The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

Detecting emerging trends and turning them into innovation opportunities can have a dramatic impact on an organization. Where do you find and track these emerging trends? By tracking sites such as TrendWatching, you can gain insights into what is changing so that you aren't surprised and are able to create new products and services ahead of your […]

With the growing interest of organizations to have a closer, real-time connection with their customers, there is the emergence of business-to-consumer messaging channels coming from startups and even well established companies. To address the growth of customer interactions with these new messaging platforms, organizations are turning to chatbots, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and machine […]

What do you do if you have that next great idea but don't have the technical skill to turn it into that next breakthrough innovation? Would you even know how to interview and qualify a person to take on your idea? Many will turn to their network of friends and family or to one of […]

One of the more common questions asked by innovators is about patents and trademarks. For some reason, many innovators focus on patents believing that they need one to secure funding and/or support for their idea. That somehow a patent validates novelty. Given the average cost to secure a patent ($20,000 to $30,000 USD), how should […]

It seems that every organization is looking for the secrets to make their teams more innovative. Is it hiring? Or is it office space design? In this weeks Killer Innovations Show, Thomas D. Kuczmarski, president and founder of Kuczmarski Innovation and co-founder (with journalist Dan Miller) of the Chicago Innovation Awards, shares his thoughts on what […]

In this weeks show, we talk with Tracy Hazzard of Hazz Design whee she has co-invented 35 patents with an 86% commercialization rate and designed 250+ consumer products bought everyday generating over $750 million for her clients. How does she go from idea to on the shelf? On the show, we discuss: The common challenges innovators […]

This week, I share my experience with innovation coaching and innovation mentoring in response to questions from a recent blog post. Over the years I've mentored and coached hundreds of executives, teams and entire companies. Each one is unique and different and I walk away learning something from each and every one. Over the years, […]

This weeks guest was Robert Scoble. Robert was the futurist at Rackspace who recently announced he was joining UploadVR. In this new role, Robert will be covering the latest advances in virtual reality and augmented reality. During the interview, Robert and I discussed: SXSW and what was the buzz at the show. His perception of […]

In this weeks Killer Innovations radio show, we pick up on a series we started in early February to take you from a blank page to brainstorming to a killer idea. Now you need to create and deliver your innovation pitch. As background, those shows covered: How to create and use predictions to create an […]

This weeks guest on the Killer Innovations radio show was Tom Fishburne. Tom is a cartoonist that pokes fun at marketing, creativity, design and innovation and I've shared his cartoons on my blog many times. His work is meant to challenge conventional thinking and to cause teams and leaders to see themselves in the cartoons. While I'm […]