The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming a key element for today's innovations. While many think that AI is new, its been around for decades but just now finding the traction it needs to be applied to a broad set of innovations. In today's show, we have a discussion with Kerri McMaster, co-founder and head of […]

Artificial Intelligence (AI)  is quickly becoming a key element for today's innovations. While many think that AI is new, its been around for decades but just now finding the traction it needs to be applied to a broad set of innovations.

In today's show, we have a discussion with Kerri McMaster, co-founder and head of strategy for Performance Labs, who shares the 25 year process of applying big data and AI to improving the performance of amateur and professional athletes.

Topics/show highlights we discussed:

* The question we asked ourselves: If we had enough data on people's physical capabilities — what could we do to have lifestyle impact?

* Kerri's inspiration was the Polar heart rate monitor which triggered the “what if” 25 years ago that led to formation of Performance Labs.

* Shared the traumatic effort to transition from capturing data to automating the analysis. It took much longer than anticipated.

* How being naive was a big help.

* Sharing the difficulty of using artificial intelligence before it was ready.

* What did it feel like that Performance Labs was in big data before big data was cool.

* How to use continues testing to see when the market would be ready to accept the new product.

* How the Apple Nano + Nike Foot Pod was the tipping point that caused Performance Labs to build their prototype.

* Learning how to understand when customers are ready to absorb this new idea.

* Getting the timing right was and is their biggest challenge.

* Using product families to manage and mitigate risk for customer readiness.

* The role big data and artificial intelligence play in their product.

* Best advice …

* Be careful to not over invest. Timing is everything.

* Don't let lack of experience hold you back. Don't let fear stop you.

About Kerri McMaster:

Kerri is a serial entrepreneur with a focus on startups. Her particular emphasis is on product and market validation along with strategy and business development. She is the co-founder and head of strategy of Performance Lab which specializes in in activity analytics and automated coaching with the goal to “nudge” behavioral change and improve performance outcomes for amateur and professional athletes.

About Performance Labs:

Performance Lab changes lives through fitness and wellness coaching. A pioneer in the use of monitoring technology, Performance Lab built the first commercial sports lab in the world 20 years ago, and since then has collected data involving tens of thousands of athletes and users at all levels. For 15 years data was collected largely in the lab; for the last five years it has been collected exclusively in the field using wearable sensors, providing Performance Lab with a vast amount of unparalleled domain expertise. Bringing together this unique perspective with sports science, coaching and technology to understand and formulate the correlations between data, activity types, and performance results, Performance Lab created the ARDA Coaching Engine.

Performance Lab has been using and refining its ARDA coaching methodology as the foundation of its corporate health and wellness services, with tremendous success. Of the hundreds of casual sportspeople and sedentary individuals we have trained for a half marathon, 90% of the participants reached the start line – and every one of them finished. These rates are triple the industry average.

The ARDA Coaching Engine was conceived by Performance Lab co-founder Jon Ackland, an internationally regarded exercise physiologist and sports performance consultant whose clients include world champions and world recor...

The hope and dream of every innovator is to come up with an idea that disrupts and transforms industries. To do it multiple times over a career puts that person in to a category of being a disruptive entrepreneur. Our guest this week, Sachin Dev Duggal, is an innovator, serial entrepreneur, and an advocate of enterprise […]

The hope and dream of every innovator is to come up with an idea that disrupts and transforms industries. To do it multiple times over a career puts that person in to a category of being a disruptive entrepreneur.

Our guest this week, Sachin Dev Duggal, is an innovator, serial entrepreneur, and an advocate of enterprise that create social impact through a creative approach to giving away services to charities along with equity in his companies.

Topics covered in today's show:

* How at 14, he got his start being an entrepreneur following the accidental destruction of a PC.

* Why he started his first company and what he learned from it.

* His entrepreneurial and innovators experience at age 17 inside Deutsche Bank.

* Discussing the dream that inspired him to become a disruptive entrepreneur that shook up the PC industry.

* The challenges of trying to disrupt an established industry.

* His frustration on what he couldn't do with his first major success which was to support more charitable work.

* How he is supporting his foundation/charitable work with his new company.

* How he supports new ideas and opportunities for innovation by support and funding multiple companies.

* His four pieces of advice he would give to new disruptive entrepreneurs? (hint: one is about perseverance)

About Sachin Dev Duggal:

Sachin was the co-founder of nivio, the company that first made Windows available over the Internet. He continued his role of being a disruptive entrepreneur and sits on the board of Planet M (a large Indian retail chain), chairs his original technology solutions company SD 2 Labs, and is an advisor to Eros Digital; the digital arm of Bollywood’ premiere distribution company.

Sachin’s profile is an unusual mix of experiences & disruption. He was an entrepreneur at 15, worked for the United Nations and helped write the declaration of youth rights before he completed his first degree from Imperial College. Sachin has also built a successful software business (www.sd2labs.com) and was a young investment-banker (at Deutsche Bank) building complex trading models at 17. The software company continues to grow year on year and now has just over 100 people in India and the US.

He began his professional career at the age of 15, when he formed SMX Corporation (now sd2labs) along with his best friend. In August 2004, Sachin co-founded nivio with a view to disrupt the old compute model; and got seed funding from two of his bosses! Fast forward to 4 years later, nivio was selected as a technology pioneer at the World Economic Forum . Sachin made history in being the youngest attendees at the WEF in Davos.

To fuilfill his desire to help others, he has put aside stock in all major businesses he works in with Saurabh to their foundation and other notable charities such as Keep a Child Alive. His mission is what he calls 100×50 (100m kids educated in 50 years) through their Sachin & Saurabh Foundation, a not-for-profit set up to deliver that dream.

Sachin’s other accolades include the MIT TR35 Indian Innovator of the Year, the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Leader of Tomorrow, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, the BBC Young Asian achiever of the Year and UNEP Global 500 Youth Award. Sachin is also the Youth Leader of the National Computer and Electronics Committee of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India.

Show Links:

* Sachin on LinkedIn

* Sachin on Twitter

* Shoto 

* Sachin on Angel List

*

When you are tasked with coming up with a new produce or service, the immediate reaction for most is to panic. Where and how do you start? The approach I've used for decades and that has helped me to create hundreds of products and services generating billions in revenue — ask questions. There is a […]

When you are tasked with coming up with a new produce or service, the immediate reaction for most is to panic. Where and how do you start? The approach I've used for decades and that has helped me to create hundreds of products and services generating billions in revenue — ask questions.

There is a power in questions. Its one of those actions that requires others to take action. If I ask you question such as; What is half of thirteen? You cannot stop your self from answering it.

If you gave the answer as 6.5, you get an ‘A' if this was a math test. If this was an innovation test, maybe a ‘C-‘. Why? You like 95% of your competitors stop at the first obvious answer. To find game-changing ideas, you need to go beyond the obvious.

The following is a high level overview of the steps I use to find ideas for new products and services based on questions. If this topic is of interest, I would suggest you listen to the podcast below. You can also download the PDF mentioned in the show.

Step 1: Ask questions to understand the assumptions you and others operate under.

* What are the assumptions under which my industry operates?

* What are the assumptions under which my business operates?

Step 2: Use questions to look at unexpected jolts to your industry and business.

* What are the unexpected jolts that could transform your business?

Step 3: Use questions to fuel your ideation process.

* Who Questions:

* #8 – What customer segment will emerge in 5 years that doesn't exist today?

* #12 – How will I identify and locate customers in five years?

* What Questions:

* #4 – What features of my product create unanticipated passion?

* #10 – What products could I create out of unused assets?

* How Questions:

* #4 – What features of my product create unanticipated passion?

* #10 – What products could I create out of unused assets?

Step 4: Use Questions to rank the ideas generated and identify the top 3 or 4 to work on.

For more on how to use questions (with sample questions), download the PDF of How To Use Questions To Find New Ideas

Show Links:

If you would like to purchase the Killer Question Card Deck, then visit Innovation.Tools.

In June 2007, after finding himself creatively drained, Noah started a personal project — Skull-A-Day. This yearlong art project's objectives was to create challenges that would jumpstart his personal creative energy. What started out as a personal project ended up transforming his creative future. The project went viral and became an Internet sensation which led to a […]

In June 2007, after finding himself creatively drained,  Noah started a personal project — Skull-A-Day. This yearlong art project's objectives was to create challenges that would jumpstart his personal creative energy.  What started out as a personal project ended up transforming his creative future.

The project went viral and became an Internet sensation which led to a Webby award along with appearances on TV, magazines, and a book. Skull-A-Day went on to become a user-generated tool for inspiring creativity in people, young and old, around the world. The response from Noah's fans inspired a series of books about daily creative work. To help bring this to the business world, Noah and his sister Mica Scalin formed an art & innovation consultancy that works with Fortune 500 companies.

Topics Phil and Noah discussed included:

* His background and how he came to be an artist (hint: parents are both artists)

* How the Skull-a-Day project got started

* His experience of having a private personal art project, Skul-A-Day, go viral and how it transformed his career and his life

* How daily challenges can be the spark to personal creativity

* The creativity of kids and how they can inspire adults.

* His new book, Creative Sprint: Six 30-Day Challenges to Jumpstart Your Creativity.

* His consulting and speaking business that was the result of Skul-A-Day.

* What's next for him?

About Noah Scalin:

Noah Scalin is the first artist-in-residence at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business. He is creator of the Webby Award winning project Skull-A-Day and the collaborative science fiction universe & performance art project League of Space Pirates. His fine art has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Mütter Museum and Krause Gallery in NYC. His work has been featured in dozens of publications including Fast Company, Juxtapos, Beautiful/Decay, USA Today, The Telegraph, and the New York Times. Noah co-runs Another Limited Rebellion an art & innovation consulting firm and is a sought after public speaker on creativity. He is the author of six books, including most recently Creative Sprint – which he co-wrote with his sister/business partner Mica Scalin.

Contact Information fro Noah Scalin:

* Noah Scalin website

* Noah Scalin on Facebook

* Noah Scalin on Instagram

* Another Limited Rebellion (Noah's consulting firm)

Culture is hard and creating and maintaining an innovation culture is even harder. One of the challenges for creating a culture of innovation within an organization is our ability to get along with others. Innovation is about constant change which is uncomfortable and stressful. The result is that some individuals/groups will not respond and actually become quite negative […]

Culture is hard and creating and maintaining an innovation culture is even harder. One of the challenges for creating a culture of innovation within an organization is our ability to get along with others. Innovation is about constant change which is uncomfortable and stressful. The result is that some individuals/groups will not respond and actually become quite negative (innovation anti-bodies) to the innovation effort.

What are you to do? How do you build a bridge to these individuals/groups? How do you get along with others who react so negatively to your ideas?

When I was CTO at HP, I was struggling in getting someone in particular to work with me. One of the HP alumni suggested I read David Packard's “11 Simple Rules For Getting Along With Other”. So I ventured over to the official HP archive and got a copy of the original notes. “Elegant” and “timeless” are the best descriptions of the rules first presented by Dave Packard at HP's second annual management conference in 1958 in Sonoma, California.

As you read them, which are the ones you need to work on?

11 Simple Rules To Help Us Get Along With Others

1. Think first of the other fellow. This is THE foundation – the first requisite – for getting along with others. And it is the one truly difficult accomplishment you must make. Gaining this, the rest will be “a breeze.”

2. Build up the other person's sense of importance. When we make the other person seem less important, we frustrate one of his deepest urges. Allow him to feel equality or superiority, and we can easily get along with him.

3. Respect the other man's personality rights. Respect as something sacred the other fellow's right to be different from you. No two personalities are ever molded by precisely the same forces.

4. Give sincere appreciation. If we think someone has done a thing well, we should never hesitate to let him know it. WARNING: This does not mean promiscuous use of obvious flattery. Flattery with most intelligent people gets exactly the reaction it deserves – contempt for the egotistical “phony” who stoops to it.

5. Eliminate the negative. Criticism seldom does what its user intends, for it invariably causes resentment. The tiniest bit of disapproval can sometimes cause a resentment which will rankle – to your disadvantage – for years.

6. Avoid openly trying to reform people. Every man knows he is imperfect, but he doesn't want someone else trying to correct his faults. If you want to improve a person, help him to embrace a higher working goal – a standard, an ideal – and he will do his own “making over” far more effectively than you can do it for him.

7. Try to understand the other person. How would you react to similar circumstances? When you begin to see the “whys” of him you can't help but get along better with him.

8. Check first impressions. We are especially prone to dislike some people on first sight because of some vague resemblance (of which we are usually unaware) to someone else whom we have had reason to dislike. Follow Abraham Lincoln's famous self-instruction: “I do not like that man; therefore I shall get to know him better.”

9. Take care with the little details. Watch your smile, your tone of voice, how you use your eyes, the way you greet people, the use of nicknames and remembering faces, names and dates. Little things add polish to your skill in dealing with people. Constantly, deliberately think of them until they become a natural part of your personality.

10. Develop genuine interest in people. You cannot successfully apply the foregoing suggestions unless you have a sincere desire ...