The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

Why are some companies more successful than others? Why Do Only 13 Percent of Companies Successfully Execute Their Strategy? What are the 87 doing wrong?

Topics in the show include:

* Why conversations control everything in your business?

* What are the 10 conversations that create a connected organization?

* How can truth combat the the Execution Virus (innovation antibodies) that infect every business?

* How important is it to “declare” your vision?

* What is the one advice that all CEO's show follow to become the 13 percent who execute their strategy?

Guest: Dan Prosser

Daniel Prosser, as CEO of The Prosser Group, has over 40 years of experience as an entrepreneur CEO, speaker, teacher and mentor, coaching business leaders, entrepreneurs and micropreneurs to cultivate an uncommon approach to building an extraordinary competitive edge.

* FREE copy of Dan's book – Thirteeners 

* Dan on LinkedIn

* Dan's personal website

Killer Question

 Do you sell atoms or bytes? Do you think that your answer could change over the next five years? Think about Amazon and the Kindle. Jeff Bezos asked, What is my role going to be if the nature of books changes? He realized that to stay relevant and necessary his company needed to retain control over something tangible and physical. There could have been other options. Amazon could have bet that the reading experience would fully transition to audio, but they ultimately gambled that the act of reading was still integral to the enjoyment of a book. So, how do you stay in control of a physical experience when your product is going from atoms to bytes?

Think about what a profound change this is. What would you do if your physical product—one that has been around, unchanged, for hundreds or thousands of years—suddenly seemed headed toward obsolescence? How do you still keep yourself relevant—an essential part of a transaction or an experience—especially if, like Amazon, you are primarily functioning as the middleman between product and customer? How do you keep that link alive?

For Amazon, that link is providing the medium that brings the printed word to the reader. First that medium was books, and now, for many, it’s the Kindle. Amazon has been smart to keep physical ownership over the process of reading. Even though a reader may have transferred allegiance to digital media, Amazon is still controlling access to the “thing” in a reader’s hand. Granted, there are plenty of competitors springing up, all with their own pros and cons, but none has both the sheer heft of Amazon’s catalogue and the huge advantage of having arrived so early on the market. A Kindle, like the Hoover vacuum cleaner before it, is becoming both the specific name of the product, and a catch-all term for its category—a great place to be.

It will be interesting to see how far Amazon pushes the possibilities of the Kindle, and how its relationships with publishers and authors will develop. Publishers are no longer in the business of selling paper, yet most still act as though they are. The publishing industry is still figuring out exactly how to handle pricing on e-books, and especially how e-book pricing can be aligned with traditional book pricing in a way that makes sense to the consumer. Customers are not happy to pay more for a Kindle edition than a hardcover edition of a bestseller. Yet some books are more expensive as digital downloads than as hardcovers. It doesn’t make sense to consumers, and it’s a downright dangerous situation for all concerned if book piracy takes off in the same way that music piracy did a decade ago. You don’t want to antagonize your customers or make them feel like fools for ...

Innovating inside large organizations can be challenging in the best of circumstances. So how do you go about getting leaders inside of established large companies and organizations get it when it comes to creativity and innovation and be successful? How do you get out of the innovation straitjacket?

Topics covered in this week show include:

* What is meant by the concept of “innovation at the speed of life”?

* How do you succeed when you are operating in an innovation straitjacket?

* What is an “innovation dividend” and how do you use it to persuade others that your idea has value?

* What is the difference in innovation approach between the US, UK and China?

* Why do Chine leaders have a different approach to giving teams the “freedom to innovate”?

* Can innovating inside large organizations even be possible?

Guest: Matt Bross

Matt Bross is the former Global Chief Technology Officer of Huawei, British Telecom and is a well known industry visionary who is passionate about harnessing new technologies and driving service innovations that improve and transform the ability of people to communicate. Matt has a strong track record of understanding key global business trends and translating them into innovative products, solutions and services. Matt is currently the Chairman and CEO of Compass-EOS which is a next-generation routing company.

You can connect with Matt at:

* LinkedIn

* Compass Networks

* East West Institute 

Killer Question:

One of the first products I created as a software developer was a touch-typing program called Typing Instructor. This was back in 1985, and at that time there was no such thing as a standard PC. Instead you owned a specific brand and had access to the programs that had been written specifically for that make, whether IBM, Wang, or DEC. Each of these companies was attempting to create lock-in for their third-party software developers. If a user wanted a specific application, they needed to own the computer for which it was written.

Now, was this a good thing or a bad thing? All of these brands approached the problem in unique ways. Compaq, a dinky start-up in the 1980s, had the most expansive philosophy about building their business. The team at Compaq realized that to win against the industry strategy of creating unique, proprietary PCs, they must push for PC uniformity. They decided to make their products compatible with IBM. Similarly, IBM licensed MS-DOS, a Microsoft operating system designed specifically for their PCs, a decision that subsequently made a fortune for Bill Gates.

On the other hand, companies like DEC and Wang thought they could create some unique differentiators that would make the software developers come to their platforms first. Wang was especially notorious for wanting to keep their programs proprietary. Because the PC manufacturers were in a fight to dominate the market and win over the largest market share as quickly as possible, locking a customer into using their brand and making it as hard as possible for the customer to switch in the future seemed like a good idea.

One of my first jobs in computer engineering was with a company called Individual Software. I was twenty-four at the time and married with a kid when Individual called me. I knew these guys, and I had faith that they were going to do interesting work, and that it would be a good place to get in on the gro...

Innovation can truly change the world but only if the world can access them. One key innovation is broadband. This week, we dive into a new innovation that is bringing mobile broadband access to the rural and developing countries.  We cover such topics as:

* Dealing with two different types of innovation antibodies

* The economic challenge of bringing innovations to developing countries and how to overcome them

* The timing of inventing, innovating and the market readiness

*  Patience when it comes to overcoming technology challenges

* Background on broadband access in Africa and specifically in Rwanda

Guest:

Dr. Vanu Bose, Ph.D., is the Founder of Vanu Inc. and serves as its Chief Executive Officer and President. Dr. Bose is the principal inventor of the software radio technology that serves as the basis of Vanu Inc.'s products. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Jumpstart, a non-profit focused on early childhood literacy, and is also a member of the Board of Overseers for the Boston Museum of Science. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Bose developed a technical teaching curriculum and on board medical, computer and satellite communications systems for a DC-10 flying hospital for Project Orbis, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to fighting world blindness. Dr. Bose completed his doctoral thesis on software radio in April 1999, and received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) in June 1999. He received his Master's degree in EECS from M.I.T. in 1992 and two Bachelor's degrees, one in EECS and one in Math, from MIT in 1988.

You can contact Vanu at vanu.com

Facebook page for Vanu, Inc.

On LinkedIn.

Killer Question

Where do we perform product research and development? Where else could this be done?

What is your organization’s philosophy about design and development? Do you keep everything in-house, or do you outsource as needed? There are two schools of thoughts on this. By keeping the design process in-house, a company can build a sense of continuity and cohesion that links the entire family of products together in a satisfying way. Or you can outsource as needed, hiring talent for specific products and moving on once that product is complete. Neither is right or wrong; the more important point is to have a rationale for whichever strategy you choose, and to extract the most value from it.

Look at a company like Herman Miller. Their Aeron chair is an iconic design for the technological age, but it wasn’t designed internally. Instead, Herman Miller outsourced the design to leading designers that have their own firms. The famous husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames designed the classic 1950s Eames chair the same way. The point is that Herman Miller knows what their strengths are: manufacturing and distributing the final product. They also have a huge amount of practical expertise. For instance, they have experts in ergonomics, the less obvious details that are critical to the overall comfort and practicality of a product (e.g., the way a chair distributes the body heat generated by the user). They share this very specialized knowledge with designers, and then throw the company’s expertise into selling the final piece of furniture. Herman Miller has a very different idea of where design, research, and development should take place. Herman Miller has adopted the philosophy that it’s more important to ensure that the best and brightest are working on your product, and that this is a higher priority than making sure the work is done in-house.

In the past, I led  projects for specific countries. So why would you design it in the United States?