The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

Limiting beliefs are those that constrain you in some way. Just by believing them, we do not think, do or say things because this limiting belief inhibits us.

Our limiting beliefs originate from self doubts that then become “rules” we apply to our everday activities. In extreme cases, limiting beliefs can sabatoge our hapiness, our family and our careers.

In this weeks show, we take a look at limiting beliefs and how they are killing your creativity – and what you can do about it.

6 Most Common Limiting Beliefs

* “I can't be myself or I'll be judged”

* It is not your job to make everyone in life like you

* Be yourself. You are unique and there will be no one like you.

* “I can't ask for what I want because I might get rejected“

* Rejection is part of life

* To move forward with your ideas, you need to ask which will risk rejection. No is not deadly.

* “I can't trust people because they might betray my trust”

* Life is too short to not trust anyone

* Without trust, you cannot succeed

* “I can't persue my dreams because I might fail“

* Do NOT let FEAR hold you back

* FEAR = False Evidence that Appears Real

* Its your dreams. The only thing holding you back is yourself.

* “I don't need to be successful so I'm not going to strive for success”

* Do not fall into the “self intellect” trap

* You succeed because you can

* With success, you can help others to succeed

* “It's too late to pursue my dreams“

* It is NEVER too late to pursue your dreams.

* Sanders start KFC at the age of 74. What's your excuse.

4 Ways to Get Around Your Limiting Beliefs

* Start by writing down your limiting belief

* Acknowledge that these are beliefs and NOT truths

* Get over the fear and try a different belief

* Act on these different beliefs

 

Additional Resources:

* Is the fear of failure killing your creativity and hindering your success?

* 8 Tips for Dealing with Rejection

* Yes – You Were Born To Innovate Something Great

While many companies recruit for start-up experience, large company experiences can be a secret ingredient to success. The ability to call on executives who have the experience of understanding scale, managing remote staff, complex manufacturing, global markets, selling to large organizations and much more is invaluable. In today's show, we discussed: Barry's career at IBM and the […]

While many companies recruit for start-up experience, large company experiences can be a secret ingredient to success. The ability to call on executives who have the experience of understanding scale, managing remote staff, complex manufacturing, global markets, selling to large organizations and much more is invaluable.

In today's show, we discussed:

* Barry's career at IBM and the breadth of experiences that large organizations provide

* The shifting role to being a Board member after leaving a large organization such as IBM

* How to coach and mentor executive teams to success

* How to translate large company experiences into something that start-up companies can apply

* Three lessons that Barry would give to a 20 year-old self:

* Get out and talk to real customers who use your produce/service early in your career.

* The importance of hiring a team that can fill in what your bad at. Look for diversity of thought.

* Don't be afraid of putting yourself out there. Try something new and take some risk.

Background on Barry Rudolph

Barry serves as the Chief Executive Officer of VelociData, Inc. Prior, he  served as Vice President of Strategy and Stack Integration for IBM Storage, responsible for establishing the overall strategy, driving all decisions on portfolio investments for the storage business, and integrating with other areas within IBM including IBM's Global Services and Software organizations.Earlier, Barry served as Vice President for IBM's Disk, SAN & NAS Storage Systems, where he was responsible for all aspects of the Disk, SAN and NAS storage business within IBM, including profit and loss, product portfolio investments, go to market strategy and execution and customer support. During his career at IBM, he held numerous senior level positions in a variety of functional areas, including operations, engineering, product development, test and assurance, program management, field support and, direct manufacturing until his retirement from IBM in 2010 after 32 years with the company.

He has been a Member of Industry Advisory Board at GreenBytes, Inc. since August 2013. Barry serves as a Director of VelociData, Inc. He served as Director of Dot Hill Systems Corp. from February 20, 2012 to October 6, 2015.

He holds a Bachelor degree of Science degree in Engineering, a Master's of Science in Electrical Engineering from San Diego State University, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Show Links:

* Link to Velocidata

* Velocidata on LinkedIn

* Velocidata on Twitter

* Barry Rudolph on LinkedIn

Show Sponsors:

* Zoom: Video Conferencing That Doesn't Suck – Check out a free account and see what everyone is talking about.

An idea has no value on its own. It's when you find a way to monetize your idea is when value gets created and you benefit from your creative output. There are a number of ways to monetize your idea and here are a few of the ones I've used. 5 ways to monetize your […]

An idea has no value on its own. It's when you find a way to monetize your idea is when value gets created and you benefit from your creative output.

There are a number of ways to monetize your idea and here are a few of the ones I've used.

5 ways to monetize your idea

* Create a startup around your idea: There are a number of sites that can give you advice on how to create a startup so we won't spend a lot of time giving the specifics. I would encourage you to consider the other options that are available for monetization.

* License your product or idea: This is where you grant a license and someone else takes on all of the tasks for translating your idea/product into an offering in the market.

* Needs to be more than just a raw idea in PowerPoint or on the back of a napkin

* The other party takes on all of the tasks

* Your involvement is little to none.

* Payment is usually structured around a % of gross revenues or a % of net profit.

* Royalty structures don't last forever.

* The other party may lose interest in your idea/product of sales don't continue to warrant the investment of time and resources.

* Critical: Getting the contract in place. I would strongly encourage you to use legal experts in “licensing” to get the best agreement in place.

* Licenses/Sell your patents: If you issued patents (not “provisional patents”), then you can look at licensing or selling them.

* Very hard to do with a single patent.

* A family of patents in a particular area are much more attractive to potential purchasers.

* License the patent if you believe there are multiple entities who need it.

* Sell the patent if an entity needs it to fill out a patent portfolio or possible use in a defensive role if they are in litigation.

* One of the better options is to find a patent pool (e.g. MPEGLA – MPEG Licensing Authority) and see if they will add your patent as an “essential” patent. If the declare its an essential patent to one of their patent pools, then you get to participate in the royalty stream. They take on all litigation, etc.

* Sell your idea outright: This is when you secure a one time payment for all rights, trademarks, etc to your product or idea.

* You get the money upfront with no linger obligation.

* In some cases, you may want to negotiate an “earn out” which is where you believe the idea has more value and if it proves out, you get a higher payment than the simple lump some.

* Its hard to determine the value of an idea. The better equipped you are with data and proof of the value, the more negotiating power you have.

* Create a Joint Venture: This is when two or more individuals or entities come together to create a new entity who's mission is to take product or idea and bring it to market. All involved typically have equity in the new entity.

* Treat a JV like a marriage. Make sure you really like who you are partnering with and document what happens if it doesn't work out.

* Document who contributes what and what each parties obligations are.

* Be realistic as to what role you want to have in the JV.

Note: I am NOT an attorney and nothing in this post or show should be construed as legal or business advice. Always consult with a professional as monetizing ideas/products/patents is complex with numerous pitfalls.

Show Sponsor:

* Zoom – Video Conferencing The Doesn't Suck

Show Links:

* MPEGLA – MPEG Licensing Authority

 

With the never ending M&A activities facing most industries, managing your career success through acquisition is a critical survival skill. In today's show, our guest Andrew Skafel shares his lessons learned in how to not only survive acquisitions but how to navigate the changes to ensure career success. We discussed: Andrew shared is academic background […]

With the never ending M&A activities facing most industries, managing your career success through acquisition is a critical survival skill.

In today's show, our guest Andrew Skafel shares his lessons learned in how to not only survive acquisitions but how to navigate the changes to ensure career success.

We discussed:

* Andrew shared is academic background and how it has no connection to his current role as CEO.

* What he wanted to do before he got into tech.

* His experience of going though multiple acquisitions over his career.

* Sharing what contributed to his career success.

* Shares one experience where he felt like giving up but instead stayed with it.

* History of how Edgewater Wireless came about.

* The strategy of doing a spin out from a parent company.

* The technology behind Edgewater Wireless.

* What makes this technology non-obvious that prevented other from inventing it.

* Andrew respomded to the task of sharing three pieces of advice he would you to a 20 year old Andrew.

* He discussed two pieces of advice would he would give an entrepreneur just starting out.

About Edgewater Wireless:

Edgewater Wireless is revolutionizing Wi-Fi infrastructure with their patented, multi-channel WiFi3™ technology powering next-gen access points, Small Cells and Wi-Fi/DAS solutions. Edgewater Wireless has figured out how to deliver what MSOs and their customers have been asking for: vastly improved Wi-Fi network performance across a variety of industries and challenging environments with unparalleled performance, high flexibility, and unsurpassed security. For more information, check out the Edgewater Wireless website.

About Andrew Skafel:

Andrew is responsible for leading Edgewater Wireless, Andrew’s broad strategic perspective comes from his work with both multinational equipment vendors and a number of start-up network operators.

Andrew has significant multinational experience. He was based in Asia for seven years where he worked for Newbridge Networks/Alcatel; Silicon Valley-based, InterWAVE Communications and the Commercial Division of the Canadian High Commission (Malaysia). His roles included strategic marketing, international business development and business planning.

A proven telecom innovator and leader, Andrew founded an innovative GSM operator in Brasil, taking the project from concept to fundraising, license acquisition and launch phases.

Mr. Skafel holds an MBA from INSEEC (Paris), a graduate diploma from the McRae Institute of International Management (Vancouver) and a BA in Economics & Politics from the University of Western Ontario.

Show links:

* Edwater Wireless website

* Edgewater Wireless on Twitter

* Andrew Skafel on Twitter

* Andrew Skafel on LinkedIn

Managing the fuzzy front end of the innovation funnel can be daunting especially when management has high expectations from the innovation efforts. This weeks show focused on answering a question emailed in by a listener. The question focused on the challenges of creating an innovation process for a team within a large organization and dealing with […]

Managing the fuzzy front end of the innovation funnel can be daunting especially when management has high expectations from the innovation efforts.

This weeks show focused on answering a question emailed in by a listener. The question focused on the challenges of creating an innovation process for a team within a large organization and dealing with the “fuzzy front end”.

The fuzzy front end is what some people call “phase 0” of the innovation effort. This front end of innovation is non-linear and can be chaotic and frustrating. It doesn't have to be if you apply a proven approach to getting this early stage innovation work under control.

Managing Management

When creating new innovation processes and teams, the first step is managing management. They've tasked you with creating the team and process that will generate great outcomes. So how do you manage management?

* Manage expectations. Get agreement on the final deliverables such as “2 products per year”

* Keep management focused on the deliverables and don't let them in the “tent” to see the messiness of innovation

* Keep your ideas quiet. Do NOT share them until they are ready

* You control the reveal of your innovation teams output.

If you don't do the above, you run of the risk of trying management's patience and run afoul of the “Rule of 18”

Three Steps To Manage The Fuzzy Front End

Here are the three (3) steps to get control of the chaotic things going on when trying to get started in your innovation process.

Step 1:  Create Your Innovation Funnel

* Establish your funnel by defining how many stages/gates it will have. I use four (4).

* Define the deliverable goal. While CTO at HP, my goal was two (2) fundamentally new products each year.

* Back into the numbers of each of the earlier gates assuming a 50% kill rate in each phase.

* In my case, my funnel look like the following:

* New Products = 2 projects

* Limiated lauch/lighthouse trial = 5 projects

* Customer Validation = 10 projects

* Market Validation =20 projects

* This translates to a 10% success rate from the first gate to launch.

Step 2: Fill Your Innovation Funnel

* Fill the funnel using Focus, Ideation and Ranking (three of the four steps in FIRE)

* Test, experiment and be willing to kill ideas.

* Even when you don't feel like you're making progress, you are. Perseverance.

* Understand the impact of long development cycles on filling your innovation funnel.

* Don't be afraid to ask for time to “prime the funnel”. I got two (2) years when I started the funnel at HP.

Step 3: Manage Your Innovation Funnel

* Don't neglect managing the funnel. Be deliberate.

* Move things forward. Don't let them just hang around.

* Be willing to pause an idea if the timing is not right.

* Don't be afraid to kill an idea. Make the tough call.

Show Bonus: A FREE download of my Innovation Funnel and a sample Stage Gate model

 

Other Resources:

* Forbes column on the Rule of 18: Why Projects Are Cancelled For The Wrong Reasons

* Managing the...

Creating a social innovation to impact the social problems and opportunities our society faces is incredibly rewarding. Most (but not all) organizations working to address the social challenges are stuck in a rut. They are running their programs the same way they've always done them. In today's world, getting caught in the rut will dome […]