view. They are looking for leadership pipeline. They're looking for right individuals. And they feel people are good performers, but they're not good leaders to execute things, to have strategies, to have innovation, to have the right mindset at that level, which they are expecting.And I found that there is a huge scar between these two perspectives. So, I wrote this book, get your next promotion to bridge this gap. To help people understand that, you know, organizations are looking for right people and you have the capabilities, you have high potential. What else you can do to basically bridge that gap?Because career is no more a ladder now, right. We can't expect, you know, manager, senior manager, director, blah, blah, blah. No, that doesn't exist. And after pandemic, that word is not going to exist now. Right. Or it is going to be flatter. So, coming back to the book, the book bridges the gap of expectations from organization standpoint, that, you know, what are they expecting for senior positions and that this book also, you know, it's not only my perspective of things. It's not only my research. The book has 10 stories of 10 CEOs across the board. They bring in their life journeys, they bring in their learnings. It's basically, you know, I mean, one coach and 10 mentors helping you to bridge that gap. Brian Ardinger: Through your research and through your coaching practice, what are some of the skillsets and mindsets that tend to get the people promoted to a leadership position or what stands out nowadays, specifically around, you know, the changes that we're seeing?Manbir Kaur: That's a good question, Brian. What helps people get promoted? At certain level, especially at mid-level, people get promoted because of the good work they have been doing. You know, they have been rated five by five, four of five and or something like that. And they have been getting promoted. After a certain level, it's more of a mindset. It's more of an attitude, which we can call it leadership skills in some way, but I prefer to call it, you know, kind of a leadership mindset. We have the words like agility, innovation, whatever, basically it all relates to the mindset. How do I come across as a leader? How do I take people along? What kind of conversations am I having?Do people trust me? Do I come across as an authentic leader? All these things to actually help you getting promoted and even your visibility. You might be thinking, yes, yes, yes. You know, I'm doing this. But do clients see me as a stakeholder. That, you know, Manbir is doing all these things. What's your perception in the organization? Your perception, your branding, your conversations, your emotional intelligence, how people perceive you, your trust, authenticity, all these things help you and over and above the work you have been doing.Brian Ardinger: I think that's one of the key focuses as we get into more of an innovative world is the fact that it's not just about your ability to execute on what you've done in the past, but really to explore and open to navigating whatever is new from there. Manbir Kaur: And one more point, you know, as you said, it's not only execution, you know, as you said, and aligning that strategy to your team also. That is also a big point when you get promoted to that level, which you are looking at you know, from mid-level to senior level. So, aligning your team to that bigger picture. And for that again, you need, a mindset.Brian Ardinger: That's a great point. So obviously getting a promotion that, there's a lot of individual skills and mindset that's required, but you mentioned it's really a team sport. Let's talk a little bit a...

On this week's episode, Inside Outside’s Susan Stibal sits down with RSM's Deputy Chief Economist Kevin Depew. This episode was recorded live at the IO2020 New Innovators' Summit on Oct. 22, 2020. Susan talks to Kevin about actionable insights for a turbulent economy.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Kevin Depew, RSMSusan Stibal: I want to introduce Kevin Depew. Economic trends have been on a roller coaster ride and Kevin will provide actionable insights to help you plan for the future. He is the Deputy Chief Economist and Industry Eminence Program Leader at RSM. Kevin provides RSM's clients with macro economic and industry perspectives and insights they need to successfully manage their middle market businesses. He is also an Emmy-award winning writer and producer. So we look forward to hearing more about that. Prior to joining RSM, Kevin worked in economics for Bloomberg, Dorsey Wright & Associates, and PaineWebber and A.G. Edwards. So thanks for being here, Kevin.Kevin Depew: Thanks very much, Susan. Just so you know, the Emmy was not anything to do with economics. We did have a show on Fox that ran. It was a little bit like the daily show of finance. We had about 18 episodes and then it was canceled the day before we were nominated for the Emmy. That kind of derailed those aspirations right out the gate.So I'm going to share just a couple of slides, then go through and talk about where we are. When we talk about the economy recovering and I see in some of the Q & A there, some of you had similar ideas to what we have at RSM about so much being depends on the pandemic. But when we're talking about recovery, I thought it would be useful to go back before the pandemic and talk about what kind of economy we are recovering into. So, this is a slide from, I think we were doing road shows in February last time I was out somewhere.  I think maybe it was in Nashville in late February. And so we had just started to see the appearance of COVID-19 on the West Coast and had not really moved at that point to, at least as far as we knew, to the East coast.But these were our forecast, what we were anticipating for 2020, pre-pandemic sub 2% growth in 2019, so that's suboptimal. Anytime you're below 2% growth, then it doesn't take very much to teeter the economy into a recession. So that's one of the reasons, that's kind of the threshold we look at for being a positive economy versus one that's not really firing on all cylinders.Our forecast for 2020, prior to the pandemic was for continued deceleration to one and a half percent. And really the economy has been characterized for much of the past decade by a couple of things. The first an economy that's being propped up by the consumer. So what we mean by that, the consumer of course accounts for about 70% of economic growth, but we've really seen weak fixed business investment. Capital expenditures being a drag on the economy, something that was really restraining growth. So everything was sort of in the hands of the consumer. The good news about that is we had 3.6% unemployment at that point. So we had a lot of people in the workforce nearing probably full employment. Of course, things have changed now. Just a couple of risks to note, at the time we saw the potential for fiscal policy or administrative policy error, so if the administration re-escalated the trade war with China or migrated the trade war to the European Union or the UK, that was a potential risk. And also a potential error on the part of the Federal Reserve. So for example, if they raise interest rates too quickly.At that point, based on what we do, we viewed the COVID-19 epidemic at that point, not quite a pandemic, as really a liquidity event. So something that could have the potential to derail the economy in the short term, but once we get past it, then we'd go back to where we were before. Even though it is a pandemic it's been far worse than what any of us anticipated. There still is the potential that we return to the same type of economy we had prior to the pandemic. But as you can see, the forecast for that type of economy was not quite robust. And the longer this persists, the more we have the potential for long-term economic damage to happen. It's why fiscal policy is so critical right now. So just a couple of things to talk about in terms of the recovery. You know, we really had a supply shock, a demand shock, and a financial shock all occurring at the same time. So any one of those in a sub 2% economy, would be enough to turn the economy into recession.We had all three at the same time. So we had what were essentially depression like shocks. You see the first quarter minus 5% growth. The second quarter astonishingly horrible, minus 31% growth. And then our forecast for the third quarter, a sharp rebound at 33.5% and then moderating in the fourth quarter at 2.25%.And I'll talk about that moderation just a moment, the reasons for that household consumption remains risk due to the lack of fiscal policy support and we'll get into those numbers in just a moment.  The major risk to the economy is, as some of you noted in the chat portion for this, is a second wave of the pandemic, which we seem to be on the cusp of right now. If we look around the globe and we see what's happening in Europe, then I think it's very likely that we will see something that looks more like a second way in coming weeks.In terms of policy response, the initial response and a catastrophic economic shutdown, was very robust. You had the Federal Reserve learned their mistakes from the great recession and acted very quickly. And even with the polarization that we have in DC, the fiscal policy, the Paycheck Protection Program, the pandemic unemployment, those things happened relatively quickly when you consider where we are now. Where we're past the stop gap measures that were designed to move the economy through very dire circumstances. And so now we're at the point where fiscal policy is needed to provide economic stimulus. So going back to the spring, that was really crisis management, making sure that people who suddenly lost all income had the ability to purchase food, the ability to take care of their families, even though you've had since horrific labor market numbers. Now we're at the point where through partial recovery, we need stimulus to get over the hump to keep the long-term damage from impacting the economy. The reality, and I think that you probably all are aware of this based on what you were posting in the chat prior, is that until there's a vaccine or multiple major therapeutic breakthroughs, we just cannot anticipate the whole problem.  You hear a lot these days about the shape of the recovery. Will it be a V-shape, will it be a W or an L? The most recent one that has been making the rounds has been a K shape recovery. And what's meant by that is in line with some of the things that you've probably been talking about the past couple of days at the Innovation Summit. There are people and businesses on that upper K path that have largely gone through the pandemic relatively unscathed.So you think all ...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Martin Babinec, Co-founder of TriNet and author of the new book More Good Jobs. Martin and I talk about the importance of community dynamics, and the creation of new businesses and the changing trends, that are affecting building startup communities outside the Valley. Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Martin BabinecBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host Brian Ardinger and as always we have another amazing guest. Martin Babinec is the co-founder of TriNet and author of a new book called More Good Jobs: An entrepreneurs action plan to create change in your community. Welcome Martin.Martin Babinec: Thanks Brian. Glad to be here. Brian Ardinger: I wanted to have you on the show. As a lot of our audience knows, part of the stuff we talk about in innovation, it's not just about startup innovation or corporate innovation, it's about community innovation. And your book around how do you create jobs and how do you create new innovations outside of the traditional tech hubs, was quite interesting to me and obviously up my alley, as far as what we've been doing here in the Midwest as well. You're an entrepreneurial by nature. A few years ago, you started TriNet back in Silicon Valley and grew that to a, a major company, but you've got some interesting things about how you did that. Not only did you create it in Silicon Valley, but you commuted back and forth from your residence in New York. So, take us back to the early days of starting a company from scratch in Silicon Valley, and then we'll eventually progress to talking more about the book. Martin Babinec: I'm a very lucky guy because when I began my entrepreneurial journey in 1988 and living in Silicon Valley at the time, I didn't realize how valuable it would be to be starting a company in what would be considered the most entrepreneur supporting place on the planet.I had no appreciation for it at the time. It was a struggle. And when Tri-Net began, since in the late eighties, you couldn't say the words HR and outsourcing in the same sentence and have people understand what you were talking about. We're talking pre worldwide web. So, we didn't have the connectivity that we take so for granted today. And like most entrepreneurs, I began with only the vision of trying to create a small business. I was tired of working in a larger organization. I wanted to be more in control of my destiny. And that's a very common thing that prompts people to start companies. But what I did not understand is that the very nature of what we were creating a TriNet would depend on economies of scale.And so as an entrepreneur, once I began trying to start this business and sell to other small businesses as a business to business kind of approach, we were not successful. And we were on the verge of going out of business, when I kind of made the decision to really do something counterintuitive. Even though this is an economies of scale kind of business, it required having lots of scale for it to be successful. It was waning our direction towards saying we're only going to sell to emerging world technology communities. It really changed my life and outlook as an entrepreneur. And then became for TriNet to over the entire 20 years of, as the CEO, that was the focus of our business initially in Silicon Valley and then on, from, as we expanded to other markets, still retaining that very tight focus. And by doing that, it brought me into the world of Silicon Valley in ways that made me appreciate how important was to get support from the community. And it wasn't till I moved my family from Silicon Valley to my hometown in upstate New York, which is more like the Midwest in terms of culture. All right. It's 210 miles from New York City and a small community. And I spent 10 years commuting from my Mohawk Valley home in Little Falls, New York. Back to Silicon Valley while still running the business. And it wasn't supposed to be that long, but that's how it turned out. And over that 10 years of commuting, I really began to think hard about the difference between my two valleys and Mohawk Valley and Silicon Valley.And that's what prompted then this journey to, how do we take the assets in a place like upstate New York or in a lot of places in the middle of the country that have a lot of intellectual capital that is underutilized. And how important is it of a supportive community to help entrepreneurs start and grow companies? And that's ultimately what led to the start of our nonprofit Upstate Venture Connect, which in turn led to writing this book More Good Jobs. Brian Ardinger: This conversation has started about the rise of the rest and startup communities outside the Valley and that. What do you think started some of that conversation early on to even think about the fact that companies can be created outside the traditional tech hubs and that there was a yearning and a desire to actually create these ecosystems?Martin Babinec: National recognition through Steve Case's Rise of the Rest was illuminating for some, but for me, it goes back much earlier. As I talk about in the book, in 1995, my good friend, Brad Feld moved from Cambridge, Massachusetts, a hotbed of startup activity in the nineties, he goes to Boulder, Colorado. And at that point in time, Boulder was not a place VCs were flocking to, to find the next big thing. All right. Nice college town, but not a whole lot of action.And here, even by 1995, TriNet's businesses is a hundred percent focused on emerging tech. Brad Feld moves to Boulder and not much going on there, but I decided to open a TriNet office just because Brad Feld moved there. That's how much confidence I had that this was going to be a game changer. And lo and behold, those people that follow Brad Feld and are aware of his book Startup Communities that talks about how did Boulder transform to a community that then rose in the ranks to be second in the country on the metric of venture capital investment per capita, trailing only the San Francisco Bay area. I mean, how did that happen in a period of call it 10, 15 years, which is not a long period of time when we think about major transformation of a local economy. So I had a ringside seat and watched that unfold. And meanwhile, still growing the company and it was long before I started the journey of trying to learn from Brad's experience and the experience of TriNet in many markets where there was lots of startup activities since that was the focus of our company. I was taking in a lot of what I saw elsewhere and all the times thinking about someday, somehow, you know, if I had the time and more resources, I could put into it, what could I, as one guy do to help bring about some transformational change in an area that I really love? Not just in my hometown, but more broadly, the more difficult challenge of how could we leverage the assets that are dispersed geographically across the broader region? Because that for me is what made ...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Ty Montague co-founder and CEO of co:collective and author of True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business. Ty and I talk about his career in advertising and his pivot to a new framework for how companies should be approaching a changing landscape, customers, competitors, talent, and more.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses.  It's time to get started.Interview Transcript with Ty Montague of co:collectiveBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Ty Montague. He is the co-founder and CEO of co:collective, which is a creative and strategic transformation company. Serves clients like Google and YouTube and IBM and MoMA. And the list goes on and on. Ty's also been named one of the 50 most influential creatives in the past 20 years. One of the top 10 creative directors in America, as well as the top 10 creative minds in business. Ty, you also wrote a book called True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business. So welcome to the show Ty Ty Montague: Brian. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me. Brian Ardinger: Well, I was super excited to have you, because I want to talk about the transformation and the things that you've seen in this whole world of advertising. If I understand correctly, you've had an illustrious career in the advertising world, but about five or 10 years ago, you made a pivot from that world of classic advertising. And so maybe we can start there. Can you tell us a little bit about that shift from what you were doing in the past, in the advertising space, and where you are now? Ty Montague: I used to call myself a storyteller for businesses, helping them craft their story, and then tell it using paid media 30 and 60 second television commercials primarily.  But about 15 years ago, I started to notice that it was getting harder to tell stories using traditional paid media. And I also noticed what seemed to me to be a new kind of company being born. These companies had a story, but they weren't telling it using paid media, they were actually doing it in their customer experience.First one that I remember noticing because I was still in advertising at the time was Starbucks. You know, there's a moment that all of us I'm sure had where you wake up one morning and suddenly there's a Starbucks on every street corner in America, but there was no Starbucks advertising anywhere. And I couldn't figure out, I was like all other things being equal, right, the Starbucks way of building a business has got to be more efficient. And so I looked into it, and I started collecting lists of companies that seem to be operating in this new way. And about 10 years ago, once I realized that they actually did operate in a very different way, I decided to leave traditional advertising. I was the co-president and chief creative officer of a big agency called J. Walter Thompson in North America. At the time, my partner and I decided to leave and launch co:collective. And what we do is we help more traditional companies begin to function in this new way. Brian Ardinger: Talk a little bit about that thesis. Can you unpack this quest that you see companies going through and who's good at it and let's start there.Ty Montague: We have two theses at co:. First to be successful today and increasingly in the future, companies need to be pursuing a higher purpose. We call it a quest. It is something that transcends merely creating shareholder value. Making money is a great result of having a quest, but it's not the point of having a quest.There needs to be generosity to a good quest. It needs to be something that inspires your customers and your employees to engage with and come along and try to achieve it with you. And so, we help leadership teams define and align on this quest, this higher purpose. And then we help companies actually enact that quest.In other words, the quest isn't a communication strategy. It's an action strategy for the company. You take your quest and you put it to work in your customer experience. Defining innovative experiences that you make to make your quest real and tangible for people inside and outside your company. And 10 years ago, we had no idea whether that idea would float at all. And fingers crossed. It's a much more popular idea today than it was 10 years ago. And we're excited to see the world pet in our direction.Brian Ardinger: Let's talk a little bit about framework. Can any company embark on a quest and what's that framework to do so?Ty Montague: We have a process that we've developed. It's been iterative. As you mentioned, I wrote a book and published it in 2013 that's really about the process. And it hasn't changed massively since then, but there've been a few tweaks to it. So, we basically look for four truths for a company as we look for inputs into how to develop your quest. We look for a truth about the protagonist and this is all story language, right?Ultimately, we consider the protagonist to be the company itself. So, what is your true state of play today? And we do a lot of desk research. We do a lot of internal interviewing at these companies to define, like, what is the truth about your current state today? We then look for a truth about the stage.And by that we mean the stage that the story is playing out on, what's going on in culture. What's going on in your competitive set, what's going on in technology that you need to pay attention to. We look for truth about the participants, the people that you actually want to serve in your business. Your customers would be another way to put it. We think of them as participants though, because if you're on a good quest, they want to come along with you and help you achieve it. And then we look for a truth about the antagonist. So, it's not enough and know what you're for. We believe you need to know what you're against. What is the dragon that you're trying to slay when you get out of bed every day? And a good antagonist can be extremely motivating. And then we take those inputs, and we work collaboratively with the client to develop their quest, usually with the whole leadership team. Often, including the CEO. From there, we take that quest and we put it to action both in again, four quadrants offer, your identity - so the products that you make and then, you know, your identity including communications, your community -internally like internal stakeholders in the company, and then capabilities. Because if you have a good quest, a good quest is ambitious over time it may require you to add capabilities to the company, which can be done through acquisition or by hiring new kinds of people. Brian Ardinger: Is this something that pretty much any company in any industry can go through and take part in? Or a...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Xiaoyin Qu. Xiaoyin is the founder of Run The World, the new virtual events platform startup. This interview took place at our IO2020 New Innovators' Summit in October. Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front-row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started. Interview Transcript with Xiaoyin Qu, Founder of Run The WorldBrian Ardinger:  My name's Brian Ardinger. I'm Director of Innovation at Nelnet and Founder of Inside Outside Innovation. And I wanted to have Xiaoyin on, obviously, as I started trying to think about what we’re going to do with this particular event now that COVID hit and we weren't going to be able to have it live. I started looking at a lot of different platforms out there and I ran into Run The World and Xiaoyin and I was really impressed with not only her, but what she's pulled together in a very short amount of time. And so, I figured I'd invite her to the conference and expose her to what we're building on this particular platform and give her an opportunity to showcase what they're doing and tell you the story of what it's like as an early-stage founder, to go from seven failed ideas, to raising $15 million in the middle of a pandemic and launching and scaling and building a business.So, with that Xiaoyin Qu is the founder of Run The World. She used to work at Facebook and Instagram as a product manager, she was an MBA at Stanford before she decided to start Run The World. And went out and raised $15 million, I believe, from Andreessen Horowitz and a number of other folks. With that, I will turn it over to you to give your story.Xiaoyin Qu: Yeah, thank you so much for having me and thank you so much for coming to Run The World. I'm Xiaoyin, the founder and CEO of Run The World. You mentioned one fun fact. I actually didn't finish my degree at Sanford. I dropped out after a year, to start Run The World. It was actually around July last year. We started the company.Initially the idea came because my mom was a doctor in China. She still is a doctor, and she has never been to an international conference before, until last year. So, she had an opportunity to fly to Chicago. And that was a great experience. She met another doctor from Dubai. Turns out they share the same, like rare patient case, but because she's from China, it's really hard for her to get visa.She had to fly to Beijing just to get visa and it's getting unpredictable because Trump has a new policy, you know, every now and then. Basically, it's just really hard for her to travel all of that and really expensive. So, she told me that she doesn't think herself can make it to the next conference. You know, even though that was a great experience.So, the original idea was really like, how can I help my mom? And meet other doctors like her, if she cannot really travel herself. So, we figured the only way it will be, we have to like digitize the whole experiences, especially the social part, so that my mom can meet other doctors.Obviously at that time was before COVID, so saying that you have an online event was consider stupid because people thought, Oh, I'm going to fly to Vegas for fun. My company's paying for it. You know, why do I have to do this online? Doesn't really make any sense. So we do have sell pretty hard, but we actually then decided to run our own event to see if people can actually show up.So at the very beginning, I am a product manager. I knew a lot of product managers. I just got a bunch of product managers from Google and Facebook. When we did our first PM conference, I was the organizer back then. We. just wanted to see if people will buy the ticket to attend it.  We just promoted in some Facebook groups and it turns out in a week. We sold like 300 tickets in like two weeks. The people who bought the ticket are not people necessarily from Silicon Valley. Those are people from 20 different countries in 20 different States. And by that time, we didn't have anything still. We hack around like Zoom and Slack and like even Brian, it was a jaunty experiences, but people like it because they couldn't get it elsewhere. You know, they couldn't have access to other people elsewhere, but it was still pretty broken. You have to share like six different links. At the right time, you know, at least we proved the concept. And then we, that's when we started raising from Andreessen was October last year. And then obviously when we launched, it was February, March time this year, that was our alpha version. And we immediately saw a lot of demand and interest. So yeah, so now we kind of have around 45 people in the company now across three times, Europe, Asia, and US, and we had around six people at the beginning of the year. So, it's kind of been crazy, trying to scale a team and hiring everybody. So. Brian Ardinger: I can attest to that. I mean, when I was looking for different platforms out there, I think I got to you guys really early. And I think what I was most impressed with is you said, well, here's your roadmap. You were very transparent with here's what we're building and where we're going with this. And then every week I'd go to the next demo and find the next platform feature that was put into it.And so, the ability to move that fast was pretty interesting to me. One of the things that you wrote about in a LinkedIn piece, your story and that. And you talked about how as a founder, you iteratively mapped out different ideas. And I think you said that you had seven failed ideas before you came upon this particular one. Can you talk a little bit about that journey of looking at ideas, iteratively, figuring out if you're on the right path, and then eventually getting to the path where you're on right now? Xiaoyin Qu: When I first wanted to start a company, it was probably a year before that. I mean, I kind of want to start a company even when I was a Facebook. And so, it kind of took me, I will say, in total of a year, to try a bunch of different ideas to see which one I'm interested in. I would say like, there's like seven ideas and as I tried more and more, I think I'm getting better and better. And just engaging if the idea makes sense or not. But the first idea was I still think that's a good idea. I just, I thought at that time, mental health was a huge problem. Have a lot of friends, who've got pretty stressed out, burnout at work. And so, we're just thinking what if we can have some kind of an AI system that will help people whenever they want to talk to somebody, you know, there's some kind of AI system, they can talk to them.That was kind of the intention of the idea. And then I guess what we did is we tried to figure it out, like I've no idea how people like with depression or anxiety, so we basically read some books and are trying to build something, and then we thought, you know, when you're anxious, or when you're depressed, you just want to hear certain things.And as soon as we tell you how to think, then that will work. So, then we try a bunch of different things. We were trying to build some kind of bot. Then as the more we delve into that...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Nahia Orduna, Author of Your Digital Reinvention: A Practical Guide for Discovering New Opportunities and Finding Your Place in the Future of Work. Nahia and I talk about the journey of reinvention and her agile sprint framework for how to practically work through the process, from inspiration to execution. Let's get started. Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses.Interview Transcript with Nahia OrdunaBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Nahia Orduna. She's actually calling from Munich. Welcome. Nahia Orduna: Happy to be here, Brian. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you. Now, you are the author of a book called Your Digital Reinvention: A Practical Guide for Discovering New Opportunities and Finding Your Place in the Future of Work. You're also a Senior Manager in Analytics and Digital Integration at Vodafone. You're one of the leaders of the women in big data organization. I'm so excited to have you to talk a lot about what you're seeing when it comes to digital disruption. As everybody knows, the world has changed quite a bit. And we, I think are all now struggling with that whole idea of what do we have to do to better prepare ourselves for this new world. Nahia Orduna: During the last years I've been talking like industry forums about the future of work, which are skills we need to remain competitive. I've been also coaching people to find their place in their digital workplace. And we have higher reputation institutions like the World Economic Forum telling us that by 2022, more than half of us will need to have a significant upskilling and reskilling or that in 2018, they said by 2032 to 35 million jobs will be displaced, but over 150 million jobs will appear. And of course, now it's like 2020, a global pandemic has accelerated all this digital future.We were talking about...we are forced to builds new ways of interacting of working and learning. And we always hear this thing of like, yeah, every crisis is also an opportunity. How do you put this into practice? This can be a very difficult transition if you're not proficient in this digital environment.I created a Blueprint to help people get better digital skills. I put it like for free on my website in May, and then a lot of people were downloading it, downloading it. And then I thought, well, I got to do this blueprint. I got to bring it to the next level. So, I actually started meeting some industry experts that I know. I got testimonials from them. That their tricks to get re-mentioned. I edit these and I published the book in September.So, it's basically the purpose of this book is to help people to remain themselves, given the current environment and crisis. I truly believe that the world will be a better place if we all use our talents and our abilities. So, putting together my expertise, the expertise of industry experts, bring in practical examples. Overall, the book is the blueprint for anybody who wants to thrive in this digital world. Brian Ardinger: Let's dig into that a little bit. You have these five sprints that you have to think through as far as you have to first be inspired and then take direction and learning and that. Talk us through a little bit about the methodology.Nahia Orduna: That's the thing, like, what is remain? Remain cannot be something that I say, okay, tonight, I'm going to remain myself, but tomorrow I met a new expert, right? It's a journey. And a journey is like from the moment you get inspired that you look into a travel catalog and you think. Look, there is a nice place in Maldives or in Nepal or in California, that the more you get inspired to the moment that you are already in your destination and sharing pictures with a wall, Hey, look, I'm here.  Do you want to do this journey as well? It's a journey and every journey needs a map, right? So, these sprints are the map. And therefore, the sprints come from my background from Agile. Like we always look at the sprints, but yes sprinting in a time box, for example, like usually two weeks where you're focusing on the area. So, either one that somebody says, okay, I'm going to get inspired tonight. It should be like at least two weeks to make an exercise, to read interviews, and to think how you get inspired. And only when you are ready, you can go to the next sprint. That's the idea of the sprints of how the exercise is done.  And there are effective sprints. One is Inspiration, there is Direction, the other is Learning. There is another Networking. Finally, the last one is Share. Brian Ardinger: So, you mentioned Inspiration. You've got to obviously recognize the fact that, Hey, I need to reinvent myself. Things are changing. And so that inspiration is partly to figure out what am I good at?  And some of the skill sets that I should be either learning about and that. Or is it more from the standpoint of like, I want to work in this particular area, I want to go down this path. I want to change my life. Nahia Orduna: So, Inspiration is the first sprint. And it's how you discover new trends. What is happening?  Your area of interest. This is, for example, as I mentioned with that trip is when you get the travel catalog and you discover new places, new trendy places, you didn't know it exists there. So it is, this two weeks is not yet about thinking about your own strengths yet. It's about researching new trends. For example, what is your area of interest. In my mind, you are like a marketing professional. One of the successes is to up your area of interest with words like digital transformation, the future of work. Yes. Google them. If you start looking like Future of Marketing in 2025. If you start like Marketing Big Data. So, you will start looking into new information that you didn't know. There's got to be if you're in marketing, if you're in HR, if you're in finance or for example, if you passionate on sports and you want to do something with a sport, or you want to start out with sports, just start looking how big data and digital transformation is effecting the sports, because everything is effective. And then read what is there? So, there are different exercises about things you can watch, the lifetime report. And also, in the end, what I also say is that you have to write like a journal, like a journey journal to write everything that resonates with you. Think about the new ideas. Take two weeks to really get inspired and get those ideas in and write down what resonates with you. Brian Ardinger: And seem to follow that curiosity. Being OK with going down a particular path that you're not comfortable with, but give you some inspiration to, say yeah I really liked that area and I want to dig into it more. Nahia Orduna: Exactly. And then when you are ...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we speak with Diana Wu David, Author of Future Proof: Reinventing Work in the Age of Acceleration. We talked about the changing landscape of work, how you can better prepare for a 100-year career, and the opportunities that can be found in remote online communities. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger founder of insideoutside.io, a provider of research events and consulting services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, launch new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to the latest thinking tools, tactics, and trends and collaborative innovation. Interview Transcript with Diana Wu DavidBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Diana Wu David she's the author of the new book Future Proof: Reinventing Work in the Age of Acceleration. Welcome Diana. Diana Wu David: Thanks so much great to be here, Brian. Brian Ardinger: Hey, I'm excited to have you on the show. Actually, we're doing this from Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities in the world.  You actually teach as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, E-MBA Global Asia. You're a former Financial Times executive. You worked with clients like Mandarin Oriental, World Bank, Expedia, Credit, Suisse, and your career is long and amazing. You actually started your career working with Henry Kissinger. I wanted to have you on the show because you've got a book out. And you actually wrote this book futureproof before the pandemic and now we're post pandemic. What are your thoughts of where we sit now versus when you wrote the book then?Diana Wu David: When I wrote the book, it was to convince people that we were going into this new world where things would be globalized and lot more remote and virtual and more flexible, and that fundamentally companies needed to change.And the hypothesis really was that people were going to have to change. Individuals would have to take agency over their own careers and change because companies weren't moving fast enough. Fast forward to, I think February I did a podcast and we were talking about China's largest work from home experiment, and now it's become the entire world's largest work from home experiment.So, yeah, I think right now it's not a hard sell to say that we're going to be working virtually. It's not a hard sell to say that we're going to have to be more flexible and companies have actually massively accelerated to accommodate this. So, the landscape has changed quite a bit. Brian Ardinger: Totally agree. And you, and I've worked in the space of innovation in that for a while. And sometimes it felt five years ago, like you're pushing this rock up the hill, like no, really this disruption thing's coming. And I think, you know, with the pandemic, it really has accelerated, and people are now fundamentally understanding what that means.I don't think we're at the point where they fundamentally understand what to do about it yet. So that's one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show to talk about the specific steps and the way to approach this idea that you're going to have to reinvent yourself. And especially in, I think you wrote in the book that, you know, we're having longer careers, you know, there's a a hundred-year career kind of things. Let's dive into the book a little bit and talk about some of the skillsets and the mindsets and the tool sets that you recommend for understanding this new world of acceleration we're living in. Diana Wu David: Absolutely. I had so many people that I met that when I was at Financial Times, we were doing the board director program and I launched that as an internal entrepreneur, and they were all talking about what's next. You know, they were, I would say 45, 55, 65 and really could see that they would have this massive amount of time where they could continue working and continue learning. And yet company lifespans are predicted by a firm like Innosight to be averaging 12 years. Yeah. In a couple of decades. So, people are waking up to the idea and certainly now with COVID and companies being under even more pressure, everybody's waking up to the idea that I'm going to have to re-invent no longer can I learn everything go work and retire. It's very much going to be sort of looping model of I'm going to work a little bit. I'm going to learn on the job. Then I'm going to take a break and learn some more and upscale and rescale and pivot and have to go get a new job. And I shouldn't say half to get a new job. I have the opportunity to do something completely new. So, I think it's really exciting. Brian Ardinger: I guess there's core things. First thing you have to probably do is recognize like I'm in a new world, I'm okay with that. And then you probably start thinking about, well, how do I apply my old skills to this new environment? And so maybe talk through that early stage process of really understanding and thinking through what should I do next? Diana Wu David: First of all, I found that a lot of leaders in particular, weren't thinking about themselves. And I think this applies across all different people in organizations where they're thinking about the business future of work, but not thinking about, gosh, what does that mean for me and my career and how it needs to change?What do I need to proactively do? So that awareness is important. The idea that it's up to me, that I'm the captain of my own ship, as something that some people need to go through a process. And then there's four real actionable chapters in the middle of the book. And that is looking at experiment, reinvent, collaborate, and focus.And those are really the four skills I felt we're super important in the future of work, that frankly has always been a bit the now of work. And really going into deep dives about what does that mean? I guess the first one experiment is really about getting out of our comfort zone, right? So the day that you decided, you know what I'm going to do, not only I'm going to do all the things I do, but I'm going to do a podcast, you know, that sort of.If I want to experiment with that, not everybody does a podcast and you're like in 250 episodes or something by now, God, I can't believe it. But everybody has to take the first step. So, starting to get that muscle going of how do I do that? How do I take small steps in small and perfect actions that will test my assumptions? Give me feedback and allow me to move forward and out of my comfort zone. Brian Ardinger: But one of the great things about where we are living, if you flip the chaos and disruption on the positive side is the opportunities are there for the individual. We talk about kind of the democratization of innovation, where everybody can be an innovator now because they're new tool sets. There’re new skillsets out there that are accessible to everyone. I'd like to get your opinion on some of the new tools sets that you see out there, things like no code or your ability to spin up a podcast or take some risks or do some experiment...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Steve Glaveski, Author of Time Rich: Do your Best Work, Live Your Best Life. Steve and I talk about the power of time management and what individuals and organizations can do to become smarter and more productive. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, founder of insideoutside.io, a provider of research, events, and consulting services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, launch new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption each week. We'll give you a front row seat to the latest thinking, tools, tactics, and trends in collaborative innovation. Interview Transcript with Steve GlaveskiBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Steve Glaveski.  He's the author of the new book Time Rich: Do your Best Work, Live Your Best Life. You may have seen and heard of Steve. He's been on the show before. He came out to the IO Summit a couple of years ago. And so we're super excited to have him back. All the way from down under, welcome back. Steve Glaveski: It's an absolute pleasure to be back on the program, Brian. Brian Ardinger: Well, we're excited to have you back. You have become a prolific writer since last we've spoken. I think you've come out with a couple different books. Today we wanted to highlight the new one that you've got coming out called Time Rich. Before we get started, why don't you give the audience a little bit of background of what you've been doing the last couple of years, from starting Collective Campus and Division Accelerator, and now author of a couple different books.Steve Glaveski: I think that's been somewhat part of the catalyst for writing this particular book, is that I did establish Collective Campus. That was about five years ago now. And we've gone on to incubate over a 100 startups that collectively raised about $30 million in that time. I've spun off a kid's entrepreneurship program called Lemonade Stand, which was initially a two-day workshop.It is now a SAAS platform. So we've got clients in Singapore, in Honduras, Australia obviously, all over the world. And during the pandemic actually spun out a company called No Filter Media, which is effectively a podcast network, but also has articles and all that sort of stuff. I keep busy, but despite the fact that I have so many things going on, I tend to work maybe five to six hours a day, tops on average.Now there are days where you go beyond that, but then there are also days where it might just be two or three hours. And given all the time that I've spent in the corporate world, working with large organizations, as well as entrepreneurs and startups, I did see a disconnect between how they were going about making decisions, how they were going about using their time, and the way I was doing things.I figured that there was a book in this because the article I wrote for Harvard Business Review called the Case for the Six Hour Workday a couple of years ago, just absolutely blew up. And then my publisher came knocking as well and said, Hey, is there a book in this? Brian Ardinger: That's a good place to start. There's plenty of books out there about time management. And why do you think people are still getting tripped up when it comes to managing their time effectively? Steve Glaveski: I think a lot of it goes back to evolutionary biases, Brian. As human beings, we've basically evolved to conserve energy. At least our brains have, because tens of thousands of years ago on the African Savannah, you don't know when you're going to eat.It was all about the three F's, you know, fight, flee, fornication. And you needed to conserve energy and that helped us back then, but now the way it shows up is actually detrimental to our work because we might sit down to our desks in the morning, and it's so much easier for us to do the easiest thing, which is jump onto LinkedIn, check out comments, get onto Twitter, check out email.Get to inbox zero. Do anything on everything except the hard work, you know, commit to another meeting. What happens is you can fill your entire day, your entire week, your entire month with non-consequential activities, which make you feel quote unquote busy, but come the end of the day, you didn't really have anything to show for it.So a big part of it is not the fact that people don't have access to tools. It's more so it starts with us and overriding some of that evolutionary programming. And the other side of the coin is really, the organizations that we work for. Because we can control certain things. But then there are certain things that we're bound to that we perhaps can only try and influence, and that can get in the way between us and our best selves.Brian Ardinger: Well, it's an interesting world we're living in, obviously with COVID and everything else. Overnight organizations had to adapt to the brand new world of remote work and things like that. I'd love to get your take on some of the trends that you're seeing or what you saw maybe six months ago, versus what you're seeing now and how organizations have maybe adapted a new thought process on time and work management.Steve Glaveski: Yeah, definitely. I think the pandemic, obviously as difficult as it has been for a lot of people has also been a reset switch, and it's forced us to reflect on our personal lives in ways we perhaps didn't previously, as well as our professional lives. When the pandemic hit and organizations of all shapes and sizes went remote, it seemed to be a matter of just taking what we did in the office and trying to replicate that online.So instead of 50 to 60 physical interruptions a day. It was 50 to 60 interruptions on Slack, if not more, or Microsoft teams. And instead of having back to back meetings all day, it was back-to-back zoom calls. So we were effectively at what Matt Mullenweg call's level two in his five levels of remote work, just recreating the office online.Whereas now I think the more progressive forward thinking late is out there and starting to actually think about how can we use this medium to our advantage, to get the most out of people and to also help the organization move forward. They're realizing that if we do move away from organizations built around real-time communication, towards more asynchronous communication, well, that has all sorts of benefits. Like if our organization is about responding, when it suits us, providing it in a timely basis, that then frees people up to cultivate more time for flow, because they're not constantly whacking moles all day, responding to Microsoft Teams messages in an instant emails within five minutes and all that sorts of stuff.That also means that because they can cultivate more flow state, they can also design days as it best suits them, which helps them in terms of their work-life balance. Some people might have young kids, some people might have other things they want to commit to during the day, and they can do that with an asynchronous shift.And the third piece is also that when you run that type of environmen...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Erin Stadler. She's the managing partner at Boomtown Accelerators. Erin and I talk about the evolution of accelerators, how corporations are tackling the space, and how the impact of COVID is impacting innovation. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, founder of insideoutside.io, a provider of research, events, and consulting services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, launch new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to the latest thinking, tools, tactics, and trends, in collaborative innovation. Let's get started. Interview with Erin Stadler, BoomtownBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Erin Stadler. She is the managing partner at Boomtown accelerators. Welcome Erin. Erin Stadler: Thank you. Brian Ardinger: Hey, I'm excited to have you on the show. You and I have crossed paths a couple different times in the accelerator space. Let's talk a little bit about what is Boomtown accelerators. Erin Stadler: That is a great question, because we're actually going through a phase where we're just seeing so many things shift out in the industry. There's a lot of questions about what is an accelerator and where do we want to go with the industry. But right now, Boomtown at its core, we're a company that's been focusing on entrepreneurship and how to elevate the entrepreneur to get their idea out there. And right now, we're doing that by partnering with some really amazing corporate partners. The main one right now being Comcast and the sports tech accelerator that we're about to create. Brian Ardinger: I wanted to have you on the show, because again, you've been in the space of accelerators. You and I both started early days, eight plus years ago, I guess, in this space and accelerators have changed quite a bit. And so, I wanted to have you on the show, partly to talk about that evolution of accelerators and what have you seen that's been good, bad, and indifferent, and where you see it going. Let's start with the history of how Boomtown accelerators got started and what you've seen over the last decade or so of how accelerators have changed.Erin Stadler: Boomtown got started like a lot of companies in a new emerging marketplace, so we're actually almost eight years old now. So, we were one of the first accelerators in Colorado. We actually did start in the backyard of some other famous accelerators. But at the time, it was definitely during that stage where a lot of people were starting accelerators. There was a bit of a me too, if you could build a mentor community, and you could get some investors, and could attract some startups., Tada! You had your accelerator. But what we've learned over the last few years and many iterations, one of my founders will say we are probably the biggest skeptics when it comes to accelerators, which makes us want to just continually to evolve and adapt.And we've gone through a lot of different stages with the help of some amazing partners. Along that journey, we realized that it has a lot more to do with helping the founder be prepared in launching that startup. While connections are important and they're great. What can you do that is really impactful? And frankly, that is a much, much harder job than setting up a demo day and setting up some mentor meetings. I hope we see other accelerators do that, but it's the thing we've tried to do is challenge what truly is impactful for a company at its early stage. And we found that there's just a very different model to make that successful.Brian Ardinger: Let's unpack that a little bit. I think back in the days when accelerators got started, it was more of a deal flow thing for VCs or the community to kind of see what was out there and invest at early stages at a low valuation and kind of see what happens from that perspective. And like you said, it probably wasn't always, or at least depending on the accelerator, wasn't always set up to support the founder. What did you learn in that early stage that made you think, okay, well, we can do this differently or support founders in a different way? Erin Stadler: You know, it was the founders themselves. So, a little bit of like the customer doesn't know what they want. So, and this is still true today, you know, when we're talking to startups, you know, startups are attracted by the names of the partners. They're attracted by the names of people in your mentor pool. Right? It's all about if I can just meet that right person, right?  Unfortunately, it's a little bit how the social construct or the myths around what basis successful startup has been formed, but what's really happened is at the end of working with us, we'll go back to the startups and say, Hey, what was actually the most impactful?And that's actually where we got most of our learnings and our insights from, and the sort of things we heard, it was sitting down with someone, working through them with the strategy, helping them understand if they have the right mindset. As a friend of ours would say, how to unlearn some bad habits. And set them up for success. And while that included great connections, it was less about the star power we'll say, and a lot more about how, and that continues to evolve into, like I said, for the sports tech accelerator, instead of just having a name stamped on there, you know, Hey, you know, you'll get an intro to the CTO at XYZ company.We've worked very closely with each of the partners and each of the people involved in our accelerator to go, Hey, if you're involved in this, this isn't just for fun. Like this is about making an impact and let's get serious about caring and honest about the time that we have and be transparent about whether we're on board to make an impact, and then let's actually do that. So, everyone leaves feeling like, Oh, people were authentic and honest, and we're here to do great businesses, you know, not just make an investment and make a bet. Brian Ardinger: Let's talk a little bit about that pivot from, and we've saw the evolution of accelerators being primarily designed to help create early stage companies. And then you saw this wave of corporations kind of raising their hand and saying, Hey, this is interesting. We want to get involved in this. And I think he saw a lot of bad habits in that stage, too. A lot of corporations seem to look at it more as innovation theater, as a way to pretend they are involved in the startup scene and that, but not necessarily really understanding how to impact both the founders as well as the company themselves with this. So, talk about that evolution to the corporate accelerator side of the world. And what have you seen there? Erin Stadler: The first evolution, like you said, it was a bit of me too, again, I think it was fashionable, may still be in some places to have your own health tech accelerator or your own financial one or something powered by this group. The problem with that is one, the corporation only has so much time to work and partner with a startup. It's like how many FinTech companies can you really help, or can you really impact? And...

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Shannon Lucas, co-author of the book, Move Fast, Break Shit, Burnout: The Catalyst Guide to Working Well. Shannon and I talk about the characteristics, roles and challenges that catalysts face in driving innovation within companies and how organizations can better identify and support these new change agents. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, founder of insideoutside.io, a provider of research events and consultant services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week we give you a front row seat to the latest thinking tools, tactics, and trends in collaborative innovation. Let's get started. Interview with Shannon LucasBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Shannon Lucas. Shannon is the coauthor of Move Fast, Break Shit, Burnout: The Catalyst Guide to Working Well. Welcome Shannon. Shannon Lucas: Thanks for having me. Brian Ardinger: Not only are you a new author, the book's coming out I believe tomorrow. You have been in the innovation space for a while. You've worked for great companies like Erickson and Cisco's Hyper Innovation Living Lab and Vodafone. So, I wanted to have you on the show to talk about some of the things that you're seeing and some of the great things that you put in your new book. Shannon Lucas: Thanks. You have some great guests. So, I'm excited to be part of the crew. Brian Ardinger: What made you decide to write another innovation book? What's different about this take on it?Shannon Lucas: It's a great question, because there are so many books about how to do innovation better and innovation processes and change management. But there's very few books that actually talk directly to the change agents themselves, about how to do that sustainably and more effectively. Based on personal experience of going through these very catalyst cycles of the intense mania when you start first sinking your teeth into a wicked problem. All the way through trying to orchestrate across an ecosystem or an organization hitting resistance, and more often than not hitting some kind of burnout. I wanted to help other catalysts and other change agents see that they didn't have to have the intensity of those cycles and how to do it more effectively. I think we need wicked change agents now more than ever. There's a lot of positive change that we need to create in the world, but we need to make sure that they're not doing that at the expense of themselves. Brian Ardinger: What is a catalyst and how does that differ from a traditional employee? Shannon Lucas: My co-author Tracy is a ethnographer researcher and the distinction, the categorization of catalyst comes from a lot of research that she did. And it's basically people who take in lots of information from lots of sources from that they will see emergent new possibilities. They then sort of create a specific vision about something that needs to change and how they want to see the world be better. And importantly, they move into action and they move into action fast. Hence the name of the book. And they're often perceived as risk takers even though to them, it often doesn't feel risky because they have internalized and synthesize so much of the data. Why it was really interesting for me is I had been spending all of this time creating intrapreneur circles within Vodafone, sort of externally as a support group. And I kept seeing that they didn't all show up the same way. We had grown the innovation champion program we called it at Vodafone from ragtag group of eight positive troublemakers to this CEO sponsored, gamified, rewarded all these things. We had over a hundred people, but it was often like the same 10 or 15% that showed up over and over, that would lean in so hard that we were like, Oh, hold on, we'll get some of those barriers out of your way for you before you really break a lot of shit. And so it was important for me because it really helped me contextualize who these wicked change agents are. And then of course, how we could help them better. Brian Ardinger: So, with that can you give some examples of the type of people that you've seen, or some examples of how catalysts change the organization or move it forward.Shannon Lucas: First important note is that a lot of catalysts will go in and out of organizations. You'll see on their resumes. Once you start to see the patterns, you'll start to be able to see them on LinkedIn. They'll stay in a role for a couple of years because they've moved on to the next big problem and they're looking for new ways to do it.They often are more comfortable than the average person moving into startups, starting their own ventures and then going back into the corporate world.  It's like for them, the question is wherever I can create the next change that I need to create and whatever tools are the best tools to get that done, is where they will go.It's interesting, actually, in one of the interviews recently, one of the catalysts said, you know, when people used to ask me where I'm going to be in five years, I never knew the answer to that. Cause he's like, I never know what problem I'm going to be solving next. And he said, so now my answer is I'm going to be a catalyst that much I know. And whatever that looks like I can't tell you. Brian Ardinger: That makes sense. And I imagine a lot of the listeners that we have on this podcast are now light bulbs or, you know, shooting off in their heads saying, Oh, I think I'm one of those people. Is that curious and restless, we'd call it in our organization that we're trying to find those folks that see things a little bit differently and willing to take action on that. Not everybody's a catalyst. How can you as an organization, if you want to lean into the innovation and try to identify these catalysts and cultivate that, what are some ways that you can first, as an organization, identify who in your organization are these catalysts? Shannon Lucas: Tracy and I sat with this question for a long time, as we've been creating our community and doing the research for the book, do we want to be the arbiters of who is a catalyst and who isn't? We have the data, so we can work with organizations to create the quizzes and do the identification of the personality types. What's more important though we found, is that people actually self-identify as catalysts. We talk about patterns, not templates like showing what some of these patterns look like, and then letting people to your point, it's like the light bulbs will go off when a catalyst starts to see and hear us talk about it. There's this deep resonance and really like this thrill because they're finally being seen and understood in a way that they really haven't been before. Most organizations in fact, we haven't found an organization yet that doesn't have catalysts. So I would encourage all of the HR people and leaders out there to find them.<...