The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

A common question I get from listeners is how to fight against the roadblocks and barriers to innovation. In this week's show, I address five of the biggest barriers to innovation. The list is based on the 2018 Innovation Leader study done in partnership with KPMG. The study surveyed Chief Innovation Officers in organizations ranging from small to large. As many of you have let me know, these barriers resonate with you. As we walk through the list, I will share my thoughts on each of these barriers to innovation.

The Roadblocks and Speed Bumps

First, here's the list of barriers to innovation and how they rank among Chief Innovation Officers surveyed.

1. Politics, turf wars, no alignment. 55% of innovation leaders say this is the #1 issue.
2. Cultural issues. 45% claim this as the #2 barrier to innovation.
3. Inability to act on signals. 41% placed this at #3.
4. Lack of budget. 40% of innovation leaders found this to be the #4 obstacle.
5. Lack of strategy, lack of vision. 35% put this at #5.

Let's take a closer look at these and what I would do to get around these barriers to innovation.

Number One: Politics, Turf Wars, No Alignment

There are many manifestations of politics be it people vying for credit or the corporate antibody. Politics can be a big challenge especially in large organizations. The higher people rise within an organization, the more risk averse and defensive they tend to become.

Turf wars can erupt when "innovation" is used in a team name or a position title. The innovation team creates an innovation for a product group. The product group team gives it an icy reception. It's an invasion of their turf.

No alignment occurs when people within the organization are going in different directions. Leaders announce the need for innovation fast, but give no guidance. There's no alignment of the activities or the overall organizational vision. This is a lack of leadership.

Here are ways to bring down these barriers:

Politics

• Don't worry about getting credit. It's about the impact to the organization. Good leadership will recognize where the credit is due.
• Don't use the word "innovation" in a team name or job title. Innovation is not the realm of a single team. It should permeate the organization.

Turf Wars

• Don't innovate in isolation. Open up opportunities for innovation across the organization. Think ecosystem.

No alignment

• Have focus up front and communicate that focus to your organization. When you define the where and what, you get maximum leverage. Quantity and quality of ideas will increase.

Number Two: Culture

Some of the underlying issues I've seen with culture are fear of failure and unwillingness to experiment. If these are concerns, a work around is to go stealth with your innovation.

But, if you really want to fix the problem…

• Identify core values that encourage innovation.
• Include the core values in employees' performance reviews.

Number Three: Inability to Act on Signals

The inability to act on signals signifies inflexibility within the organization. Maybe you see a new opportunity or risk on the horizon but all resources are committed until the next budget cycle. Or maybe you do not have a mechanism in place to identify weak signals.

The key to breaking this barrier to innovation:

• Identify weak signals.
• Be willing to change.
• Have the flexibility to change.

Number Four: Lack of Budget

Budget is a challenge for innovation because budget cycles tend to be annual, but innovation does not follow an annual cycle. Budget does not support or align with innovation. It creates a start-stop interference to innovation programs. I've been experimenting with trended spending in my organization. It gives innovation teams flexibility to adjust funding and confidence funds will be there when needed.

The Rule of 18 also comes into play as a barrier. It is the length of time senior leaders are willing to commit to a project before they expect to see some form of impact. If the innovation project does not show impact within 18 months, it's likely to be axed.

My advice for budget related barriers to innovation:

• Chunk down your projects to show impact and deliverables on an 18-month cycle.
• CEOs and Chief Innovation Officers: make a multi-year commitment and stick with it.
• Don't underspend. Budget is not the metric in innovation.

Number Five: Lack of Vision, Lack of Strategy

If an organization's overall vision does not include the innovation vision and strategy, it's unlikely innovations will succeed.

My advice:

• Define an innovation vision and innovation strategy.
• Need help with this? There's a lot of good material available. Drop me an email and I will point you to some sources.

If you've got a specific example or you're struggling with an innovation issue, drop me an email.

Better yet, join us at The Innovators Community, a private slack community of leading innovators from around the world. Post your questions or direct message for advice and feedback.

Five Minutes to New Ideas is now available as a standalone show. It's designed for the creative mind looking for that next great idea. Listen on Apple iTunes, Spotify or at PhilMckinney.com.

Success in the innovation game requires strong innovation leadership. But there is confusion about what defines leadership. To understand leadership, we need to boil it down to the essence – what it is and what it isn't. We need to identify a key leadership skill and determine how this skill can elicit success. There are leaders who stand out in my mind. They have had an effect on me through my career and life. They have one common leadership skill: influence.

What It's Not

I've had the title of Chief Technology Officer at HP. Now I have the title of CEO leading 200 bright and motivated people. But a title does not make a leader. Some may think leadership is directing people in what to do. It's assigning tasks, then watching from on high while others do the work. That is not leadership. There are those who confuse leadership with micromanagement. They expect their managers to clear every decision with them before they make it. That is not leadership. How do you distinguish true leaders from managers, supervisors or those who just have control?

Essence of Leadership

Leadership is about inspiring others. It's about motivating others to achieve success beyond what they could've ever imagined. One leader who's inspired me is Bob Davis. He hired me in my first real job and became my mentor. He modeled leadership and I was drawn to the projects and teams he led. When I considered what made Bob different from others in management, it came down to leadership skills. His skills in leadership led to success. What made him stand out was his ability to influence.

Innovation Leadership

Leadership isn't just for managers. It's essential to any team. You need leadership skills when you are a team contributor, self-leading, and when there is no clear person in charge. That is why leadership is crucial in innovation. Innovation leadership drives innovation from ideas on a whiteboard or in a notebook to something mind-blowing. How do you hone the skills of innovation leadership? Let's examine one key skill.

The Key

Influence is the key skill in innovation leadership.

Two definitions of influence are

1. The power to cause change without forcing the change to happen.
   • Not making the change happen.
   • Not doing the task.
   • Not giving the answer.
2. A person who affects someone in an important way.
   • Someone you admire who has inspired you.
   • Someone whose behavior you want to model.
   • Could be your spouse, an old boss, a teacher, a professor, a friend.

Attributes of Influence

There are three attributes of influence that leaders have.

1. Knowledge
   • Experience – successful work in the past that is the same or similar to the work at hand.
   • Expertise – relevant training (such as college) or working for an expert in the field.
2. Credibility
   • Past actions – how the leader achieved success and handled failure.
   • Thinking beyond self – working for the larger, mutually beneficial goal.
   • Follow through – leaders do what they say they're going to do
3. Integrity
   • The core set of values that guide what one does.
   • Projected through actions.
   • Core values include
     • Honesty and truthfulness
     • Win-win always
     • Transparency
     • Team first

How to Influence for Success

Influence is core to innovation leadership. Those who have the ability to elicit positive change have mastered the skill of influence. How can you influence others? It's a non-obvious answer. The most powerful influence you can have is often not trying to influence.

How to exert influence without authority?

Step One: Understand those you want to influence.

• Learn their motivations, objectives, dreams, fears and desires.
• Craft a win-win. Achieve what you want to achieve while supporting and enabling those you want to influence to reach their objectives.

Step Two: Active listening.

• Shut up and listen.
• Let others feel they are part of the conversation, that they're contributing.

Step Three: Ask questions.

• Well thought out questions that do not convey an agenda or define a target
• Questions that prompt conversation and allow others to share their opinions, thoughts, experience and expertise.

Innovation needs innovation leadership and influence is the key to success.

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Five Minutes to New Ideas is now available as a standalone show. It's designed for the creative mind looking for that next great idea. Listen on Apple iTunes, Spotify or at PhilMckinney.com.

Today's show is unique. I recorded it as I drove back to Denver from an annual event in Keystone, Colorado. The event centers around what's coming in the next three to eight years in technology and innovation. So, sit back and enjoy the ride as I share my thoughts on innovation and the near future.

Pondering AI and Ethics

I delivered two keynotes at the event. During one, I got a question about Artificial Intelligence. To be specific, did I agree or disagree with what other tech leaders were saying about AI. This prompted a lively talk during the keynote and afterwards. The discourse kept me mulling over thoughts on innovation, AI and the future.

We've featured some shows this year that touch on the use of AI. Recently, the Box Chief Product Officer shared how Box is using AI for content management. Earlier in the year, Microsoft's Corporate VP for AI, Steve Guggenheimer, gave insight into applying AI for innovative solutions.

Yet, some have negative views on AI and where it could lead. They preach a doomsday message - job losses, robots taking over. Where am I in this spectrum? In my response to the question, one of my points was to consider ethical innovation. The innovation doesn't matter. People can innovate for good or evil. What we need to think about is how we define ethical innovation. Are there innovations that should not be made for ethical reasons? And we must consider the unintended consequences of innovations.

I don't have all the answers. But the conversation should continue. Innovators must ponder, discuss, and debate the ethics. I'm interested in your thoughts on ethical innovation. Hop on over to Killer Innovations, look at the show notes, and post your comments. Let's raise the visibility. If we in the innovation game don't address this now, there could be greater issues and dire effects in the future.

Keeping up with the Pace of Innovation

Continuing my thoughts on innovation is another topic. The pace of innovation and absorption. As the pace of innovation increases, it impacts industries. It especially affects those dependent on ecosystems. The window to develop innovation, bring it to market and get a return on investment is short. As the cycle concludes, the next round of innovation pushes forward. Customers can't always keep up with the pace. Absorption becomes an issue.

How do you synchronize it? How do you mesh the creation of innovation with the customers' ability to implement? And is it worth it to the customer to keep up with the constant influx of innovations?

The Near Future

One of the highlights of the event is the premiere of the latest in the vision video series The Near Future. We've been doing this since 2016 at CableLabs. I've worked on vision videos most of my career. During my tenure at HP, I made a series of six vision videos. One influential video was Roku Reward – The Future of AR Gaming produced in 2006. It became a popular pitch lead in for entrepreneurs. The video predates iTunes, connectivity, and mobile apps. It's a precursor to the now popular Pokémon Go. At the time Roku Reward was made, we were anticipating this technology would arrive within eight years. It actually took ten, but the vision was there.

The intent of The Near Future series is to create a visual on innovations in everyday life three to eight years out. The 2016 film, called The Near Future: Bring It On, opens up a window into what the future looks like in a home with ultra-high-speed bandwidth. In 2017, the video The Near Future: A Better Place, featured Rance Howard, actor and father of director Ron Howard. This video gives a glimpse of the future for older adults. It shows how innovation can enable independent living, mobility and immediate access to healthcare.

Last week we premiered The Near Future: Ready for Anything. It takes a look at education of the future. From a virtual chemistry lab to connecting students globally, see how the next generation will learn in the near future.

Vision videos are a great way to tell your product's story. If you'd like to do a vision video, reach out. I could give advice, guidance, and make introductions to help bring your story to life.

Thanks for joining me as I share my thoughts on innovation. I would love to get your comments on any of the topics mentioned and start the dialogue. Leave your comments after the show notes at Killer Innovations.

Want to discuss these and other innovation issues with your fellow innovators? Join The Innovators Community.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Price is king. Build 'em cheap stack 'em high. It's practically the motto for most segments of the tech industry. It's a core assumption about what the majority of customers want. But that assumption is not always true. Take the sales of the HP DreamScreen in India, for example. Value sometimes outweighs price in a customer's decision. If the value the product brings to lives justifies the cost, they will go to the ends of the earth to find a way to make that purchase. Price and value are not the same thing. Listen to Five Minutes to New Ideas for more on customer perceptions and innovative ways to bring value at the right price.

Often when we think about innovation, it's high tech or a game changing breakthrough. Today, we look at innovation through a different set of glasses. Rather than innovating a product or service, "costovation" innovates on the business model. Stephen Wunker talks about innovating behind the scenes, creating customer value through cost innovation.

New Markets Advisors founder and managing director, Stephen has had a successful and varied career. From innovation consultant to leading innovator developing the first smartphone, he's come full circle. Back in consulting, he's worked with Harvard professor and innovation great Clayton Christensen for many years. (If you've never read Clayton's books, they're a must.) Stephen has co-authored Costovation: Innovation that Gives Your Customers Exactly What They Want—and Nothing More. His book opens up a new way of thinking about innovation.

What is Costovation?

If you're like me, the initial thought on cost innovation may be that it's just cutting costs and going down market. But Stephen demonstrates that it's much more and the result is not a cheap offering. It's not about delivering an inexpensive product or service that is less than adequate. Costovation is finding the "opportunity in the guts of the business". Then, delivering customer value while minimizing costs.

Cost innovation on the overall business model can create immediate profits or make products more affordable.

The Importance of Costovation

While the U.S. economy has experienced a long recession-free streak, it would be foolhardy not to plan for a downturn. Furthermore, median incomes are flat and many people are not growing with the economy. There is a market for people who deserve value. They can't afford the top of the line and don't need all the bells and whistles. The focus in costovation is to delight the customer with what they need at a price point they can afford.

Costovation Success Stories

Costovation is stocked with success stories. Stephen's book gives many examples from a spectrum of industries. BMW's re-release of the Mini Cooper is one example. BMW turned around the generally low profit market of small cars. The Mini is low-cost to produce. Yet, BMW found a way to a market premium. They offer post production detail options to customize the Mini. Their cost innovations have succeeded in creating customer value. The Mini is well built and a market success.

Another example is the electric toothbrush company quip. By selling customer direct and using their own brand name, quip offers an electric toothbrush at much lower cost.

How to Costovate

The three common steps to cost innovation are

1. Get a breakthrough perspective.

• Step back from industry
• Critically look at long held industry assumptions
• Take a fresh look

1. Have a relentless focus
2. • Know the customer
   • Know what the customer wants
   • Look at all aspects of the business
   • How to reach the customer
   • The service
   • The experience
3. Blur the boundaries

Through cost innovation, you can unlock new markets and deliver customer value for less.

For more on costovation, read Costovation: Innovation that Gives Your Customers Exactly What They Want—and Nothing More. You can also read Stephen's articles in Harvard Business Review and other publications.

To keep up with what Stephen's working on, visit the New Markets Advisors blog, join him on Twitter @costovation, or visit the New Markets Advisors website.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

It's not enough to know what your customer needs and wants. Dig deeper. You need to understand the internal philosophy of what the customer's doing and why. If you don't, your product may miss the mark.

This week's Five Minutes to New Ideas challenges you to ask the questions that will reveal a deeper understanding of your customer.

If you know someone that you think would be a great guest on the show, drop me a note. I would love to give people the spotlight who are doing interesting things, thinking about things in a different way and transforming their business, their community, their lives through innovation and creativity.

Check out The Innovators Network, the producer of this show and others. Kym McNicholas's show, "Kym on Innovation", is over there. Kym has been on my show many times. She's an Emmy Award winning Forbes reporter living in Silicon Valley.

On today's show, instead of hosting a guest, I am the guest. Erich Viedge interviews me for his podcast, The Skeptical Executive. Erich brings innovation to unique industries. He's also an early listener of Killer Innovations. Erich has some good questions to ask me. We touch on a range of thoughts and issues around innovation and creativity.

Is Innovation for Everyone?

Are there industries or businesses where there's no role for innovation? Many companies claim innovation as a value. Erich's local carpet cleaner has ads claiming "innovation". Erich's skeptical. My belief is that there's always room to innovate. That carpet cleaner may not revolutionize the cleaning process. But he could innovate the customer experience. That may set the cleaner apart from the competition. If you're not innovating, you're standing still. If you're standing still, someone's going to go right past you. In any industry, there's opportunity to look at the business, the customers, the operations differently. All are ripe areas for innovation.

Hidden Benefits

What are the hidden benefits of innovation done right?

When I was CTO at HP, our market share in PC laptops was low and we were losing money. It was my job to turn it around. The prevailing thought at the time was there wasn't much to innovate in laptops. My team proved that wrong. We researched and found the customers' spoken and unspoken needs. The result: our market share jumped to number one. The hidden benefits were several. It boosted employee morale. The innovations energized the engineers with the chance to do something different. Shareholders benefited. The profits gave HP flexibility to invest in new product lines.

Even commoditized products like laptops can use innovation. When you meet customers' needs and wants, they will pay a margin premium. A margin premium gives you flexibility to adapt your business, to be the leader in the marketplace. It's that breathing room that becomes critical in these highly competitive times.

The Right Consultant

What should a CEO do when ready for innovation? How does that CEO find the right innovation consultant? Here are some questions to consider in vetting a prospective consultant.

1. Does the consultant have experience leading innovation?
   • Experience in the trenches dealing with organizational change?
   • Done it, lived it, been successful at it?
2. What is the consultant's philosophy on a business's culture?
   • In his/her view, what kind of culture fosters innovation?
   • Does that view align with the CEO's?
   • Does the consultant address major issues such as
     • Fear of failure,
     • Corporate antibodies,
     • How authority is handled,
     • How decisions are made.
3. What is the consultant's innovation process?
   • Does he/she expect the organization to adapt to his/her process, or
   • Will the consultant create and adapt processes to fit the organization?

Sometimes the culture of a business needs to change before innovation can happen. Erich's experience with the mining industry demonstrates how challenging changing the culture can be. For one mining client, it took two years for the culture to change before innovation processes could begin.

Habits for Innovation Success

Creativity is essential for innovation. It's like a muscle that needs to be exercised. My habit for building creativity is to spend 30 minutes Monday through Friday ideating. This is my time to brainstorm creative solutions to problem areas for the various roles I hold. On Saturday, I rank these ideas and prepare the best for teams working the problem space. For momentum in my ideation session, I start with some inspiration (music or a brainteaser) and set a quota for ideas. I keep going until I meet the idea quota.

Trend safaris are another great way to spark creativity. I take these safaris with teams or individuals to places far and near looking for trends and weak signals.

Think you're not creative? Think again. We all are born creative. Unfortunately, we are untaught this creativity along the way. Looking to reignite that creativity? Check out more Killer Innovations shows or read about creativity at philmckinney.com.

Thank you, Erich, for a great interview.

From my shows on this year's CES, you'll know I'm leery of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the many companies touting it. On the flip side, I have also featured some interesting ventures into AI. When I heard that Box was delving into AI, I had to learn more. In this show, hear how Box's content management innovation increases the value of content stored.

Can Awesome Get Better?

Box offers cloud content and file sharing for businesses large and small. This company has a solid reputation and millions of users. I have used Box since the inception of my Killer Innovations show. Through Box, I also worked with my editor, publisher, and fact checkers on my book, Beyond the Obvious. Before that, my team at HP used Box. I'm definitely a fan. But how can AI be applied to content sitting in a cloud? Today Jeetu Patel, Box Chief Product Officer, shares how AI is changing the value of content in Box. This company is developing smarter ways to manage their customers' critical asset – their content.

The Megatrend Tailwind

Jeetu watches the megatrends. He's seen three megatrends impacting our world. Two, the cloud and the mobile revolution – have had profound effects on how we all do business. Jeetu sees AI as the tailwind powering the next wave of innovation. Riding this wave, Box goes beyond merely a repository of content. Through content management innovation, Box brings value to the content their customers entrust them with. Machine learning organizes and tags the content. In a complex world, things just got simpler. Content residing in Box becomes worth more inside the Box platform than outside it.

Help! I Can't Find …

Box's customer content is doubling every 12 – 14 months. The exponential growth of content is overwhelming. It can make finding any particular bit of data time consuming. With this customer problem in mind, Box has introduced AI machine learning to their platform. Box Skills, launched last year, uses sophisticated tagging mechanisms to label, classify and transcribe content. This content management innovation enables quick, precise retrieval of objects and text within content files. Machine learning integrated into Box offers facial and voice recognition, topic deduction and sentiment analysis. Not only does this increase efficiency, but also use cases.

Connecting the Content

Box Skills has made content search easier. But Box Graph enhances content, making connections. This content management innovation recognizes relationships in content and among users. With this intelligence, Box Graph makes recommendations in such areas as security, compliance and workflow.

At Stake in the AI Revolution

Applying AI can revolutionize the way we do things. There are certain tasks that machines can do better at scale. As AI gains traction, Jeetu believes the tech industry bears responsibility for helping transition society. The disruption AI may cause will affect lives and jobs. The industry must consider how to retrain and prepare people for this revolution.

Sustaining Innovation

How does Box continue to innovate and build its customer base from small businesses to Fortune 500s? Jeetu gives two secrets to Box's success.

1. Keep team's small – 8 to 10 people
2. Scarcity is your friend. Limit resources to focus the team on the task.

Interested in learning more about Box and its content management innovation? Go to box.com.

If you're in the Bay area August 29 & 30, come to BoxWorks an annual event hosted by Box.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Seeing the value in something considered worthless can make all the difference. To make game changing innovations, you have to deconstruct your assumptions about what has value and what doesn't. I did this as an executive at the telecom Telligent in 1997. My discovery allowed us to stand out in a crowd of competitors. Listen to Five Minutes to New Ideas. I hope it inspires you to come up with your own game changer.

We're getting ready to head out on travel in the Mobile Studio. We're looking for innovators in non-obvious industries and non-obvious locations. Fin Gourmet Foods in Paducah, Kentucky kicked off this theme. If you have a company or location doing really interesting innovation, drop me a note. We'd love to see if we can come by with the Mobile Studio and do a broadcast. Between now and the end of the year, we'll be focusing east of the Mississippi. After the first of the new year, we'll be focusing west of the Mississippi.

• If you have comments or suggestions, drop me a note.

• Read about my experiences in the innovation game at PhilMckinney.com.

• Find out about my book, Beyond the Obvious, at beyondtheobvious.com. Get a copy through Amazon or wherever you get your books.

• Pay it forward. When I wanted to repay my mentor for his investment in my career, he told me to pay it forward. Help me pay it forward. Give us a rating where you get your podcast. Help spread the word. Tell others about the show.

• Be part of the conversation between the shows. I hang out at The Innovators Community on Slack. This private community of vetted innovators helps each other succeed.

The Killer Innovations podcast is produced by The Innovators Network.

Keywords: innovation; fuel efficiency innovation

Competing for Fuel Efficiency Innovation

There's been an explosion of innovation competitions in recent years. They highlight the fact that innovation can come from non-obvious sources. These competitions bring together smart people – usually industry outsiders - to tackle a problem. The annual Shell Eco-marathon Americas took place this year in Sonoma, California. In today's show I welcome three members of the Duke Electric Vehicles team from Duke University. They share their experience of competing for fuel efficiency innovation.

The Shell Eco-marathon Americas draws teams of high school and college students from North, Central, and South America. The challenge is to create the most fuel-efficient car. The Duke Electric Vehicles team took first place in three categories. On the track, they won awards in hydrogen fuel cell and electric prototypes. Off track, they won in technical innovation. Shomik Verma, Gerry Chen, and Patrick Grady give a glimpse of the competition and their road to victory.

The Race is On

The team starts in August and works on the car throughout the school year. Amid academic studies and other obligations, students devote evenings and weekends to making the car. They spend the first semester designing. The second semester, they build and test the car. The Duke Electric Vehicle team built a small, oblong 50-pound car in which the driver has to lie flat. The car gets an estimated 12,000 miles per gallon. The secret to their fuel efficiency innovation: a super capacitor in the hydrogen powertrain. Now that the team has tasted victory, they are not stopping. This summer they are working on beating the Guinness World Record for the most fuel-efficient car.

Learning Innovation Hands-On

Students don't often get to bridge the theoretical to the practical in school. The competition offers the chance to put the classroom theory into practice. At the competition, there was a unique level of cooperation among the teams – from borrowing tools to asking advice. The focus on one problem, fuel efficiency, maximized the potential for innovative solutions. The team members sharpened essential skills of innovation - problem-solving, creativity and collaboration.

Lessons Learned

• Have determination and perseverance.
• • Shomik learned determination and to persevere through unexpected difficulties. In his words, "It was really important for us to rely on team members and rely on the fact that we knew we did good work."
• Use a methodical, organized approach.
• • Gerry learned the importance of a methodical approach, being organized, and breaking things down into subcomponents.
• Go back to basic theory for the solutions.
• • This was Patrick's fourth year on the team and second as team president. He learned many lessons through the years working on efficiency vehicles. One of the biggest was how to go back to basic theory.

Wishing the Duke Electric Vehicles team the best in breaking the Guinness World Record and beyond.

Want to keep track of the Duke Electric Vehicles Team? Visit the Duke Electric Vehicles Facebook page. Or check out their website: duke-ev.org.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Could your business benefit from creating a standardized offering of a custom product? Back in 1985, there was no such thing as a standard PC. You owned a specific brand and had access to programs written specifically for that make. Each company was attempting to create lock-in for their third-party software developers. Working for a startup in Silicon Valley, my colleague and I faced a dilemma. What PC should we tailor our typing instruction program to? We came up with a creative solution. Listen to Five Minutes to New Ideas. Hear how going in the opposite direction of the crowd can pay off.

We're getting ready to head out on travel in the Mobile Studio. We're looking for innovators in non-obvious industries and non-obvious locations. Fin Gourmet Foods in Paducah, Kentucky kicked off this theme. If you have a company or location doing really interesting innovation, drop me a note. We'd love to see if we can come by with the Mobile Studio and do a broadcast. Between now and the end of the year, we'll be focusing east of the Mississippi. After the first of the new year, we'll be focusing west of the Mississippi.

• If you have comments or suggestions, drop me a note.

• Read about my experiences in the innovation game at PhilMckinney.com.

• Find out about my book, Beyond the Obvious, at beyondtheobvious.com. Get a copy through Amazon or wherever you get your books.

• Pay it forward. When I wanted to repay my mentor for his investment in my career, he told me to pay it forward. Help me pay it forward. Give us a rating where you get your podcast. Help spread the word. Tell others about the show.

• Be part of the conversation between the shows. I hang out at The Innovators Community on Slack. This private community of vetted innovators helps each other succeed.

The Killer Innovations podcast is produced by The Innovators Network.

Great ideas come and go, but what makes an idea into something bigger? How do you develop your idea into a product that will attract venture capitalists and scale your business? Is the idea sustainable beyond one or two seasons of growth? Can the idea bloom into a niche market and then cross pollinate? Patrick Henry, QuestFusion founder and CEO, shares his framework for cultivating ideation that reaps success. He calls it smart ideation.

Steps to Smart Ideation

Smart ideation is a five-step process for entrepreneurs and business owners building a growth company. The process focuses on business factors rather than simply developing the product. Patrick's book, Plan, Commit, Win: 90 Days to Creating a Fundable Startup, lays out the framework for smart ideation.

The steps are as follows:

1. Customer Problem Solution Test

This test answers three questions:

• Is it a big and important problem for the customer?
• Is the customer desperate to solve the problem?
• Is my solution superior to alternatives?

1. Sustainable Competitive Advantage Test

Once you answer yes to the questions in #1…

• How do you sustain business growth over time?
• What is your innovation roadmap for the next five to ten years?
• Can your core technology penetrate adjacent product market segments?
• Can you build layers of competitive advantage?

1. The Intersection Test

Facing the challenges to scale your business, you need an intersection of

• Passion
• Domain expertise – specialized product and market knowledge
• A big customer problem
• A team who can execute

1. The Market Size and Growth Test

Applies to businesses funded by venture capital

• Success or failure hinges on this
• Must determine growth opportunity in your target market
• Penetrate a defensible niche, then conquer adjacent markets
• Have a big long-term vision to scale your business
• VCs looking for upwards of $100 million in annual revenue

1. The Idea Refinement Test

Three ways to refine your idea.

• Through intimate customer engagement
• Through a technical and business advisory board that will provide unbiased feedback
• Through teaching customers willing to provide feedback early on in exchange for some exclusive benefit

Qualities of a Successful Ideator

Along with the smart ideation process, consider what makes a successful ideator. Patrick sees the successful ideator as one with a unique perspective and perpetual curiosity. They are the tinkerers, gadget users, early adopters who come up with new ways of doing things. These people are disciplined, hardworking, and passionate.

Are you ready to scale your business, to bring it to the next level? For more information on smart ideation, go to QuestFusion.com. For a detailed guide to smart ideation, go to smartideation.com.

Find Patrick on Twitter: @questfusion, Facebook: @questfusion, and Instagram: @plancommitwin.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

How do you address customer complaints? Are they an annoyance to dismiss and be done with? Don't make the mistake major companies have made minimizing or ignoring complaints. It may come back to haunt you. Be proactive in addressing customer issues. Listen to this week's Five Minutes to New Ideas for insight on this important topic.

I'm getting ready to head out in the Mobile Studio in search of interesting innovators. I'll be east of the Mississippi this Fall and west of the Mississippi the first of 2019. If you know somebody who would be a great guest on the show, drop me a note at killerinnovations.com.

• If you have comments or suggestions, drop me a note.

• Read about my experiences in the innovation game at PhilMckinney.com.

• Find out about my book, Beyond the Obvious, at beyondtheobvious.com. Get a copy through Amazon or wherever you get your books.

• Pay it forward. When I wanted to repay my mentor for his investment in my career, he told me to pay it forward. Help me pay it forward. Give us a rating where you get your podcast. Help spread the word. Tell others about the show.

• Be part of the conversation between the shows. I hang out at The Innovators Community on Slack. This private community of vetted innovators helps each other succeed.

The Killer Innovations podcast is produced by The Innovators Network.

Did you ever set a goal or New Year's resolution only to abandon it? Do find your life lacks purpose? Do you doubt your ability to accomplish amazing things? Today's show features Tal Gur, blogger, author, motivational speaker. Tal's goal, or one of many, is to inspire you to set goals and achieve them.

The Start of a Life Journey

Some people may do one or two extraordinary things in their lifetime. Maybe it's traveling to a far-away country, running a marathon, or mastering a foreign language. Tal Gur has done at least one hundred and counting. From learning to speak Spanish to becoming an international public speaker, Tal set out to live the dream. Abandoning the 9 to 5 job, he established a source of passive income and went on a journey. It was a journey of self- discovery and facing challenges head on. Each year he set a major life goal and accomplished it. After ten years, he penned his experience in the book, The Art of Fully Living: 1 Man. 10 Years. 100 Goals.

It may sound like for Tal goal setting and achievement come easy. Not so. He faced self-doubt and hurdles. After all, who would expect a smoker to do a triathlon? Tal felt doubt about this daring goal, especially since he was a smoker. He found ways to overcome the challenges. And he did, indeed, do a triathlon.

Tal considers a goal as the container. Your personal growth as you work towards the goal is what's most important in setting and achieving goals.

Goal Setting Strategies

Tal's book lays out steps to setting and achieving goals. He shares some of these with us.

• Make the goal specific. When the goal is clear, it is more achievable.
• Immersion. By immersing yourself, you learn more lessons and extract more wisdom out of the journey. When you immerse yourself in achieving a major goal, set smaller, milestone goals. It creates momentum for the major goal.
• Put happiness before goals. Don't expect achieving your goal will bring happiness. Find inner happiness independent of your goals.

Tal discovered some truths to help in goal setting and your life journey.

• A crisis or challenge can lead to a great calling.

• Start from the inside out. Don't focus on the mechanics, the how-to. If you have the right mind-set and source from the inside, the goal will be easier to reach.
• Develop and use intuition. The more you practice using intuition, the better you get. For more on intuition, Tal recommends the book Thinking Fast Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
• Redefine failure. Not achieving your goal is not failure. Failure is not trying.

Interested in tracking Tal and his adventures. Visit his blog: Fullylived.com

Need help in setting and reaching your life goals. Get his book, The Art of Fully Living: 1 Man. 10 Years. 100 Goals., in paperback, audio or Kindle on Amazon.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

What input, if reduced, would allow you to cut the price for your product or service by 25%. To get ahead of the competition, you need to make game changing moves. A bold move like big savings could place you in the leader of the pack position. One car manufacturer with rock bottom prices may soon take U.S. manufacturers by surprise. Are there gaps in your product offering for a competitor to sneak a game changer into the marketplace? Could you make a sidestep in your product development to prevent this? For insight, listen to Five Minutes to New Ideas.

• If you have comments or suggestions, drop me a note.

• Read about my experiences in the innovation game at PhilMckinney.com.

• Find out about my book, Beyond the Obvious, at beyondtheobvious.com. Get a copy through Amazon or wherever you get your books.

• Pay it forward. When I wanted to repay my mentor for his investment in my career, he told me to pay it forward. Help me pay it forward. Give us a rating where you get your podcast. Help spread the word. Tell others about the show.

• Be part of the conversation between the shows. I hang out at The Innovators Community on Slack. This private community of vetted innovators helps each other succeed.

The Killer Innovations podcast is produced by The Innovators Network.

The pressure is intense in the U.S. government to get innovation efforts underway. "Beltway bandits" riddle proposals with "innovation" in hopes of securing contracts. Politicians believe it will solve all the problems. This politics of innovation doesn't always bring about impactful innovation. What can governments do to generate meaningful innovation? How should politicians think about innovation?

Satyajit Das's article in Forbes India makes good points on the politics of innovation. Here are some of his points along with my thoughts on how politicians can promote impactful innovation.

A Vague Notion

When politicians promote innovation, often the idea is vague and broad. Politicians push innovation without careful thought to what areas need innovation. The "how" is clear, but the "what" is not. The more defined the focus area is, the better the results. The quality of ideas will flourish when it is clear what the innovation needs are.

Money is Not Always the Answer

Offering financial incentive to attract innovation may produce short term benefits.

This alone won't bring significant innovation. Few policymakers are concerned with long-range innovation. Funding for it has steeply declined. Yet, only the government can sustain long-range innovation and fundamental research that will have future impact. Some great innovations we benefit from today are long-range innovations the government developed over many years. For example, NASA made major life-changing innovations.

Misperception of Innovation Impact

Many politicians see innovation as the solution to ills their constituents face. The statistics tell otherwise. Less than 10% of U.S. GDP is technology. Only 0.5% of employees are in industries that didn't exist before 2000. Only 1.8% of employees in Silicon Valley work in new industries.

Another misperception: innovation translates to technology. Innovation applies to all industries, all segments, all jobs. Manufacturing comprises 25% of jobs. Yet, scarce innovation funding is focused in this sector. Politicians need to think beyond Silicon Valley. The Innovators Network highlights innovation in non-traditional industries in non-traditional locations.

Innovation and Inequality

Many believe that innovation creates economic inequality. Innovations may not have universal distribution early on. But they spread quickly. Another concern is that AI and robotics will increase unemployment. Looking at the past, similar fears proved unfounded. In the 1960s, predictions were made that computers would bring a 50% unemployment rate. That has not been the case.

Innovation is a global phenomenon. The boundaries of innovation do not stop at the boundaries of countries. Politicians should be careful of trade barriers that block or protect innovations. In the politics of innovation, politicians must adopt a new way of thinking.

Promoting Innovations that Work

1. Focus the search for innovations.
   • Invite others to contribute ideas to well-defined area of innovation set by policy makers.
   • Examples of crowdsourcing platforms:
2. Crowdsource ideas.

• BrightIdea
• Fulcrum Community

1. Learn to experiment and test.
2. • Get comfortable with failure.
   • Don't expect a Big Bang.
   • Internet was multi-decade investment
   • Invest in near, mid- and long-term innovations
3. Do NOT ignore long-range research.

Don't let the innovation funnel dry up. JFK's BHAG put a man on the moon. Consider the destiny we leave for our children and grandchildren. Create the BHAG for today and the future.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

We tend to assume that any customer is a good customer. Are there cases when this is not true? The most ardent customers can create unexpected issues for your overall business. You may have to ask the question, "who do I not want as my customer?" Listen to this week's Five Minutes to New Ideas to hear some creative solutions companies have found to manage customers.

• If you have comments or suggestions, drop me a note.

• Read about my experiences in the innovation game at PhilMckinney.com.

• You can also find out information about my book, Beyond the Obvious, at beyondtheobvious.com. Get a copy through Amazon or wherever you get your books.

• Pay it forward. When I wanted to repay my mentor for his investment in my career, he told me to pay it forward. Help me pay it forward. Give us a rating where you get your podcast. Help spread the word. Tell others about the show.

• Be part of the conversation between the shows. I hang out at The Innovators Community on Slack. This private community of vetted innovators helps each other succeed.

The Killer Innovations podcast is produced by The Innovators Network.