Stanford Innovation Lab

What are the essential ingredients for a brainstorm? Before the Post-its go up and ideas start flying, the best facilitators engage in a healthy dose of planning. Emily Ma, from Alphabet’s X, and former IDEO designer, joins Tina to discuss how to energize teams to generate their best ideas. Plus: should you bring that funky paperweight from your desk, your fuzzy dice, and origami crane? Yes! All this on the first of three episodes with Emily Ma on brainstorming.

How is launching a new romance like starting a business? Oh, let us count the ways… On this Valentine’s Day, host Tina Seelig serves up some playful thoughts on the similarities between starting a venture and falling in love. Plus, she whispers sweet nothings in our ears, hinting at what is to come for this new season of Stanford Innovation Lab.

If you really want to win at negotiation, stop fighting and start listening. In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, host Tina Seelig speaks with Margaret “Maggie” Neale, professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, for answers to the burning questions about negotiating. Is emotion your most powerful tool? When does deference earn you more than dominance? Will setting a walk-away price decrease your drive to negotiate for more? Maggie also shares pro-tips on negotiating in all settings, from the office to the farmers’ market.

What if you removed failure from your vocabulary? Patricia Ryan Madson, Improv pioneer and retired Stanford University lecturer, sees improvisation - and the art of "yes, and" - as a route to innovation. In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, Tina Seelig meets with Patricia to discuss re-framing experiences as experiments and practicing attentiveness.

Imagine a collective brain shaped by human insights and powered by technology - that's crowdsourcing. Michael Bernstein, computer scientist at Stanford University, explores how to harness crowdsourcing to tackle daunting challenges. In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, Tina Seelig meets with Michael to discuss examples of successful crowdsourcing, tools to gather collective insights, and the evolving relationship between humans and machines.

What makes a story stick with you? From campfires to boardrooms, master storyteller JD Schramm studies the habits of powerful storytellers and teaches students at Stanford business school how to captivate audiences. In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, Tina and JD discuss how entrepreneurs and executives use stories to motivate teams and drive business.

Diversity in tech has become a national conversation. In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, Tina Seelig speaks with software engineer and diversity advocate Tracy Chou. Tracy graduated from Stanford with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, and was an early employee at both Quora and Pinterest. In this episode, Tracy talks about her own experiences as a woman in software engineering, what she has learned as she has explored this topic in depth, and how data can inform the conversation around diversity in tech.

What does the next generation of venture capital look like? In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, Tina Seelig speaks with venture capitalist Chi-Hua Chien. Chi-Hua started his career working in startups, and entered the VC world through roles at Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins. He recently started his own VC firm, called Goodwater Capital. In this episode, he shares insights into the world of venture capital and how the industry is evolving.

“The enemy of delivering a product is trying to deliver the perfect product.” In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, Tina Seelig interviews Gabriel Parisi-Amon, co-founder of Nebia, where he focuses on building breakthrough shower nozzles that are beautifully designed, create a luxurious experience, and use only 25 percent of the water. During this conversation, Gabe covers a diverse set of topics: from the differences between developing hardware and software, to the distinction between designing products and designing experiences.

What is the number one cause for failure in early-stage startups? Team issues! In this episode of Stanford Innovation Lab, Tina Seelig interviews executive coach Michael Terrell. Michael is the founder and managing partner of Terrell Leadership Group, and co-author of The Inside Out Effect, which focuses on effective leadership. In this conversation, Michael shares his insights on effective team dynamics, his process for diagnosing team issues, and examples of how he works through team challenges.