Inside Outside Innovation

If you don’t like disruption, you are going to HATE irrelevance.  Chris Olsen of Drive Capital talks about investing in world-class companies located in the Midwest. Drive Capital, a venture firm based in Columbus, OH, developed a $550 million fund with this aim. Chris believes the Midwest will see more billion-dollar companies in the next five years, and based on GDP, the Midwest is the 4th largest economy in the world. If there are more Venture Firms in the Midwest, we’ll see faster growth with LPs making more money in Midwest Venture funds than in Silicon Valley companies.  Why is today the right time? The Midwest is typically cheaper than the coasts, and with cloud computing, you can rent all the engineering and computing power you need. The access to technical specialty is now unlocking other geographies, like China and Europe. We are melding knowledge and tech and making advances in areas such as car insurance, healthcare, taxi rides, etc. There’s also an imbalance of venture capital invested in the Midwest. Dive Capital is spending time in the Artificial Intelligence, Insurance, Robotics, and Ed-tech markets. When developing the fund, Drive Capital made the mistake of replicating a Silicon Valley approach. You can’t build companies in the Midwest and assume capital is unlimited. They learned to determine when products are working or not. Stop earlier if they aren’t hitting milestones. They also thought they'd have to import talent from the coasts, but have had a much better success rate in using employees from existing businesses, and retraining them in a startup. There is an engine of talent that doesn’t want to go to coasts. E.g., Root Insurance. Taking advantage of Nationwide Insurance experiences to help startups succeed.  Chris hasn’t seen a lot of change in existing businesses. He believes it’s just time before some of these companies will wake up and deal with irrelevance. What should companies do? Stop trying to be venture capitalists. Companies can innovate and work with startups, but should invest in Venture Capital firms. VCs will share their best innovation with the companies. Big companies have different skills than startups.  For more information or to connect, email Chris Olsen at chris@drivecapital.com or see www.drivecapital.com  If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy: Ep 105- Randy Komisar with Kleiner Perkins and Straight Talk for Startups Author; Ep 91- Paul Singh @ I/O Innovation Summit; Ep 65- Jason Calacanis, Angel Investor and Author of “Angel”; and Ep 52- Ann Winblad w/ Hummer Winblad VP FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Why do some people have innovative, creative ideas that change the game for everyone and challenge the way life is, and others don’t? Brian Ardinger, Founder of Inside Outside talks with Arjuna Ardagh about how brilliance and innovation can become more of a predictable outcome and less of an accident. They discuss his new book, Radical Brilliance - The Anatomy of How and Why People Have Original Life-changing ideas and the four phases of the Brilliance Cycle.  Brilliance Cycle Defined 12:00 - Moments where you transcend your mind. Get to the middle ground. Not in a hurry. Brain chemistry changes from Serotonin to Dopamine  3:00 - Full creative flow. Effortlessly. Intention to take a creative act. Movement from intention to accomplishment. Brain chemistry changes to  Testosterone/Estrogen and Oxytocin. Begin to operate within limits, creates stress.  6:00 - Accomplishing goals. Parasympathetic flooding begins. Start to have experiences of regret, when you are operating in constrained limits. Then movement to learning and humility.  9:00 - Recognition of your limits and boundaries. Brain chemical Gava, permits you to rest. Your deeper self or divine intelligence returns, then it's moved back into awaking. Innovators who are serially brilliant have all quadrants active. The cycle can also be a way to map what gets in the way of brilliance. Blockages include addiction, judgment, aspiration resistance, and looping. Recognize where the cycle is blocked and apply individual practices to unblock brilliance including diet, sleep, supplements, sexuality, friendship, and vacations. Rest is critical for innovators. Consider living in natural rhythms. Sleep soon after dark and wake before the sun. The most creative time is the hour before dawn.  More Information To connect with Arjuna or to learn more, check out RadicalBrilliance.com. More Podcasts If you liked this podcast, you should also check out: Ep. 110 - Shaina Stigler with Betwixt on Building Coworker Trust; Ep. 104 Shane Snow, Author of Dream Teams: Working Together without Falling Apart, and Ep. 12 - Liz Elam from Link Coworking and GCUC Free Innovation Newsletter Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Sean Moffitt is Managing Director of WikiBrands and Author of WikiBrands: How to Reinvent Your Business in a Customer Connected Marketplace. He focuses on helping people develop a transformational arsenal, including skills in culture and talent, innovation and future proofing, technology and digital, and leadership/pivoting business models. Highlights of Sean's conversation with Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Founder, include: What’s changing the corporate landscape:  - Speed at which things are happening. 7x faster than 25 years ago.  - Startups and Scaleups are much easier to create. Corporate innovation needs a wake-up call.  - Leverage corporate advantages with startup innovation. - Culture eats strategy, innovation, and tech for breakfast. Keys are people. New WikiBrands Research Study - Looking at the difference in how startups, scaleups, and corporates approach things and innovation in the wild. What’s working? - Hoping to find a definition of innovation and more focus on breakthrough Innovation. - Business Models - 32 of the most competitive business models of the future. What works? - Approaches to Market - e.g. Design or Agile - Different types of modes of practice. Who is the most successful using the different strategies? - Research is based on collaborative thought, with insight from nine innovators and answers from 50 survey questions. More Information For more information or to connect with Sean, check out Wiki-brands.com and take the innovation survey. You can also search on social media under #corporateinnovationplaybook. If you liked this podcast, you should also check out, Ep. 112– Ralph Welborn, Author of Topple on Corporate Innovation, Ep. 98– Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth, and Ep 87 – Tom Lockwood and Edgar Papke on Innovation by Design Free Innovation Newsletter Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Dr. Victoria Gerstman is the Assistant Director at Canopy Insight, a cultural insight and innovation consultancy. She helps companies and brands understand the cultural significance of different phenomena. Using semiotics, a method to interpret signs and symbols of culture which brands operate in, Victoria helps companies learn what’s important to people.  Canopy Insight works with many large brands around the world, to help them understand culturally specific meanings and the way meanings change over time. These meaning could be different across markets and demographic groups. This recognition is especially important for brands that have sub-brands which need to remain culturally relevant, that have a multi-market presence, and to avoid assuming home markets trends, are dominate in other places.  New Emergent Trends:  - Shift away from individualism towards communal experience.  - Changes in ideas of ownership. E.g. - Do you need to own a vacuum.  - Mainstreaming of sustainability for affordability.  - On-demand everything in the home is something to watch.  - Home space is changing. Home and work barriers are being broken down. Homes are now sites of production, like cottage industries.  - Sexual and gender identities - More understanding of distinct identities and new ways of living.  To find out more, connect with Victoria at canopyinsight.comor Victoria@canopyinsight.com If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy Ep. 60– David Mattin with TrendWatching, Ep. 69– Slava Rubin, co-founder of Indiegogo, and Ep. 80– Ari Popper with SciFutures FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Paul Jarrett is co-founder/CEO of Bulu and a former Inside Outside podcast co-host. Bulu creates private label subscription box programs for large companies like Disney, GNC, Lululemon, and Crayola. In this episode, Brian Ardinger and Paul discuss new trends in big brand marketing, including getting in front of specific customer segments in new ways. Paul believes that in this changing marketplace, big companies are willing to collaborate and “horse trade,” but are also focusing on key metrics like customer acquisition costs. Key highlights include: Tell us about Bulu 1. Bulu is now at 250 FTE and managing revenue of over $50 million. Challenge is finding the right people to help scale.  2. Companies that want a physical interaction with customers are using subscription boxes.  Key factors when working with large brands 1. People managing the project have to get stuff done, transcend the business, and get along. Bulu won’t work with companies that don’t provide that.  2. Companies need entrepreneurs to understand working with startups. Non-entrepreneurs don’t see beyond the box, to see things like revenue and margin flexibility. 3. Companies need to invest in the relationship with a startup for the future. When to walk away 1. Unhealthy focus on driving the price down.  2. When a person starts saying “we” or “us,” Paul feels they’re on the same team. He’s not interested in a big company serving as the “coach” of the project. How to get in front of big brands 1. Pick up the phone. Call every week. 2. Social media - Friend and Follow key people everywhere.  3. Innovation should be in the corporate person’s title. For More Info To find out more about Paul Jarrett or Bulu, connect at pauljarrett.com or tweet him @Pauljarrett.  See Paul and Stephanie Jarrett on PBS's show Startup - Season 6, Ep 8   If you like this topic, you might also be interested in Ep 114 - Canva’s Cameron Adams on Democratization of Design; Ep 105 - Randy Komisar with Kleiner Perkins and Straight Talk for Startups Author; and Ep 96 - Chris Shipley - Author, Advisor, Innovation Advocate at 2017 I/O Innovation Summit. Free Innovation Newsletter Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Creating environments where innovation can thrive Aaron Proietti is author of the new book, Today’s Innovator. He’s spent 17 years working in the innovation space, including leading initiatives at Transamerica and Capital One. Aaron believes everyone wants innovation to happen, but the traits that make the company successful are the very things that are standing in the way of innovation.  Today’s Innovator In his new book, Today’s Innovator, Aaron focuses on how to create an environment where innovation can thrive. He focuses on strategy, culture, systems and that YOU are today’s innovator. Who do you need to be to thrive in a complex organization (people, politics and traits). Aaron also examines the stages of Innovation maturity and business models. Can you have core business operations, but push innovation and invent new things? It’s difficult to find the balance.  Innovation should be considered a business competency Systems are not setup to be innovative. You need repeatable, scalable, and sustainable ways to be innovative. Innovation should be considered a business competency. Companies used to bring in consultants to help develop ideas. When the consultants left, the idea generation stopped. They didn’t change the nature of the business. Organizations are now talking about culture and competency. When you build a leadership and more nimble culture, it allows for innovation to last and be sustained. How do you get over the hump?   Companies need a strong champion at the highest levels of the organization. Sometimes innovation becomes important because one aspect is not meeting objectives. The champion needs to call out roadblocks. This process is broken or we need to go around the process here. Agitate organization to create a new awareness or muscle.  Making changes from the middle If companies don’t have a burning platform, how can a person in the middle of the org make changes? Aaron’s book, Today’s Innovator, is designed to help them. They need to build a new skill set which includes: becoming an Innovation leader, building high performing teams, setting expectations, strong innovation network, empathy, and how to lead and promote change.   Where to start? To create quick wins, start with the innovation layer, instead of the core operating business. At Transamerica they started with the data layer, because they had tons of data and a great data science team.  You can Preorder Aaron’s book, Today’s Innovator, on Amazon or contact him on LInkedIn. If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy Ep 95 - Steve Glaveski with Collective Campus and Episode 124 -Amy Radin, Author of The Change Maker’s Playbook. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Changing everything while disrupting nothing John Buhl spent the last 13 years at Vanguard, innovating at all levels. He loved applying Lean Startup principles at scale and discovering what elements needed to change. Unfortunately, he hit many brick walls and found friction to make changes throughout the organization. The system of annual funding, with specific deliverables, was well entrenched. John wanted to understand, how do you shift a large company to be outcome-oriented and realize that old systems can be detrimental. Recently, John joined the Corporate Entrepreneur Community, formed by Eric Reis and Steve Liguori. Together they discovered three things: every company has the same problems, innovation is not science yet, and there’s a gap in peer-to-peer corporate community learning. One obstacle to innovating at scale is changing everything while disrupting nothing. John believes companies can succeed with incremental improvements and making it their own. On the team level, companies need to get senior leadership aligned and invested. They also need to have an excellent governance structure, manage change, and have top-down buy-in.  For an individual, pushing against a culture can be risky. Try to align with a leader that allows you to experiment. You’ve got to give the leader evidence that innovation works, in addition to showing them things that didn’t work. Solving tactical barriers such as the budget process and breaking down internal silos, will also generate more speed, flow, and throughput.  FOR MORE INFO To find out more about Corporate Entrepreneurship Community see Corpentcom.com or find John Buhl on LinkedIn.  If you liked this podcast, try Ep 118 - Exxon Mobil's Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock on Corporate Innovation and Ep 98 - Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Barry O’Reilly is the Author of Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results and Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale. He and Brian Ardinger discuss creating a culture of experimentation in enterprises and seeing everything as an assumption.  Barry came to the U.S. originally from Ireland on a student visa and worked at City Search “putting people on the Internet.” He soon joined a mobile games development company and created a popular game called Wireless Pets. Soon large corporations started calling asking the company to build games. This caused Barry to develop an experimental mindset. Soon Barry moved to Australia to build next-gen content for E-learning in Southeast Asia. Game design and game theory is teaching new skills in safe environment. It allows for rapid experimentation and behavior. Then Barry joined a consultancy in London called ThoughtWorks. They were pioneers in Agile software development where he worked with companies to reinvent portfolio management and how to fund and test ideas.  Barry’s first book, Lean Enterprise, highlights how to create experimentation in enterprises. Amazon does this well because they have a culture that makes experimentation cheap and fast. They are able to gather better data and are unlearning existing beliefs and learning new ones that can help them break through and innovate.   In his new book, Unlearn, Barry says people recognize that we always have to be learning, but it’s tough to learn new stuff. The limiting factor is the ability to unlearn behavior especially when it’s made you successful. Letting go and moving away from things that limit us, like outdated info. Barry highlights the most bureaucratic regulated companies in his book and describes how these people are making amazing changes.  Barry also hosts Exec Camp, where execs leave their businesses for up to 8 weeks to launch new businesses to disrupt their existing companies. It’s like an accelerator for senior leaders. They learn and unlearn new things about themselves. For example, the International Airlines Group came to Exec Camp, to launch six new ideas to disrupt the airline industry. They tested ideas with customers and had to unlearn the behavior of pushing ideas on customers. They soon began to see everything as an assumption.  We’re conditioned to believe that the way we solve a customer problem is the only way to do it. Tech changes how to solve problems. Startups are able to start with a blank set of assumptions. Individuals get disrupted not companies. If you are adapting your features and behaviors, you won’t be disrupted. May need to shift your tactics or beliefs.  FOR MORE INFO To find out more, go to Barryoreilly.com on Twitter @BarryOReilly. You can also find his book on Amazon. If you liked this podcast, try Ep 99 Ryan Jacoby with Machine, Ep 43 Ash Maurya, Author of Scaling Lean, and Ep. 20 Lisa Kay Solomon with Design a Better Business GET THE LATEST RESOURCES Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events.  Subscribe Now

Innovation is No Longer Optional Doug Hall has been in the innovation space for more than 30 years. His new book, Driving Eureka!, is about finding, filtering and fast-tracking to market and includes an update on what is continuously being learned about creating, communicating, and commercializing ideas. In 1986, Doug started Eureka Ranch, an early "accelerator" program focused on commercializing products. He took a system-driven approach to innovation to enable businesses to increase speed and decrease risk. In 2008, Doug created Innovation Engineering, a field of study that will be on over 100 campuses by 2019. Innovation Engineering focuses on how to find, filter and fast-track​ ideas. He backs it with software that helps users find data through tools like rapid cycles, sales forecasts, writing patterns, and project management designed for innovation. Doug’s seen many ideas get compromised through development. His software captures data and helps businesses use the data as they go through the process. It’s designed to deal with uncertainty and helps companies document, creating quantitative information. Doug uses a Deming approach. Innovation has to be in everyone. May need a culture shift in companies, but have to change the person before you can change the organization. Culture change two ways: led by the top or enable the workers. Train to work smarter in their job.  It’s all about cycles: run experiment, study what you learned, do it again. How does a cycle work? An idea faces three death threats: market risks, tech risks, and organizational risks. Then you get a meaningful uniqueness score. Then put the idea through a 4-step Deming Cycle: Plan (what are you trying to do), Do (what experiment are you running), Study (why did it work), and Act (What are you going to do. Go around again or change, adapt). SPECIAL BONUS: To find out more, go to Doughall.com/VIP and you’ll find a one-hour audio Book with a prescription for success and to help you understand your strengths and abilities to innovate.  If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy Ep. 109- Greg Larkin, Author of This Might Get Me Fired, Ep. 95- Steve Glaveski with Collective Campus and Ep. 94- Andy Cars with Lean Ventures GET THE LATEST RESOURCES: Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Amy Radin is the author of The Change Maker's Playbook: How to Seek, Seed and Scale Innovation in Any Company. She was previously a Senior Executive at American Express, Citi Group, and eTrade. Amy's experience includes leading the digital transformation of Citi Group’s credit card business ($5b bottom line). Today, Amy enjoys being on the outside of big companies and startups, to help connect the dots between growth aspirations and outcomes. Key Takeaways in Brian Ardinger's Interview with Amy:  - The human condition​ is set up to stop things that haven’t happened before.  - Big companies have everything they need, but can’t see the near-term value of innovation. Startups bring speed and agility but lack understanding of scale. Magic is when they can work together. - To “seed” ideas, take concepts and put them out to potential users. Then use the project to translate user reaction into a business model. The mistake is trying to predict too closely what people will do.  - To kill innovation is to apply traditional metrics to ideas. Can’t expect results immediately. Instead ask, what are assumptions to get x% of market share. As you move forward, refine your benchmarks and results. - To be customer-centric, understand needs that make economic sense. What’s the problem we want to solve for the people we want to serve? - Basic business model for financial services hasn’t changed. Innovation is happening on the front end, but little is happening on the back end. Finance companies are asking the same questions as 15 years ago.  - Innovation is solvable. It’s not a pipe dream, even in the most complex organizations. It's all about execution.  - Utilize the Seek, Seed, Scale framework.  DOWNLOAD FREE RESOURCES at www.amyradin.com/insideoutside, including concepts from her book, an infographic on Seek, Seed, Scale framework. and take a quiz about your innovation readiness and ideas where you can personally focus.  For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy