The Innovation Engine Podcast

On this episode, we'll be looking at choosing the right tech stack to fuel innovation in your company. We'll talk about why the technologies your teams use matter, what the most successful product teams do to ensure the work they're doing has an impact, and how to avoid shiny-new-toy syndrome when it comes to adding new tools to your tech stack.

Joining us on this episode is Latif Nanji, the co-founder and CEO of Roadmunk, a road-mapping enterprise SaaS platform that serves thousands of product innovators. Roadmunk's customers include Amazon, The New York Times, Nike, Coca-Cola, Bloomberg, Adobe, and Citibank. Prior to Roadmunk, Latif was a senior product manager at Miovision Technologies and the co-founder and CFO of Pokerspace.com.

Resources:

• Learn more at https://roadmunk.com/
• Connect with Latif: LinkedIn | Twitter | Medium
• Listen to Roadmunk’s Podcast: Product to Product
• Read Latif’s article: “How poker helps you win at product management”

Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

For this episode, we're talking about innovation and the evolution of the Common Application, a nonprofit membership organization composed of more than 800 colleges and universities around the country and around the world with a common mission of promoting access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. 

Among the topics we discuss are how the Common App has reinvented itself for the digital age, how they prepare to handle a seasonal rush that leads to massive spikes of usage and traffic, and what happens behind the scenes over the course of a year for a company that winds up having just one big release every year.

Joining us today to talk about those topics and more is Jenny Rickard, the CEO of the Common Application. Jenny has been the CEO of the Common Application for the last two years and her experience embodies each area of the college enrollment management process, including admissions, marketing communications, technology, and financial aid.

Resources:

• Learn more at CommonApp.org
• Connect with Jenny on Twitter: @JennyCommonApp

Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

On this episode, we'll be looking at “cost-ovation,” or innovation that gives your customers exactly what they want – and nothing more. We'll look at how companies like Planet Fitness have become wildly successful by challenging long-held assumptions about what their customers actually want and need, the three core traits shared by companies that excel at costovation, and why setting a vision with strategic objectives is such a key component for any innovation effort.

Joining us for this episode to talk about all that and more is Stephen Wunker, the Managing Director and US Market Head of New Markets Advisors. Stephen combines world-class strategy consulting and entrepreneurial skills, and he's the author of Costovation: Innovation that Gives your Customers Exactly What They Want and Nothing More. He's also the author of Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't, which was named one of the five Best Business Books of 2011, and the co-author of Jobs to be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation, which was one of four finalists for Best General Business Book of 2016.

Resources:

• Learn more at Costovation.com
• Costovation: Innovation that Gives your Customers Exactly What They Want and Nothing More
• Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't
• Jobs to be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation

Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

On this episode, we'll look at how to decipher the secret code giving companies like Apple, Google, and Uber their edge. We'll also talk about what it means to go through a digital transformation, how you'll know when you've successfully come out on the other side, and why you don't have to work at one of the world's most well-known tech companies to carve out a place for yourself in the digital world.

Here with us today to talk all that and more is Pascal Finette, an expert on topics that include digitization, entrepreneurship, open innovation, technology trends, leadership, and cultural transformation. Anchored in more than 20 years of experience in the IT and internet industry with a vast network of subject matter experts, he regularly consults and delivers deeply engaging, refreshingly honest, direct, thought-provoking, and motivational experiences.

Called a "prophet" by Germany's leading TV station ARD, featured in a prime-time documentary about Silicon Valley, on the cover of Brazil's leading business magazine, voted one of the top 100 internet influencers in the country by one of Germany's leading economic weeklies, and one of the 45 global leaders included in The GuruBook, Pascal's work is recognized for being on the edge of technology, entrepreneurship, transformation, and global impact.

Pascal’s newsletter, The Heretic, is read by tens of thousands of changemakers globally, and he recently started putting out a mini-podcast of his own titled The Heretic Semi-Daily Briefing.

Resources:

• Learn more at Finette.com
• Connect with Pascal: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
• Sign up for Pascal’s newsletter: The Heretic
• Listen: The Heretic Semi-Daily Briefing
• The GuruBook: Insights from 45 Pioneering Entrepreneurs and Leaders on Business Strategy and Innovation by Jonathan Løw
• Check out Singularity University: su.org

Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

On this episode of The Innovation Engine, we'll be looking at how to go from idea to inception. We discuss how to evaluate which ideas to actually act on, whether there is such a thing as bad feedback, and whether voice technology is an antidote to screen-based thinking that may help save us from ourselves.

Joining us again to talk about those topics and more is Golden Krishna, a Design Strategist at Google who works on a “horizontal future team” across all variants of Android and Chrome to push computing forward with new ideas that can ship in the next two to three years. Part of Golden's charge in this role is to bring cohesion, innovation, and long-term strategy for the world's most popular operating system.

In addition to being deemed one of the World's Best Designers by Fast Company, Golden is the author of The Best Interface is No Interface, a wildly funny and illuminating read that makes a very persuasive case that "there’s an app for that" is the most insidious advertising tagline ever written. And no, it's not just because he works at Google and is an alumnus of Samsung. If you'd like to hear more from Golden on why that is, check out Golden’s previous appearance on The Innovation Engine: “A world without interfaces” – we promise you won't be disappointed by the episode!

Resources:

• Learn more at goldenkrishna.com
• Connect with Golden on LinkedIn
• The Best Interface is No Interface

Learn more and get the full show notes here: https://www.3pillarglobal.com/insights/successful-product-launch-how-to-go-from-idea-to-inception-with-golden-krishna

On this week's episode, we look at designing the future and the future of work. Among the topics we'll cover are how we are all capable of designing a better future, how to drive innovation in a global software giant, and what emerging technologies (and human behaviors) our guest believes are set to have a major impact on the way work happens.

Joining us to discuss all that and more is Martin Wezowski, the Chief Designer and Futurist at SAP. As the head of SAP's Innovations Center Networks and Chief Innovation Office, Martin crafts future outlooks, strategies, and products, as well as designing and running innovation frameworks to find out what's next for SAP.

In 2017, Martin was named one of the 100 Most Innovative Minds in Germany by the prestigious Handelsblatt Financial Magazine. And if you've been a longtime listener of the Innovation Engine, you may recognize him from our episode at South by Southwest back in 2017.

Resources:

• Learn more at ICN.SAP.com
• Read SAP’s 2018 Emerging Technology Trends Report
• Connect with Martin: LinkedIn | Twitter

Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

On this episode, David DeWolf and Jonathan Rivers join us to share an overview of all of the news that was fit to print at this year's Fortune BrainstormTech Conference. We discuss what the prevailing wisdom was in Aspen when it comes to artificial intelligence, how the gig economy is driving a wave of acquisitions and the two-way street of innovation some of those acquisitions have opened up, and what you can expect from an upcoming book called The Product Mindset. 

David DeWolf, the Founder and CEO of 3Pillar Global, lives at the intersection of business, technology, and leadership. After starting 3Pillar almost by accident at the age of 26, he has grown the company to nearly 1000 employees around the globe. 3Pillar has won numerous awards for rapid growth, including being recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in the U.S. for seven of the last eight years.

Jonathan Rivers is the CTO at 3Pillar. He leads our product and engineering teams, which include more than 750 software engineers, product consultants, product managers, quality assurance, and user experience professionals. Prior to joining 3Pillar, Jonathan was the interim CTO at Telegraph Media Group and served as its Director of Service Delivery and Operations. As Senior Director of Web Operations and Customer Support at PBS, Jonathan helped transform PBS into a digital leader.

Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

On this episode of The Innovation Engine, we'll be looking at the connection between story and innovation, why story can be a powerful tool to get teams in the right state for creating the new and novel, how you can learn to tell stories (whether you think you're good at it or not), and how to make sure your stories actually get heard in a world that's increasingly noisy. 

Here with us again to talk about all that and more, including his new book Storytelling for the Revolution, is Mitch Ditkoff. Mitch often speaks, conducts workshops, and provides private consulting, all in the name of empowering people to become more innovative. 

Resources:

• Learn more at mitchditkoff.com
• Connect with Mitch: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Storytelling for the Revolution by Mitch Ditkoff

Learn more and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com

We just concluded the second and last - for now - stop of The Innovation Engine’s Spring 2018 tour, from the floor of Collision in New Orleans. Collision is North America’s fastest growing tech conference, bringing together over 3,000 companies from over 120 countries to see how tech intersects in their lives and businesses.

• [1:20] Anaid Chacon is a product manager at Dropbox, a secure file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software.
• [12:15] Christopher Carmichael is the Chief Technology Officer for the Stennis Space Center, which is NASA’s largest rocket testing facility.
• [21:50] Mercedes Soria is the VP of Software Engineering for Knightscope, a startup that utilizes autonomous robots, analytics, and engagement to predict and prevent crime.
• [31:10] Andrew Macharg is Head of Technology at Haymarket Consumer Media & Haymarket Network, one of the largest content marketing networks in the U.K.
• [37:45] Yoshi Tsuji and Tom Kruse join us from Win-Kel, a storage startup that participated in the startup competition hosted by Collision.
• [44:20] Jonathan Block-Verk is the coFounder & CEO of coParenter, an online dispute resolution platform that uses AI, machine learning, and live mediators to help separating, divorced, and never married parents save money and time by staying out of court.

Learn more and get the full show notes at 3PillarGlobal.com

For the second part of this double feature of The Innovation Engine, we have six more insightful conversations from Dig South 2018, a conference bringing together more than 2,500 people who are building digital products that will change the way people live, work, and play.

As we mentioned in the last episode, The Innovation Engine’s Spring 2018 tour is still going! We recorded even more conversations from the floor of Collision in New Orleans, and you can look forward to those in the near future.

 On this episode, we chat with:  

• Susan Engelson, Senior Director of Product at comScore, who took part in a session titled 'The Future of TV Advertising in Today's Digital World'
• Jeff Perkins, Chief Marketing Officer of Parkmobile, which was recently acquired by BMW. Jeff spoke about his journey to the C-Suite and what it means to be a CMO in the digital age.  
• Cori Banyon, the Founder & CEO of AndMe.TV, a platform she created to virtually connect artists with their most passionate fans.  
• Cleveland Brown, the Founder & CEO of Payscout, a global payment processing provider that allows, among other things, creators of Virtual Reality content to take payments in the virtual world.  
• Dr. Brian Sullivan, a clinical psychologist and the Co-Founder & Chief Science Officer of Morphii, a digital tool for ratings scales that looks to humanize digital communications with fun and engaging methods. 
• Eli Calderón Morin, Founder of All_ebt, a "smart wallet for food stamps" that Eli hopes will help alleviate some of the common difficulties associate with actually using food stamps as a means of payment.  

Learn more, listen to part 1 of the DigSouth podcast episode, and get the full show notes at: 3PillarGlobal.com