The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

So, you are about to pull together a team of eight to twelve people into a brainstorming session; do not make the mistake that 90% of us make…no area of focus. Most teams will be given the challenge of to "quickly come up with a product idea." The results can be predicted; poor to none when it comes to creating any form of disruptive ideas. This week on Killer Innovations, we will talk about four steps to better brainstorm problem statements.

When you pull together a team for brainstorming, creating focus is critical. When I say "creating focus" I mean that you need to tell the brainstorm team:

• Who has the problem?
• What exactly is the problem?
• Why is it important to solve?

In full or multi-day brainstorms, I have the teams develop their own problem statement. I set aside between four to eight hours to create a proper problem statement. Do no scrimp on this; spend the time! A well-defined focus via a well thought out problem statement will generate more and radically better ideas when you are ideating. The core elements have to address one of the following:

• Solve a problem.
• Remove a barrier.
• Improve an experience.

And while you try to answer all of this remember:

• Need to be concise.
• Does not state or imply a solution.
• Specific enough to be solvable in the given time frame and with available resources or competencies.

Sounds hard doesn't it? Thus, why I spend four to eight hours crafting, testing and validating a problem statement before I bring the team together.

I have a few different templates I use for creating problem statements:

• The (what/problem) affects (who/customer) the result of which (why/importance).
• (Who/customer) is affected by (what/problem), the result of which (why/importance).

So, what are the steps that would allow you to create a well-defined problem statement? The first step is to brainstorm the problem! Ask for people to list problems, challenges, friction in the system, barriers and unmet needs. The second step is to have each individual answer the "who, what, and why" we talked about earlier in the show. Step three is to then take the answers and start to draft problem statements using the templates. Then repeat the "who, what, and why", drafting multiple versions of the problem statements. Step four is to test it with the "who", the target segment.

Once you have a version of the problem statement that you think works, you need to test it with others. Never use yourself as a proxy; you are too close to it. You test it by writing it out, editing it, simplifying it, and making it tight and concise. Then find and talk to the people who you believe have the problem. Then ask them a set of questions to validate the problem and problem statement:

• Is this (team's hypothesis) a problem for you? Why or why not?
• What problem would be solved for you if the problem was fixed?
• How frequently does the problem cause a problem for you?
• What value would you gain if this problem was solved?

Now that you have a problem statement, I would recommend sharing it with the team for the brainstorm as "homework." Have the think about the problem statement and ask them to answer the validation questions from the perspective of the individuals who would receive the benefit from the brainstorm. If you would like your team to learn how to run radically better brainstorms by writing better problem statements then I would suggest you host a one-day Disruptive Ideation Workshop.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

The tech and tools we have now available for podcasts are far superior to what we had back when I first started recording my podcasts in 2005. This got me thinking about how wonderful innovation is and how easy it is to overlook it. Fifty years ago, we lived in a way that would be considered a burden today. While it is great to be nostalgic about the past, I cannot imagine going without the innovations we have today. This week on Five Minutes to New Ideas we will talk about how change from innovation is inevitable. If you continue as you have in the past, where will you be five years from now?

It goes without saying that not all ideas are good ideas that lead to market winning innovations. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that while failures will happen, we can learn from those that have gone before us in bringing innovations to market. This week on the show, we are going to look at the five worst innovation failures and see what could have been done differently.

Five Worst Innovation Failures No. 1: The Apple Newton

In 1993, Apple launched the Newton. While I tracked this product at launch, it was not one that I found interesting enough to purchase. It was not a success because it tried to do too much. What could have been done differently?

• Get the hardware right.
• Determine the most important features users are looking for.
• Establish a model of "continuous innovation" of adding features.
• Only release features when ready and at the quality customers expect.

Palm learned from one of the five worst innovation failures. In 1997, Palm introduced the Palm Pilot, using the lessons learned from the Newton. Palm focused on the minimal viable product. Rather than doing twenty things poorly, the Palm Pilot did its core functionality extremely well. The Palm Pilot dominated the PDA market for years.

Five Worst Innovation Failures No. 2: Microsoft Zune

In 2006, Microsoft introduced their portable music player, Zune. It was Microsoft's answer to the Apple iPod. Even with a ton of marketing effort the product never took off. There was nothing unique about it that would cause someone to switch from using an iPod to take up a Zune. The product was finally killed off in 2011. What could have been done differently?

• To win you need to commit. Taking half a step by introducing a re-branded product is not a winning strategy.
• To win against an entrenched leader you need to out-innovate them.

Five Worst Innovation Failures No. 3: HD-DVD

In 2006, Toshiba, with support from Microsoft, launched HD-DVD which was supposed to become the Hi-Def successor to the DVD. Standalone HD-DVDs players were sold and Microsoft's Xbox 360 had a HD-DVD option. Most will not recall the HD-DVDs versus Blu-Ray wars. It was a direct repeat of the VHS and Betamax wars. What should have been done differently?

• HP should not have switched its position based on incentives. It injected confusion into the market and impacted its technical credibility with its partners.
• Ecosystem partnerships are critical for most, if not all, major global innovations today.

Five Worst Innovation Failures No. 4: Samsung Note 7

In 2016, Samsung came out with the Samsung Note 7. This failed because it had a problem where it occasionally caught fire and exploded. Out of prudence, the phones were banned on flights and Samsung had to recall the entire line. What could have been done differently?

• Don't let the schedule dictate launch.
• Get the quality right.
• Customers will always reward quality with loyalty.
• Balance risk of new innovations.
• Learn from others.

Five Worst Innovation Failures No. 5: TwitterPeek

In 2008, Peek introduced Twitter Peek, a hardware device which allowed users to send and receive tweets using Twitter. It was the first Twitter-only mobile device. Peek took the minimal viable product to an extreme. TwitterPeek met broad skepticism in the press. CNN listed it as one of the top ten biggest technology failures of 2009, while Gizmodo went as far as to name TwitterPeek as one of the fifty worst gadgets of the decade. In 2012, Peek dropped all of its hardware devices and shifted to making software for OEM's. What could have been done differently?

• Be careful of going to extremes.
• Test/validate.
• Don't outsource everything to the big design houses.

We can learn a lot from the innovation failures of others. Failure is part and parcel of the innovation game. Don't shy away from looking deep into failures to see what can be learned.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

An institution's impact should be measured over time. The ability to produce a great product or service is linked to the inherent drive for quality from the team who builds it. This week on Five Minutes to New Ideas we will talk about the importance of quality. There is nothing more important than to instill in ourselves, our children, and grandchildren a love for quality. Quality puts the value into everything. You should never stop asking yourself how can I improve on the quality of what I do?

Many people believe when it comes to innovation, you've either got it or you don't. But innovation is a skill that can be learned, practiced and perfected. One area of innovation is ideation. Generating quality ideas is key to keeping the innovation funnel full. How do you get started in innovation if your team doesn't have confidence in their innovation abilities? One way is to have a disruptive ideation workshop. On today's show, I talk about how to create a disruptive ideation workshop.

Boot Camp Condensed

I teach my Innovation Boot Camp course two or three times a year. This is an intense four-day session that goes twelve hours a day. The objective is building the innovation confidence of the students. One common request from students is for a one-day version for their teams. So, I reworked the content and created a one-day version called the Disruptive Ideation Workshop. The workshop teaches a disruptive approach to generate more and better ideas using the FIRE method. The objectives: learn the skill, apply it, and have a pipeline of ideas for the organization. Two weeks ago, we tested the workshop. The class consisted of 25 senior leaders from a single organization (with zero background in innovation). The results exceeded everyone's expectations. One of the leaders in the class summed it up: "learning disruptive ideation that generated disruptive ideas." So, we named the workshop the "Disruptive Ideation Workshop."

The Disruptive Ideation Workshop in Brief

What does disruptive ideation mean? Disruptive means causing or tending to cause disruption; innovative or groundbreaking; unconventional, unorthodox, off-center, unusual, unfamiliar, unprecedented; pioneering, trailblazing, revolutionary, radical, advanced, newfangled, state-of-the-art.

The Disruptive Ideation workshop is built around two major objectives:

1. Teach a disruptive approach to ideation.

This will radically increase the number and quality of the ideas that a person and team can generate.

1. Through the process of learning, apply it to a real-world problem facing the organization.

At the end, students have a ranked set of disruptive ideas their organization can take forward.

To achieve these objectives, we teach background and skills and how to apply the skills.

This course has two major sections: Section 1) Foundation and Section 2) Skills and Application/Practice. Here's what we cover in each.

Section 1: Foundation

1. Myths and mysteries of innovation
2. Innovation skills (self-doubt/negative talk, imagination, seeing with fresh eyes, etc.)
3. Innovation Anti-bodies (ego, no risk, no change, etc.)
   • Focus
   • Ideation
   • Ranking
   • Execution
4. Innovation framework (FIRE)

The focus was on Focus, Ideation, and Ranking of the FIRE method. Special emphasis was placed on Ideation.

Skills Learned

Section 2 of the Disruptive Ideation Workshop was a walk-through of the elements in FIRE. Exercises allowed students to apply those elements to a real problem statement.

Skill number one was FOCUS. FOCUS is about defining the problem. Having a clear "problem statement" is critical. Without a well-defined problem statement, everyone jumps to generate ideas to solve something that is not clearly understood. In boot camp, the team spends half a day crafting their problem statement.

Skill number two is IDEATION. Walk through the use and power of the question to generate more and better ideas. Team ideation is built upon the ideas generated individually.

Skill number three is RANKING. Grouping ideas is the starting point. Then take the large number of ideas generated and find the top two to three percent of the ideas.

The last skill taught is EXECUTION. Take the raw idea from RANKING and put more thought behind it.

We also taught "Adapt and Adopt." Take the experiences in Section 2 and adapt the skills making adoption easier for their organization.

Lessons from the Disruptive Ideation Workshop

What are the lessons learned in conducting the Disruptive Ideation Workshop?

1. One-day is a unit of time that people can more easily step away from the day job.
2. The problem statement is critical. Spend time to get it right!
3. Limit the workshop to a reasonable number of students (20 max).
4. Establish clear next steps.
5. Plug students into a community. Keep the learning and excitement alive after the course ends.

If you are interested in finding out more about the workshop, send an email to us.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Are creativity and innovation only for the young? Silicon Valley has clearly bought into this premise. The truth of the matter is creativity and Innovation know no limit based on age. You can pick up creativity at any age. Do you or your organization hold a bias as to who can or cannot be creative? Listen to this week's Five Minutes to New Ideas for more on how age really doesn't matter in the innovation game.

Making hard decisions can bring the most seasoned leaders to their knees, no matter how calm they look on the outside. The fear of a better option (FOBO) can paralyze decision-making. It is also the enemy of innovation. In this show I talk about 4 ways to deal with FOBO.

FOBO versus FOMO

What is it that causes that hesitation at decision time? Patrick McGinnis calls it FOBO: the Fear of a Better Option. Patrick describes it as being "paralyzed at the prospect of actually committing to something, out of fear that we might be choosing something that was not the absolute perfect option." The result is that you get stuck in an analysis paralysis and never make the decision. The sister term to FOBO is FOMO, the Fear of Missing Out. If you miss out, you will not have that one magic piece of data that will give you perfect information. So, our fear of missing out feeds our fear of a better option. The result is saying "yes" to everything. I used to say "yes" to every request to speak or teach no matter the impact on myself or my family. When you combine FOBO with FOMO you can find yourself afraid of doing anything. That is FODA, the paralysis that turns into a fear of doing anything. What I had to learn was to say "no." Breakthrough came when a newspaper article was written about me which forced me to go public with a secret that fed my imposter syndrome.

The way that I deal with FOMO is I create criteria for myself that help me prioritize the requests for my time and attention.

FOBO in Innovation

When it comes to innovation, deciding to move forward on an idea, to commit to resources such as people and money, is ripe of FOBO. I have seen a leader hesitate to give a team the green light on a project because they are not yet convinced that it is the best/perfect idea. The truth is that no idea is a perfect idea. In this case, FOBO could be masking a more general fear of failure. But not deciding means zero chance of an innovative idea. The main object is to innovate and to do that, you need to try your ideas. You have to come to terms with the fact that most of your ideas are going to fail. FOBO, the fear of a better option, is the enemy of innovation. It is the tool antibodies will use to brush off your ideas.

FODA (the Fear of Doing Anything)

When you combine FOBO and FOMO you can find yourself in a paralyzed position not wanting to commit to anything. This is FODA, the Fear of Doing Anything. You need to learn to be decisive. Here are 4 ways to deal with FOBO and not get caught in the trap of FODA:

• The Ask and Watch method. Patrick McGinnis says to whittle your decision to two options. Assign each item to either the left or right side of your watch. Look down and see where the second hand is at the moment. Taking the final decision when you have two good options out of your control releases you from doubt.

• Criteria method. Create a clear criterion that works for you. Mine are the Five F's: Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, and Finances. Score requests on your time against your list of criteria.

• The Innovation = Ranking method. When it comes to innovation use your funnel and ranking process to create a list of "next best ideas." These are the ideas based on their ranking score from the FIRE framework. With the ranked lists of your ideas, force a decision that says something like each quarter we will fund the idea with the highest score.

• The Trust but Verify method. Apply the old Ronald Reagan maxim "Trust your decision but verify." If the decision is not delivering the result you expected, then adjust.

These 4 ways to deal with FOBO will help you be aware of your own FODA and change. We will never have perfect information and, therefore, will never make the perfect decision. So, make your decision and move on. For any questions or comments send me an email.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Tony Robbins once said, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." You can apply this quote to networks, communities, family, and friends you socialize with. To change that quote a bit, you are the average of the five social networks where you spend the most time. This week's Five Minutes to New Ideas considers how our social networking reflects who we are.

Ethical lapses in some tech companies have grabbed headlines in recent years. Tech is changing daily, touching every aspect of our lives. It's time to define the ethical boundaries of technology. Without focus on ethics in technology, there will be huge unintended consequences. On today's show, Joe Toscano, joins me. Joe is founder of BEACON and author of Automating Humanity. He is also a former award-winning experience designer for Google. Joe's background in Silicon Valley and Big Tech has led him to explore tech in terms of ethics.

After several years in the Silicon Valley "bubble," Joe decided to step away. Disconnect between life in the Valley and the world outside became his opportunity. Joe Toscano formed a nonprofit called BEACON. BEACON stands for "Better Ethics and Consumer Outcomes Network." It is a social innovation organization. BEACON strives to connect the public to what is going on in the tech industry. BEACON provides insights to policymakers in defining ethical boundaries of technology. This tech insight equips them to address ethical concerns in a balanced way. BEACON works with technologists to create products that meet consumer demand and create positive social impact. Some tech leaders are content to leave it to regulators to define ethical boundaries of technology. Through BEACON, Joe takes a holistic approach. Shaping ethical boundaries of technology has many factors to consider. The effect on the consumer, small business, local and global community as well as Big Tech must be in view.

Regulators cannot keep up with the pace of innovation today. Joe believes there are certain things regulators must address. But, some things need to remain informal and driven solely by business. This is where the nonprofit side of BEACON comes in. It is about education, research, and creating public safety tools. The goal is to educate consumers and regulators to ask the right questions. BEACON partners with the University of Nebraska and Digital Futures Initiative. These partnerships center on ethics in technology.

BEACON has branched out this year forming a for profit side. In the for profit sector, BEACON is creating products that will help small businesses comply with regulations. The first product launching will generate required legal agreements. This will minimize legal expenses for small businesses.

Businesses that want to set ethical boundaries of technology must change the mindset. BEACON advises that they must move their business away from the quarterly statistics and into the longer term.

What is one of the biggest problems today? The attention economy drives tech. This presents issues in terms of ethics. There is not a defined production value. There's room for innovation in defining what the production value is. The area of data is wide open for innovation. At the core, innovations like these require thought on the long term ethical implications. BEACON's work in the space of ethical boundaries in technology is timely and essential.

If you'd like to track what Joe is doing, visit https://www.beacontrustnetwork.com/ . For the latest, sign up for his newsletter. Pick up a copy of Joe's recent book, Automating Humanity, available through Amazon.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Time is one of those resources that we never have enough of. We are given 1,440 minutes each day and once it is gone, it is gone. When it comes to translating ideas into innovation, it comes down to opportunity costs. This week on Five Minutes to New Ideas I discuss opportunity costs. How can you help your team save time on things of low value to work on things of higher value? How will you prioritize your 1,440 minutes today?

The latest innovation of today can quickly be replaced with the next best thing tomorrow. Whether you're a newcomer to innovation or the seasoned innovator, there's something every innovator should know. How to forecast and survive cycles of innovation. This week Ray Zinn, longest serving CEO of a publicly traded company in Silicon Valley, shares his insights. Ray's astute ability to forecast what was coming enabled his company to survive the cycles of innovation.

Sage Advice: Don't Work for Someone Else

In 1974, Ray's boss conveyed a bit of advice. Don't work for someone else. This advice set Ray on the entrepreneurial path. He started his own company. With $300,000 of self-funding, he started doing test services. It was challenging to start a company that was profitable from day one. Ray and his business partner managed it. By 1985, their company, Micrel Inc., hired a group of engineers and started designing their own products. Eventually, Samsung selected Micrel technology for their first cell phones. With blue chip clients, numerous inventions and patents in wireless radio and other areas, Micrel went public in 1994. Micrel was profitable every year through 2001. Despite the fact that Ray had to rebuild the whole company, it remained profitable.

Forecasting Innovation Cycles

How do you lead companies through the high rate of innovation change? Ray was able to accomplish this successfully. Ray learned the cycles of innovation so he could forecast them. You have to know the cycles so you can predict them for your company. How do you do this? Your customers are your best lead. The key to surviving these cycles is understanding them. Cycles last at the most five years. You must anticipate what is going to be the next winning product.

Getting Your Board Right

What were the insights Ray wished he had early on? Be careful about your Board. He elaborated on his biggest mistake - not being more selective on his Board of Director participation. Having a viable, helpful and contributable Board is critical. You want members who roll up their sleeves and add value where it's needed. You don't need board members who will pick you apart and create tension. Ray believes that Boards need to focus less attention on what investors or shareholders want. They need to put emphasis on what is best for the company and adds sustainable value. Boards should not be too independent. Independency leads to disconnect and a lack of understanding a company's intricacies and operation.

The Zinn Starter

With his wealth of experience in the heart of the startup capital of the world, Ray wanted to give back. He created the Zinn Starter, a seed investment firm akin to Shark Tank for universities. Almost every university in this country has an entrepreneur program. The Zinn Starter consists of students taking their business ideas before a Board. If the Board approves the concept, the student has the opportunity to start a company while still a student. Zinn Starter is limited to fully enrolled university students. It is part of the entrepreneur program for six universities. The program has been running for two years with over five thousand students participating.

Ray has also written a book called Tough Things First. Used by many universities as a textbook, it covers his time with his company in Silicon Valley. You can track Ray at http://toughthingsfirst.com/. Visit his website to hear weekly podcasts and tips for entrepreneurs.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Your idea was rejected. You were told to give up. If you want to succeed at innovation, you have to put yourself and your ideas out there. This means you will get rejected. The alternative is that your idea will never become a reality. Throughout the cycles of criticism, trust that the steps you are taking will lead to achieving your vision. What are you willing to innovate even in the face of criticism and rejection? Listen to this week's Five Minutes to New Ideas for insight on pushing through rejection to reach your innovation vision.

Leadership support for innovation is critical to an organization. Any leader knows how to spell innovation. But few senior leaders understand what is involved or how hard it is unless they have come from an "innovation background." What are some essentials of innovation leadership? In today's show we discuss the role of the CEO and the Board of Directors. We also consider the benefits of an effective Innovation Advisory Board.

What is the role of a CEO running an organization?

• To set the vision.
• To establish the leadership team.
• To define the objectives for the organization.
• To hold self and others accountable to achieve the vision and objectives.

The CEO crafts a structure and a budget which the Board approves or disapproves. Where does the innovation aspect fit in? Innovation should be part of how an organization achieves its vision. It should be funded and resourced to enable the vision and objectives. The CEO should promote innovation and its role in the organization. The CEO should hold the leadership team accountable for innovation.

Common reasons that a CEO does not provide the innovation leadership needed:

• Funds only where there is a clear line of sight of the results.
• Uncomfortable with the unknown or associated risks.
• A weak relationship with the Board.
• On shaky ground with the Board because of past mistakes or failures to deliver.
• Doesn't believe in the value and impact of innovation.
• Doesn't know how and won't ask for help.

What should the innovation leader do when the CEO is not fully engaged in the innovation efforts? First, start small. Find the hidden project that someone has been doing in stealth and get behind it. Next, lay out a clear plan and metrics that can be shared with leaders and the Board of Directors. Lastly, gradually gain their support. After concerted effort, if there is no support, this organization may never give innovation a role.

While the CEO may be the focus when it comes to innovation, the Board plays a critical role. The Board is the "boss" of the CEO. The Board has control of the budget - a key resource for innovation. A Board's commitment to innovation is shown by the time spent talking about it in Board meetings. Another indicator is willingness to make it a priority in the budget process. The committed Board understands and is comfortable with the fact that risk is associated with innovation. The Board, with the CEO and innovation leadership team, sets realistic, high quality innovation metrics. A Board conveys support by "protecting" the CEO when it comes to stakeholders.

A big risk for many organizations: most Boards do not have members from an innovation background. You need people on your Board who have lived it.

How does a Board get guidance on encouraging and supporting innovation?

• Find outside consultants that can train the Board.
• Have innovation leaders meet with Board members one on one to educate them.
• Find organizations that have innovation at their core.
• Create an innovation board of advisors.

How can you get the CEO and Board to embrace innovations when it is not part of the DNA? Recruit an Innovation Board of Advisors. This Board of Advisors should contain the innovation leader from within the organization. Other members should be proven innovation leaders from outside the organization. No consultants. The Innovation Advisory Board meets with organization leaders and the Board of Directors. It provides guidance and feedback. A rewarding experience for me was serving as an outside member of the Roche Innovation Advisory Board. I was tasked to help their innovation and management teams get "fresh eyes".

What did I learn from serving on an Innovation Advisory Board?

• IABs can play a critical role in bringing outside perspectives.
• IABs are outside validation of what and why you do the things you do.

How would I set up one today?

• Find the best people.
• Be prepared to pay for Board membership.
• Set clear focus and expectations.
• Make it real, not window dressing.
• Give them visibility to your leadership and Board.
• Plan a rotation of membership.

Want to know how to engage your CEO and Board of Directors? Looking to establish an Innovation Advisory Board? Reach out and drop me a note.

Everyone is creative. Yet some people seem more creative than others. What do those people have that others might lack? What's the secret to creativity? This week we talk about finding creative inspiration outside of work. I'll share my thoughts on what makes people creative. We'll also hear Kym McNicholas interview Tania Katan. Tania has just come out with a book called Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy into Your Work and Life.

Finding Inspiration

Humans use creativity every day to solve complex issues. Some people are more creative than others in problem solving. How do these people manage to stay ahead of everyone else creatively? First, these people are inspired. Find something that piques your interest, that drives you to go above and beyond, to experiment and learn. You can find creative inspiration even at work. If you are passionate about what you are doing, then you are feeding your creativity.

Practicing Creativity

Another common denominator of creative people is that they practice creativity. People do not just wake up already skilled at something. They have to practice it until they have mastered it. Practice can be defined as two things:

• To do repeated exercises for proficiency
• To pursue a profession actively

There is a myth that you can't practice creativity and innovation. You can practice and become proficient. There are many ways to exercise your creative abilities. There are exercises for daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly practice of creative skills.

Talking Creative Inspiration with Tania Katan

Tania Katan shares with Kym McNicholas how people's creativity in personal life can enhance their work. Her book, Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life, looks at the impact of bringing personal creative exercise into the workplace. Tania wrote this book because she saw a disconnect between people's creativity and what they did at their jobs during the day.

Tania says that if you are looking for innovation, you need to bring your creativity inside your job. Problems with innovation could be solved if we brought our creativity to work. Throughout the book there are exercises called "Productive Disruptions." These are creativity breaks. There was a study done by Stanford called the "Walking Creativity Study." This proved that people who went for walks when experiencing creative blocks experienced 60 percent higher creativity afterwards. Disruptions and breaks are scientifically proven to help improve creativity. Many people don't improve creativity because they think they don't have the right experience or training. We need to break through that barrier and ask "what if" questions. Stop trying to solve problems the same way and give creativity a try.

Some of the greatest takeaways from the book are:

• Our job does not have to be uniquely creative for us to actually be creative.
• We need to feel free at the workplace to create a creative revolution inside our bodies, minds and cubicles.

One of the biggest roadblocks of creativity is the fear of thinking and doing things differently. The best way to get through that obstacle is to face it.

For more information on creative inspiration pick up Tania Katan's book Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy into Your Work and Life.

To track what Tania is doing, visit LinkedIn.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

What got me to start a podcast in 2005? I got inspired. True inspiration goes deep. It changes us and transforms us. On this week's Five Minutes to New Ideas hear about finding and exploring your creative inspiration. What is your creative inspiration? Who has inspired you? And how are you translating your creative inspiration to have an impact. Send me a note on your creative inspiration story.

With major shifts in the global economy, businesses need to be ready. Amid a slowdown of growth, companies that thrive are using innovation to grow the intangible economy. Steven is the global head of innovation at KPMG. Steven joins us to talk about the intangible economy and what companies need to know.

Scale and Investment Equals Growth

CEOs and boards who are serious about innovation must consider the intangible economy. KPMG conducted a study of 15,000 global firms with at least 250 employees. They called the top 10% of these firms frontier firms. The other 90% were the followers. A remarkable factor in the findings: major growth seemed to remain with the frontier firms. Very few followers were able to reach growth at the frontier level. Of the firms, only 18 follower firms moved to frontier status. What separated the two? Scale and how a firm invested. Frontier firms used data and AI to transform their platform for productivity.

Harness the Power of the Intangible Economy

The value of data is clear when one considers how Amazon has harnessed its power. Smart businesses are finding ways to use data as a business strategy.

The four pillars to consider in developing data and AI strategies:

• Using data to change customer experience and predict customer behavior.
• Valuing assets in the organization differently.
• Creating service capabilities as an organization.
• Transforming the workforce with data and AI.

Creating Core Capability Around Innovation

Using innovation to grow the intangible economy requires more than having an innovation team. You have to create core capability around innovation inside the organization. There are a number of things that can prevent that from happening. KPMG worked with Innovation Leader to survey large organizations worldwide about innovation. The responses reveal what is stifling innovation in organizations.

• Lack of leadership engagement and support of innovation
• Politics or turf wars between departments
• Company culture
• Inability to act on signals
• Lack of budget
• No vision or strategy

The need for innovation has never been stronger. Leadership involvement is the driving force behind it. Innovation is a capability not a box on your chart or team name. The organization will take their lead from the CEO. You have to live it every day with your team.

Challenges Faced

There are many challenges to sustaining innovation. Part of the problem is that leaders don't understand what innovation is. Defining innovation is an important step. Customize the definition of innovation to fit the organization. Set the standard for the culture of innovation. Innovation is characterized in three ways:

• Incremental Innovation - asks people to think differently about what they do and drives new thinking.
• Adjacent - things you are doing that are tangential that add value.
• Transformational - turning a traditional business into a platform for creative transformation.

Lessons Learned

One challenge that leaders face is building innovation as a sustainable activity. Advice Steve gives for those trying to transform their organization:

• Find a respected and known leader who gets things done to lead innovation. Give that person the mandate to start building a disciplined innovation capability.

• Work on the culture of the organization overall. Establish cultural momentum by talking about it and making it a strategic set of imperatives.

• Develop contests (hackathons). Create a place that acknowledges and celebrates people across enterprise for innovation.

• Put real money behind the investment portfolio. Money matters.

When it comes to your budget, be clear with yourself, your people and the marketplace. Money should be tracked explicitly against the specific use case and efforts.

To track what Steven Hill is doing at KPMG, check out the KPMG website. You can also reach Steven on Twitter or his email.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Some people might wonder what ethics has to do with innovation and creativity? Some organizations could take a lesson on how to establish and reinforce a culture of good ethics. A culture must reinforce its core values. The Boy Scouts did this. Five Minutes to New Ideas explores how organizations can learn a lesson in ethics from the Boy Scouts. What standards of ethics have you defined for yourself and your team? Does your team know the ethics you expect from them? Do you hold everyone, yourself included, to that standard? Let's set the standard for ethics in innovations.

Behind all things smart, from homes and buildings to vehicles, is IoT. What will open up new worlds for the future? Open IoT standards. John Osborne II is Chairman of the Board at Zigbee Alliance. He is also Vice President of IoT, sales and marketing at LEEDARSON. He talks with me about device innovation and enabling IoT standards across the industry.

Innovation Across Industry

John and I met years ago when he worked as Kroger's innovation leader. Kroger's process of instilling a culture of innovation is featured in my book. As Chairman of the Board at Zigbee Alliance, John is innovating an industry's approach. Although it may be in your home, you may wonder what Zigbee is. Zigbee is one of the original machine -to-machine protocols allowing device sensors to communicate to a mesh network. Their device innovation has evolved into one of the premiere mesh networks in the industry. Zigbee products are designed to be long lasting and interoperate. The products require minimal upkeep and maintenance. But Zigbee is more than device innovation. Through Zigbee Alliance, John brings industry leaders together.

Collaboration to Benefit All

A main goal of Zigbee Alliance is to get industry leaders to accept IoT standards. Those standards will broaden innovation opportunities. Low power technology is at the forefront. The hot topics in our world today - health and wellness, aging in place, connected vehicles. These areas highlight the need for what Zigbee Alliance is doing.

Joining forces will simplify the industry for customers and businesses. But finding common ground among competitors is no easy task. Zigbee Alliance's efforts to build relationships started with a one-week session of industry leaders. Since that first meeting, the collaboration has grown. The meetings are now held in locations across the world. Zigbee Alliance has become the facilitator allowing companies to lead. Amazon announced last year it would incorporate a Zigbee smart hub in Alexa. That has sparked the interest in others to follow suit.

The Aim of IoT Standards

The challenges still exist in to getting consensus among industry leaders. Yet, Zigbee Alliance moves forward. Their intent is to achieve common data models, common API, and common security. Companies want layers of security. But that's not ideal on the consumer end. Still a few years out, companies are working towards the middle ground – designing the right security.

Still in the works is how IoT standards compliance will be identified. Zigbee Alliance is working with other organizations to determine this. Once established, it will simplify the consumer's purchase process.

Partnerships for Smart Device Innovation

John also highlights the work that LEEDARSON is doing in partnership with small businesses. As an ODM, LEEDARSON has the resources. Small businesses bring their ideas. Not many innovators are aware of this type of ODM partnering approach to device innovation. The right partner can accelerate the innovation.

Lessons Learned from the Innovation Leader

The process of innovation always presents challenges in the form of innovation antibodies. New people come with their own agendas and ideas. What has John learned in his experience in device innovation and promoting IoT standards?

Here are John's tips for dealing with innovation antibodies:

• Keep pushing your idea.
• Give them a platform for their view.
• Make them part of the process.
• Spend a lot of time educating.
• Work through the problems.

As innovators we can't always jump to the conclusion that we're right. Sometimes you are the one hindering your process. When that happens, you need to self-reflect and try a new approach.

We have to evolve ourselves. Take a risk and try something new and different.

The Trends

Now that the tech is here, the solutions are next. Smart homes and advances in home security give rise to many use cases. The trend now is managing properties remotely and aging in place. A trend of tomorrow is cloud connected cars as displayed at CES. John's hope for the future is connected cities. Before that can happen, issues of politics need to be resolved. Getting ecosystems like telecoms and the sensor business to work together is another future challenge.

To track what John is doing, check out LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/johneosborneii. Check out his website http://www.jeoii.com/ or send him an email.

You may also join the conversation with John and me on The Innovators Community.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Inspiration, true inspiration goes deep. It changes and transforms us. What is your creative inspiration? Five Minutes to New Ideas explores how to discover your creative inspiration. How are you translating your creative inspiration into having an impact?