The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

What can derail the innovation journey? Recently, I finished a 3.5-day Innovation Bootcamp. In the end, I was asked an interesting question with a different look and perspective of innovation, now and in the future. The participant asked what challenges are facing innovation. After answering the question for the group, I put more thought into what I've seen in the past, is happening today and can persist in the future. In today's show, I will examine in more detail what I see as the 4 challenges facing innovation that innovators need to pay close attention to and address.

Over the years, there have been many companies making promises and claims that were not true or half-truths. A number of them have been very high profile market players like Theranos. Poster child type companies that toe ethical lines and cross them creating innovation skepticism and pessimism in customers, investors, and markets. Whether you cross the ethical lines or have perceived to, the damage is done with confidence destroyed. This puts a negative perception on innovators/entrepreneurs as greedy people focused on making some quick money.

Why are ethical lines crossed though? Many times it is driven by ridicule and fear of failure. as well as not gaining the full potential of what may be defined as success. We need to do something to change the nomenclature of fear of failure through our education system, society in general and organizations across industries. Why was it such a big deal when Theranos crossed the line? They had created a compelling story and marketed it with no slowing while assembling a Board of Directors of who's who of the world. But the challenge with the Board was none of the members had real sophistication around the risks, challenges and how to execute for breakthrough innovations. They had no Innovation Sophistication where they had:

• Been intimately involved in innovation lifecycles – personally experienced it hands-on
• Understood challenges and risks with paths to address
• Developed and launched breakthrough ideas/innovations
• Dealt with unknowns and may have had to pivot

Innovation sophistication doesn't mean you took a company IPO or were sold for high multiple and big dollars. It is the years of experience toiling in the innovation trenches where you build a sophistication, insights, and wisdom to navigate an innovation journey and have sustained success.

When you set unrealistic expectations people lose confidence and innovation outcomes diminish. In innovation many times we overstate and overpromise a capability creating an expectation bar that is hard to follow through on. We all have done it. If you underestimate you may not get the traction with the funders you need to gain appropriate funding. It is a fine balancing act of over and under-promising and setting ill-fated perceptions early on. For breakthrough innovations, it takes patience—law of patience. You have to have the intestinal fortitude to progress forward with expectation balance incorporating patience in an ecosystem that has very little patience.

Many today use the 'Rule of 18' to manage the innovation journey. However, this diminishes breakthrough opportunities and creates short-sightedness inflating potential capabilities, timelines, and sales. It does have some value in setting expectations, securing incremental funding (especially for companies that normally would have not received funding), incremental progress, enhancements, and capabilities--but not the highest return breakouts—Killer Innovations. The best path is to set expectations early, with a balanced view of what is achievable while providing the highest potential for a breakthrough. Be careful not to cross the lines of expectations and lose credibility.

Raising money has always been one of the hardest things to do and today it's more competitive and demanding then it has ever been. If you're not in the hot trend space of the day you start off with a huge disadvantage to overcome and need to be very precise in your targeting of the right fit investors. The characteristics of entrepreneurs range, but most are in the fast lane category stretching the limits to gain traction and quickly building and flipping their innovation. With the dynamics of the market, investors and innovators the 'Rule of 18' quickly become the default. A dangerous zone for innovators and markets as you limit the opportunity to gain breakthrough and killer innovations.

Many innovators and investors fall into the 'first to market' mentality which time has proven to be rare, and not necessarily the most profitable path. Iconic names today like Google, Facebook and Apple weren't first to market in their categories, they just made them better. As I always say the difference between a good idea and a great one isn't about the idea, but almost always about the timing.

You have the full package and can demonstrate that you:

• Can articulate a compelling story that makes it clear you know what you're doing
• Have a broad market view with a unique insight
• Are plugged into the market, know the customers and sensitive to market timing
• Know the challenges, risks and understand how to adjust
• Envision the impacts of your product, service, and solution today and into the future
• Manage expectations with balance—passionate, realistic, but also have an element of the BHAG

Most importantly you need to be very clear on your execution. As I always say, Ideas without execution is a hobby and I am not in the hobby business. Funding is not an easy path, just as you work to create that next innovation, you need to also approach your funding with creativity. Step out and apply creativity to your funding structures. Think through all the possibilities to make it work such as:

• Customer or channel partner investing
• Leveraging convertible debt
• Seeking those interested in non-governance investments

Spend some time learning your needs, financial structures that work for your innovation and company, who are the right investors and what are the market permissions that give the best chance to get funded.

I've been inspired since I was a child from the incredible innovations driven by the Government and long term focused private labs that reinforced my desire for inventing. From the Space Program to DARPA and the Internet. We need inventions and innovations that are a result of more long term projects. There must be a big stretch goal, coupled with patience and appropriate funding. Investing for discovery and global competition and not only financial gain. This emphasis has gone by the wayside and needs to be revitalized.

Long-range innovation has declined drastically in the Government as well as in Corporate's comparatively to the past. The government has outsourced more of that R&D and innovations to short term focused and profit-oriented organizations. This can have a more negative than the positive impact. Today, China R&D spending is off the scale. To get a competitive advantage, breakthroughs Government and Corporates need to build back that R&D and long term innovation backbone.

These 4 challenges change and impact progress, discouraging innovation and slowing it down or preventing it from ever happening. The short term 'flip it' approach won't lead to true discovery. It will only drive the fear of failure with setting unrealistic expectations, lack of appropriate funding, bad investments, questionable behavior, and unethical actions. We need to work to change the game so we can create breakthrough innovations and discover things we never imagined possible.

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to PhilMcKinney.com and drop me a note there. If you are looking for innovation support go to TheInnovators.Network or want to be challenged to develop the next big idea, check out our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

Creating and continually innovating the entertainment experience to keep your customers on the edge of their seat is a monumental undertaking? Can the entertainment experience go to new levels? What cool innovations and technologies is the sports industry doing to make your time watching an event/ game more enjoyable. Today's guest is always on the forefront of what it takes to keep customers engaged in the experience. Steve Hellmuth has been innovating the customer experience for over 30 years from the Olympics to Major League Baseball and today the National Basketball Association with some of the most experiential ideas, innovations and technologies. This week on Killer Innovations, Steve Hellmuth joins us to discuss what he and his team are doing to make your experience with the NBA beyond expectations.

The NBA has a great reputation for willingness with ample runway to experiment and fail in order to get that next innovative experience. NBA Leadership, players, players association, fans and owners are the most progressive at experimentation and interactive experiences. Steve and his team continually are working special fan experience projects to give you the thrill of the game. It's important to have permissions with every relation and level in innovation efforts and the platform to test your ideas and validate. At this year's NBA Summer League Steve had his mobile unit parked in the middle of all the broadcasters to rollout some of their experiments from their innovation sandbox. This is the perfect time to interact with players, fans and management with room to experiment with innovations/ideas, fail, adjust and try again. Some of the fun experiences you will see this season have been tested at the Summer League and percolating in their innovation sandbox. A number of these ideas they have worked on for many years and just now are being deployed—sometimes innovation takes a long time to curate and requires patience.

Innovating in this league is all about entertainment and the story. Steve teamed with Phil in the past spending a good deal of time in 3D initiatives and experimenting on the convergence looking for the focus that would give the best experience with successes and failures. So what will be the experience of the living room of the future be. Today Virtually Reality and Augmented Reality have been problematic, but it will play a part in the NBA experience as it moves towards better eye tracking and the next generation. Steve also wants to move faster towards no walls and pick your experience in your media room to feel like you are in the venue. Part of that will be to expand on the synchronous experiences with all information flow and devices to track what really catches your attention and is exciting at that moment. He envisions more immersive experiences and premium services that give the fans an opportunity to pick and choose experiences with or without advertising. Steve and team will continue to work closely with stadiums to get the most innovative blueprint and technology deployment to ensure the 6th man affect is in play in all games.

Steve's vision is to get everyone involved in the NBA experience and to do that their innovation sandbox has to continually be testing the limits, being the first to leverage technology advances (such as WIFI-6, 5G, others) and coming up with innovative ways to put you closer to the floor and part of the game. Some of the focus this year and near future that you will experience includes:

• Skycam's/Spydercam's on the Move – this active camera positioning gives a closest encounter ever catching the move by move experience and passion of the game and players following them over the court during play
• Smartphone & Telecast Integration – produced telecast of the whole game with all audio and video in 5G from the smartphone. This is going to open up doors for fans to participate in broadcasting and will lead to more real-time and diminishing costs to produce courtside interviews, tapping into fan action shots and immediate fan broadcast experiences
• Robotic Camera Positioning – remote action with ability to get to better views, low angles and positioning normally hard to see and get to
• Dueling Announcers – announcers competing and dueling throughout the game with a new ultra-audio track

There are a number of areas that Steve and the team continue to experiment with for the ultimate fan experience, but one area that his in the interests of the players, fans and leadership is ensuring the players are at the top of their game and available to go at a 100%. Biometric video capture and motion capture of the players every move is a priority. This will allow for preventive actions and better load management.

With a number of dynamic player duo's this should be a real fun season full of rich fan experience both live at the event or from your favorite sportscave.

Steve Hellmuth is the Executive Vice President, Media Operations & Technology for NBA Entertainment. Under Hellmuth's direction there have been numerous first's in innovation to include, SportsVU Player Tracking, the optical player tracking system in every venue, making the NBA the first major US professional sports league to quantify and analyze the player movement in live game action throughout an entire season. Steve spent time in his management career with MLB and NBC and has produced the Emmy-nominated telecasts for the 1986 World Series and coordinated the production of Olympic profiles for the 1980 Moscow games. He also produced Larry Bird Night for the Boston Celtics and the All-Century Team Celebration on field at the 1999 MLB All-Star game. Best place to see some of Steve and his team's innovation experiments, prototyping and rollouts from the sandbox can be best observed and experiences on NBA League Pass and NBA TV.

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to PhilMcKinney.com and drop me a note there. If you are looking for innovation support go to TheInnovators.Network or want to be challenged to develop the next big idea, check out our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

Is controversy good when it comes to innovating? Today's guest is passionate about creating breakthroughs and states 'If it isn't controversial, it's not a good idea'. Scott McNealy knows a few things about changing the game by challenging the status quo, disrupting platforms, products and services. Focusing on continually challenging an idea, model, platform, technology and service leads to disruptive breakthroughs and advances society. This week on Killer Innovations, Scott McNealy joins us to discuss a number of topics in the quest for future advances.

Seeking to make an impact by looking at things from a different lens has always been Scott's game if it's technology, golf, education, marketing, politics or social issues. His open source view permeates his approaches and has led to positive impacts. Scott has had opportunities to learn from his pioneering and early mover days with Sun Microsystems to recent ventures in marketing and education platforms. There are many takeaways in the battles he and his teams engaged with over three decades of incredible growth and technology advances that made significant contributions to the boom of the PC and Internet. So what does it take to continue to innovate and grow. Scott has some key thoughts from disrupting markets, managing and leading in fast growth times to developing breakthrough products and services.

• A Good Idea has to be Controversial – crazy and controversial ideas have to be correct or you look foolish—controversial and correct, not controversial and stupid. No controversy, no chance to survive, if it isn't controversial then everyone does it and no differentiation or pricing power.
• First to Market is Great when You're Right on Timing and Team – having been on the leading edge as well as the refiner of technologies and markets, the most important aspect is ensuring you have architected a well-rounded team that will challenge the status quo, be willing to admit failure and adjust, while also being patient for timing to present itself. Sun had many ideas and technologies that were too early for the market, so it took leadership sensitive to timing and execution to seize the right opportunities at the right time.
• Most Products and Technologies aren't Original but Evolving and Require Pivoting – it is rare you will have something brand new, but innovating current products, business models and industries can create breakthroughs when you forge forward and are willing to adjust and pivot with what the market is presenting.
• Observe, Analyze, Adjust and Execute Fast – A customer in China was using Sun's Route D (routing software) technology differently and if Sun had spent more time in observation, assessed the implications and potential opportunities they would have been the router king before CISCO. It's important to pay attention to not just how YOU view your product's use, but how your customers are using it. Your customers can create new markets beyond your imagination.
• If you Miss an Opportunity, Leave it Behind and Move Fast Forward – we all have ideas and innovations we worked on and didn't execute on that someone else succeeded in. Forget about it and keep innovating and working the execution. The secret to success is always leaving the past as the past and pressing ahead with what's next.
• Capital Doesn't Solve Problems – Capital Infusion Creates Confusion – many times more capital infusion creates more confusion and less focus on disrupting, ideating and coming up with that next innovation. More capital can get you compulsive, complacent and distracted. You can't beat technology with more capital, you need cleverness and leadership.

We need education advancement more than ever before. Today's tools and platform don't provide the best we can do as a society for our students, teachers and parents. Scott started Curriki to focus on augmenting the education experience and creating a new digital era in our education. A catalyst for Scott's desire to challenge and create value in education was the rising cost of educational material and his open source mentality. The desire is to have no student, no teacher and no parent left behind. To fulfill that we need to continue Innovating around the facilitation of key learnings and interdisciplinary skills like critical thinking, communication, teamwork and civility along with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Curriki's free and open source exchange platform with a new age of curriculum, is all about a virtual and classroom experience that:

• Focuses on the Student's Personal Training Needs – opening up educating for differences in aptitude and providing an adequate education at your speed and pace. Not all kids learn the same or need to learn the same material. One on one personal attention and access to custom services meet at the point of need.
• Challenges with Interactive, Fun and Exciting Tools – bringing the binge mentality into education—like FORTNITE in gaming or Netflix entertainment has done. Why not have the same desire and demand for learning, as there is for playing and entertainment.
• Provides a Collaborative and Transparent Community Forum – a personal dashboard with collaboration and visibility for all engaged in the lifecycle of educating from student, teacher and parent.

Scott believes this is a group effort by society regardless of your views and he is looking for people who are passionate and interested in supporting the augmentation of our education system. Everyone can help create our future of education.

Tackling issues in society are important, however, the forum and approach you use can be effective or destructive. Finding commonality to break the divide and divisions in business and politics helps progress us forward and strengthen the future. Scott has a lot to say on challenging ideas and having healthy conversations around them. For companies being A-political and getting involved in policies that impact your business, investors and shareholders should be the focus, but not alienating substantial fractions of your customer base. Is Government's job to promote or regulate business? Government is not the answer to innovation, or all the challenges and problems we have in society. Financial freedoms and liberties give people and business the abilities to make a difference. Scott is in the early ideation stages of a digital issue-based platform to provide a forum for healthy discussions around the challenges we face. This digital town hall approach would give everyone with different views the opportunity to make an impact and cross the aisle to find commonality and bridge the divide and solve problems. He doesn't believe today's social media platforms provide the best channels to get things done in a civil and breaking the divide fashion to progress forward.

The future is full of many possibilities when it comes to disruptive technology. Autonomous everything will be one of the most impactful to our society. Where do you play in it and filter through the possibilities as an entrepreneur and innovator? Any area within a technology space can be the best or worst, but it is really about the execution. Some areas people have pinpointed as the unfruitful path have turned out to be the most successful. So do your research and analysis, then dive in, adjust and be nimble on your journey—don't wait, fire away. Scott has challenged many leading companies from Microsoft, IBM and Apple taking on their ideas, products and business model—challenge the idea, not the people. Controversy leads to the next innovation breakthrough. Most importantly we need to have more responsibility and accountability with our generation on how we manage our own lives and not rely on others or Government to take care of our actions and needs.

Scott McNealy is the former co-founder and CEO of Sun Microsystem which pioneered it's way in computing technologies from hardware, operating systems to software, including the JAVA language. He was with Sun from its start in 1982, IPO in 1987 to sale to Oracle in 2010. Scott also is on many Boards and advises Fortune 500 to entrepreneurial startups. He co-founded social media intelligence company Wayin, which was recently acquired and founded Curriki the non-profit free education service. Scott is looking for help with Curriki and you can connect with him on Twitter.

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there. If you are looking to develop a Loonshot, check out our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

Have you created a Loonshot? Have people dismissed or laughed at your Loonshot? Safi Bahcall takes us through how to manage Loonshots—a big goal, an audacious idea which has a lot of enthusiasm and support, but may be viewed as crazy. What if you nurtured these crazy ideas that are dismissed and written off. Loonshots have always been created and declared, but not always nurtured, which is critical for real success. This week on Killer Innovations, Safi Bahcall joins us to discuss how to handle Loonshots.

There are behaviors and patterns for Loonshots. Previous building blocks can support the creation of a Loonshot or destination. However, the most important focus has to be on how you get to that destination, which is the continual nurturing of those crazy ideas. As the goal is established, the nurturing process spurns off other creations, insights and breakthroughs making the ultimate destination not only achievable, but also richer in value. A big challenge is that many times good teams kill great ideas. Why though? From experience and research there are certain properties of groups and characteristics that lead to failure or phenomenal success.

What can you do that ensures phase transitions are balanced as a leader of innovators and those driving execution. Leaders need to understand their role, the rules and any exceptions to rules. Safi breaks this down into nurturing three elements in the toolbox, the Ice Cube, Garden Hoe and Heart.

• Ice Cube – has two types of groups, the Artists and Soldiers. Those creating the Loonshots and those that are getting them to market. The leader has to understand these two distinctive groups have multiple dynamics and functions requiring appropriate channels and systems to operate in.
• Garden Hoe – to manage the transfer as a leader you have to lean on as Gardner with nurturing care and not a bulldozer plowing through. It is vital that a leader carefully manages the transfer between touch and balance with each group from interactions, communications, timelines and deliverables.
• Heart – and the most important is to ensure you demonstrate equal value to both your Artists and Soldiers. Love and care for both sides with the same vigor.

There are three rules that are critical for innovators to always keep in their toolkit as they create Loonshots and nurture them.

• Listen to the Suck with Curiosity (LSC) – when others critique your idea and dismiss it or call it bad, react with curiosity not animosity. Investigate and explore. Ask the questions—what was wrong and why with a mind to learn. Look for that gold nugget that can save and/ or accelerate your crazy idea.
• Minding the False Fail – when everyone is abandoning understand if the failure is really a flaw in the idea or the experiment. The Facebook story makes it clear, don't give in to a false fail. Examine is this really a fail or false fail – investors were leaving Friendster, but one investor, Peter Thiel, investigated deeper and realized it was not a broken social media model, but the problem scaring away investors was a software glitch. The rest is money making history.
• Ignore Fail Fast and Pivot – when an idea and project keeps failing and all are giving up, be persistent don't just pivot. Continue looking at the failure with different dimensions, variables and aspects. Persistence with failure doesn't mean don't stop and move on. How do you know though when to persist or move on. The litmus test is to determine if this is stubbornness or if you've been applying LSC, being curious, exploring and nurturing.

Managing Loonshots there are two dimensions that leaders need to balance, the size and type.

• Balancing the Size – Loonshots are like a big ship that launches both a speedboat and helicopter. Your speedboat is your core product or service that you're developing variations and incremental innovations while moving fast forward. The helicopter is on an exploratory search in a whole new space and completely different lane.
• Balancing the Types – there are P-Type (Product Type) and S-Type (Strategy Type) Loonshots that you need to balance between and sometimes you may lean more towards one, but always have to ensure both are nurtured. A new technology/product may propel your organization, but if you don't balance the strategy focus, success won't last. Walmart began as that S-Type with a business model strategy and not innovative technology or product, but an innovative model. One of the strongest brands in history was Pan American Airlines (Pan Am) with a P-Type focus of bigger and faster engines. American Airlines focused on the S-Type and a shift in strategy while balancing technology advances. Guess who is still around today. Understanding the distinction is important and focusing on one can be fine, but achieving balance between the two can be the difference between a good innovator and a fantastic innovator.

Safi Bahcall is the author of How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries. He is an author, second generation physicist, and CEO. In 2001, he co-founded a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer. Safi led its IPO and served as its CEO for 13 years before being acquired.

Safi has numerous awards and accolades to include National Science Foundation Fellow, Ernst & Young New England Biotechnology/Pharmaceutical Entrepreneur of the Year. He also worked with President Obama's council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of US science and technology research. Pick up Safi's book today!

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there. If you are looking to develop a Loonshot, check out our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

Does architecture have an effect on how we think, feel, and act? Donald Rattner has researched and explored environmental psychology and come to the conclusion that it does. This fact plays into our daily lives, affecting how we act and feel at the office and in our personal lives. This week on Killer Innovations, Donald Rattner joins us to discuss innovation and creativity in design of architectures that impact our daily lives.

What is the role of nature in regard to creativity? The human body craves to be near nature; unfortunately, we spend ninety percent of our time indoors. Rattner says to you do not have to do a lot to bring nature to your workplace. One study showed that simply placing a plant on your work desk can boost your creative output from fifteen to twenty percent. Fortunately, you do not need hours of exposure; you need a certain amount of inputs to achieve the necessary restorative affect nature has on the human body and mind.

People get ideas more often while at home; it is the place where you do the most unconscious ideation. So, what can people do in their homes to improve their creativity? First, you need to designate a creative place; pick where you want to associate creativity with. Second, pick a place where you want to spend time in. Try to get a sense of openness in your creative space. Studies have shown that the more open the space, the more open your mind is to creativity. Another point Rattner makes in his book is the effect that ceiling space has on creating an open space. Pictures, color, beauty, lighting, sound, music, and scent all affect creativity.

Donald Rattner is the author of My Creative Space: How to Design Your Home to Stimulate Ideas and Spark Innovation. He is an architect and practitioner. He has also taught at the University of Chicago and worked at Parson's School of Design. Pick up Rattner's book today!

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

This week on Killer Innovations, I am joined in the studio by Katherine Radeka. Katherine is the founder of Rapid Learning Cycles Institute. She has a new book coming out on October 1st called "High Velocity Innovation." Katherine started her career at HP and then went on to carry on Dr. Ellen Wards legacy as a lean product consultant.

The challenge inside large organizations is the challenge of catching of the innovation. Inside any organization there has to be a pull for innovation that starts at the strategic level. Even when they have that inside an organization, there are still going to be the innovation antibodies that create barriers and slow down the innovation engine. Another important challenge within an organization is distinguishing between process metrics and result metrics. Process metrics for innovation focus on how much time is your team spending on innovation activities. For result innovation, you should be looking at the amount of revenue coming and how fast you can get to market.

Companies sometimes need hurdles thrown at their innovation teams to help them grow. Katherine recommends having escalating hurtdes at least once a quarter. It encourages teams to find fast ways to validate whether or not their ideas are good ideas and challenge their perspective on it. Getting feedback from management is essential to these teams because it is an incentive to learn fast. You can keep up with Katherine at high velocity innovations.

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

On this week's episode of Killer Innovations, Phillip Merrick joins us in the studio. Phillip and his wife Caren started a company called webMethods and pioneered the use of web services integrating, machines, software applications and databases with XML-based software integration technologies. He was the co-founder of a web-multimedia resume company VisualCV and is currently CEO of cloud security company Fugue with its own innovation's. As a serial entrepreneur he is accustomed to creating and disrupting market spaces and has had a number of his companies acquired. Phillip has been recognized for driving results including KPMG & Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Washingtonian Magazine "Titan of Technology", and CRN "Top 25 Executive" as well as Deloitte's fastest-growing software company in North America over the period 1998 to 2002. In 2000, webMethods went public on the NASDAQ in the most successful software IPO to date.

The 1st Mover Experience

Phillip was a software developer with a dream and when his wife, a marketing specialist, teamed with him it wasn't immediate success. However, an initial journey of rejection and failure. Using credit cards to survive, going down to nothing financially they experienced the fear of many entrepreneurs. They had numerous rejections pitching to over 135 investors before they won over an initial venture investor in DC and eventually venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. Success started to take hold and led to more breakthroughs.

But why so hard! Well when you are creating a new space with a new technology you deal with 1st Mover pains. Many companies we know today from Apple to Google weren't 1st Movers in a space, but Phillips vision of connecting machines to the web disrupted the market and challenged the norms into a new space. webMethod's was challenged with people not getting what they had or were doing. His team convinced the market how to use the technology and how much easier it was. They proved it to global companies and markets from Phillip's basement with the team of four getting a product in the hands of potential customers in record time.

Lessons from 1st Mover in a New Space to Existing Space

Phillip has moved from pioneering a space to pioneering in an existing space from VisualCV to self-healing infrastructure in cloud security with Fugue. He makes it clear that creating a space is definitely far and few in between and an exception--innovation happens in many ways in existing spaces. You can have innovation in how you productize, market and structure your business model. Innovation has to be in the idea, product development and driving execution. Philip's advice for success is that you need to realize that innovation is not just about the idea. It is how you bring it to market, how you package it up for service, and how you build the team from recruiting to culture. From his journey he will tell you that "No idea comes away with contact with a customer in the same shape".

What do you wish you knew early in your career?

Within reason you can do anything you put your mind to. Phillip was afraid of failure in a company, feared public speaking and overcome them. What's interesting is with all of his successes at webMethod's one of his breakthroughs was actually speaking insightfully in front of the public. There are not many limits you can't overcome he states.

Philip says that in his career he is more focused on team building, not just the idea. Once you get all of that figured out, then you can focus on the idea.

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

The world is made up of yes people and no people. We need more people who will say yes to non-obvious ideas. Success belongs to those people who thoughtfully and hopefully say yes, let's try it. Many people in an organization play the role of the anti-risk antibody; they say no because it is safe. Why are we afraid of being wrong about new ideas? Take a risk, be willing to be wrong, and say yes to that new idea. Are you a yes or a no person inside your organization?

On this week's show of Killer Innovations, Michael George, Author, Entrepreneur and CEO of AI Technologies joins us as our guest. He is the founder of Lean Six Sigma, the most widely used process improvement method used globally. Since 2012 Mike has worked on applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the next big process breakthrough beyond Lean Six Sigma. Over the years Mike has worked with Fortune 100 companies and Government's globally and was Founder and CEO of The George Group, which he sold to Accenture as well as Founder and CEO of International Power Machines which he took Public and then sold to Rolls Royce. He has authored 8 books including "Fast Innovation", "Lean Six Sigma", "Conquering Complexity in Your Business" and his latest "Lean Six Sigma in the Age of Artificial Intelligence".

Innovating processes and discovering ways to leverage process to bring exponential returns on innovation initiatives and product development has been a mission of Michael and the results of his work has created and preserved value. The combination of Lean and Six Sigma brought a breakthrough for non-repetitive processes and global leaders enjoyed the elimination of waste and enhanced quality. However, leaders had another dilemma "How to Get to Market Faster with Quality Products".

Fast Innovation gave them:

• Speed in the Product Development Process
• Market Velocity with Better Forecasting and Predicting
• Preservation and Enhanced Quality
• Innovation Blitzes – Fast Gating while discovering Drivers of Delays

The next iteration of Process Innovation applies AI to drive Innovation's through a lifecycle as well as discover ideas that can create breakthroughs.

Michael has been engaged in Deep Learning Neural Networks for many years. With the onset of 'Big Data' we can now apply AI and machine learning to recognize patterns to help solve what has been unsolvable in the past. With Lean Six Sigma in Age of AI they have discovered a number of valuable insights that will power organizations to the next level and help them harness the power of the Fourth Industrial Revolution:

• Don't get overwhelmed with your data. Over-engineering your data quality and data cleansing efforts can grind you to a halt and not necessary – there are a number of processes to get high value sets of data for analysis in short order – a challenge for CEO's today
• Unseen discoveries are attainable even in the most proficient organizations—a recent effort revealed 60% of inefficiency came from only 20% of revenue
• AI and machine learning didn't eliminate jobs, but created more opportunities and growth while developing more productive employees

So what can leaders do to take advantage of the next wave? Michael believes every CEO should have their own AI and data expert that can comb every aspect of a business or organization to find common patterns in their activities (for instance product development and innovation initiatives) that elude human interaction.

So, what game changing innovation does Michael expect to see? AI provides approximate answers. The next big thing after AI, that is also complimentary, is quantum computing. An exponential game changer. As it has been in the past, from the internet to semi-conductors, the Government will play a big role in quantum computing. With patience, funds and applicable activities the organization that is best suited, and has always been a leader in advancements, is the U.S. Department of Defense. To learn more insights, keep up with Michael and his Firm.

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there. Don't forget to join our Innovators Community to enjoy more conversations around innovation.

What are the unique skill sets needed for innovation leadership? We all have a list of what good leadership skills are but what are the unique ones you need to be a true innovation leader? Today on Killer Innovations, I will discuss what I have found to be the skills needed for successful innovation leadership.

These leadership skills apply to all organizations, whether you are small organizations or a large organization.

1. Integrity
   1. You need to trust the people you are working with.
   2. You need to know they are looking out for what is in the best interest for the team and organization.
2. Vision and Strategy.
   1. Team members are looking to the leaders to communicate what the vision and strategy are.
   2. You need to look longer range beyond where the team is and roll that back in so they can see what your vision is.
   3. You need to be able to tell the story, make the pitch, share their dream with others.
   4. Communication is critical to successful innovation leadership,
   5. If you are going to be a leader you need to be able to interact and build relationships and truly have interests in other people's lives.
   6. Know what is going on in your team member's lives so you can help them eliminate distractions and really get their head in the game.
   7. You have got to persuade people to leave what they are doing now and join your team.
   8. You have to be able to convince them that what are doing is something worth their time.
3. Adaptability and Flexibility.
   1. As a leader you cannot be rigid; you have to be adaptable and flexible with your team and organization.
   2. Can you operate as a leader of a team?
   3. You need diversity on your team to be successful.
4. Coach and Develop.
   1. Find young and upcoming people and coach and develop them.
5. Decision-Making.
   1. You have to be comfortable making the final decision.
   2. Realize that sometimes the decision you make are going to fail.
6. Planning and Organizing.
   1. If you are not good at planning and organizing, then hire people to do it for your team.

These are the basic skills you need to be a successful innovation leader. So, what skills do you need to do differently to truly be an innovation leader?

1. Innovation leadership involves taking risks.
   1. You have to be comfortable that some of the decisions you make are going to fail.
   2. Some of your decisions are going to be flipped.
2. You need to keep looking for new opportunities and threats.
   1. Look for threats to your organization, industry, or geography.
3. Innovation is about change.
   1. Stability is the death of innovation.
   2. Foster a culture where change is expected.
4. Do not rest on the traditional management techniques.
   1. Every situation is different.
   2. You need to invent the way you manage and do leadership.
5. Be an optimist.
   1. Innovation is about being an optimist.
   2. You need to convince and convey an optimistic view of the future.
6. Innovator's cut through the crap.
   1. Innovation leaders need to cut through the crap and get to the core.
   2. You need to step in and stop the corporate game-playing.

Let's connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know. The email address is [email protected] or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there.

The challenges on the creativity innovation side does not change based on scale. It is the same whether you have a five-person team or a fifty-person team. The challenge is operating and innovating at the same level. A lot of companies get in a rut because they are doing what they have always done. So, how do you push yourself and people to go beyond the obvious and do the next thing?

1. Break the rules.
   1. Corporate anti-bodies will come after new ideas; you need to recognize that these antibodies exist.
   2. Sometimes you are the corporate antibody.
2. You have to think differently.
   1. You have to unlearn what you have been taught when it comes to conforming.
   2. Make sure that you challenge yourself to go beyond the obvious answer to questions.
3. It is all about asking
   1. How do you ask questions that will make you think about something you have not considered before?
   2. How do you ask those killer questions?
   3. Better questions get you better answers.

We love to say anything can be innovated, anyone can innovate and innovation can happen anywhere. Silicon Valley and other recognized innovation hubs do not have a lock on innovation or a secret sauce that cannot be modeled or improved on. It takes a willingness to put time, your resources, explore and expand your creativity (we all have it) beyond where you are today to see the non-obvious. When you do, you will be like our Kentucky guests, innovating in a non-traditional innovation hub, non-traditional way and a non-high tech innovation.

As part of our Innovation Across America tours, we ventured across the country in our new mobile studio to Paducah, Kentucky. This tour was looking for those innovating "Beyond the Obvious".

In our show this week we had the opportunity to interview the founders of Fin Gourmet Foods. Started in 2010, Fin Gourmet is a Kentucky Proud Producer™ of wild-caught Asian Carp products. So why Asian Carp. It has the highest source of healthy clean protein and Omega-3 fatty acids, on par with wild caught salmon. Nowhere else in the world but the USA are Asian Carp wild-caught, and those from Western KY are of the best quality. More importantly this innovation story is unique. Fin's mission and vision are that the Asian Carp provide economic opportunities for the communities, fostering job creation and revitalizing the inland fishing industry.

The team at Fin Gourmet defined the problems and challenges and engaged in disruptive ideation. As an integral part of their innovation process they considered some basic assumptions of innovation to create value including:

• Turn other people's trash into a product: Fin took the Asian Carp, which is an invasive species that is taking over the Mississippi and Ohio river systems, and innovated a way to turn it into a great food source.
• Give opportunities to people overlooked: In addition to locating in a rural part of the country, Fin works with local halfway houses to offer jobs to former prison inmates and others down on their luck. Training, teaching and building a culture that values and leverages the abilities of all.
• Breathe life back into an industry overlooked by others: Fin pays a premium price for what many considered "trash" to help local independent fishing families to transition to this new species of fish and the economy it can support.

Fin has two patented innovative processing techniques to:

1. Debone Asian Carp fillets and
2. Make all-natural surimi (Japanese fish paste) from the Carp without using water or chemicals.

With their innovative model, process and approach Fin Gourmet is making a big impact locally and across the globe with their products and story. The Fin founders, together with fisherman like Ronny Hopkins, we will better manage the Asian Carp so that our rivers/lakes/estuaries are better protected while employing people who need second chances from incarceration, drug court, domestic violence, or just to have a better life path.

If you find yourself in a fog with innovation, why don't you head over to The Innovators Community. It is a great place to connect and get energized and refreshed around innovation or send me a private message and I will respond. I'd love to hear from you. If you would like to learn more on ideation techniques to look Beyond the Obvious take a look at our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to join us today.