Activate Innovation Lounge

About this episode:

Every organization should have its own garage. Not just a physical space, but a program that allocates resources and time for employees to tinker, experiment, and push their own boundaries by default, not by exception. That belief is what brought Ed Essey to the Activate Innovation Lounge.

Ed has spent over a decade inside Microsoft Garage, one of the most recognizable internal innovation programs in the world, coaching employees from every function to turn their passion into real, deployed impact. With over 20,000 projects produced in a single event and innovations ranging from the Xbox Adaptive Controller to underwater data centers, the Garage is proof that when organizations invite employees to innovate rather than merely permit it, the results compound over time.

In this conversation, Ed shares what it actually takes to activate innovators already among your employees, build the scaffolding to move ideas from concept to deployed solution, and nourish the culture so the innovation mindset outlasts any single program or event.

If you are a leader trying to figure out how to make innovation a practice rather than a moment, this episode is your blueprint.

Key takeaways:

• The best innovation crews are not assigned by leadership, they are chosen by the innovators themselves.
• Every innovation crew needs three makers: a change-maker to build it, a deal-maker to sell it, and a taste-maker to make it compelling.
• The two-sided marketplace, where leaders post challenges and employees respond with solutions, is what turns a program into an activation engine.
• The intrapreneur mindset in one line: find an idea big enough to matter and small enough to win.
• In an AI-accelerated world, the three innovation horizons are no longer time-based, and the structures leaders build today need to match that new reality.

Chapters:

00:00 Activating Innovators: The Microsoft Garage Journey

09:42 The Impact of Microsoft Garage on Culture

18:39 Innovators and Their Traits

27:23 Pathways for Innovation: From Ideas to Products

32:34 The Art of Hacking for Change

34:56 Building Entrepreneurial Crews

38:24 The Heist Movie Analogy for Innovation

41:48 Activating Innovators in Established Companies

48:17 AI's Impact on Innovation and Team Dynamics

01:00:32 Vibe Coding: The New Language of Innovation

01:06:04 Unlocking Innovation Through Positive Emotions

01:07:32 The Role of Teams in Innovation

01:08:54 The Challenge of Data in Innovation Projects

When Elaine Chin designs a challenge, she is not just writing a problem statement. She is translating years of internal work into a question the world can answer. In this episode of Activate Innovation Lounge, Elaine walks us through the art and science of challenge design, from identifying the right problem to sequencing solutions, setting prize incentives, and managing what happens after the award. She shares stories from her work at Innocentive, including a Habitat for Humanity challenge that reduced malaria exposure by 89% in Kenya and government challenges that hired solvers from countries no recruiter would have considered. If you are an innovation leader wondering whether challenges belong in your toolkit, this conversation will show you exactly how they work and why they matter. Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

What if the reason your innovation efforts keep failing is not because you lack ideas, but because you are asking less questions than you should? 

Stephen Shapiro, author and creator of a 20,000 person innovation practice at Accenture, joins the Activate Innovation Lounge to unpack why organizations default to suggestion boxes, how confirmation bias sabotages even the best solutions, and why the baggage claim story he has told for years still stops leaders in their tracks. This conversation digs into challenge-centered innovation, the role of middle managers as the permafrost of innovation, and how AI is reshaping not just the tools we use, but the questions we need to ask. 

If you are tired of spinning wheels on ideas that do not create value, this episode will change how you approach your next challenge. 

Listen now on the Activate Innovation Lounge.

For those curious to learn more, take a look at the Invisible Solutions for 25 lenses to reframe your problem statement.

Also, Stephen's new book You're Not Playing with a Full Deck: Why the Coworkers Who Drive You Crazy Are Your Unfair Advantage is coming on April 21, 2026 and a useful guide to driving innovation and collaboration for breakthrough results.

In this episode, I talk to Jon A. Fredrickson, pioneer in open innovation and founder of Einstein's 55, who’s dedicated most of his career to working Fortune 500 companies, government, and nonprofit organizations leverage open innovation challenges to source innovative solutions and innovators. In this episode, he reveals why most organizations misdiagnose their biggest challenges and how leaders can break through organizational antibodies, cultural resistance, and insular thinking to source breakthrough solutions from unexpected places. Jon shares the BOOM methodology, real stories from NASA to humanitarian organizations, and why getting the problem right matters more than having all the answers. If you're leading innovation and feel stuck, this conversation will change how you think about problems, solutions, and who gets to solve them.

Jon is the founder and CEO of Einstein55.

In this conversation, Jan Fischer discusses the critical role of employee innovation in organizations and how to create a culture that fosters creativity and engagement. He emphasizes that innovation is not just the responsibility of a select few but should involve everyone in the organization. The discussion also covers the importance of overcoming barriers to innovation, the impact of AI on innovation management, and the challenges of measuring the ROI of innovation efforts. Jan shares real-world examples of successful employee-driven innovation initiatives and highlights the need for organizations to adapt and evolve their innovation strategies to remain competitive in the future.

Jan Fischer is the founder and CEO of innosabi.

Takeaways

• Innovation is everyone's responsibility, not just a select few.
• Organizations often have more ideas than they can act upon.
• Lack of permission stifles innovation in organizations.
• Employee engagement is crucial for successful innovation.
• Creating a culture of innovation requires commitment from leadership.
• AI can enhance the role of innovation managers by automating repetitive tasks.
• Measuring the ROI of innovation is challenging but essential.
• Successful innovation requires quick feedback and support from management.
• Innovation should be seen as a continuous process, not a one-time event.
• Recognition and a culture of experimentation drive employee innovation.

Leaders complain they don't have enough ideas. Yet every organization is full of people naturally full of ideas. So what's locking those ideas up?

⁠Robyn Bolton⁠ is Chief Navigator at MileZero and former innovation leader at Procter & Gamble and Innosight, Clayton Christensen's firm. She's discovered through her research that only 0.002% of ideas become million dollar businesses within a year of launch. That means you need 40,000 ideas to create a $1 million dollar product.

In this conversation, you'll learn why successful organizations struggle most with innovation, how to create guardrails instead of rigid processes, and why leaders must fall in love with the problem before rushing to solutions.

Robyn also shares the three resistance statements every innovation leader will face and exactly how to respond when someone says we tried that before.

The conversation explores the critical role of leadership in innovation and the importance of creating a culture of idea sharing and activation. It delves into the challenges and considerations in open innovation, as well as the future of innovation and integration of internal and external ideas.

She is the author of ⁠Unlocking Innovation⁠ and founder of ⁠MileZero⁠ through which she helps clients to use innovation, unlock their business’s potential and get real results. 

Chapters:

• 00:00 The Role of Leadership in Innovation

• 05:57 Creating a Culture of Idea Sharing

• 11:56 The Evolution of Ideas into Million-Dollar Products

• 17:49 Challenges and Considerations in Open Innovation

• 31:15 The Importance of Loving the Problem

• 37:19 Advice for New Innovation Leaders

• 44:27 Managing Resistance to Innovation

In this conversation, Iliriana Kaçaniku and Eugene Ivanov explore the evolution and significance of open innovation and crowdsourcing. They discuss the differences between co-creation and crowdsourcing, the importance of internal crowdsourcing, and the challenges faced by smaller organizations in adopting innovative practices. The role of AI in enhancing innovation processes is also examined, along with the necessity of defining problems effectively in crowdsourcing initiatives. The discussion concludes with reflections on the future of crowdsourcing and the importance of retaining solver loyalty in a competitive landscape.

 Key takeaways

• Open innovation is about bringing external knowledge into organizations.

• Crowdsourcing allows organizations to tap into a global pool of solvers.

• Internal crowdsourcing can create a common intellectual space within organizations.

• AI tools can significantly reduce the cost of innovation processes.

• Defining problems accurately is crucial for successful crowdsourcing.

• Organizations need to foster a culture of continuous innovation.

• Smaller organizations can leverage AI to enhance their innovation capabilities.

• The loyalty of solvers is essential for successful crowdsourcing platforms.

• Co-creation involves known partners, while crowdsourcing involves unknown solvers.

• Innovation is a necessity for survival in today's fast-paced environment.

I launched Activate Innovation Lounge with a single mission: uncover how organizations create the conditions that unleash innovation talent already within their teams.

In each episode, I sit down with leaders who are building the structures, processes, and incentives that turn latent potential into breakthrough solutions. We explore what worked, what backfired, and the specific conditions that made innovation possible, not the theory.

Every conversation ends with an open question the guest is still wrestling with, creating true knowledge exchange across episodes.

Whether you're leading innovation, working in L&D, or trying to unlock your organization's hidden potential, this podcast is built to be useful for leaders doing the hard work of activating innovation from within.