Amazon is the most extraordinary and important business story of our time. Facebook has more members and is our social network. Google sits right at the heart of the information tsunami. Apple has by far the prettiest toys. But starting 25 years ago as a tiny online bookstore, Amazon now stands astride the e-powered river of goods that flows through the many economies. It is a retailer, a marketplace, an electronic infrastructure, a publisher, an advertising channel, a distributor. It is increasingly the arbiter of retail, the pacesetter for employment, and private taxing authority, taking its bite of every transaction on its Marketplace. And Amazon is just getting started. Across all its business, Amazon is automating rapidly and leveraging the power of enormous and growing capabilities in AI and machine learning. The sheer range and pace of change is formidable. It’s an extraordinary story, and it raises plenty of questions: Where did Amazon come from? How did it grow so big so fast? What can we learn from history? Can we distil key lessons about objectives, strategy, tactics, and especially corporate culture? Where is Amazon going? What will it look like ten years from now? What should we – the collective we – do about it? Is Amazon a threat? Should we simply applaud? Are there characteristics to worry about? And if so, what should we do? Our guest today addresses these questions and many more. We welcome the author of "Behemoth, Amazon Rising: Power and Seduction in the Age of Amazon", Robin Gaster

Innovation is how businesses stay ahead of the competition and adapt to market conditions that change in unpredictable and uncertain ways. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, high-end cuisine underwent a profound transformation. Once an industry that prioritized consistency and reliability, it turned into one where constant change was a competitive necessity. A top restaurant’s reputation and success have become so closely bound up with its ability to innovate that a new organizational form, the culinary research and development team, has emerged. The best of these R&D teams continually expand the frontiers of food—they invent a constant stream of new dishes, new cooking processes and methods, and even new ways of experiencing food. How do they achieve this nonstop novelty? And what can culinary research and development teach us about how organizations innovate? Our guest opens up the black box of elite culinary R&D to provide essential insights.  Drawing on years of unprecedented access to the best and most influential culinary R&D teams in the world, he reveals how they exemplify what he calls the uncertainty mindset.  Such a mindset intentionally incorporates uncertainty into organization design rather than simply trying to reduce risk.  It changes how organizations hire, set goals, and motivate team members and leads organizations to work in highly unconventional ways. A revelatory look at the R&D kitchen,  His book upends conventional wisdom about how to organize for innovation and offers practical insights for businesses trying to become innovative and adaptable. We welcome the author of "The Uncertainty Mindset: Innovation Insights from the Frontiers of Food", Vaughn Tan   More about Vaughn: https://uncertaintymindset.org www.productivediscomfort.org https://twitter.com/vaughn_tan

Our first face-to-face live episode with Greg Orme. Even before the pandemic, it seemed the world was spinning so fast it’s difficult to keep up. Arguably a lot of the technological disruption that was around in 2019 simply got accelerated – remote working, digitization, and AI to name just three.  Our guest today notes in his book: Two hundred and fifty years ago the Industrial Revolution replaced our arms and legs at work. The fourth Industrial Revolution is now replacing our brains.   He says The Machine Age is engulfing both organizations and people. This shift is challenging the very essence of what it means to be human.   His book The Human Edge, how curiosity and creativity are your superpowers in the digital economy won Business Book of the year in 2020.   He explores the skills you need to survive and thrive in a world of smartphones and AI. He urges you to stop competing, and instead do things machines can’t. To become a more human, human. We welcome the author of “The Human Edge” Greg Orme. https://gregorme.org

Our guest today is an American psychologist who has carried out experiments on the theory of cognitive dissonance and invented the Jigsaw Classroom, a cooperative teaching technique that facilitates learning while reducing interethnic hostility and prejudice.  In his 1972 social psychology textbook, The Social Animal, he stated his First Law: "People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy," thus asserting the importance of situational factors in bizarre behavior. He is the only person in the 120-year history of the American Psychological Association to have won all three of its major awards: for writing, for teaching, and for research.  In 2007 he received the William James Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Association for Psychological Science, in which he was cited as the scientist who "fundamentally changed the way we look at everyday life.”  A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked him as one of the most cited psychologists of the 20th century. He officially retired in 1994 but continues to teach and write. It is an immense honour to host him on today’s show to share his brilliant work. We welcome the author of The Social Animal, amongst a plethora of others,  Elliot Aronson, welcome to the show Jigsaw Classroom: https://www.jigsaw.org

How you see risk and what you do about it depend on your personality and experiences.  How you make these cost-benefit calculations depend on your culture, your values, the people in the room, and even unexpected things like what you’ve eaten recently, the temperature, the music playing, or the fragrance in the air. Being alert to these often-unconscious influences will help you to seize opportunities and avoid danger. Today’s book is a clarion call for an entirely new conversation about our relationship with risk and uncertainty. Our guest examines why it’s so important to understand your risk fingerprint and how to make your risk relationship work better in business, life, and the world. She shares insights, practical tools, and proven strategies that will help you to understand what makes you who you are –and, in turn, to make better choices, both big and small. We welcome a friend of the Innovation Show and the author of "You Are What You Risk: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World", Michele Wucker, welcome back. More about Michele: https://www.wucker.com

To compete with today's increasing globalisation and rapidly evolving technologies, individuals and organisations must take their ability to learn to a much higher level. Today’s guest combines recent advances in neuroscience, psychology, behavioural economics, and education with key research on high-performance businesses to create an actionable blueprint for becoming a leading-edge learning organisation. Today’s book examines the process of learning from an individual and an organisational standpoint. From an individual perspective, the book discusses the cognitive, emotional, motivational, attitudinal, and behavioural factors that promote better learning. Organisationally, it focuses on the kinds of structures, culture, leadership, employee learning behaviours, and human resource policies that are necessary to create an environment that enables critical and innovative thinking, learning conversations, and collaboration. His work also provides strategies to mitigate the reality that humans can be reflexive, lazy thinkers who seek confirmation of what they believe to be true and affirmation of their self-image. Humility is the New Smart is his emotions book. Hyper-Learning is his behavioural and philosophy book.  Learn or Die is his science book. It is always a pleasure to welcome a great friend of the Innovation show , Ed Hess.   More about Ed: www.edhess.org

We have the real pleasure of exploring what it was like trying to innovate from within Kodak with none other than the Inventor of the Digital Camera - Steve Sasson. We discuss so many aspects of Innovation and the struggle to let go of a successful business model. In 1880, George Eastman invented and patented a dry-plate formula and a machine for preparing large numbers of plates. He also founded the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York. In 1884, he replaced glass photographic plates with a roll of film, believing in “the future of the film business.” Like many startups, Kodak faced severe challenges but soon became a household name. When selling cameras, Kodak used a razor-blade strategy: selling the cameras for a low cost, fuelling growth and profits from the film. With success came blind spots and little by little Kodak leadership paid less and less attention to hardware. This was the case despite Eastman’s original guiding principles: mass production at low-cost International distribution extensive advertising customer focus and growth through continuous research. Kodak did spend a lot on R&D but lacked an appetite to bring the findings of their R&D outputs to life and this would contribute to the downfall of an iconic brand. Don’t forget Kodak had remarkable engineers, amazing innovators, and even invented the digital camera. It is hard to imagine it today, a world without the smartphone, Instagram, a world where only one company dominated an industry, a world where it was a chore to capture a moment. This was the world in 1975, when a young 24-year-old engineer invented digital photography and built the first digital camera.

Part 2 leans more on the theories of disruptive innovation: What is Cramming? The Nypro case study The case study of RCA versus Sony Long-life learning The death of "4 in 40" and the growth of adult learning. We welcome back the author of “Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns: Michael B Horn. More about Michael: https://michaelbhorn.com  

Part 2 coming week of 25th Oct 2021 A groundbreaking and timely prescription for education reform―from a leading expert in innovation and growth Recent studies in neuroscience reveal that the way we learn doesn’t always match up with the way we are taught. To stay competitive―academically, economically, and technologically―we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence and reevaluate our educational system. Disrupting Class offers a groundbreaking and timely prescription for education reform that incorporates customized learning, student-centric classrooms, and new technology. Featuring fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and unprecedented insights on how innovation must be managed, this book will open your eyes to new possibilities, unlock hidden potential, and get you to think differently about learning and education. We welcome the author of “Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns: Michael B Horn. More about Michael here: https://michaelbhorn.com

Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus, we don't like to talk, or even think, about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain".  Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behaviour. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain. We welcome the author of a multitude of titles including the focus for today's episode: “The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life” Robin Hanson.