The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

Innovation Needs Inspiration

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Every August, I host an annual event for about 600 people, discussing tech and innovation. This event has been going on for more than decade and I’ve been hosting it 4 years now. The challenge is how do you keep an event – or any creative endeavor fresh and interesting??

One common approach is to go out and “copy” what others are doing such as “make it just be like TED”. I’ve been going to the main TED event for years and even they are challenged to change it up. Repetition is boring.

The world changes and your ideas/innovations need to change with it. We all get caught in the rut and we tell ourselves it worked for us “last time” it will work for us next time. Experience is not always a good thing. That is until it doesn’t work. Then what?

How do you push yourself to constantly be looking for ideas?

In my personal example, every two to three years, I go on a month-long “trend safari” in search of inspiration. I typically pick 3 to 4 events that are outside of my industry with the objective of coming back and share what inspired me.

Some events I’ve gone to …

* Milan Furniture Fair (April)

* London Design Festival (Sept)

* Paris Fashion Week

* TED (March – Vancouver)

* Detroit Auto Show

* Maker Faire (May in San Francisco)

* Comic-con .. (july – San Diego)

Now that I’ve been talking about it,  I think its time to put together another on one again! I’ve always enjoyed it more when a few people are with me. Maybe I should setup a “trend safari” for a group. What do you think? Do you want to go with me?

Guest: Noah Scalin

Noah Scalin is an artist and activist. He founded the art & consulting firm Another Limited Rebellion in 2001 with the idea that he could make a living doing what he enjoyed and effect positive change in the world. He has authored five books on design and creativity and traveled the world bringing his message of creative potential and design activism to everyone from incarcerated teenagers to Fortune 500 executives. Noah’s artwork is collected internationally and has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries, including the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, and Krause Gallery in NYC. His most recent book Skull-A-Day collects the work of his Webby Award winning yearlong daily art project of the same name.

Brain Hack/Killer Questions

What are your unshakable beliefs about what your customers want?

One thing is to know what your customers want to do, another is to understand how they intend to get it done. It’s easy to look at their goals and tell yourself that your product will match their needs. Most organizations make major assumptions about what the customers want … they become “unshakable beliefs”. Competing companies can have the same “unshakable beliefs” but radically different strategies about how to achieve them.

Example — Airbus and Boeing.

Both companies brought new long-range aircraft to market at more or less the same time. However, their respective offerings, the A380 and the 787 Dreamliner reflect radically different ideas of how airlines will meet the needs and desires of their passengers.

Same objectives: Both companies understand the bottom line in their industry, getting CASM—cost per available seat mile—as low as possible. Both claim that their aircrafts are highly fuel-efficient. Each also uses radically new technologies. The 787 is made of lightweight and high-durability materials The A380 boasts new integrated a...

Sharing is Critical for Innovation

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I regularly get emails from innovators looking for advice or feedback on an idea and most are very appreciative. Some of those have resulted in major new products – and a few cases — a surprise of stock windfall since the start-up couldn’t afford to pay me.

Why would I be willing to do this? It’s part of “sharing” which I think is critical to the innovation success.

My first mentor taught me to “give away more than you take” because it’s the right thing to do and you build up a relationship you can call on when you need help.

I was immersed in this culture when I went to Silicon Valley the first time in early 1984. It’s the way things operate in the valley. People will answer your questions, give you access to the contacts, make introductions and provide you advice and feedback on whatever you’re working on. Without the expectation of getting anything back – within reason.  If you’re asking for ongoing extensive help and advice, then you should be willing to either pay for it or offer equity as a way to compensate.

Sharing is critical to building an ecosystem that helps innovators be successful. Let’s face it – its lonely out here as an innovator. It’s only through sharing and support that any of us are successful. It’s that one person who gave us that one piece of advice or introduced us to someone who turned into a great customer or the introduction to the VC that funded our start-up.

Special Guest: Bryan Kramer – author of Shareology

Bryan Kramer is one of the world’s foremost leaders in the art and science of sharing, and has been credited with instigating the #H2H human business movement in marketing and social. With over 300K social fans and followers, and an intimate understanding of the intricacies and interworking of both social technologies and social behaviors, Bryan is both a practitioner and authority on the subject.

In January 2014, Bryan’s first book “There is No B2B or B2C: It’s Human to Human #H2H” rose to the #1 top selling spot in Business Books on Amazon in its first week. In January 2015, #H2H was named as the number 1 buzzword for 2015 by The Writer. His second title, “Shareology: How Sharing is Powering the Human Economy”, published by Morgan James Publishing was released in July 2015.

Blogs at bryankramer.com

Brain Hack/Killer Question

Who is the source for your innovations? Where else could this be done?

What is your organization’s philosophy about innovation? Do you keep everything in-house, or do you outsource as needed? There are two schools of thoughts on this. By keeping the innovation 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.

Herman Miller: Outsourcing Innovation

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 innovation 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 strengt...