The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

Being content may be a positive emotion in some senses. Not so with innovation. If you are ready to rest on your laurels after a triumph or a stressful circumstance, get ready. Major change could be looming around the corner. Let me explain why I believe being content can be the enemy of innovation.

First, consider what being content means. Feelings of peace, calm, acceptance of where we are in life, happiness, satisfaction. Doesn't sound too bad. The problem comes when we embrace contentment to the point of giving up. We don't want to let go of being content. Therefore, we avoid conflict, stress or anything that may rock the boat and shake up the status quo.

Innovation is the antithesis of stasis. It's about being tuned in to what's wrong with the picture. Not just seeing the problems but seeking ways to improve on things. When we are fixed on being content, we develop a false sense that change is slowing down. It's at this time that we will miss the weak signals, subtle signs that major change is coming down the pike.

A false sense of satisfaction is its own form of an innovation antibody. This state of being content will cause you to shy away from change and avoid risk. You will trade off the challenges of innovation, going against the grain, for that easy feeling. Being content becomes the enemy of innovation. True innovators are not content.

Three or four times across my life I've slipped into this state of being content. That is, I felt satisfied and turned on autopilot. Rather than being active, engaged and looking for new ways and new directions to move, I put blinders on and checked out. The content feelings were short lived. I was taken off guard. Some major change in the world around me took me by surprise. The contentment quickly dissolved.

Don't get caught off guard. Here's what you can do to keep the enemy of innovation at bay.

1. Challenge yourself to do something uncomfortable.

• Do something you've never done before.

• Learn something new, something outside your skill set.
• It opens your eyes to new things and energizes you.

1. Change up how you do things.
2. • Take a different route to work.
   • Get off the beaten path. Break from routine.

1. Do daily creative muscle exercises
2. • Challenge yourself to come up with 5 problems that need to be solved.
   • These can be

• personally
• in your community
• at your job or school
• for a non-profit

There are always problems to be solved. Find a problem. Then go innovate a way to fix it.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

Some products or services evoke strong emotional responses. They are either loved by devoted fans or hated by others. Plenty of companies trade on the fact that mainstream culture will find their product offensive or questionable.

Is there any benefit or purpose to being strategically disliked by some and adored by select devotees? Listen to Five Minutes to New Ideas to hear why you might consider this approach.

• 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.

Ever wish you could travel the world discovering better ways of doing things? The next best thing - read the book. Author Mark Stevenson is an innovation explorer. He's visited remote parts and populous cities worldwide. This 'reluctant futurist' searches for people whose innovations are making a positive impact. In the process, he's discovering the roadmap to a better future. His book, We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World imparts the stories of those paving the way.

The rapid pace of change in today's world leaves many behind. Advances in technology can create a wake of unintended consequences. Mark isn't here to paint a doomsday picture, but to illuminate the roadmap to a better future. His book tells the story of innovators, inventors and creatives who are making major impacts on communities.

Technology has often led to job losses as new processes replace old ways. It is a certain fact read out in headlines throughout history. Loss of jobs due to tech advances is a transition from an old economy to a new one. A better future demands that education, government, and other systems swiftly adapt to these changes. While some countries such as Estonia address this need, many do not. The catalyst for his book is those who have successfully affected systemic changes. They are the ones plotting the roadmap to a better future.

Mark lays out the good, the bad, and the ugly. The next twenty years are critical in developing the roadmap to a better future. Major changes are necessary in our systems of education, government, healthcare, and businesses.

• Bad news first: everything's broken.
• Good news: it's fixable.
• It's going to get ugly.

Mark wants to "make the transition less messy for less people and make it a little bit shorter."

A systemic approach to tech advances is essential for a better future. Mark dislikes the moniker "futurist". The term suggests one who sees technology as the answer to all problems. For Mark, technology is the question. Technology development should not be done in isolation. People must evaluate factors beyond the technology itself. Policy makers and innovators alike have to step back and look at the big picture. What are the far-reaching, future results of the technology? How will it affect society? Developing the correct measure for success is just as important as developing the innovation.

In the quest for discovering systemic changes that work, Mark has found common threads:

• They come from the bottom up – grassroots people who make a change to fix what's broken.
• The catalyst is a new technology or way of thinking.
• In the service of a different social contract - decisions and choices for reasons other than money.
• The catalyst is outside the system
• The actors have herculean levels of perseverance and powerful motivation.

To find out more about Mark and his books track him on Twitter @optimistontour or via his website: markstevenson.org.

Five Minutes to New Ideas

How do you design a product the customer will prefer or crave over the competition?

You need to determine

• how your business environments are evolving.
• how your customers are changing.
• what you need to modify to keep the product relevant and desirable.

Go beyond the competition. Look at industries that are distinctly different but share similar key elements with your business. By asking the right questions and looking at non-obvious businesses, you may find that one inspiration that can transform you and your ideas.

• 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. Rate the show 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.

When civic and business leaders have a meeting of the minds, amazing things can happen.  Cincinnati is home to several major corporations and health care organizations. The demand is high for tech innovation.  This midwestern city has created a unique approach to draw in the best talent.  Cintrifuse is the confluence of innovation in Cincinnati.

Cintrifuse exists through public private partnership.  Its purpose is threefold. It’s a startup accelerator and venture capital fund.   It’s also the go to source for large companies seeking innovative solutions to their tech problems.  CEO Wendy Lea comes to Cincinnati from Silicon Valley as an expert in digital innovation.

West Coast to Midwest

Arriving in the Cincinnati area, it surprised Wendy to find six major healthcare systems in the region.  In addition, there are 140 major companies including Proctor & Gamble that call this area home.  The local government sought economic growth.  The need for cutting edge tech innovation and economic growth brought all these players together.  The perspective from the various communities is distinct from what Wendy’s observed in Silicon Valley.  These communities work closely together to tackle regional issues. Their collaborative effort formed Cintrifuse.  

Startup versus BigCo

Contrary to what one might think, this is not a face off between startup and big companies.  Large companies seek to draw the entrepreneurs, ideas and talent. They are the customers to the startups product or service offering.  

Growing the Startup Community

Wendy has seen Cintrifuse’s portfolio of startups grow 40% year over year.  What started with eleven startups on the Cintrifuse books has grown to 470 startups in the region.  Some startups that come through Cintrifuse’s doors are located within the Cincinnati area. Others located elsewhere benefit from Cintrifuse venture capital funds.  The benefits are mutual. The relationships developed allow Cintrifuse to connect startups with large companies seeking tech innovation.

To learn more about Cintrifuse, check out cintrifuse.com.

Check out The Innovators Network where you can listen to podcasts with Kym McNicholas on Innovation and Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney.

When civic and business leaders have a meeting of the minds, amazing things can happen. Cincinnati is home to several major corporations and health care organizations. The demand is high for tech innovation. This midwestern city has created a unique approach to draw in the best talent. Cintrifuse is the confluence of innovation in Cincinnati.

Cintrifuse exists through public private partnership. Its purpose is threefold. It's a startup accelerator and venture capital fund. It's also the go to source for large companies seeking innovative solutions to their tech problems. CEO Wendy Lea comes to Cincinnati from Silicon Valley as an expert in digital innovation.

[shareable cite="Wendy Lea, CEO Cintrifuse"]To build a sustainable economy, you have to have supply and demand. We're unique in that we have two portfolios of supply for startups and we have an amazing set of large companies with strong appetite for technology innovation.[/shareable]

West Coast to Midwest

Arriving in the Cincinnati area, it surprised Wendy to find six major healthcare systems in the region. In addition, there are 140 major companies including Proctor & Gamble that call this area home. The local government sought economic growth. The need for cutting edge tech innovation and economic growth brought all these players together. The perspective from the various communities is distinct from what Wendy's observed in Silicon Valley. These communities work closely together to tackle regional issues. Their collaborative effort formed Cintrifuse.

Startup versus BigCo

Contrary to what one might think, this is not a face off between startup and big companies. Large companies seek to draw the entrepreneurs, ideas and talent. They are the customers to the startups product or service offering.

Growing the Startup Community

Wendy has seen Cintrifuse's portfolio of startups grow 40% year over year. What started with eleven startups on the Cintrifuse books has grown to 470 startups in the region. Some startups that come through Cintrifuse's doors are located within the Cincinnati area. Others located elsewhere benefit from Cintrifuse venture capital funds. The benefits are mutual. The relationships developed allow Cintrifuse to connect startups with large companies seeking tech innovation.

To learn more about Cintrifuse, check out cintrifuse.com.

Check out The Innovators Network where you can listen to podcasts with Kym McNicholas on Innovation and Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney.

Exploring rural innovation, I stopped in Paducah, Kentucky. Drs. Lula Luu and John Crilly, founders of FIn Gourmet Foods, joined the mobile studio. Word got around town. Monica Bilak contacted me through The Innovator's Community. I'm pleased to welcome Monica and Jimi Gwinn. They share how Sprocket is inspiring student innovation in Paducah.

Sprocket is a makerspace for students and the local community to learn and create with access to technology. Three years ago, the idea emerged. Today, Monica is the Development Director with a background in education and design. Jimi Gwinn, the Director, brings engineering, woodworking and metal artistry skills to the table. A boiler room and coal closet transforms into an 840 square foot space to design, build, innovate.

The Creative Drivers

What brought Monica from East Africa to Paducah 17 years ago was a spirit of creativity. For a dollar, she bought a house under the Artist Relocation program. In her words, Paducah was "a little town that had something going." She opened a fair trade and coffee shop and worked in downtown development. Eventually she returned to her roots in education.

Life brought new challenges for Jimi Gwinn when he was in a car accident. One challenge was the awkward fit of his legs and wheelchair at the desks in college. He designed his own desk. Starting with basic materials, he finished with a mahogany, teak and burled cherry desk. He found his passion for woodworking.

Another life changing moment came with spinal fusion. The relief from constant pain freed his mind to think in new directions. He began designing a wheelchair controlled by body lean. A retired engineer pointed him towards University of Kentucky. Jimi jumped into the engineering program. His experience and training made him a prime candidate for inspiring student innovation. Monica recruited him to lead Sprocket.

The Perfect Storm

Monica was working with homeless 6th graders in an afterschool program. She introduced technologies and programming. Highly motivated, the kids loved learning in this non-traditional environment. Inspiring student innovation this way was one element of a perfect storm.

Local business, Computer Services Incorporated, reached out to educators. They valued their local employees and wanted to continue hiring locally. The problem – how to find the local talent. The next generation of skilled employees needed to build those skills now. The community went to work.

Monica took time off from her design degree pursuit. She focused on students' needs.

[shareable cite="Monica Bilak"]The district has the profound awareness that the world is changing really fast…the system of education is not aligned with how we think and need to work in this age.[/shareable]

They needed to develop highly valuable skills, build social networks and connect to local business and industry. The idea of a makerspace struck a chord. Sprocket launched with grants from the Kentucky Workforce and Education Cabinet, fundraising, and donations from companies like Toyota.

Lessons to Share

What Monica and Jimi learned along the way…

• Start – even if it's small and imperfect.
• Keep going – don't let failure be the end game.
• Cast the vision wide -take time to meet everybody.
• Don't stop building the culture of innovation.

Keep up with Sprocket or support their effort at [email protected] or [email protected]. You can also contact them through Paducah Innovation on Facebook.

Is there a guest you think should be on the show? Is your community doing interesting things? Drop me note at Killer Innovations or The Innovators Studio on Facebook.

Every so often we should pause and reflect. On the way to the airport after hosting a South by Southwest meet up on neural diversity hiring, traffic was slow. This allowed an engaging conversation with the taxi driver. He asked me what led to success in my life. This prompted me to write down my 7 rules to live by. I hope these will help you in creating personal and professional success.

My 7 Rules to Live By

1. Stay connected to the people who matter most.
   • I learned from my early mentor to regularly get in touch with those who matter to me.
   • Make personal contact (phone call/meet up). Electronic contact (Facebook, email, etc.) doesn't qualify.
   • I have an in-depth, personal relationship with the people who matter to me.
2. Listen more, talk less.
   • Listen actively, ask questions. Have genuine interest in others.
   • Conclude conversation by asking how you can help.
3. Make commitments you are truly committed to follow through on.
   • Don't make false promises.
   • If you can't deliver, admit it. Then ask if there's something else you could do.
   • Don't swing the pendulum the other way and never commit to anything.
4. Don't get hung up on credit.
   • Credit will always find its natural owner.
   • Innovation's a team sport.
   • If you grab credit, it could kill others' interest to participate and contribute.
5. Acknowledge others – give out words of encouragement.
   • I didn't get to CEO position by myself. Others played a critical role.
   • Mentoring and reverse mentoring - great ways to acknowledge and encourage.
6. Hug the haters.
   • With success, there are always those who are critical.
   • I pause before I respond. Count to ten or wait a day.
   • Sometimes it's better not to respond at all.
   • Ask others to hear the criticism and your response before delivering it.
   • Respond with compassion, not harshness, rudeness, or name calling.
   • Never, ever burn the bridge.
7. Set priorities.
   • When demands come, you can filter what needs to be done.
   • For me it's "the 5 Fs"
     1. Faith – I don't get involved if it doesn't align with my faith.
     2. Family – My wife, kids and grandkids.
     3. Friends – ties into my Rule #1 Stay Connected
     4. Fitness – Don't overwork, burnout, and suffer health issues.
     5. Finance – Takes care of itself, if put finances at the bottom and follow other rules, it

Now that you have my 7 rules to live by, define your own set of rules to creating personal and professional success in your life.

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Five Minutes to New Ideas

Weak signals are all around us. How can you stay attuned and take advantage of emerging trends or fads? Tune in to Segment 4 of today's podcast to learn more.

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Thanks for taking the time to join us. We'd love to hear your comments. You can add your comments at http://killerinnovations.com/.

Better yet, join us at The Innovators Community (http://theinnovators.network/community), an online Slack community where you can be a part of the conversation with leading innovators from around the world.

Creating safe transportation on the African continent takes a unique approach. The solutions of the Western world and Silicon Valley simply won't work. Colonial cities have grown into major urban environments. The infrastructure doesn't sustain the growth. Traffic jams, broken-down vehicles, bad road conditions are endemic. But there are individuals making a difference in creating safe transportation.

As our guest Barrett Nash says, "The best way to make a solution is to solve a problem you yourself experience."

A death defying motorcycle ride through a crowded city and a question of safety. Barrett Nash, Co-Founder and CEO of SafeMotos recalls the day. He took a ride on a motorcycle taxi through Kigali, Rwanda to meet roommate Peter Kariuki for a beer. The two men talked about the dangers of motorcycle taxi rides. This prompted them to imagine ways to make the motorcycle taxi ride safer. That's what it took to start the journey for SafeMotos.

Safety: An Obvious Assumption

Vehicle travel across an urban setting in Africa can be fraught with risk. Sometimes the choice is waiting hours for a bus, sitting in traffic in a vehicle, or hopping on the back of a motorcycle taxi for a more convenient ride. While the motorcycle taxi might get you there quicker, the risk is high. In fact, the #2 killer in the emerging world is vehicle accidents. Eighty percent of accidents in Rwanda involve motorcycle taxis.

You would think people would jump at the option for safer urban travel. Not so. Creating safe transportation has its challenges. Selling it even more so. Initially, SafeMotos followed the Uber business model. Customers could locate a safe ride via smartphone. SafeMotos vetted and rated the motorcycle taxi drivers on driving practices and experience. For a higher price, people would get a safer option.

What the Customer Really Wants

What they quickly realized is price and convenience outweighed safety in Kigali. To make their product offering viable, they had to consider the product/market fit and the pain points. Their focus shifted. Creating safe transportation became the by-product.

Blind Luck and Help from Unusual Places

Barrett and Co-founder Peter have been at it since 2014. Doing business in Africa has challenges. While there is a spirit of entrepreneurship, few startups succeed. As Barrett puts it, blind luck put them in touch with an accelerator in Cork, Ireland. This helped jumpstart SafeMotos.

[shareable cite="Barrett Nash, SafeMotos"]Technology needs to disconnect from a Silicon Valley style problem solving format. We're not trying to solve middle class problems. We're trying to enable a middle class. That's where technology can really disrupt the arc of the story of Africa.[/shareable] Barrett's advice for startups, especially in Africa:

• Make sure you are solving a pain point
• Have a profit-making business model from unit economic perspective day one
• Don't launch too soon - get finance and story figured out
• You have to go through the journey

Barrett welcomes you to reach out at [email protected].

If you've got a guest you think should be on the show, drop me a note.

We're continuing trips across the country, talking to rural entrepreneurs. If you'd like us to stop by your town to meet your entrepreneurs, drop a note at The Innovators Studio on Facebook.

Today's show addresses questions from listeners on innovation KPIs. I'm back in Colorado after clocking 12,000 miles in the mobile Innovators Studio. On the road, I talked with interesting innovators and analysts. Taking a break from interviews, I'd like to answer your questions on measuring innovation success.

There are hundreds of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure innovation success. What are the right innovation KPIs to use? What KPIs will give insight into the innovation process? KPIs should be unique to your organization. Think through what KPIs will measure and how that can guide innovations and your organization.

KPI Building Blocks

I've broken innovation KPIs into categories, like building blocks. Build up the blocks to get a complete perspective on your innovation effort.

Six categories for Innovation KPIs:

1. Idea process/managing the idea funnel
   • What's done to get ideas, put them in a funnel, review, manage and analyze them?
     • Raw ideas
     • Raw ideas validated
     • Ideas prototyped
     • Age of ideas
2. Idea commercialization
   • Innovation idea brought to market.
     • Innovations that became a product
     • Innovations that make a profit
     • Are early customers willing to pay a margin premium?
     • Innovations purchased
     • Are resources in organization aligning to make product a reality?
3. Financial impact
   • Tough to measure - long lag from time of investment to product launch in market
     • Revenue from new innovations
     • Profit from innovations
     • Revenue protected by patents
     • Revenue from patent licensing
4. Customer impact

   • Customer success compared from old product to new innovation

     • What has new product allowed customers to achieve?
     • How many customers have shifted to new?
     • Market share trend for innovation - grabbing from competitors?
5. Organizational impact
   • New products/services have an impact
   • Can pull organization into new category or focus
     • Ratio of sales from old versus new - sales ramping up for new/declining for old?
     • Ratio of profit from old versus new
     • Investments – is investment shifting from old to new?
     • Rate of return on innovation investment
     • Has it driven brand awareness?
6. Pure Innovation KPIs
   • Catch-all
     • Staff trained for innovation
     • Use of formal creativity tools
     • Implementation and use of Idea Management System
     • Structured problem-solving tools
     • Committed resources to innovation
     • Patents/year

[callout]

Guidance

1. Pick three to five KPIs from each category that work for your organization.
2. Ensure you have the ability to measure them.
3. Validate KPIs drive the right behavior and achieve the desired outcome.
4. Test/adjust KPIs as needed.
5. Share with the community.

[/callout]

We'd love your feedback. What do you think about the five-minute focus in the last segment of today's show?

Like what you hear? Leave us a comment or review where you listen to the show.

Check out the show notes on Killerinnovations.com. We post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. Follow us on your favorite social media site.

Delays at the grocery checkout line set William Chomley on a retail innovation course. Like most of us who are short on time, a quick stop at the supermarket took longer than he liked. He began ideating on a better way to shop – reinventing the checkout process.

William Chomley, Founder and CEO of IMAGR, joins me in the mobile studio from his home base in New Zealand. He's been working on his retail innovation concept for three years. It's been an uphill trek, but the company is now ready to put the product to the test.

When Will's retail innovation idea sparked, he jumped in head first. Quitting his finance job, he focused on a solution using RFID (radio frequency identification) technology. It was simple: put RFID tags on products and eliminate the checkout line. But it wasn't that easy. He ran into roadblocks, cost to implement and technology limitations to name a few. His business failed.

Will didn't give up on his idea. He reworked it – went back to the drawing board. This time he did the product/market fit research. This involved a lot of talking and listening to retailers, researchers and investors. His new design incorporated computer vision, a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A computer with computer vision "sees" and processes information much like the human eye, then performs tasks accordingly.

With a new design plan, Will pitched to investor after investor. Rejection brought him nearly to the "end of his tether". Over 150 investors later, he finally got the funding in 2016. Through all, he held three jobs to keep afloat. Persistent and undaunted, Will kept going through tough times and held fast to his vision.

The SmartCart will undergo trial testing this year. It's a shopping cart equipped with small cameras to capture product data as the shopper places a product in the cart. The cart system is synced to the shopper's mobile phone. Through an app, the shopper sets up the payment method prior to shopping.

Looking back, Will has three points of advice for entrepreneurs.

1. Do product/market fit as soon as possible.

• Make sure what you've created is what customers want.
• Ensure it's commercially viable at a price buyers will accept?

1. "Get in front of as many people as you can."

• He learned through the experience of facing numerous investors
• The rejections/failures helped refine his product and pitch.

1. Look for "smart money."

• Seek investors experienced in your area of innovation who can guide/advise.
• Be picky about who you bring into your business

The best place to track Will's retail innovation: www.imagr.co

If you have a guest you think should be on the show, drop me a note.

If we were to trace the roots of what we do online, what would we assume about the creation of the online community?  Whether it’s taking college courses or Facebooking, when did it start. The 1990s with the internet. Was that the start of online video games, chat rooms, blogging, online courses? Most of us know the foundation of the internet – the ARPANET.   With ARPANET, the first successful network computer message was sent in 1969.  Less known is the internet forerunner, the PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) system.  The creation of the online community truly began with PLATO.

Before PC there was PLATO

Plato said, “You know that the beginning is the most important part of any work.”

Before the ARPANET, an interpersonal computer revolution kindled.  A group at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign created the PLATO system.  It was 1960 and thousands of miles from Silicon Valley. The intent for PLATO was a computerized learning system.   Ambitious and wild as it may have seemed, by the mid-1960s, the University offered college credit for courses taken through PLATO.  Here was the beginning of computer-based training.

Beyond Computer Based Training

Through the 60s and 70s PLATO bloomed into an orange glow of computing innovation.  Expanding the purpose for the PLATO System, students, professors, hackers and hobbyists joined the fun.  Innovative and sometimes eccentric, this motley group continued adding functions and apps to PLATO.  Through the orange glow of plasma screens, a vibrant and varied community ideated, created, and chatted.  The creation of the online community emerged.

History in the Making

You might wonder why hasn’t everybody heard about PLATO?  You’re in good company.  Enter Brian Dear. Brian has collected data on PLATO for over thirty years.  His early career working on PLATO sparked his fascination with its capacity. By the 70s, the PLATO system already had touch screen and plasma displays among its features.

PLATO had fundamental influence on the technologies that we have in our pocket and on our desks.  Yet, this amazing system seemed unrecognized, uncredited, unnoticed. By creating PLATO, brilliant minds had invented the future.  Now PLATO was slipping into the shadows.

Brian waited for someone to write the book.  He could not even find PLATO referenced in computer history books.  He feared this important piece of computer history would disappear. Finally, he set out to do the work himself.  The result is The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture.  The book captures the history of PLATO and the creation of the online community around the orange glow.

Want to know the story behind the term “orange glow”?  Listen to the story on the podcast.

Find out more about Brian Dear and his book at http://friendlyorangeglow.com/