As a consultant, author, speaker and coach, Edgar Papke is dedicated to helping leaders build cultures of innovation and better align their organizations and teams to drive new ideas, produce change, and deliver meaningful solutions. He is the author of the books True Alignment and The Elephant In The Boardroom, and he is also the co-author of Innovation By Design.

• Design thinking process: a way of engaging people and getting them to collaborate at a significant level through which you can identify and solve the right problems
• The five steps of the Design Thinking process: to empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test
• Edgar and Thomas Lockwood's book "Innovation By Design" that was born from studying the most innovative cultures in the world
• The common thread of design thinking that all of the cultures studied for the book implemented
• Empathizing in design thinking: understanding the experience of the customer
• Ignoring your personal experience: the most challenging aspect of the empathizing process
• Brainstorming without limits: why the brainstorming process must allow for any idea to be heard
• Who should be in charge of design thinking throughout an organization (and why this depends on the makeup of the organization)
• Why culture dictates accountability for design thinking
• The three types of culture
• How to implement the design thinking process in your organization

• Website: innoalignment.com

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/5-steps-design-thinking-process/

Kelly Manderfield is the Chief Marketing Officer for Cleveland Metroparks and leads all marketing initiatives across its 18 park reservations, eight golf courses, dining, retail, and a nationally acclaimed zoo. Manderfield is a critical member of the team that earned Cleveland Metroparks Best in Nation Gold Medal Award for excellence in Park and Recreation Management.

Under her leadership, Cleveland Metroparks has developed and executed several transformative brand campaigns, including Cleveland Metroparks Come Out and Play and 100 Year centennial campaigns as well as the rebrand of Cleveland Metroparks Zoo bringing wildlife conservation to the forefront.

As CMO, Manderfield has created a culture of strategic data-driven decision making to support the agency's goals and initiatives as well as drive revenue. She manages overall marketing from end-to-end, including: communications, advertising, research, special events, event rentals, corporate partnerships, retail and visual communications.

Manderfield has developed and fostered strong, mutually beneficial hometown partnerships, including KeyBanks revival of ZooKeys and sponsorship of the Centennial Fireworks Celebration that attracted more than 30,000 people to Edgewater Beach. Additionally, she helped secure Cuyahoga Community Colleges sponsorship and involvement with the popular Edgewater LIVE concert series.

Prior to her joining Cleveland Metroparks, Manderfield was most recently Vice President, Senior Marketing and Strategist at KeyCorp where she oversaw national marketing programs, advertising and public relations campaigns.

Manderfield received a Masters of Applied Communication Theory and Methodology from Cleveland State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Bowling Green State University. She currently sits on the board of Burning River Foundation, which is dedicated to improving, maintaining and celebrating the vitality of our regional freshwater resources.

• The five step systematic marketing process: insight, concept, design, launch, and review
• Using a brand equity study to assess brand awareness and see what organization challenges need to be solved for
• Bringing a brand with built-in equity to life
• Creating different campaigns and pitting them against each other to find the strategy that will bring the highest ROI
• Taking a campaign across all mediums so it resonates with the most people
• Preparing your staff to execute the campaign successfully (and why they need complete buy-in)
• Assessing the success of a campaign to learn what worked, what didn't, and how the next version can be better
• How qualitative research can help inform quantitative research
• Using study data to figure out what's important to your visitors (or customers) and planning work based on the data
• Why every problem that you'll find from the brand equity study won't be a marketing problem
• Figuring out your market position: something that really differentiates you
• When launching a new marketing initiative, how much gets unveiled on launch day and how much gets rolled out later?
• Involving your staff in the research phase so you know what they will be excited to market
• Eliminating bias from your research

• Website: www.voxable.io
• Twitter: @voxable
• Twitter: @LaurenGolem

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/5-step-systematic-marketing-process/

Lauren Golembiewski is the CEO and co-founder of Voxable, a conversational interface agency. She's lucky enough to run Voxable with her partner in life, Matthew Buck. Lauren and Matthew founded Voxable to help clients more effectively communicate with their customers through conversational interface design and development. They were originally inspired to create Voxable when they connected their home to a voice-first device and felt like the wizards and space captains they saw on TV.

Lauren's background is in product design and user experience which is driven by her fascination with the way things work, especially the human mind. Her experience working with startups and leading design strategy for tech companies enables her to dive into design problems and help clients understand the best path forward. She regularly speaks about conversational design and advocates for a greater creative effort to be invested in this new technology.

• Chatbots, Alexa skills, actions on Google, and more: what Voxable builds as a conversational interface agency
• How these conversational interfaces help humans and machines better understand each other
• How these conversational interfaces take human questions or commands (either verbal or written) and turn them into a machine response so that the machine does the work for the human and examples of each of these in practice on the various platforms these bots can be built into
• The research that needs to be done before building a conversational interface to understand how a business responds to its customers now and assess ways to improve communication with a bot
• Building a bot that serves your customers in the way they want to be served (ex: sends them a helpful blog automatically)
• The work that needs to be done to write all of the lifelike responses that a bot would provide a human during an interaction
• Coming up with every scenario that a user would interact with a bot and coming up with paths and responses for users to reach their desired outcomes
• How bots can remember user answers to better steer them towards their preferred goal
• The importance of having a style guide for how the bots communicate with users
• How Voxable's clients test the system throughout different points in the developmental process
• Tweaking the CMS that a bot is built on to push out whatever message is important at a specific time
• What happens if a bot doesn't understand a user or can't help with what they ask for
• How users interact with your bot when it's a persona that you've built well for your brand
• How to measure whether a bot is working or not

• Website: www.voxable.io
• Twitter: @voxable
• Twitter: @LaurenGolem

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/conversational-interface-chatbot-technology/

Linda Phan was born in LA, but she grew up in Massachusetts from eight years old onwards. She graduated from UMass Amherst with dual degrees in Accounting and Psychology and worked for two years as a corporate auditor at the 6th largest accounting firm in the US. Linda moved to Austin, TX a year ago and worked as Chief of Staff at Newchip, a financial technology company. She is currently on track of getting her MBA from Acton School of Business.

• Linda's background learning processes as an auditor
• The most important systems and processes for small businesses
• How Linda came to Newchip first as an executive assistant and then moved up to Chief of Staff by implementing systems and processes and making the company more efficient
• The time management skills Linda needed to balance working for Newchip, going to school full time, and helping her boyfriend launch his dental startup
• Figuring out the steps needed for hiring a great employee and sticking to that system
• The system Linda developed for communicating with investors and why that communication needs to be constant
• The methods Linda uses for storing system documentation at Newchip using Lucidchart
• The five processes Linda built and put in place at Newchip before leaving to focus on her MBA and her boyfriend's startup
• Why people in the operations department shouldn't just stick to operations

• Email: [email protected]

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/systems-and-processes-for-small-business/

Curtis Watkins is the CEO of BovaMetrics, an Augmented Intelligence company focused on boosting performance in long-term portfolios managed by wealth advisers. This is his third entrepreneurial endeavor after previously serving as the COO of a micro-hydro renewable energy firm and also as a co-founder of a mobile software solutions company.

Additionally, Curtis is the Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Joules Startup Accelerator program located at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a regular television contributor to news programs and shows focused on current events, and he also serves as the Chairman for a political software company he founded called CampaignKit.

He is a 2013 recipient of the Charlotte Business Journal's "Forty Under 40" award and a graduate of the School of Business at Virginia Commonwealth University.

• Curtis' expensive career experience that has seen him in various roles as both an entrepreneur and an employee in Corporate America
• BovaMetrics' knowledge-based systems that allow them to anticipate the questions they will be asked about their software from different industry professionals with very deep backgrounds (ex: a wealth advisor is going to have different questions from a developer)
• Why credibility is key for an early stage company (and how knowledge-based systems boost their credibility)
• The database of written documents that make up the knowledge-based systems that BovaMetrics can pull from whenever they need to
• The different levels of documentation that they have written to provide to prospects who may come in at different levels of expertise
• How BovaMetrics uses Google Drive to organize and give access to specific documents on an as-needed basis
• Relating what people already know to your product (ex: BovaMetrics' Equilla is an assistant, so they related it to Siri and Alexa)
• How having these written documents prevents someone from interpreting your product the wrong way
• Getting some outside writing help to ensure you're not caught up in your own echo chamber when creating documents and leaning on your network to get some external advice and validation
• What's next for Curtis and BovaMetrics

• Website: www.bovametrics.com

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/how-knowledge-based-systems-improve-company-credibility/

After graduating from UT Law in Austin, Reece began his career clerking for a federal judge in Dallas. From the courthouse, Reece headed to Thompson & Knight where he worked as an attorney in TK's corporate section. After working at TK for a year, he decided to join his dad, Rob, and close college friend, Bryan Johnson, as they were blazing a trail in a unique healthcare delivery channel.

Reece moved into the role of CEO at Innovative Infusions, helping to consolidate multiple Infusion Centers into one centralized operation. Working alongside Bryan and Rob, he helped create one of the most cutting-edge infusion delivery models in the country. Reece is passionate about creating solutions to relieve the complexity associated with managing an Infusion Center.

In addition to his role as Co-Founder and COO of WeInfuse, Reece is the co-founder of and director at the National Infusion Center Association (NICA).

• Reece's path that led him from being a lawyer to moving to the infusion center industry
• The many common diseases states that require infusion therapy that make for this to be the fastest growing Pharma R&D
• The WeInfuse software that fills the software gap needed in the infusion center industry
• How to launch a new product in a niche industry, such as the infusion therapy industry
• The importance of a system that accounts for every single dose of infusion therapy drugs due to their astronomical cost
• The verifications, scheduling, nursing notes, and inventory management microsystems that make up the WeInfuse system
• The test process WeInfuse went through during its early days — both internally and once they got their first client
• Why things will get lost when there is not a piece of software to hold everything together — and why this was such a big problem for this $400 billion industry
• The significant time investment it takes to implement an automated system inside a business — and why it's so worth it
• Why automation isn't about putting people out of work — it's about making them better at their work
• How WeInfuse tracks the success of its system
• New legislation that is going to make the WeInfuse system even better

• Website: weinfuse.com
• Email: [email protected]

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/how-to-launch-new-product-niche-industry/

Andrei Popescu is a vision-driven entrepreneur with a career-long record of business growth and innovation.

His international business ventures experienced a verifiable history of growth and expansion during his tenure as managing director and he has raised significant funds from various institutions, banks and third parties to participate in joint ventures.

He's been engaged on helping organizations that evolve in challenging markets to break down the barriers that prevent them from reaching their potential, which operate in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, China and Asia-Pacific.

Andrei's focus and interests are blockchain tech, DLT, SaaS for payments, finance, and investments.

• Cryptocurrency: what it is and how it works
• How cryptocurrency opens up money to more people than the system we've used
• Different types of cryptocurrency that are available today (it's much more than just Bitcoin)
• The big barriers that must be overcome with cryptocurrency
• What it will take for cryptocurrency to become widely adopted
• How DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) will impact cryptocurrency
• Events happening with blockchain technology

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/andreidragospopescu
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: coss.io

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/what-is-cryptocurrency-how-it-works/

Jeff N. Smith is the Corporate IoT Business Development Manager at Parker-Hannifin. He is focused on delivering new offerings, building out new business models, and commercialization frameworks for Parker's Voice of the Machine™ IoT connected products. His global focus areas are Industrial Mobile Systems and Factory Automation. Prior to joining Parker, Jeff was the co-founder of a smart building IoT technology start-up focused on the commercial built environment, taking this solution from inception to thousands of controllable endpoints globally for Fortune 100 customers.

• Jeff's role implementing IoT technology (Internet of Things) at Parker-Hannifin
• Parker's Voice of the Machine™
• Why IoT technology is one of the most monumental shifts for companies since the internet
• Culture: a big factor in stopping companies from implementing IoT technologies
• Why Parker figures out if there is a problem worth solving and then figures out if there's a way to deliver to customers at scale
• Winevation: Parker's stage gate process that they use to commercialize their product sets
• Getting the implementation team to understand the why
• The IoT implementation documentation
• Making sure IoT technology ties back to customers and actually solves a problem

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.parker.com/iot

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/iot-technology-impact-your-organization/

Alex Klingensmith is an experienced Wealth Advisor and Chief Operating Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. He is skilled in Fiduciary Independent Investment Management and Financial Planning. Alex has strong community involvement in the Carlsbad Hi Noon Rotary Club and in North San Diego County.

• Financial Detox: Labrum Wealth Management's podcast for consumer advocacy
• Labrum Wealth Management's decision to work for their clients and not a firm
• How to choose the right financial adviser for you
• Why it matters how your financial adviser gets paid
• The reasons fiduciaries offer better investments than brokers
• Finding the right cadence of communication with your financial adviser
• Choosing an investment philosophy
• Why it's never too early or too late to start investing
• Where to find a great financial adviser
• Ways to start saving before you get an adviser
• Alex's goals in getting Labrum Wealth Management's message out there

• Podcast: www.financialdetox.com
• Email: [email protected]

A transcript of this podcast is available here: http://systemexecution.com/how-to-choose-the-right-financial-adviser/

Marc Butler is the Chief Operating Officer and a Managing Director for Albridge, an affiliate of Pershing, a BNY Mellon company. Formerly, Marc managed the Business Development Group for iNautix USA, where he oversaw sales, client relationship management and overall Marketing activities. Prior to that, Marc was the general manager of Pershing's NetExchange® suite of solutions. Marc joined Pershing in 1994 as a client service associate in PC Financial Network. He has previously served on the firm's Conversion Task Force and the Bank Market Segment team. Marc has been in the financial services industry for more than 20 years and was formerly a member of both the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Internet Roundtable and SIFMA Investor Education Advisory Committee. He was previously the featured technology columnist in Boomer Market Advisor, a monthly magazine targeted at investment professionals.

Marc frequently speaks at industry conferences including the Financial Services Institute and BISA annual conferences. Marc earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Syracuse University and has also completed the Securities Industry Institute® program, sponsored by SIFMA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taken graduate classes in the School of Education at Syracuse University and continuing education coursework in Technology and Financial Planning.

• The Business Leader's Toolkit System: a mechanism for putting people first
• Employees creating a personal business plan for where they want to take their career
• Mentoring employees that know where they want to go — and those that have no idea
• The mentoring program that matches the associate up with the right mentor to guide them — even if it's not a person inside the company
• A reverse mentoring program where younger, less experienced employees mentor up on things that they're knowledgeable about (like new technology, for example)
• Job shadowing: having employees get their feet wet on a new role by shadowing someone in that role
• Job rotation: rotating people into new roles to keep them interested and engaged and further their development

• Website: www.albridge.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/marcbutler
• Email: [email protected]

A transcript of this episode is available here: http://systemexecution.com/business-leaders-toolkit-system-business-leadership/