Untold Stories of Innovation

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? Derrick Braziel is a 2019 Obama Foundation fellow and a co-founder of MORTAR Cincinnati, an entrepreneurial hub supporting minority and underrepresented entrepreneurs. Derrick started MORTAR because he realized people in Cincinnati, and all around the nation, have great ideas but aren’t necessarily connected to the best tools and resources for starting  businesses.  Their mission is to offer non-traditional entrepreneurs the opportunity to use their inherent talents to not just make a dollar, but to positively participate in the rise of Cincinnati. We discuss how collaboration, paired with skillful storytelling, can support this mission and bridge the resource gap. This gap exists between investors and entrepreneurs; students and quality education; and ultimately, between communities and what is considered valuable. MORTAR helps make Cincinnati a diverse, economically inclusive community that has ranked as a top growth center for innovation in the United States and one of the best places to be a minority entrepreneur. With world-class resources and a network of startups, BigCos, universities, and venture capitalists, Cincinnati’s growing innovation ecosystem is an inspiration to cities across the nation.  The Case for Growth Centers Places Where Minority Entrepreneurs Are Succeeding For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? Angela Freeman is an intellectual property associate at Barnes & Thornburg, LLC and president of Women & Hi Tech. Angela admits that she learned what a patent attorney was many years into her career as a molecular biologist at Eli Lilly. Her scientific background lends a hand as she helps inventors protect their inventions, determining if a patent is the right route for the organization. To Angela, knowledge is power. That’s why empowering young girls to get involved in STEM is her passion project. Inspired to make a real difference in the lives of young girls, she says, “you can’t be what you can’t see.”For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? Charlene Platon is a board-certified family nurse practitioner, a licensed registered nurse, the director of ambulatory nursing at Stanford Health Care, and a Johnson &  Johnson Nurse Innovation Fellow. Charlene’s goal is to bring nurse-led innovation to the forefront of healthcare. In mid-May of 2020, she and Chris Caulfield of Forbes Tech Council were on one of the winning teams at SONSIEL, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and DevUP’s international COVID-19 Virtual Hackathon. She reveals how critical storytelling was to get buy-in from the judges. Healthcare #sheroes like Charlene highlight important stories of collaborative medical innovation. From process improvement to new tech development, nurses are in a unique position to see opportunities for healthcare improvement. Our key takeaway? All nurses are innovators, but not everyone is  traditionally empowered to see it that way. We hope you take this nurse-led innovation story and apply it to your industry or to your community. Everyone could use a broader lens about who can be innovation leaders. Innovation isn’t reserved for Silicon Valley; it’s led by subject matter experts working together to improve their field. For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? Brian Cobb, chief innovation officer at Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), partners with startups, internal stakeholders, and division leaders to make problems visible and discover data-driven solutions. By both measuring and sharing their travelers’ stories, CVG has developed industry-changing tech. Innovation comes from many places, but according to Brian, paying close attention to user experience is always a good place to start. In fact, he mentions that much of the innovation coming out of CVG was inspired by a video on this very subject. Even though it was made years ago, and by University of Cincinnati students, the ideas within sparked innovation in a big way.For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? Lou Grtizo, VP of research at FM Global, considers  communication an overlooked but crucial skill for technical scientists and engineers. Lou shares with us how FM Global motivates their teams to view stories as a vehicle to convey the value and impact of their work. This is why at the moment of entry, FM Global new hires are required to participate in training that helps them explore and strengthen their communication skills. Lou also speaks to the importance of creating institutional memory around successes and failures. He takes an even deeper dive into this subject in his recent publication on Success Factors in R&D Leadership.For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Jeff Shaffer is a library of knowledge when it comes to effective ways to bring data to life. Jeff is founder of dataplusscience.com, Tableau Zen Master, COO and VP of IT and Analytics at Unifund, adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati, and coauthor of The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios. He speaks to the importance of credible and contextualized data, sharing insight about collection, visualization, and storytelling along the way. Presenting data with storytelling elicits empathy. An experiment by a team from NYU School of Engineering and NYU Law found that changes to the design of the data visualization itself did not have a significant impact on empathy; however, the text surrounding the visualization (and the context it provided) did have a significant impact on empathy. Jeff shares many examples of data storytelling, spanning Tableau’s contribution to Johns Hopkins’ Coronavirus Resource Center and Alberto Lucas' Lopez’ powerful data viz for National Geographic. Alberto created a cut-out ruler to show readers the mid-upper arm circumference of children in malnourished communities. We share  Jeff’s fondness for epic examples, and we know you will too. For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Dena Bravata is co-founder of Lyra Health and Chair of Castlight Health’s healthcare advisory board. She tells us about three of Castlight’s innovative digital health responses to COVID-19. These include the largest national registry of coronavirus testing sites in the United States, a self-assessment for those experiencing symptoms, and a city-specific dataset on vulnerable populations and medical capacity. Everything is publicly available on their website. Fortunately, local public health officials have used these findings to inform capacity planning within their county at the zip code level. People can rely on these digital health solutions, which could ultimately have a lasting impact on the future of healthcare.For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? Angela Lorts wears a lot of hats: cardiac intensivist, associate chief quality officer of outcomes at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, and co-founder and co-director of ACTION. In our conversation, she shares how the powerful combination of storytelling and simple data visualization helps people understand a problem and their potential role in solving it. In this interview, we look at storytelling as an invitation to deeper thought and dynamic action.For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? Jennifer Joe, MD founder of MedTech Boston, an emergency room physician at VA Boston Health Care System, and CEO of Vanguard.health tells us “medicine can be better” and that stories can empower minorities to be part of the solution. She echoes Vanguard.health’s mission to drive digital transformation through collaboration and innovation in her own stories of innovation. When teams are diverse and all voices are heard, innovation thrives. We even talk about how her mission to encourage story-sharing, to fuel innovation, is relevant in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Why do stories matter to the innovation process? What values can be instilled in innovators who share stories? How do innovation leaders inspire creators to tell and share their success and failure stories? We talk with Chief Innovation Officer at The Honest Company, Don Frey, about how to respond to a demand for transparency throughout the innovation process. Don shares with us how this brand has created new cultural expectations in the beauty industry by making the demand for sustainable, ethically sourced products visible. For example, they just released a vegan liquid lip product that is unlike any other. It’s 80 percent naturally derived and moisturizes the lips rather than dries them out. From supporting scientists internally at The Honest Company to helping young people see the potential of their future, all roads lead back to storytelling. For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent