Innovation Storytellers

New Orleans is famous for its distinctive music, Creole cuisine, and annual celebrations and festivals, such as Mardi Gras. But it's not a city that many would associate with innovation. However, the melting pot of cultures has helped create a mindset in which innovation thrives. For example, the combination of African music and the blues combined with other American influences gave rise to the only indigenous art music to form out of the US.

In this week's episode of Innovation Storytellers, Michael Hecht, President & CEO of Greater New Orleans Inc discusses how cultural clashes create environments in which innovation thrives. We also explore how bringing a financial and a moral perspective together are critical components in driving innovation forward. Michael also shares with me how post-hurricane Katrina, New Orleans needed to rebuild entrepreneurship and focus on technology.

Implementing any new technology or innovation will often require culture change. Steve Rubinow, the award-winning CIO, strategist, transformation expert, and professional lecturer at DePaul University, shares his experiences with helping people through the journey of change. He also shares his goal of three zeros which are zero costs, latency, and downtime.  Steve discusses how every enterprise has to be as fast and reliable as possible simultaneously. Customers demand proper functionality and security at the same time too. But if you don't do anything about it, someone else will, and your customers will go there in a hurry. He also advises leaders to listen to the suggestions for improvement from their customers because the best answers can come from the most unlikely places.

Edison Innovations has built a reputation for using crowdsourcing and virtual research technologies combined with strategic marketing and business planning to offer a new dimension in developing new products and services. I invited its founder and CEO, Larry MacDonald on the podcast to learn more about the story behind the company and how it got its name.

Steve Jobs once said, "Some say, give the customers what they want. But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do." Larry shares his take on this quote and discusses how his design-thinking approach to innovation was inspired by playing with Lego bricks.

We talk about how technology can monitor what students have learned so they can relearn the foundational material they have missed school due to sickness. He also shares many stories of other innovations that he has worked with and his lessons learned along the way.

Anthony Mills currently serves as Executive Director of Global Innovation Institute (GInI), CEO of Legacy Innovation Group, and adviser to numerous advisory boards. So I asked him to join me on this week's episode of the Innovation Storytellers podcast to talk about innovation and design thinking. 

Anthony shares with me why great innovators are incredibly resourceful and use diplomacy to tell their stories in a way that gets stakeholders on board. We also discuss the importance of identifying the negative consequences your innovations could have on stakeholders and addressing those concerns from the outset.

Finally, we talk about how cognitive biases can wreak havoc with our ability to think about the future because of all the filters and biases we bring to the table. We explore why innovators must recognize them when they occur. Anthony advises how every innovator is challenged by looking through the biases to see objectively the future they can create.

Outcome is an innovation consultancy that works with senior teams worldwide on the strategy, leadership, and culture required for innovation to solve today's innovation-led growth challenges while building the capabilities for shaping the future. Cris Beswick, the co-founder of Outcome, joins me on this week's episode of the Innovation Storytellers podcast to share his story.

We discuss how innovators in the workplace know there are better ways of doing things, but organizations are often resistant to embracing change. But even when they do, they chase after growth and shiny new technologies. However, this usually results in low-value ideas that aren't aligned with the organization's strategy.

Cris explains the importance of strategy, governance, structure, and why the five core components of their innovation system ensure that initiatives avoid descending into chaos. This is a must-listen episode if you are looking for a practical framework on how to build a culture of innovation in your organization.

When Graham Brown witnessed trends around how teenage girls in Japan were using pocket-bell pagers to message each other in the mid-1990s, he knew a significant shift was happening and saw the potential for SMS messages before mobile providers had introduced the feature on early mobile phones. But when Brown excitedly approached mobile phone companies with his observations, he was told, "We don't market to kids." Ironically, it would be teenagers who would teach mobile companies how to make money from data packages much later on. 

In this episode of the podcast, we explore how, throughout the history of technology, young people have often been the ones to drop clues about future trends through their digital social interactions - often going so far as to corrupt technologies to make them better. 

We also talk about how story listening can help brands defeat innovation bias, and stay open to the way technology needs to evolve.

At WTW (NASDAQ: WTW), they provide data-driven, insight-led solutions in people, risk, and capital. By leveraging their colleagues' global view and local expertise in serving 140 countries and markets, they help their clients sharpen their strategy, enhance organizational resilience, motivate their workforce, and maximize performance. But what does innovation look like inside a $9 billion company?

Karen O’Leonard, Head of Innovation at Willis Towers Watson, joins me in a conversation about the innovative strategies that have helped her company grow. She also shares how seeing disproportionate ratios of men to women in the tech industry fueled her passion to get more women involved in innovation and build a culture where everyone can shine.

We also discuss what happens when innovation fails. For example, it might be the best idea possible at the wrong time, or there are simply no available resources. Karen shares her mantra of falling in love with the problem, not the solution. Unfortunately, we have all seen teams fall in love with their solution, and they will go down swinging with it, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary from their customers. Food for thought indeed.

Ocean Visions brings together leading oceanographic research and academic institutions, the private sector, and public-interest organizations to design and advance solutions to the growing crises in our ocean and climate. I invited Executive Director & Chief Innovation Officer,  Brad Ack, to join me on the podcast to learn more about Ocean Visions’ innovative conservation and sustainability initiatives.

In this episode, Brad shares the story behind how Ocean Visions came to be, and how the company now works to solve some of the world's biggest problems through multiple disciplines and by engaging different perspectives.

We discuss how the pollution problem impacting our world requires enormous innovation and redesigning our entire economic system. But with many businesses promising to reach net-zero by 2030, the goal has been set. So, what will it take to get there? Listen in to learn more.

Since the early 2000s, business storytelling has become a widely accepted strategy for companies around the world. Stories are harnessed in advertising, marketing, PR, and leadership and culture development. After recently reading the book Once Upon an Innovation and how the authors apply story techniques to creative problem solving and innovation, I invited them onto the podcast to learn more.

Jean Storlie and Mimi Sherlock share how stories trigger the brain to release oxytocin, the trust and empathy hormone, making them a powerful tool for understanding and addressing users' needs. This also means that storytelling methods can be applied to the other half of the battle—getting others on board with new ideas moving through the various checkpoints in an organization. 

Although innovation is a very emotional process with its ups and downs, my guests illustrate how storytelling can be applied to accelerate innovation and lead change.

HowGood is a SaaS data platform with the world's largest database on food and personal care product sustainability. With more than 33,000 ingredients, chemicals and materials assessed, HowGood helps leading brands, retailers and restaurants improve their environmental and social impact.

Ethan Soloviev, Chief Innovation Officer at HowGood, joins me on the Innovation Storytellers Podcast in a conversation about how he became an innovator in regenerative agriculture. We talk about the massive consumer shift as shoppers increasingly demand more sustainable products along with transparency around the environmental and social impacts of products.

I also learned how regenerative agriculture is not just about sustainability and reducing carbon. It shouldn't stop at net zero ether. By contrast, it should be about aiming to create more life than was there before. We discuss how by regenerating the soil, water, and biodiversity, the result is a more viable business. Ethan shares examples of how farmers who adopt these principles, thinking, and decision-making are becoming more profitable.