Innovation Storytellers

Did you know that some of the most incredible innovations are happening in the beauty and fragrance space? This is just one of the many reasons why I invited Shanna Weinblatt, Senior Director, Innovation & Beauty Tech at Coty, to discuss how they are leveraging AR, AI, VR, and ultra-personalization. But to begin with, I learn more about her path into the world of innovation.

Coty is a world leader in beauty and home to an illustrious roster of cosmetic, skincare, and fragrance brands. The company also has a mission to challenge the definition of beauty, encourage authenticity, and celebrate diversity. Most of all, the company's ethos is to think big and challenge convention.

We discuss how in an increasingly digital world where everything is becoming more decentralized, everyone is a creator. Shanna also shares why she believes there will be a place in the metaverse where people will visit beauty brands. To further strengthen this point, we discuss Decentraland's Metaverse Fashion Week and how it received more industry attention than any digital fashion event before.

Kapil Kane, Director of Innovation at Intel China, joins me on today's episode of Innovation Storytellers to share his innovation journey working at Apple under Steve Jobs.

Despite leading product design for the iPod, MacBook, MacBook Air, iMac, and iPad, Kapil describes being allergic to the word “innovation”, and reveals that nobody ever said that word in all his years at Apple. Instead, they just did it - without giving what they were doing a label.

Kapil also shares how Intel China are transforming brilliant employees into internal startups. Inspired by startup accelerators outside Intel, Kapil reveals why they decided to follow a similar process with their internal innovation teams. The result is the award-winning corporate startup accelerator Growth X.

Nancy Wang is the General Manager of Data Protection Services at AWS and the Founder and CEO of Advancing Women in Tech (AWIT). In today's episode, Nancy shares the story behind AWIT, and how this nonprofit organization is dedicated to empowering women to attain more leadership roles in product and tech. 

We discuss the importance of mentorship and continuing education for women and underrepresented individuals to help accelerate their careers in the tech industry. AWIT has already put 27,000 individuals worldwide through its Coursera-based courses, which range from real-world to cloud product management.

AWIT is opening up its mission and scope to serve more women and underrepresented groups to empower women at all stages of their tech career. Nancy reveals how, by focusing not only on early career stages, but also on those already in the pipeline who are just a few steps away from reaching the senior executive level or C-suite, they are making a real difference - and sparks ideas for how you can do the same. 

When it comes to innovation, everybody's looking for the game-changer. But Lon Safko shares the reality that humans need baby steps before they can leap forward. In this episode of the podcast, Lon and I talk about how the stories that connect us are the breadcrumbs that allow humans to understand what's coming - without fear. 

Lon shares the inspiration behind his bestselling books, and how having the ability to look into the future is both a gift and a curse. He also spills the details of his formula for helping people to become more creative and innovative. 

Finally, Lon shares an amusing anecdote of what happened when he received an unexpected phone call from John Sculley, the former CEO of Apple, and how it led to him partnering with the tech giant.

Inventions from previous industrial revolutions transformed the world. However, Joti Balani believes that, when it comes to innovation, we’re standing on the shoulders of giants. In today's episode, Joti explains how every innovation involves taking what the previous generations have given us and coming together to solve more problems.

Business leaders must foster innovative mindsets and curious minds if they want to achieve their goals, increase revenue, reduce costs, or improve the customer experience. And while everyone around the table needs to focus on solving the customer's problems, it's also important to remember that there are two sides to every story. 

Joti shares how a combination of conversational AI and fresh perspectives are beginning to transform the world again, as we prepare to enter a new industrial revolution.

In this episode, Chris Mattmann shares how NASA is continuously in search of intelligent innovations everywhere. Although most people associate NASA with images beamed back from Mars, Mattmannn shares how his work also helped journalists in government track international financial crime amongst the world’s elite by uncovering insights in the Panama Papers, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism in 2017.

Mattmann also shares how every dollar spent in space comes back fivefold on earth. For example, if you look at the evolution of the iPhone camera over the last 15 years, the seamless technology for these cameras came from space and originated from a Caltech patent. He also shares how investments in space have led to innovation around regenerative food and different types of sustainable food.

There are many examples of innovation in our daily lives that all came from explorations of Mars and interstellar space. But if you would like to hear more about what he believes is the greatest innovation of all time, listen to the full episode.

In today's episode, I interview Chris Harris, VP of Global Field Engineering at Couchbase, about how he has been accelerating technology innovation at the database software company and establishing a more open, collaborative culture. Together, we talk about how databases can be the building blocks that allow businesses to innovate with greater ease. 

Innovation unlocks the ability to set a vision, but bringing it to life successfully requires we use a set of foundational tools and architecture. With the surge in demand for improved end-user experiences, Chris shares his insights about why the way we approach innovation is more critical than ever.

This week on Innovation Storytellers, we welcome the return of Tendayi Viki, Author of Pirates In The Navy and Associate Partner at Strategyzer. We last spoke to him in episode 20 about how to be an Innovation Pirate in the Corporate Navy. Today, we learn how his path began in Zimbabwe, and how his journey took him to the UK and Stanford University, where he caught the innovation bug.

Tendayi discusses how innovation succeeds because it's a passionate person pushing it through. But the truth is, especially in a corporate context, that innovation thrives through collaboration across functions. He also argues that anything that involves creativity or bringing something new into the world will consist of a hit-and-miss process. But that process can also be systematic. 

Tendayi believes we are surrounded by the secrets to repeatable innovation success everywhere we look. Listen to our inspiring conversation now, and don’t forget to leave a review!

Steve Waddell shares the inspirational journey that led to him developing an innovative bathroom faucet that saves water while improving functionality. It was a rollercoaster ride of tremendous highs, such as winning $50k on Steve Harvey's Funderdome TV show, only to discover he would have to wait one year to receive his winnings.

Unperturbed, listen as Waddel shares his engaging story of how he managed to secure a credit card for $50k to develop engineered designs and the first production prototypes of his faucets, knowing he could pay it all off when the check came at the end of the year. Today, the resulting product, Nasoni's award-winning fountain faucet, is an industry-leading bathroom faucet known for product innovation and customer satisfaction. 

Don’t miss this episode!

Do you dare to take the creativity leap needed to bridge the gap between the churn of work and the highly sought-after prize called innovation? 

In this episode, Natalie Nixon, PhD, president of Figure 8 Thinking, reveals why she believes creativity is the engine for innovation as an invention, and shares how it can be converted into a scalable value that can be both financial and cultural.

Natalie explains that most organizations don't understand creativity, which is seldom appreciated beyond the arts realm. However, by introducing the idea that, if we think about creativity as our ability to toggle between wonder and rigor to solve problems, then we’ll realize that it's not only the most exceptional dancers, musicians, and painters who are creative, but also the best lawyers, engineers, accountants, and teachers.