Innovation Talks

April Dunford is the founder of Ambient Strategy, a consulting firm that helps technology companies grow. She has led marketing, product, and sales teams at companies like IBM, Siebel, and Sybase. April's work is focused on early and growth-stage startups—recognizing that weak positioning can be the difference between success and failure. She also works with large global companies, helping them develop deeper positioning expertise in their product and marketing teams. April's best-selling book, Obviously Awesome, captures her ideas about positioning and provides a methodology that any startup can follow. Today, April is focused on giving back as much as she can. She mentors and advises dozens of startups and is an enthusiastic board member at a handful of startups. April resides in Toronto, Canada, where she enjoys spending time with her kids and small dog in a cabin in the woods.

Today, April joins me to discuss positioning for B2B tech companies. She explains how to position a product to the current market, rather than the company’s vision of the future. She discusses what product managers need to understand about their vision and the current market to craft a successful position. She explains why product positioning is most important in B2B and why positioning is different from messaging. We discuss the importance of positioning to improve marketing and sales performance and why you need to continually refine and evolve positioning over time. April also suggests the best way to develop a positioning thesis and calculate the value it will deliver to the customer.

“The best way to test positioning if you're B2B and you have a sales team is to take that positioning and translate it into a sales pitch, then test it out on qualified prospects in a sales call.” - April Dunford

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     How to explore the best positioning strategy for your company

●     How B2B tech companies can position themselves for their specific market

●     Why weak positioning makes your sales process harder

●     April’s five components of positioning

●     April’s methodology for positioning that any company can follow

●     How to test your positioning

●     The benefits of structured sales pitches

Connect with April Dunford:

●     April Dunford’s Website

●     Book: Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It by April Dunford

●     April Dunford on LinkedIn

●     April Dunford on Twitter

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

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Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Rachel Wynn is a B2B SaaS product leader with over a decade of experience in product strategy. Rachel has a proven track record of bringing new products to market and managing complex enterprise products and has helped numerous clients think more strategically, de-risk decision-making, and find product-market fit faster. As an experienced product manager, she has worked at companies at various stages, from bootstrapped to venture capital-backed, private equity funded, and public. She has also experienced acquisition and IPO exits, served on a board of directors, served as a pitch judge for an innovation challenge, and founded companies. With a background in managing road mapping software at ProductPlan and product analytics software at Quantum Metric, Rachel has interviewed hundreds of product teams, making her an authority in product vision and strategy, product road mapping, 0-1 product thinking, interviewing customers, customer discovery and validation, product innovation, product launch and go-to-market planning, product analytics, stakeholder communication, pricing and packaging, research and discovery, and customer-centric products. In her spare time, Rachel is a bookworm and she’s always ready to recommend a great read. 

Today, Rachel joins me to discuss how research-driven innovation can help teams create something new. She explains how research-driven innovation lessens your risk of failure and allows teams to make solid decisions. We discuss the importance of having a clear vision and why that vision needs to include all the problems you’re currently trying to solve. Rachel shares her approach to research in product management and how her background as a cognitive rehabilitation therapist informed her process. She emphasizes the importance of customer interviews, learning from your customers, and paying attention to what your competitors are doing. Rachel also outlines the research and feedback cycle and how to know when you’ve provided your customers with the most valuable solution.

“People will develop that book knowledge, yet—for all their best intentions—they're not getting different results. So there's this gap of taking that knowledge and bringing it into action.” - Rachel Wynn

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     Rachel’s tips for product managers

●     How companies can improve performance

●     The role of research in product innovation

●     The benefits of customer research

●     How to overcome burnout as a product manager

●     Product management success stories

●     Rachel’s top team coaching techniques

●     How to avoid common mistakes in product research

●     The impact of AI on product management

Connect with Rachel Wynn:

●     Rachel Wynn’s Website

●     Rachel Wynn on LinkedIn

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Dan Olsen is a product management trainer, consultant, author, and speaker who has worked with both small startups and large public companies. He began his career designing nuclear-powered submarines and later transitioned into product leadership roles at Intuit and several startups. As a product management trainer and consultant with Olsen Solutions, Dan helps CEOs and product leaders build high-performing product teams that drive growth and innovation. His impressive list of clients includes Google, Walmart, Amazon, Facebook, Box, Microsoft, Medallia, and One Medical Group. Dan is the author of the best-selling book, The Lean Product Playbook, and is a frequent speaker at business and tech events. Dan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern, a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford, and a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Today, Dan and I discuss the best practices every software product manager should follow for optimal success. Dan shares his observations about the increase in product management roles, training new product managers, and the global tech expansion. We dissect remote work, whether it’s preferable to employees returning to the office, and the trend of getting rid of leased office spaces in favor of it. Dan also describes his journey into product management and what he learned from designing nuclear submarines for the Navy.

“If you really want your software to be successful, you need product managers to be there.” - Dan Olsen

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     How Dan transitioned from designing nuclear submarines to product management

●     The best practices that all product managers should follow

●     The bell curves of product management in different types of companies

●     Best practices with respect to product management

●     How to train new product managers

●     The core roles of design and development teams

●     Why product managers are more in demand than ever before

Resources Mentioned:

●     Book: Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey Moore

●     Book: What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services by Anthony Ulwick

Connect with Dan Olsen:

●     Dan Olsen Website

●     Dan Olsen Newsletter

●     Book: The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback

●     Dan Olsen on LinkedIn

●     Dan Olsen on YouTube

●     Dan Olsen on Twitter

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Charlie Widdows is a thought leader and the Acclaim Ideas Product Specialist at Sopheon. Charlie joined the team after Sopehon acquired Solverboard, an innovative idea management tool that he co-founded. With a passion for ideation that spans over a decade, Charlie empowers customers to harness the full potential of their ideas. He believes that impactful ideas can change the world and is committed to helping businesses transform their ideas into better, more profitable products. Charlie is not content with merely achieving professional success. He gives back to his community as a business mentor at Black Valley, where he helps to increase equity in tech and foster Black entrepreneurship.

Charlie is back on the podcast to discuss the difficulties of creating an innovation-ready culture in a risk-averse world. He offers suggestions on how companies can become ready for innovation through culture shifts and uncover insights about innovation processes. We discuss how new ways of working can facilitate innovation and how most companies still use outdated technology. We deliberate on who innovation ideas should come from within the company and the qualities and skills an innovation manager needs. We also debate whether it’s better to experiment with innovation behind closed doors or make it a transparent and educational process.

“The world will always want innovators working for them. If you feel like you're an innovative person and the business is just not listening to you, go somewhere else.” - Charlie Widdows

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     How to know if your company is ready for innovation

●     The effect the pandemic has had on attitudes toward innovation

●     How digital tools have transformed the process of innovation

●     How to actualize ideas quickly

●     The 4 Vs of innovation culture

●     The value of openness and inclusivity for innovation

●     The qualities and skills innovation managers need to drive long-term success

Connect with Charlie Widdows:

●     Charlie Widdows on LinkedIn

●     Charlie Widdows on Twitter

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Dan Adams is a B2B innovator with over 40 years of experience in the field. He is the founder and President of The AIM Institute and the author of New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth. As a chemical engineer, Dan holds numerous patents and innovation awards and has been recognized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Dan is a frequent keynote speaker and has delivered lectures at prestigious institutions—such as Wharton’s Executive MBA program—and leading universities in North America and Europe. In recent years, Dan and his team at The AIM Institute have conducted extensive original research into the behaviors that drive B2B organic growth, which has helped many companies achieve profitable growth through innovation.

Today, Dan joins me to discuss the role quantitative interviews play in driving success and how Dan’s company, the AIM Institute, trains business leaders to do better customer interviews. Dan outlines what he learned from his leadership research with Professor Gina O’Connor of Babson College and the four types of leaders they discovered. Dan reveals the dangers of not innovating and spiraling into commoditization. He outlines the best way to promote employees and avoid chasing short-term gains to foster a culture of future builders. Dan also shares his beliefs about the type of people leadership should promote for long-term company success.                                                                   

“We're turning the sales force into a learning force, showing them how their product managers and marketing people can data mine this and look for weak signals of market interest and then know when to develop new product projects.” - Dan Adams

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     How to optimize B2B Voice-of-Customer programs

●     How leadership styles affect product development

●     The effect of promoting leaders who are only focused on cutting costs

●     The definition of “builder mentality” and why people who think this way need to be in the C-Suite

●     How to build a customer-centric business model

●     The value of quantitative interviews

●     How to build a culture that values listening

Resources Mentioned:

●     B2B Voice of Customer Skills Research Report

●     Everyday VOC (EVOC)

●     Professor Gina O’ Connor

Connect with Dan Adams:

●     AIM Institute Website

●     Book: New Product Blueprinting: The Handbook for B2B Organic Growth by Dan Adams

●     Dan Adams on LinkedIn

●     AIM Institute on LinkedIn

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Huub J.M. Rutten is the VP of Research and co-founder of Sopheon. Throughout his 20 years of experience in linguistics, communication, and innovation management, he has helped manufacturing, insurance, banking, aerospace, chemical, and healthcare businesses modernize their innovation management methodologies and software. Before joining Sopheon, Huub spent 15 years teaching linguistic disciplines and communication skills at various Institutions of higher education and universities in the Netherlands. In addition to his work at Sopheon, he currently serves as an adjunct professor at the European Institute for Public Administration (EIPA), where he teaches European IT politics and strategies.

Today, Huub is back on the podcast to discuss portfolios and how companies can operate in an uncertain business climate and still see success. Huub shares how he was inspired by a quote from the leader of the German Chemical Association about sprint portfolios and marathon portfolios. He offers his thoughts on how leaders can balance the needs of the company in both the short term and the long term. We deliberate on how global events like war affect the supply chain and recommend steps businesses can take to be prepared for those dramatic moments. Huub also explains how data can help you and your team speak the same language.

“The infrastructure that you need as a company should be based on being prepared for the dramatic moment.” - Huub Rutten

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     How to create a balanced portfolio even in difficult financial times

●     How to plan for both short-term and long-term success

●     Why it’s necessary to have both a sprint and marathon portfolio

●     Possible disruptions in the chemical industry

●     The factors that affect supply chain issues

●     The importance of good governance

●     How data organization helps with long-term success

Resources Mentioned:

●     Ansoff Matrixes

Connect with Huub Rutten:

●     Huub Rutten Website

●     Huub Rutten on LinkedIn

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners like you.

For additional information about new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter, where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Ulrike Laubner-Kelleher is a product management consultant and published author with over 20 years of experience advising companies of all sizes on how to successfully and efficiently bring their products to market. She empowers product managers and their teams with cutting-edge knowledge through training, masterclasses, and one-on-one mentoring. She has worked with over 100 companies, including UBS, ABL, RRC-Power Solutions, Elementar, Bystronic, Milwaukee Tools, JP3, and Scotiabank. Her mission is to bring better products to market more quickly by enabling product managers to impact their industry through customer-centered product creation. Ulrike's proprietary Red String Method helps companies become industry leaders by empowering teams through advanced product management know-how, creating skilled product managers, and fostering great inter-departmental team collaboration. The Red String Method has helped Ulrike's clients speed up time-to-market, make market-based decisions, and improve profitability by 30% or more. Her latest book is Powerful Communication for Product Managers.

Today, Ulrike joins me to discuss how she started her career 20 years ago and became a product manager before the profession had a label. She shares the most significant challenges product managers face and how she has helped companies refine innovation to be more successful. We discuss how business leaders can support product managers and outline the education, mentorship, and other resources product managers need to do their jobs properly. She emphasizes how marketing is often forgotten in the product development process, why the process is expected to be completed in just four weeks, and how product managers can ensure that everyone is on the same page with her Red String Method. Ulrike also breaks down how data should flow to support the product launch, prevent tasks and information from falling through the cracks, and ultimately achieve balance in the company.

"You cannot have a process without people and cannot have a product without people." - Ulrike Laubner-Kelleher

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     How Ulrike became a product manager before the profession even existed

●     The main challenges in product management

●     How Ulrike’s Red String Method connects products, people, and process

●     How the Red String Method can help make your company more profitable

●     How Ulrike streamlines the product management methodology

●     The role product managers play in a businesses success

●     The main differences between software and physical product management

●     How product management can be more sustainable

Connect with Ulrike Laubner-Kelleher:

●     Ulrike Laubner-Kelleher Website

●     Book: Powerful Communication for Product Managers

●     Book: A Product Manager’s Cookbook

●     Ulrike Laubner-Kelleher on LinkedIn

●     Email: [email protected]

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Charlie Widdows is the Acclaim Ideas Product Specialist at Sopheon. As the co-founder of Solverboard, an idea management tool that Sopheon acquired, Charlie brings a wealth of experience in ideation to his current role. With the recent launch of Acclaim Ideas in 2022, Charlie is dedicated to assisting customers in harnessing the full potential of their ideas to generate better and more profitable products. He strongly believes that impactful ideas have the power to change the world. He gives back to the community by serving as a business mentor at Black Valley, where he helps increase equity in tech by fostering an environment where talents from a black ethnic background can thrive.

Today, Charlie and I discuss discovery in the context of corporate innovation and new product development. Charlie defines discovery and shares what he believes its results should be. We discuss how discovery can be applied on different levels in an organization and how to use it to create innovative products. Charlie reveals the two main obstacles standing in the way of successful discovery within a company and outlines how to nurture a company culture to make every team member, regardless of their position in the company, feel their input is valued. We also address the difficulty of introducing new ideas and processes into a business and how the fear of failure prevents some people from taking risks.

 “I would say that for me is the discovery process—the problem, framing the ideation, and then the testing of the learning, the insights, the lessons that you gather from that.” - Charlie Widdows

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     The difference between ideation and discovery in innovation

●     The main barriers organizations face in successful discovery

●     The challenges businesses face in implementing innovative ideas

●     How to manage ideas and identify the best responsible parties

●     The benefits of discovery for change and transformation teams

●     How to reframe challenges for innovative solutions

●     The role of AI in the innovation and ideation processes

●     What leaders can learn from data from other industries

Connect with Charlie Widdows:

●     Charlie Widdows on LinkedIn

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Radhika Dutt is an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, product leader, and the author of the book Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter. Her expertise in building radical products has led her to advise a broad range of organizations from high-tech startups to government agencies in industries such as broadcast, media and entertainment, telecom, advertising technology, government, consumer apps, robotics, and even wine. Radhika is an advisor on product thinking to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the country's central bank and financial regulator. She also sits on the board of the independent publisher, Berrett Koehler. She earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Radhika speaks nine languages fluently, underscoring her talent for bridging cultural divides and fostering collaboration across global teams.

Today, Radhika joins me to discuss her book Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter and how you can apply the principles of her work to your own company. She shares the process she followed to develop the Radical Product Thinking framework and how that discovery led her to write a book. She diagnoses some common product diseases plaguing companies today and reveals how emphasizing culture can help you innovate. She describes the tools that teams use to successfully innovate and what leaders can learn from Steve Jobs. Radhika also offers advice to company leaders on shifting their company’s culture and mindset and adopting a vision-driven product mindset.

“Traditionally, we've always thought about product as a physical or digital thing. What I've realized is product is really a way of thinking, and it's really high time that we change or rethink what product itself means.” -Radhika Dutt

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     What a Silicon Valley mindset can tell us about testing hypotheses

●     How Radhika developed the Radical Product Thinking framework

●     How Radhika came to write her book Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter

●     Signs you may have obsessive sales disorder or feature-itis

●     The importance of culture in innovation

●     A new way to view culture

●     What a clear vision for your culture can do for teams

●     The benefits of giving teams more autonomy and decision-making power

●     Radhika’s framework for decision-making

●     The perfect balance for company leaders 

●     What leaders today can learn from the launch of the iPhone

●     Why understanding pain points is fundamental to innovation

●     How to translate strategy into everyday decision making

●     How to shift your organization’s mindset to a vision-driven product mindset

Resources Mentioned:

●     Book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

Connect with Radhika Dutt:

●     Radhika Dutt Website

●     Book: Radical Product Thinking: The New MIndset For Innovating Smarter

●     Radhika Dutt on LinkedIn

●     Radhika Dutt on Twitter

●     Radhika Dutt on Medium

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.

For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Huub J.M. Rutten is the co-founder and Vice President of Research at Sopheon. He has over 20 years of experience in linguistics, communication, and innovation management. He spent 15 years teaching linguistic disciplines and communication skills at universities in the Netherlands before moving into strategy development consulting and business process reengineering in various industries. Rutten is also an adjunct professor at the European Institute for Public Administration (EIPA), where he teaches European IT politics and strategies. His current focus is on modernizing innovation management methodologies and software, working closely with manufacturing and chemical companies. He is passionate about sustainability and digitization and the ways they intersect.

Today, Huub joins me to discuss data quality, why it’s vital to the success of an organization, and why so many organizations fail to make it a priority. He shows us why data quality isn’t just an IT issue but a leadership issue that requires a shift in company culture. He emphasizes the importance of data quality during a crisis and explains how good data quality can help leaders make quick decisions to keep the company operational and financially stable. He highlights the commonly held belief that data quality is a burden and stresses how essential it is to the smooth functioning of the company. Huub also underscores the need for an internal governance process and elaborates on the role of the CEO in decision-making.

“As long as companies see innovation management and innovation management systems as something that is marginal and not critical to their survival, the quality will not be top.” - Huub Rutten

This week on Innovation Talks:

●     Why data quality isn’t just an IT issue

●     Why companies often overlook data quality

●     Why data quality is more important than ever

●     How data can help you make quick decisions

●     The key aspect of data quality

●     How a lack of data can hurt you in a crisis

●     Why companies choose to focus on product innovation instead of plant utilization

●     Why you need both project and product portfolios to make the best decisions

●     Why data on product complexity, cost, and availability is necessary for decision-making

●     How an innovation council can help during a crisis

Connect with Huub Rutten:

●     Huub Rutten Website

●     Huub Rutten on LinkedIn

This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart

Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners like you.

For additional information about new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter, where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.