Most organizations don’t have an innovation problem — they have a bold idea problem. Elvin Turner joins Yaniv to talk about why corporate status quo quietly crushes new ideas, what separates companies that genuinely innovate from those that just talk about it, and the counterintuitive case for falling in love with your ideas.

About Elvin Turner

Elvin Turner is an innovation consultant, speaker, and author of Be Less Zombie — a practical field guide to corporate innovation. He helps organizations move from incremental thinking to bold, transformational ideas.

What We Cover

• Why companies don’t lack ideas — they lack bold ideas
• Creative constipation vs. creative indigestion: two ways fear shows up
• Why culture must be calibrated to the type of innovation you’re pursuing
• The concept of “catalytic questions” and how to design better ones
• The case for falling in love with your ideas — love vs. infatuation

Timestamps

(00:40) Introduction and Elvin’s background
(05:30) Companies don’t lack ideas — they lack bold ones
(08:00) Creative constipation and creative indigestion
(12:00) Why culture must match the innovation outcome
(15:00) Catalytic questions: what they are and why they work
(19:00) Should you fall in love with your ideas?

Key Takeaways

1. You don’t lack ideas — you lack bold ideas. The gap is in transformational ideas, not incremental ones.
2. Design your questions before your brainstorm. Catalytic questions break through status quo assumptions. Generic questions get generic answers.
3. Love your ideas — don’t be infatuated with them. Passion pushes ideas through resistance. The difference is whether you can still hear feedback.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Be Less Zombie by Elvin Turner — on Amazon and major bookstores
• belesszombie.com
• elvinturner.com — includes a free course

Where to Find Elvin Turner

Website: elvinturner.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elvinturner

Where to Find Yaniv Corem

Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

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Christian Tidona is a virologist, biotech entrepreneur, and business angel. He is the founder and CEO of BioMedX Institute in Heidelberg, Germany — a research institute that bridges academia and industry by combining global crowdsourcing with local incubation. This episode is hosted by Adrian Rubstein, Innovation Manager at Mergroup in Latin America.

What We Cover

• Why academia turns money into knowledge and industry turns knowledge into money — and why they speak the same language backwards
• How BioMedX launched without venture capital or public funding
• The global crowdsourcing and local incubation model: 200–600 applications, 15 finalists, a five-day bootcamp
• Why four nights without sleep is the selection mechanism
• How BioMedX is approaching pandemic preparedness with the Rapid Antiviral Response Platform
• The three types of scientists: academic, industry, and entrepreneur

Timestamps

00:00 – Why academia and industry speak the same language backwards
02:00 – BioMedX: the origin story and the Merck partnership
05:00 – Launching without VC: how three sponsored projects made it work
07:00 – The crowdsourcing and bootcamp model explained
09:00 – No sleep, no ego: how BioMedX selects its researchers
12:00 – The Rapid Antiviral Response Platform and COVID-19 research
16:00 – Three types of scientists and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

Key Takeaways

1. Great research institutes need to bridge the gap between exploration and commercialization — BioMedX was designed to live in that gap.
2. Trust between collaborators is built under pressure, not in a normal assessment center — sleep deprivation reveals character faster than any formal process.
3. Before becoming an entrepreneur, figure out which of the three types you are: academic, industry, or entrepreneur. Knowing yourself early saves years of friction.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• BioMedX Institute: bio.mx
• Merck Innovation Cup (referenced in episode)
• Rapid Antiviral Response Platform (referenced in episode)

Where to Find Christian Tidona

Website: bio.mx
Search Christian Tidona on LinkedIn

Where to Find Yaniv Corem
Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow
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Yi Hoo Ong is the Chief Innovation Officer at Human at Work, a strategy, innovation, and purpose lab. Before founding Human at Work, he led cultural transformation programs and innovation initiatives at Li & Fung, one of the world's largest supply chain and retail groups. He now advises both corporates on innovation strategy and scaling startups on how to survive rapid growth.

What We Cover

• Corporates and startups: chess versus Fortnite — two completely different games on the same field
• Why the number one challenge in large organizations is getting them away from technology buzzwords
• The Workshop and the Kitchen: Li & Fung's open innovation crowdsourcing program built on Spigot
• Gorilla sessions: bringing in external speakers to challenge internal assumptions
• The Supercharger in Residence program: helping startups survive rapid scaling
• What corporate innovation leaders should focus on during a crisis

Timestamps

00:00 – Corporates and startups are playing different games
02:00 – Human at Work: strategy, innovation, and purpose explained
05:00 – Li & Fung: lessons from a 40,000-person global organization
07:00 – Innovation must come from culture — not from a hackathon
09:00 – The Kitchen: open innovation crowdsourcing at Li & Fung
13:00 – The Supercharger in Residence program for scaling startups

Key Takeaways

1. Corporates jump to AI and blockchain before asking what they're trying to solve — the job of an innovation advisor is to keep pulling them back to the problem before touching technology.
2. The best ideas don't come from HQ or the biggest paycheck — the Kitchen was built to surface ideas from the edges of a 40,000-person organization and make them visible company-wide.
3. During a crisis, stop examining the grains of sand and look for the tsunami — staying true to your cause while others firefight is where future competitive advantage is built.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Spigot (crowdsourcing tool used for the Kitchen at Li & Fung, referenced in episode)
• Li & Fung / Lianfeng Group (referenced in episode)

Where to Find Yi Hoo Ong

Search Yi Hoo Ong on LinkedIn

Where to Find Yaniv Corem
Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The School of Innovation so you never miss a conversation.
Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5VOBVkueP7zg5ErNYtrmPL
Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-school-of-innovation/id1498420449

Have a guest recommendation or want to be on the show? Email [email protected]

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

Bud Caddell is the founder of Nobl, a culture and change agency that works with Fortune 500 companies on organizational design and innovation. A recovering software developer turned innovation consultant, Bud spent years building innovation labs for companies like Pepsi and GE before realizing he was solving the wrong problem.

What We Cover

• Why organizations don't suffer from a lack of ideas — they suffer from cultures that kill good ideas
• The three-team model: Explorers, Scalers, and Optimizers — and why the Scale team is always missing
• Why innovation fails internally, not in the market: incentives, politics, and "not invented here"
• The flywheel diagram: small wheel → chain → big wheel, and why it mostly goes one way
• What makes a great Scaler: persuasion and negotiation over design thinking
• What happens to innovation teams during downturns — and why that's when disruptors emerge

Timestamps

00:00 – Innovation is a baton race — and the baton keeps getting dropped
03:00 – What every institutional innovation program gets wrong
05:00 – The missing Scale team: your best entrepreneurs, in the middle
08:00 – Why scaling is the hard part — even inside large corporations
10:00 – What makes a great Scaler: "Getting to Yes" over Double Diamond
14:00 – The flywheel diagram explained: Explore → Scale → Optimize
20:00 – Failure rates, learning culture, and the distance hypothesis

Key Takeaways

1. Organizations aren't suffering from a lack of ideas — they're suffering from ways of working and cultures that kill good ideas from within.
2. The missing piece in most innovation programs is the Scale team: entrepreneurs who can navigate internal politics and hand innovation off to the core business without dropping the baton.
3. Every recession creates disruptors — because established companies over-grip on the short term while someone else is taking bigger bets on a shoestring.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Nobl: nobl.io
• Nobl Academy: nobl.io → Resources → Academy
• "Getting to Yes" by Fisher & Ury
• Article: "What Every Institutional Innovation Program Gets Wrong"

Where to Find Bud Caddell

Website: nobl.io

Where to Find Yaniv Corem
Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The School of Innovation so you never miss a conversation.
Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5VOBVkueP7zg5ErNYtrmPL
Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-school-of-innovation/id1498420449
Have a guest recommendation or want to be on the show? Email [email protected]
For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

Carl Boutet is a retail innovation strategist based in Canada and one of the most connected voices in the global retail ecosystem. He has studied, visited, and advised retail innovation labs around the world, and is currently an advisor to a new retail innovation lab at McGill University.

What We Cover

• What Carl means by "the great acceleration" and why this crisis is different from 2008
• The 50-50 physical-digital model as the resilience playbook for retail
• What Carl learned from studying innovation labs around the world
• Why the best labs are the ones you don't know are labs
• How to build a more affordable, realistic innovation lab inside an actual store
• Why the manager's willingness matters more than demographics in choosing a test location

Timestamps

00:00 – One word for retail right now: panic
02:00 – The great acceleration: what's different about this crisis
07:00 – The resilience playbook: heading for 50-50 physical-digital
10:00 – Context: the McGill University retail innovation lab
12:00 – What Carl learned from studying labs around the world
16:00 – Why the best labs don't look like labs
18:00 – Building affordable, realistic labs inside actual stores
22:00 – The store manager factor: why openness beats demographics
27:00 – What's next for the innovation professional

Key Takeaways

1. The best retail innovation labs are the ones you don't know are labs. When technology runs in the background and optimizes invisibly, the lab serves customers instead of showcasing itself. The goal is a real transactional environment, not a showcase of cool stuff.
2. Innovation needs to ROI across multiple time horizons. First-generation labs went too far into the future without delivering near-term value. Balance short-term pilots in actual stores with longer-horizon exploratory work.
3. In choosing a test location, the store manager's openness matters more than demographics. If the manager isn't a champion, the experiment will fail regardless of the market data.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• McGill University retail lab (in development at time of recording)
• Explorium Shanghai (referenced in episode)
• Kyle Nel / Lowe's Innovation Labs (referenced in episode)

Where to Find Carl Boutet

Search Carl Boutet on LinkedIn

Where to Find Yaniv Corem
Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The School of Innovation so you never miss a conversation.
Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5VOBVkueP7zg5ErNYtrmPL
Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-school-of-innovation/id1498420449
Have a guest recommendation or want to be on the show? Email [email protected]
For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

Wout Hermans leads Mural's European Enterprise Transformation Team. He holds a master's degree in Global Innovation Management and worked as a consultant at IBM — running design thinking workshops and Scrum teams — before joining Selena, a Latin American hospitality startup, as a business designer. At Mural, he helps large enterprises become genuine partners in visual collaboration and organizational transformation.

What We Cover

• What visual collaboration is and why it works better than describing things in words
• What "Enterprise Transformation Manager" actually means — and how it differs from traditional customer success
• How to identify transformation champions in your organization using usage data and social media
• Why COVID-19 accelerated adoption of digital collaboration tools by years
• The signs that an organization desperately needs to transform
• How global innovation management differs from regular innovation management

Timestamps

00:43 – Introduction — Wout Hermans and Mural
01:00 – What Mural does: visual collaboration explained
04:30 – Breaking down the Enterprise Transformation Manager role
09:50 – What makes organizational transformation hard — and what actually works
10:50 – Vision + tools + repetition: the three-part formula
12:00 – Champions: how to find them, why they matter, and how to use them
15:00 – Signs that an organization needs to transform
17:00 – Why global innovation management is different
22:15 – How IBM, Selena, and Mural each shaped Wout's approach

Key Takeaways

1. Visual communication closes interpretation gaps. If two people describe a chair in words, they're imagining different chairs. Show it instead.
2. Transformation is a multi-year effort. Don't set a "transformation year." Set a transformation direction and invest in it continuously.
3. Find the champions and use their energy. Don't exhaust yourself trying to convert the resistant. Let the enthusiasts lead the way.
4. Millennials leaving is a data point. If younger people aren't staying, the organization probably isn't transforming fast enough.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Mural: mural.co — visual collaboration platform

Where to Find Wout Hermans

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/wouthermans

Where to Find Yaniv Corem
Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The School of Innovation so you never miss a conversation.
Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5VOBVkueP7zg5ErNYtrmPL
Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-school-of-innovation/id1498420449

Have a guest recommendation or want to be on the show? Email [email protected]

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

John Carter worked directly with Dr. Amar Bose at MIT and later helped Apple design its product development process from the ground up. He shares what he learned from one of the great inventor-entrepreneurs of the 20th century — and how those lessons translate into practical advice for building better products faster.

About John Carter

John Carter is an innovation consultant, author, and board member at Cirrus Logic. He spent years working with Dr. Amar Bose at MIT and later helped Apple build a scalable product development process. He consults worldwide through his firm TCGen.

What We Cover

• What it was like working with Dr. Bose as a true apprentice
• How Dr. Bose approached radical focus — and what he refused to pay attention to
• How active noise cancellation was invented — and the unexpected selling point
• What Apple asked John to do — and why he refused to start with metrics
• Why context switching kills productivity in product development

Timestamps

(00:20) Introduction and John’s background
(02:00) How John became Dr. Bose’s teaching assistant
(08:00) Dr. Bose’s superpower: radical focus
(10:00) Building active noise cancellation
(19:00) John’s work with Apple: refusing to start with KPIs
(27:00) The cost of context switching

Key Takeaways

1. Focus is a skill — and a discipline. Dr. Bose worked on one problem at a time and hired for everything outside his focus.
2. Don’t buffer your innovators from customers. Direct user exposure reoriented Bose’s entire research program toward noise reduction.
3. Context switching has a real cost. Every time you pull someone off deep work, you lose more than the time — you lose the state of mind that made progress possible.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• TCGen — John Carter’s consulting firm
• Cirrus Logic

Where to Find John Carter

Website: tcgen.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johncarter-tcgen

Where to Find Yaniv Corem

Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow

Subscribe to The School of Innovation on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Have a guest recommendation? Email [email protected]

Luca Seletto is the Hub Manager for Enel Innovation Hub in Boston, part of a global network of innovation hubs run by Enel, one of the world's largest electricity operators. The network spans Israel, Russia, Spain, Italy, Chile, Brazil, and the US, with a focus on identifying and partnering with startups through commercial — not equity — collaboration.

What We Cover

• Why Enel chose commercial partnerships over venture capital investment
• How the Enel innovation hub network was built, starting in Israel
• What a hub manager actually does day-to-day
• How to identify and prioritize startup opportunities from across a global business
• The push vs. pull dynamic: scouting startups vs. being found by them
• How hub managers manage the handoff from ecosystem to business divisions

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction
02:11 – What Enel does and how the hub network works
04:13 – Why Enel doesn't invest in startups — and why that's a competitive advantage
07:54 – The startup perspective: why no equity is a feature, not a bug
09:50 – The global hub network: seven locations and counting
13:19 – The role of the hub manager: connector, scout, and translator
17:14 – How Enel prioritizes innovation needs across business units
21:48 – Push vs. pull: scouting startups vs. being found by them
29:00 – How COVID changed the hub's operations

Key Takeaways

1. Commercial partnerships beat equity for startup collaboration. Enel's decision to not take equity removes friction and competition concerns — and makes it a more attractive partner for startups and the VCs that back them.
2. A hub's real value is the relationships it maintains. With lean teams of one or two people per location, the hub's job is to build and maintain deep relationships with local ecosystems and connect them to the right business division at the right time.
3. Timing is everything. A great technology at the wrong moment gets killed. The hub manager's job includes knowing when — not just whether — to introduce a startup to a business unit.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Enel Open Innovability: openinnovability.enel.com

Where to Find Luca Seletto

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lucaseletto

Where to Find Yaniv Corem
Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The School of Innovation so you never miss a conversation.
Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5VOBVkueP7zg5ErNYtrmPL
Listen on Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-school-of-innovation/id1498420449

Have a guest recommendation or want to be on the show? Email [email protected]

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

In Part 2, Brian Tam goes deeper into what makes China's innovation ecosystem unique, what it means to act as a cultural bridge between East and West, and how crisis — including a global pandemic — can be used as a catalyst rather than a catastrophe.

About Brian Tam

Brian Tam is the founder of Let's Make Great, a creativity and innovation consultancy based in Shanghai. He works with multinationals across Asia on innovation workshops, design sprints, and strategy — helping organizations unlearn Western assumptions and find approaches that fit their markets.

What We Cover

• What makes innovation in China fundamentally different from the West
• Three drivers of Chinese innovation: centralized government, low-cost labor, practical culture
• How Brian acts as a cultural bridge for Western brands entering China
• Brian's favorite project: making the invisible visible for a client
• Why imagination and empathy are the most critical innovation skills
• Using COVID as a catalyst — not just a crisis — for transformation

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction
01:34 – China as a place to unlearn: forcing assumptions to the surface
03:46 – Three drivers of Chinese innovation
08:39 – The cultural bridge: Brian's role with multinational clients
12:14 – Brian's favorite project: making the invisible visible
19:30 – Crisis as a Rorschach test — and how to use it as a catalyst

Key Takeaways

1. China's innovation is driven by three unique forces. Centralized government, low-cost labor enabling massive scale, and a practical "make it work" culture that treats copying as a starting point — not an endpoint.
2. Making the invisible visible is the real innovation work. Brian's favorite project started with a client who had an idea about an idea. The breakthrough was a framework that gave shape to something formless.
3. Crisis is a Rorschach test. The pandemic revealed what every organization was really made of. If you want to use it as a catalyst, ask: what would you do if no one remembered what you did before?

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Let's Make Great: letsmakegreat.com

Where to Find Brian Tam

Email: [email protected]
Instagram & all platforms: @letsmakegreat

Where to Find Yaniv Corem

Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow

Subscribe to The School of Innovation on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Have a guest recommendation? Email [email protected]

Brian Tam moved to Shanghai in 2007 as an English teacher with no Chinese and no business plan. By 2013 he had launched Let's Make Great, a creativity and innovation consultancy. Part 1 covers the vision statement that opened his first client door, the scrappy model that kept costs near zero, and what it really takes to build something you've never seen done before.

About Brian Tam

Brian Tam is the founder of Let's Make Great, a creativity and innovation consultancy based in Shanghai. He has worked with multinationals including GE, HP, Decathlon, and NYU on innovation workshops, design sprints, and strategy across Asia.

What We Cover

• How Brian went from English teacher to innovation consultant in Shanghai
• The vision statement that opened his first client door
• Why starting from a business mindset — not a design mindset — was key
• How to build an agency with near-zero fixed costs
• What "the next 100 years of innovation in China" actually means
• How NYU became his first client through a single conversation

Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction
01:51 – Brian's background: New Jersey to Shanghai
06:07 – Starting with what you have: talk, think, train
09:47 – The mission: "the next 100 years of innovation in China"
12:12 – How NYU became the first client
19:34 – The zero fixed cost model

Key Takeaways

1. Start with a vision, not a product. Brian's vision opened his first client door before he had anything formal to sell. A compelling vision attracts the right people early.
2. Prototype your pitch through live conversation. Brian refined his vision statement by watching facial reactions in real time — noticing which phrases landed and repeating them. Your message is a product too.
3. Keep costs at zero until you know what you're building. No office, no salary, no fixed costs. Only freelancers willing to share risk and reward. That lean model is what allowed Let's Make Great to survive.

Resources & Links Mentioned

• Let's Make Great: letsmakegreat.com

Where to Find Brian Tam

Email: [email protected]
Instagram & all platforms: @letsmakegreat

Where to Find Yaniv Corem

Link in bio: sleek.bio/yanivcorem
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yanivcorem

Subscribe & Follow

Subscribe to The School of Innovation on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Have a guest recommendation? Email [email protected]