Inside Outside Innovation

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

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