Inside Outside Innovation

There’s no way to innovate if you only stay in your court Xavi Cortadellas is the Head of Innovation and Design at Gatorade. He focuses on innovating in the newest spaces, like tech and services, rather than incremental innovation. Gatorade invented sports drinks 50 years ago and now has an 80% market share. With little room to expand, they actively look for new spaces to grow. Because Gatorade is a huge part of sports in America, when entering a new market, they are careful to examine what’s the right things to do and to always have patience and perseverance.   Gatorade started their innovation journey in 2010 with the G Series. They wanted to expand their product portfolio for before and after sports occasions, such as energy drinks and recovery shakes. In 2015, they changed their approach to viewing themselves as a sports fuel company, providing solutions for the 24/7 athlete in multiple spaces and with numerous products. Some products worked, while others did not.Today, Gatorade is in the third wave of innovation and is now looking at services. Xavi believes in the future, Gatorade may be able to provide sports nutrition information through tech like wearables and heel implants or offer recovery tips and move from delivering products to providing monetized services. As the quarterback of a small innovation team, Xavi corals different groups that touch innovation, such as a daily relationship with R and D. He also works with external design agencies, external tech agencies, and sports marketing teams, which connect him with professional sports teams. Gatorade must understand what the professional athletes want and need. However, working with them can be challenging. Products and services must work the first time, and there’s no time for incubation. When moving products and services from the pros to consumers, Gatorade will make some changes, but already has received valuable input about the products or services from the pro athletes.  Prioritizing new ideas at Gatorade comes down to a few things. First is money. What is the size of the prize? Second is an equity play. Is it a good niche investment for Gatorade and does it create a story that helps them tap into new spaces? Third is complexity. Do they have the right capabilities to accomplish this idea? Cross-functional teams help vet this question and typically have a reasonable consensus on prioritizing and killing ideas. Applying the proper discipline up front, helps the company stay successful.Xavi believes two pitfalls for innovation teams include the tension between the core and innovation, and the complexity of entering new territories. For more information or to contact Xavi, go to Gatorade.com or email him at Xavi.cortadellas@pepsico.com If you liked this podcast, you might also enjoy Jack Elkins with Orlando Magic, Santhi Ramesh with Hersheys, and Derek Mauk with Anheuser Busch. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Jeff Rohrs is the CMO of Yext and Author of Audience: Marketing in the age of subscribers, fans and followers, and The Everywhere Brand ebook. He’s also a former VP at Salesforce and ExactTarget. In this episode, Brian Ardinger and Jeff talk about managing content and brands across the web and how hard it is to put perfect information into consumer’s hands everywhere. Yext uses a digital knowledge management (dkm) platform to automate this process.   With consumer behavior changing, 73% of a business’s traffic is now taking place off their website. The smallest content is becoming the most important, such as updating store hours and phone numbers. Companies need to update all the customer endpoints that matter, which is different from SEO.  Jeff's book, The Everywhere Brand, with co-author Jay Baer (also the author of Talk Triggers), discusses how brands are going to have to be everywhere. The challenge is how they will control their appearance around the web. You can download The Everywhere Brand ebook or watch a YouTube video on The Everywhere Brand with Jay Baer and Jeff Rohrs (31 min) As for future trends, Jeff is watching the use of voice. Voice refers to voice commands or voice as discovery. AI is also growing, such as in visual search with Google Lens and Google Photo. More than 85% of Americans are using AI in services like Uber and Google. Jeff believes you can’t control UI and AI, but you can manage the info it has about your company. Additional knowledge resources include Smart Brief and EMarketer. To find out more about Yext, see yext.com or connect with Jeff on Twitter at @jkrohrs If you liked this podcast, you might also enjoy our interview with Patrick Campbell with ProfitWell on Growth, Pricing and SaaS or Justin Mares, Co-Author of Traction 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

Melissa Steach is an ergonomic specialist with Herman Miller. She works to educate various communities about ergonomics in the workplace while valuing and focusing on the importance of the human for design innovation. Brian Ardinger and Melissa take a look at innovation from a design perspective and how that can impact the workplace and home environments. The built environment helps human growth, relationships and caring for the health of people. New healthcare research is reflecting this idea. Trends we are seeing include multiple generations living together and people placing more emphasis on health.  Companies can create innovative environments by asking people what they want. Don’t invest in a pingpong table or junk food if no one is interested. Today, companies need to take a hard look at their space to attract talent, because one-third of a company’s costs go towards real estate and a similar amount goes towards human costs. Look at "who" your company is and understand and develop a built environment that reflects that.  A person and organization must find fit. If not aligned, they will self-select. The more cohesive your organization is, and mission/purpose is visible, people will know if they are a good fit. Take care of people when they are there. If they don’t feel well, they don’t perform well. Ergonomics plays a role in a company’s bottom line. Herman Miller values a strategy called placemaking. It’s a personality chart for your organization. Start by examining the big three: conference room, work desk, and private offices. Need to optimize those spaces for need or make them fun.  To stay relevant, Herman Miller focuses on being a human-centered research design company. Years ago they made the first splint with curved wood, similar to the design of their Eames chair. It has stood the test of time. They also don’t lose sight of how important the person is to everything they do. However, their drivers, motives, and needs must keep evolving.  For more information, contact Melisa Steach on LinkedIn or at Melissa_steach@hermanmiller.com If you liked this podcast, you might also enjoy Ep. 70 - Jyoti Shukla with Nordstrom 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

After years of working in startups, Sean Johnson and his team began getting approached by enterprises. These companies needed help moving on ideas, accessing specialists and understanding how to be iterative. Today, Sean's company Digital Intent works with venture-backed startups and Fortune 1000 companies wanting to be tech-enabled businesses. He is also a general partner at Founder Equity. Brian and Sean discuss a variety of corporate innovation strategies. Here are a few highlights: - Companies need to be making lots of little bets, with little bits of funds. Think like investors. Spread the risk.  - Corporations innovation teams can have a similar cadence to a venture fund. Life of 7-10 years and 3 deals a year. Team churn concern. How to preserve knowledge. - Have conversations with corporate teams who are connected with customers early. Act like a startup and get realistic feedback for needs and products.  - Partner with startups. Startups are getting a channel they didn’t have, but are putting in resources and time to appease the corporation. Good strategy for corporations.  - Try an EIR (Entrepreneurs-in-residence). No legacy baggage.  - Arm corporate startup teams with a coach.  - Develop internal VC boards with members that are external and bring domain experience.   - Leverage the data companies collect by understanding how to use the data. This may create opportunities for less disruptive and more incremental improvements.  - Traditional service companies (law, accountancies, and management consultants) will automate significant portions of their work. Reinvent these business models.  - Use more tactical growth accounting. Manage to growth metrics and experiments.  To connect with Sean Johnson, follow him at @intentionally, Digintent.com or founderequity.com If you like this interview, you might also be interested in Ep. 98- Sean Ammirati with Birchmere Ventures & Author of The Science of Growth and Ep. 54- Robert Walcott with Kellogg on Innovation Trends 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 For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

In this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, Brian Ardinger talks with Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock with ExxonMobil. They discuss successes and challenges of innovating in a large corporation. Christopher and Kim will also be speaking at the Back End of Innovation Conference in Phoenix, AZ on Oct 17-19, 2018. Key strategies and lessons they learned include: - Create space for idea creation and tools to process.  - Protect people and their time from their existing roles.  - Train the managers of intrapreneurs on how to treat them differently. - Teach the right senior leadership how to understand innovation.  - Develop a VC board/Accountability model to guide investments in new ideas. Innovation teams return for more funding and identify what they need to learn.  - Try smallest versions of everything and then iterate, but be prepared to kill or park ideas that don’t move. Need clear decision points. Killing ideas was a considerable hurdle to get past.  - Use data to validate every step.  - Create internal education opportunities like a podcast.  At the BEI conference, Christopher and Kim will share more of their journey and stories through a two-hour workshop. They want people to leave with information they can use. Key ideas will include: - Understand healthy tension between intrapreneurs and leadership.   - Employees can’t work differently when they use the same old tools. - New innovation teams can’t be treated as they always have.  If you’d like to connect with Christopher Bailey and Kim Bullock and learn more about their Innovation initiative, message them on LinkedIn.  If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy Ep 100 - Tom Bianculli with Zebra and Ep 83 - Navin Kunde with Clorox 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 For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

In this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, Brian Ardinger has a great conversation with Nicole Rufuku, author of Hiring for the Innovation Economy: Three steps to improve performance and diversity. They discuss how to hire for innovation in a world that’s changing.  In her book, Nicole gives teams a set of innovation principals to use in the hiring process. They are: 1. Collaboration  2. Continuous improvement  3. Focusing on the user    Nicole also provides three specific tools. They are: 1. Star mapping - Determine nine attributes of someone you want to hire. What is going to give you an advantage in the market?  2. Structuring the interview process - Predetermine your questions as a team and ask in the same order. 3. Evaluating candidates needs to be data-driven - Score candidates after every question, bringing bias near zero. Connect with Nicole on Twitter @Nicolerufuku or Nicolerufuku@gmail.com to preorder her book.  Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Jeremy Lockhorn is VP, Experience Strategy, Mobile + Emerging Technology at SapientRazorfish and has served a wide variety of roles during his 20-year tenure. The common thread is on a focus of what’s next. In this podcast, Jeremy and Brian Ardinger discuss technology changes over the past 10 years and the implications for the future. They know each other from their days in the digital signage space.  When the iPhone was launched more than 11 years ago, it was immediately breakthrough technology. What people didn’t know, was how big and disruptive it would be. We never imagined how seamless the phone would become in our lives today. Jeremy believes the Fourth Industrial Revolution is coming. He defines it as an Intersection of emerging tech such as smart home, self-driving vehicles, wearable tech, AI, VR/AR, and smart speakers, etc. Of course, the phone has a role to play in everything.  The next 10 years will move faster and be more disruptive. In the past there was one disruptive tech at a time, now all this new tech is hitting at the same time, with interconnectivity. Consumers are going to expect companies to be where they are. Creating magical experiences for customers. When you make things so simple, the interface fades into the background. Jeremy provides other examples from Whirlpool Appliances and Hertz.  Are companies that will win, the ones that can customize and predict what customers want? Jeremy believes companies must use “Clairvoyance Marketing.” That is removing friction, predicting need, and then completing the task. Anything that does not do that in the future will jar the customer. It’s hard to keep up with that pace of change. Creating collaboration opportunities to drive innovation and bring in outside thinking is crucial. Look at companies like Mercedes Benz and Patron Tequila as early leaders in the space. Note: Since this recording, Jeremy Lockhorn has left SapientRazorfish and is consulting and public speaking while finding his next full-time gig. Connect with Jeremy on Twitter at @newmediageek for more information. For more interviews like this one, check out Brian's interview with David Mattin at TrendWatching - https://insideoutside.io/podcast/ep-60-david-mattin-w-trendwatching/ 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 GLIDR This episode is sponsored by GLIDR. GLIDR software helps you validate that you’re going to market with products and business models that drive real value. Check them out at https://www.glidr.io/iopodcast For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

In this episode, Brian Ardinger talks with Doug Branson about his new book The Future of Tech is Women: How to Achieve Gender Diversity.  Brian and Doug start the conversation by looking at trends in the market. Doug outlines the history of women in senior corporate positions. Of the 70 women that have been CEOs of publicly held companies, 70% have MBAs. Of the 27 women that have held exec positions in IT companies (out of 600), two have STEM backgrounds and 25 have business or law backgrounds. Doug believes the current emphasis on STEM for women produces lopsided experience. It won’t take women higher in the company. They also need business and marketing backgrounds. The IT industry, Doug suggests, is the worst of all industries for representing females. In Silicon Valley, the men they bring in, to fill the middle-level ranks using H1B visas, crowds women and minorities out and prevents them from rising in these environments.  Doug’s book, The Future of Tech is Women, is about how industries can generally improve diversity. There’s been little to no emphasis on what corporations can do and lots of emphasis on how women can change what they are doing. Doug recommends 15 ideas that companies can try. He says individuals can also offer earlier and equal treatment of girls, especially exposure to computers, and suggests there are good arguments for single-sex education. We also need an awareness of the nerd and geek phenomenon that happens as teens to prevent girls from getting involved in computers. When looking from a global perspective, diversity and corporate governance in the US is a back-burner issue. In Asia and Europe, it’s a very front burner issue. Europe has focused on quota laws which has worked in some countries, while women have made no headway in Japan.  Doug disagrees with some of Sheryl Sandberg’s advice in her book Lean In. He says women won’t have 11 different positions climbing the corporate ladder, but rather 3.3 positions on the way to CEO. Also mentoring programs rarely work for women to advance through companies. Australia is now trying mentoring + sponsorship to place women on executive boards there.  What should corporations be implementing? Address work life issues and support women for child birth and rearing without hurting their career. It’s statistically insignificant for a women to take off two years during a working life. Some companies are supporting women this way. Other companies are using a structured search, where they include and have an interview with a minority member. The most important thing for companies is to have this idea of dignity, respect and equality for everyone.  Things are getting better for women. Half of law and medical schools are female, and 40% of MBA programs are women. Sometimes Doug advises women to go where women aren’t, like the Oll and Gas, Ag and Utilies businesses. These industries all have females leaders.  On the other side of the coin, things haven’t changed for women. Those in dominant positions in tech are choosing people that look like them and that excludes women.  If you are interested exploring more of these ideas with Doug, you can contact him at branson@pitt.edu or order his book The Future of Tech Is Female at Amazon or NYU Press. If you are interested in learning more about women in technology and HR trends, check out Inside Outside Innovation Ep. 97 China Gorman on HR trends 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 GLIDR This episode is sponsored by GLIDR. GLIDR software helps you validate that you’re going to market with products and business models that drive real value. Check them out a...

Canva, an easy graphic-design tool website, started six years ago, after two of its founders found success making customizable school yearbooks. Through this process they discovered the power of putting easy-to-use tools in the hands of their customers. Cameron Adams, Canva’s Co-founder and Chief product officer joined the team with his design and tech experience, and Canva was born. Today, Canva, an Australian-based company, has over 10 million users and is valued at $1 billion.  In this episode, Cameron talks with Brian Ardinger about Canva's work bringing goodness to the world through individuals and companies of all sizes. The Canva tools give companies and people the opportunity to easily experiment with design. One reason, Canva has seen such great success, is due to the experiences and "pain points" the founders had prior to starting the company. As the founders developed the product to address the problems in the market, they continued to do many interviews and prototypes. Canva likes to aim for the vision and then fine tune to make sure they are improving what people like. They do a lot of user testing and surveying, as well as listening to their intuition. Canva hasn’t seen any disadvantage of building in Australia. Cameron said it was slightly hard to raise funds, when they started. They ended initially with a 50/50 funding split between American and Australian investors. Today it's relatively easy to recruit talent and raise funds. They love being in Sydney. As a part of the Asian Startup Scene, Canva thought "global" from day one. Asia plays a massive role and diversity in the market, with many different economic and socio-economics to design for. This helps Canva build a better product. As for design aesthetics, there is an international style but each culture has its own details. Last year, Canva was launched in 100 different languages. This year their focus is on deeper localization.  Cameron says as Canva builds more products, they seem to find more opportunities. This year they are tackling presentations. They believe it should be more like a dialogue between the speaker and audience. Canva also recently released an animation tool. There are many additional areas they want to pursue in the future. For more information, contact Cameron Adams on Twitter at @themaninblue or connect with @canva for questions about their products. Brian recorded this interview at the Rise Conférence in Hong Kong. For more information see https://riseconf.com For more interviews like this on on design and product design, listen to Episode 90 - Teresa Torres with Product Talk   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 GLIDR This episode is sponsored by GLIDR. GLIDR software helps you validate that you’re going to market with products and business models that drive real value. Check them out at https://www.glidr.io/iopodcast  For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Growth, Pricing and SaaS Patrick Campbell is the CEO of ProfitWell (formerly Price Intelligently), the software for helping subscription companies with their monetization and retention strategies. ProfitWell also provides free turnkey subscription financial metrics for over 8,000 companies. Prior to ProfitWell, Patrick lead was an Economist at Google and the NSA, an experience he thought was surprisingly similar. With 50 employees in Boston and Argentina, ProfitWell has been funded by bootstrapping and a growing customer base. They serve about 25 percent of the market. In Brian Ardinger's interview with Patrick, they started by discussing two important business themes. First, being customer focused and second, placing a high priority on building the team and hiring. Patrick believes a company needs to be direct about the type of culture they want. Focus on the right behaviors and values and bring in a diverse amount of thought.  Patrick then highlighted three key issues that ProfitWell helps SAAS companies focus on: - Utilizing the right value metric. Companies that use it grow at twice the pace.  - Localizing their pricing. Make sure your pricing is localized on a currency and demand base. - Delinquent Churn on Credit Cards. Cancelled for reasons or bad credit cards. He also discussed various trends they are seeing in the industry. For example: - Seeing aquistion-based marketing backfiring a bit. Not where hyper-growth is coming from.  - Design and usage more important than ever.  - Rise of the anti-usage product. Allowing you do your work, while software does the mechanical work.  To talk further with Patrick Campbell or learn more about ProfitWell, you can email him at pc@profitwell.com or connect on LinkedIn. For more interviews on growth, pricing and SaaS, check out Brian Ardinger's interview with Tom Samph and Ajay Rajani with Nex.tt. 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 GLIDR This episode is sponsored by GLIDR. GLIDR software helps you validate that you’re going to market with products and business models that drive real value. Check them out at https://www.glidr.io/iopodcast For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy