Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney - A Show About Ideas Creativity And Innovation

This week, we will continue the discussion on the FIRE framework and expound upon it. We will discuss a technology that will enable your FIRE framework, known as an Idea Management System (IMS). Idea Management System The Idea Management System supports everything from the focus, ideation, and ranking, to managing your funnel for the execution phase. I deployed my first IMS in 2008 while I was CTO at HP. Not known as IMS yet, we chose a particular platform back then. Every IMS system has its built-in assumptions as part of its basic platform. They have to work on enhancing their platforms due to competition continuously. If you have procured an IMS, are building one, or are integrating one with other systems, there are seven must-have features you need. The first feature is known as the ease of idea capture. This consists of getting all of your ideas captured and putting them into your IMS. The key here is to get every idea you have into this system. It is also important to track who came up with each idea for legal reasons. Support for Innovators The second feature is all about the support for your community of innovators. Especially critical for IMS because it brings all of your innovators together in a common system. It becomes a back and forth communication process between innovators. Most IMS systems don’t grasp the idea of bringing people together. People often take it as a passive process, observing but not engaging. A common feature needed is the ease of how you “plus an idea.” When someone creates an idea, you want other innovators to build on it. You want a way to communicate feedback on ideas as well. An IMS is also a great way to celebrate an idea, whether it got funding or ended up stopped. The next feature is to enable an open innovation opportunity. This feature consists of allowing people outside of your organization to contribute. It includes things like public competitions for the best idea and rewarded with a prize. Another feature that I am a big believer in is university joint ventures. These are opportunities where you fund PHDs or grad students who work in your focus research area. Workflow and Life Cycle The next feature on my list is what I call a flexible and powerful workflow. In many cases, designed enterprise applications have a particular philosophy in mind. While not intentional, they inherently create a step of workflows that enable the feature set within that IMS. In reality, you want an Idea Management System that adapts to you, not the other way around. It would help if you defined the workflow for your innovation framework and all the tools and processes you use to build upon it. When selecting your IMS, make sure you allow for the system to be easily updated. Next is a must-have feature; the management of the entire idea life cycle. Ideas get touched by many people and may get funded, stopped, or even resurrected in the future.  An example of managing the idea life cycle revolves around the selection. We talked about this on some previous shows on ranking. In your IMS, you want to capture the answers from the process of ranking. Years later, the scoring for these ideas could be completely different due to innovations. Protect and Recognize The next vital feature is protection or how you protect your catalog of ideas. This feature can be basic security and encryption, which is very important. In this case, however, I am talking about patents.

This week's show is a follow-up to the Execution show where I did a one minute intro to the Innovation Lean Canvas. If you haven't listened to that episode, make sure to click here. The innovation lean canvas is a structure that we teach in all of our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. It is an innovation plan that offers an overview of your best idea all in one place. The Innovation Lean Canvas The lean canvas replaces a typically created business plan. We print this out on a huge poster-sized paper and tack it to the wall in our workshops. It allows you to look at your best idea and the critical areas around it, all in one glance. Updated as you acquire more learnings, you'll be able to see these ideas and critical areas on the paper. I would encourage you to customize your lean canvas to your own organization's needs. Don't be afraid to try something different that fits you. Let's walk through my lean canvas so we can get a feel for it. Starting, we talk about the problem statement, and what makes this idea different. We discuss who the customers are and what the key metrics are. The steps and activities that are needed, as well as the resources needed, are discussed. With this framework, you get a perfect snapshot view of the problem, the solution, and how it all works. It helps you pinpoint areas that need work. Breaking Down the Lean Canvas The problem statement: you may have different variations of this, and you want to put them all on your lean canvas. Next, you want to discuss the solution. This statement is your idea that was ranked the highest, and you and your team feel it is ready to go forward. Now, you want to define who the customers are and discuss their personas. Everything must be crystal clear, and if not, you may need to investigate and validate the customer segment. Next is the unique value proposition. Why is the customer going to find value in this? Why is it going to be unique compared to what is already out there? It would be best if you define why your idea is better and why the customers will want it. The problem, the solution, and the customer are tightly linked and foundational to execution. You have to be able to answer these areas. At this point, you need to define some key metrics. What are the criteria for success? What constitutes you're making progress? An example of this would be asking five questions to twenty-five customers and bringing those answers back. The questions get tied to the key activities. The activities would be preparing the survey of questions for the customers to answer. Unfair Advantage I challenge you to spend some time thinking about improving your idea to create a sustainable advantage. Once you launch, you will have many copycats if you don't have a barrier to entry. The fast rise of copycats is due to low-cost manufacturing. It would be best if you found a way to have an unfair advantage that is defensive. Patents are costly, averaging around $30,000-$35,000, including the legal work and working with the patent office. There are other ways for you to create barriers to entry, such as trade secrets. You need to find out what resources you need. Find resources in technologies, expertise, access to a sales channel, etc. You will have to pitch your idea, so you need to be crystal clear on what resources you will need to make it happen. Next, focus on funding requirements and costs. When most people

This week's show is a follow-up to the Execution show where I did a one minute intro to the Innovation Lean Canvas. If you haven't listened to that episode, make sure to click here. The innovation lean canvas is a structure that we teach in all of our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. It is an innovation plan that offers an overview of your best idea all in one place. The Innovation Lean Canvas The lean canvas replaces a typically created business plan. We print this out on a huge poster-sized paper and tack it to the wall in our workshops. It allows you to look at your best idea and the critical areas around it, all in one glance. Updated as you acquire more learnings, you'll be able to see these ideas and critical areas on the paper. I would encourage you to customize your lean canvas to your own organization's needs. Don't be afraid to try something different that fits you. Let's walk through my lean canvas so we can get a feel for it. Starting, we talk about the problem statement, and what makes this idea different. We discuss who the customers are and what the key metrics are. The steps and activities that are needed, as well as the resources needed, are discussed. With this framework, you get a perfect snapshot view of the problem, the solution, and how it all works. It helps you pinpoint areas that need work. Breaking Down the Lean Canvas The problem statement: you may have different variations of this, and you want to put them all on your lean canvas. Next, you want to discuss the solution. This statement is your idea that was ranked the highest, and you and your team feel it is ready to go forward. Now, you want to define who the customers are and discuss their personas. Everything must be crystal clear, and if not, you may need to investigate and validate the customer segment. Next is the unique value proposition. Why is the customer going to find value in this? Why is it going to be unique compared to what is already out there? It would be best if you define why your idea is better and why the customers will want it. The problem, the solution, and the customer are tightly linked and foundational to execution. You have to be able to answer these areas. At this point, you need to define some key metrics. What are the criteria for success? What constitutes you're making progress? An example of this would be asking five questions to twenty-five customers and bringing those answers back. The questions get tied to the key activities. The activities would be preparing the survey of questions for the customers to answer. Unfair Advantage I challenge you to spend some time thinking about improving your idea to create a sustainable advantage. Once you launch, you will have many copycats if you don't have a barrier to entry. The fast rise of copycats is due to low-cost manufacturing. It would be best if you found a way to have an unfair advantage that is defensive. Patents are costly, averaging around $30,000-$35,000, including the legal work and working with the patent office. There are other ways for you to create barriers to entry, such as trade secrets. You need to find out what resources you need. Find resources in technologies, expertise, access to a sales channel, etc. You will have to pitch your idea, so you need to be crystal clear on what resources you will need to make it happen. Next, focus on funding requirements and costs. When most people

On this week's show, we will wrap up the series of shows on the innovation framework known as FIRE. We will discuss the part of the innovation framework known as execution. Execution is composed of making your best ideas into something real. Execution I have used the FIRE (Focus, Ideation, Ranking, Execution) framework for more than 20 years, and thousands of organizations use it. Focus is defining where your problem area is. Ideation is the process of creating ideas to address your problem areas. The process consists of individual and team ideation, which, when combined, generates 30% more ideas than when done individually. Ranking is where you prioritize your ideas. This process is through dot/wow voting and criteria ranking. Execution, the last element of the FIRE framework,  is how one turns ideas into innovation. Done through two phases; it involves testing and validation and launching the MVP (Minimum viable product). Execution is not easy. 92% of CEOs say innovation is critical to their organization, but only 35% of them have confidence in executing these ideas. What to Expect In my opinion, innovation consists of ideas made real. One quote I repeat all the time is, “ideas without execution are a hobby, and I'm not in the hobby business.” At this point, you've ranked your ideas, but need to figure out how to make these ideas a real innovation. Going into this, you won't know all of the answers. Expect a very messy process because there might not be a clear path from point A to point B. It would help if you were adaptable and ready to learn things. It would be best if you innovated around the idea frequently. Be ok with an unexpected outcome, as it is an experiment. Innovation projects have to be measured differently than a typical product development project. One of the measurements of success is learning throughout the process. Stay away from innovation antibodies. Innovation causes conflict, prompting these antibodies to come out. These include ego response (stepping on someone's toes), fatigue (people who have tried and failed at it before), no risk response (CFO or legal counsel), comfort response (we don't need to change). Steps of Execution The first step to making an idea real is creating the pitch. The pitch is your way to tell the story around your idea, also known as strategic storytelling. The key is to tell your idea's story so that they see what life will be like when your idea is delivered. The second step is to create the funnel. There are four funnel gates: market validation, customer validation, limited launch, and global launch. The key here is to convey the point that not all the ideas will go forward. Market validation is where you ask if the problem exists. One way to do this is through gorilla idea validation. Talk to people you don't know to get brutally honest feedback rather than people you know, who might tell you what you want to hear. Customer validation is where you see if your idea solves the customer's problem. I use the Michelle test. I would take a product we built at HP and bring it home and leave it on the counter for my wife. She would take it out of the box and use it, giving it her honest evaluation. My wife is not a technology person to receive some solid feedback from a different perspective. A limited launch is where you launch in a limited space. I use the buy test to build a product and advertise it, putting it into retail stores like a real launch. When people try to buy it,

On this week's show, we will wrap up the series of shows on the innovation framework known as FIRE. We will discuss the part of the innovation framework known as execution. Execution is composed of making your best ideas into something real. Execution I have used the FIRE (Focus, Ideation, Ranking, Execution) framework for more than 20 years, and thousands of organizations use it. Focus is defining where your problem area is. Ideation is the process of creating ideas to address your problem areas. The process consists of individual and team ideation, which, when combined, generates 30% more ideas than when done individually. Ranking is where you prioritize your ideas. This process is through dot/wow voting and criteria ranking. Execution, the last element of the FIRE framework,  is how one turns ideas into innovation. Done through two phases; it involves testing and validation and launching the MVP (Minimum viable product). Execution is not easy. 92% of CEOs say innovation is critical to their organization, but only 35% of them have confidence in executing these ideas. What to Expect In my opinion, innovation consists of ideas made real. One quote I repeat all the time is, “ideas without execution are a hobby, and I'm not in the hobby business.” At this point, you've ranked your ideas, but need to figure out how to make these ideas a real innovation. Going into this, you won't know all of the answers. Expect a very messy process because there might not be a clear path from point A to point B. It would help if you were adaptable and ready to learn things. It would be best if you innovated around the idea frequently. Be ok with an unexpected outcome, as it is an experiment. Innovation projects have to be measured differently than a typical product development project. One of the measurements of success is learning throughout the process. Stay away from innovation antibodies. Innovation causes conflict, prompting these antibodies to come out. These include ego response (stepping on someone's toes), fatigue (people who have tried and failed at it before), no risk response (CFO or legal counsel), comfort response (we don't need to change). Steps of Execution The first step to making an idea real is creating the pitch. The pitch is your way to tell the story around your idea, also known as strategic storytelling. The key is to tell your idea's story so that they see what life will be like when your idea is delivered. The second step is to create the funnel. There are four funnel gates: market validation, customer validation, limited launch, and global launch. The key here is to convey the point that not all the ideas will go forward. Market validation is where you ask if the problem exists. One way to do this is through gorilla idea validation. Talk to people you don't know to get brutally honest feedback rather than people you know, who might tell you what you want to hear. Customer validation is where you see if your idea solves the customer's problem. I use the Michelle test. I would take a product we built at HP and bring it home and leave it on the counter for my wife. She would take it out of the box and use it, giving it her honest evaluation. My wife is not a technology person to receive some solid feedback from a different perspective. A limited launch is where you launch in a limited space. I use the buy test to build a product and advertise it, putting it into retail stores like a real launch. When people try to buy it,

This week's show is a continuation of the series I've done on the innovation framework FIRE. We have discussed focus and ideation in previous shows. We will discuss the part of the innovation framework known as ranking, which helps you prioritize the best ideas you or your team generate. Ranking Innovation is about challenging an industry's assumptions, questioning what we think we know about our customers, and being open to new ideas. When it comes to the framework, it is not the process. Instead, it defines the elements that you need to structure your process around. We use the FIRE framework. The focus area has to be defined or come up with ideas that aren't impactful. Next is ideation, which is generating ideas. Ideation establishes the framework, and you can use whatever process you want to generate those ideas. The use of ranking is for identifying the best ideas out of the group. Ideas without execution are a hobby, and we are not in the hobby business. So why is ranking so important? Let's say management asks your team to come up with some new ideas. You write some things down on a flip chart, and someone types them up and emails them out. Typically, this method results in nothing, as there are too many broad ideas. Ranking helps you find the best ideas and zeroes you in on them. Ranking Selection Process The purpose of ranking is to identify the best ideas to execute and move forward. The first key to ranking is leveraging the wisdom of the crowd. First, make sure to select a diverse group of people who have had different experiences. I have my teams ideate and rank at the same time. I have found that you get the best results with a minimum of eight people. The key to ranking is to avoid bias by eliminating executive influence. Vote unanimously. There are two types of ranking: dot voting (where you put a dot on the idea you think is most important), and criteria ranking (defined set of selection questions with some scoring structure). Dot voting is done within fifteen minutes and without talking. Each person gets four dots and places them wherever and however they want. Select the four to five ideas with the most dots and move forward with them. Criteria Ranking The first part of criteria ranking is to define the criteria. Firstly, you need to find the must-have elements of your idea. One way to do this is to look back on your products or services that were successful. Think about what questions you would have asked yourself to give you the ideas that led you to that successful product or idea. Secondly, you need to ask what elements your leadership team is going to look at. Your leadership team is going to be part of this, so you need to meet their criteria. It needs to be constrained and structured the right way with a small number of questions (4-6). I use five questions: the first three are the must-haves for the product's success, and the bottom two are the questions that leadership will use to constitute success. * Question 1: Does this idea improve customer experience or expectations? Does it solve a problem, save money, create money, etc.? * Question 2: Does it fundamentally change the companies place competitively in the market? * Question 3: Does this idea radically change the economic structure of the industry? You'll rarely have an idea that is a “yes” for all three. * Question 4: Does your company have a contribution to make? * Question 5: Will the idea generate a sufficient...

This week's show is a continuation of the series I've done on the innovation framework FIRE. We have discussed focus and ideation in previous shows. We will discuss the part of the innovation framework known as ranking, which helps you prioritize the best ideas you or your team generate. Ranking Innovation is about challenging an industry's assumptions, questioning what we think we know about our customers, and being open to new ideas. When it comes to the framework, it is not the process. Instead, it defines the elements that you need to structure your process around. We use the FIRE framework. The focus area has to be defined or come up with ideas that aren't impactful. Next is ideation, which is generating ideas. Ideation establishes the framework, and you can use whatever process you want to generate those ideas. The use of ranking is for identifying the best ideas out of the group. Ideas without execution are a hobby, and we are not in the hobby business. So why is ranking so important? Let's say management asks your team to come up with some new ideas. You write some things down on a flip chart, and someone types them up and emails them out. Typically, this method results in nothing, as there are too many broad ideas. Ranking helps you find the best ideas and zeroes you in on them. Ranking Selection Process The purpose of ranking is to identify the best ideas to execute and move forward. The first key to ranking is leveraging the wisdom of the crowd. First, make sure to select a diverse group of people who have had different experiences. I have my teams ideate and rank at the same time. I have found that you get the best results with a minimum of eight people. The key to ranking is to avoid bias by eliminating executive influence. Vote unanimously. There are two types of ranking: dot voting (where you put a dot on the idea you think is most important), and criteria ranking (defined set of selection questions with some scoring structure). Dot voting is done within fifteen minutes and without talking. Each person gets four dots and places them wherever and however they want. Select the four to five ideas with the most dots and move forward with them. Criteria Ranking The first part of criteria ranking is to define the criteria. Firstly, you need to find the must-have elements of your idea. One way to do this is to look back on your products or services that were successful. Think about what questions you would have asked yourself to give you the ideas that led you to that successful product or idea. Secondly, you need to ask what elements your leadership team is going to look at. Your leadership team is going to be part of this, so you need to meet their criteria. It needs to be constrained and structured the right way with a small number of questions (4-6). I use five questions: the first three are the must-haves for the product's success, and the bottom two are the questions that leadership will use to constitute success. * Question 1: Does this idea improve customer experience or expectations? Does it solve a problem, save money, create money, etc.? * Question 2: Does it fundamentally change the companies place competitively in the market? * Question 3: Does this idea radically change the economic structure of the industry? You'll rarely have an idea that is a “yes” for all three. * Question 4: Does your company have a contribution to make? * Question 5: Will the idea generate a sufficient...

This week’s guest is also an innovation guru, and has been around for years. Jeff DeGraff, known as the “Dean of Innovation,” is a business professor at the University of Michigan, He is an author and a respected thought leader on innovation. We will discuss social responsibility and his new book, “The Creative Mindset.” Jeff’s Background After graduating from grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jeff met a man who worked for someone who owned a twenty-million-dollar pizza company— Domino’s. He turned down a job offer from an Ivy League school to join the team. Five years later, they sold the company for five-billion-dollars to Mitt Romney. Not long after, Jeff was recruited to teach at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He didn’t want to teach MBAs because he thought they were dull and drab, but that is why they wanted him there. Two Faces of Innovation Innovation creates concave value or things that are presently manifesting and convex value—long-term issues. These types have to be measured entirely differently. People tend to think about innovation from the tangible side of it. In places like Iowa State, they have substantial innovation impacts, but no one sees them because they are research influence-based and not tangible products. Consumers tend to see only the result. When it comes to a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S, many different startups and big pharmaceutical companies have been working and building off of old research to create one. They have to figure out how to make billions of doses of the vaccine once completed. It’s a lot more complicated than people think it is. Big innovation is composed of a lot of moving parts. The Creative Mindset Jeff grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood and in an age of innovation viewed as a social responsibility. There are many creativity books out there nowadays. They are what Jeff calls “new age-y.” In his book, he took what he thought was the real research on creativity and put it in layman’s terms for everyone to use. The Creative Mindset focuses on taking ordinary things and making them extraordinary. Jeff wants to re-install the old way of building things through developing learning and trying new things. He uses what he calls the six skills through the mnemonic device CREATE (Clarify, Replicate, Elaborate, Associate, Translate, and Evaluate). The book gives tools in a simplified form to somebody trying to grow and make something better. I got invited to do a keynote speech for Vail Resorts several years ago. With a raise of hands, I asked how many people think of themselves as creative. It was quite a shock to see that many people didn’t raise their hands. People think it takes a select type of person to be creative, which is not true. We all have natural strengths that vary from person to person. The object is to recognize your strength, build on it, and find other people with different strengths. Advice for the Listeners People refer to Jeff as the “Dean of Innovation.” When he went to work at Domino’s, people often threw challenging problems at him. When he got to the University of Michigan, some of his students went on to be famous. The name stuck. As far as advice goes, Jeff says that innovation happens from the outside-in, like a bell curve. Its easier to change 20% of the company’s 80% than changing 80% of its 20%. Secondly, diversity your gene pool. All the people in Jeff’s labs are different than him. Thirdly,

This week’s guest is also an innovation guru, and has been around for years. Jeff DeGraff, known as the “Dean of Innovation,” is a business professor at the University of Michigan, He is an author and a respected thought leader on innovation. We will discuss social responsibility and his new book, “The Creative Mindset.” Jeff’s Background After graduating from grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jeff met a man who worked for someone who owned a twenty-million-dollar pizza company— Domino’s. He turned down a job offer from an Ivy League school to join the team. Five years later, they sold the company for five-billion-dollars to Mitt Romney. Not long after, Jeff was recruited to teach at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He didn’t want to teach MBAs because he thought they were dull and drab, but that is why they wanted him there. Two Faces of Innovation Innovation creates concave value or things that are presently manifesting and convex value—long-term issues. These types have to be measured entirely differently. People tend to think about innovation from the tangible side of it. In places like Iowa State, they have substantial innovation impacts, but no one sees them because they are research influence-based and not tangible products. Consumers tend to see only the result. When it comes to a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S, many different startups and big pharmaceutical companies have been working and building off of old research to create one. They have to figure out how to make billions of doses of the vaccine once completed. It’s a lot more complicated than people think it is. Big innovation is composed of a lot of moving parts. The Creative Mindset Jeff grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood and in an age of innovation viewed as a social responsibility. There are many creativity books out there nowadays. They are what Jeff calls “new age-y.” In his book, he took what he thought was the real research on creativity and put it in layman’s terms for everyone to use. The Creative Mindset focuses on taking ordinary things and making them extraordinary. Jeff wants to re-install the old way of building things through developing learning and trying new things. He uses what he calls the six skills through the mnemonic device CREATE (Clarify, Replicate, Elaborate, Associate, Translate, and Evaluate). The book gives tools in a simplified form to somebody trying to grow and make something better. I got invited to do a keynote speech for Vail Resorts several years ago. With a raise of hands, I asked how many people think of themselves as creative. It was quite a shock to see that many people didn’t raise their hands. People think it takes a select type of person to be creative, which is not true. We all have natural strengths that vary from person to person. The object is to recognize your strength, build on it, and find other people with different strengths. Advice for the Listeners People refer to Jeff as the “Dean of Innovation.” When he went to work at Domino’s, people often threw challenging problems at him. When he got to the University of Michigan, some of his students went on to be famous. The name stuck. As far as advice goes, Jeff says that innovation happens from the outside-in, like a bell curve. Its easier to change 20% of the company’s 80% than changing 80% of its 20%. Secondly, diversity your gene pool. All the people in Jeff’s labs are different than him. Thirdly,

Our guest this week comes from a similar industry as mine. We share many mutual connections. Mo Katibeh, the EVP-Chief Product & Platform Officer of AT&T Business, joins us to discuss 5G innovations. He's on the show to discuss about what is real versus what is hype when it comes to innovation in 5G capabilities, as well as give some advice for the listeners. Mo's Background Mo's parents left Iran right before the revolution in 1978 and came to the U.K. He moved to the U.S in 1991, where his parents bought and ran some sandwich stores. From the age of 13, he was working at the stores and learned about working with customers. Fast forward to today, Mo has been with AT&T for almost nineteen years. He loves AT&T because of how diverse they are with what they do. You can do something different every single year, and you are always learning new things. For Mo, that has included managing call centers, construction, and engineering, building up the LTE network, financial planning, product management for cybersecurity, marketing, etc. Similar to Mo, my employment started at a young age. My mom managed a bowling alley and was a professional bowler. I worked at the alley often. It was great to see what working was about at such a young age, and I gained great experience. Always heavily invested in innovation, AT&T has an astounding legacy. They were one of the first companies in the world to put a lot of work into a corporate research group/fundamental science outside of product development. They pioneered these processes for the sake of advancing the knowledge of humankind. AT&T and COVID-19 Voice, arguably the oldest innovation when thinking about communications network, experienced skyrocketing growth due to COVID-19. Peak use days are usually holidays such as Mother's Day or New Years' Eve. During the beginning of COVID, that level of network usage was seen every day across the country. Humans are social beings naturally, so when you're sheltering in place, you tend to get lonely. Work also shifted from central to distributed locations, which added to the high level of network usage. When the movement started in China, AT&T was able to get a heads up on what was coming before it shifted into Europe and the U.S. They were able to prepare and work with their large enterprise customers to help with the oncoming challenges of COVID. Innovation in 5G When people think about innovation in 5G, they often think of speed. Speed is a part of it, but when thinking about it from an innovation and business lens, it's essential to look at the other capabilities. The first one is latency or how quickly the network responds to a command. One promise of 5G is driving down latency from hundredths of milliseconds to sub-ten milliseconds. Another key promise is massive connectivity, where you can connect a million things per access point. This technology will genuinely reshape the fabric of this next decade. Many people think about innovation as that next big thing but often done in incremental steps. When it comes to 5G, there has been a lot of “hype” around it. In healthcare, a robot doing surgery on someone would be hype because it is far in the future. What is available now is moving around large files more effectively from an MRI machine to a doctor using a cellular connection. In a post-COVID world, there are things like connected medicine boxes that track what medicine was used and recognizes the doctor using 4K video computer vision. Kids hate wearing medical bracelets at hospitals and like to take them off. 5G brings an IoT bracelet that offers peace of mind to the parent and has different fun designs.

Our guest this week comes from a similar industry as mine. We share many mutual connections. Mo Katibeh, the EVP-Chief Product & Platform Officer of AT&T Business, joins us to discuss 5G innovations. He's on the show to discuss about what is real versus what is hype when it comes to innovation in 5G capabilities, as well as give some advice for the listeners. Mo's Background Mo's parents left Iran right before the revolution in 1978 and came to the U.K. He moved to the U.S in 1991, where his parents bought and ran some sandwich stores. From the age of 13, he was working at the stores and learned about working with customers. Fast forward to today, Mo has been with AT&T for almost nineteen years. He loves AT&T because of how diverse they are with what they do. You can do something different every single year, and you are always learning new things. For Mo, that has included managing call centers, construction, and engineering, building up the LTE network, financial planning, product management for cybersecurity, marketing, etc. Similar to Mo, my employment started at a young age. My mom managed a bowling alley and was a professional bowler. I worked at the alley often. It was great to see what working was about at such a young age, and I gained great experience. Always heavily invested in innovation, AT&T has an astounding legacy. They were one of the first companies in the world to put a lot of work into a corporate research group/fundamental science outside of product development. They pioneered these processes for the sake of advancing the knowledge of humankind. AT&T and COVID-19 Voice, arguably the oldest innovation when thinking about communications network, experienced skyrocketing growth due to COVID-19. Peak use days are usually holidays such as Mother's Day or New Years' Eve. During the beginning of COVID, that level of network usage was seen every day across the country. Humans are social beings naturally, so when you're sheltering in place, you tend to get lonely. Work also shifted from central to distributed locations, which added to the high level of network usage. When the movement started in China, AT&T was able to get a heads up on what was coming before it shifted into Europe and the U.S. They were able to prepare and work with their large enterprise customers to help with the oncoming challenges of COVID. Innovation in 5G When people think about innovation in 5G, they often think of speed. Speed is a part of it, but when thinking about it from an innovation and business lens, it's essential to look at the other capabilities. The first one is latency or how quickly the network responds to a command. One promise of 5G is driving down latency from hundredths of milliseconds to sub-ten milliseconds. Another key promise is massive connectivity, where you can connect a million things per access point. This technology will genuinely reshape the fabric of this next decade. Many people think about innovation as that next big thing but often done in incremental steps. When it comes to 5G, there has been a lot of “hype” around it. In healthcare, a robot doing surgery on someone would be hype because it is far in the future. What is available now is moving around large files more effectively from an MRI machine to a doctor using a cellular connection. In a post-COVID world, there are things like connected medicine boxes that track what medicine was used and recognizes the doctor using 4K video computer vision. Kids hate wearing medical bracelets at hospitals and like to take them off. 5G brings an IoT bracelet that offers peace of mind to the parent and has different fun designs.

This week’s show covers an area that is critical to your innovation success. Ideation is the act of generating ideas, which is part of the FIRE (Focus, Ideation, Ranking, Execution) framework that we use to help discover ideas and lead to disruptive innovations.We will break down FIRE and discuss ideation and the process of our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. FIRE In the past, we have covered the four elements of the innovation framework, consisting of focus, ideation, ranking, and execution. Focus is the area that you set up processes and ways of collecting info that identifies problem areas. Ideation is where you create a funnel of ideas and collect them. The Ranking is where you take this collection and score the ideas based on their impact and importance. Execution is where you take the best ideas and experiment to see what your outcome can be. FIRE is a framework that is used by many organizations that tailor it to their specific wants and needs. We will discuss the ideation aspect of FIRE. Ideation Ideation needs to consist of a type of idea that is being targeted. There are killer ideas, which are breakthroughs and create an advantage that makes the entire marketplace react. These are giant leaps forward and will shock the existing market. Incremental ideas are improvements in product quality, new features, etc., and happen over time. You need to be clear with your team where your focus will be on the type of idea. I like to use tools that help trigger ideas. We use the Killer Questions Card Deck that focuses on questions based on the who (customer), the what (innovating product), and the how (organizational transitions that need to be made). Think about the questions you want to ask in ideation activities. You need to prepare for this and come to it from multiple different angles. There is feature versus function ideation. An example of a feature is to design a better cup. An example of a function is to design a better way to carry liquids. It would be best if you focus on coming up with complete ideas. Ideation Workshop Process Let’s walk through the exact process I take people through during our ideation workshops. Firstly, we start with individual ideation. We use sticky notes and put one idea on each sticky note. We spend about twenty minutes working on this, and you want to get 20 good ideas. Next, we use a process called SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse). Search SCAMPER under Google for more info or check it out on Killerinnovations.com. At this point, it is still an individual activity. Done for about ten minutes, you will want to come up with five more ideas here. Now, you take your twenty-five ideas and briefly explain them to everyone else in your group or team. If there are two similar ideas, clump them together. If someone’s idea triggers a new idea, add it to the group of ideas. Now we move on to team ideation. One at a time, someone chooses another’s idea that they think is important and exciting. Then, they build upon that person’s idea and help improve it. The process should be done quickly and without any form of criticism. Conclusion At this point, you should have a collection of good ideas grouped by similarity. When you combine a tool like SCAMPER (individual ideation) with team ideation, you will generate around 30% more ideas out of your ideation- as compared to doing team ideation and individual ideation separately.

This week’s show covers an area that is critical to your innovation success. Ideation is the act of generating ideas, which is part of the FIRE (Focus, Ideation, Ranking, Execution) framework that we use to help discover ideas and lead to disruptive innovations.We will break down FIRE and discuss ideation and the process of our Disruptive Ideation Workshops. FIRE In the past, we have covered the four elements of the innovation framework, consisting of focus, ideation, ranking, and execution. Focus is the area that you set up processes and ways of collecting info that identifies problem areas. Ideation is where you create a funnel of ideas and collect them. The Ranking is where you take this collection and score the ideas based on their impact and importance. Execution is where you take the best ideas and experiment to see what your outcome can be. FIRE is a framework that is used by many organizations that tailor it to their specific wants and needs. We will discuss the ideation aspect of FIRE. Ideation Ideation needs to consist of a type of idea that is being targeted. There are killer ideas, which are breakthroughs and create an advantage that makes the entire marketplace react. These are giant leaps forward and will shock the existing market. Incremental ideas are improvements in product quality, new features, etc., and happen over time. You need to be clear with your team where your focus will be on the type of idea. I like to use tools that help trigger ideas. We use the Killer Questions Card Deck that focuses on questions based on the who (customer), the what (innovating product), and the how (organizational transitions that need to be made). Think about the questions you want to ask in ideation activities. You need to prepare for this and come to it from multiple different angles. There is feature versus function ideation. An example of a feature is to design a better cup. An example of a function is to design a better way to carry liquids. It would be best if you focus on coming up with complete ideas. Ideation Workshop Process Let’s walk through the exact process I take people through during our ideation workshops. Firstly, we start with individual ideation. We use sticky notes and put one idea on each sticky note. We spend about twenty minutes working on this, and you want to get 20 good ideas. Next, we use a process called SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse). Search SCAMPER under Google for more info or check it out on Killerinnovations.com. At this point, it is still an individual activity. Done for about ten minutes, you will want to come up with five more ideas here. Now, you take your twenty-five ideas and briefly explain them to everyone else in your group or team. If there are two similar ideas, clump them together. If someone’s idea triggers a new idea, add it to the group of ideas. Now we move on to team ideation. One at a time, someone chooses another’s idea that they think is important and exciting. Then, they build upon that person’s idea and help improve it. The process should be done quickly and without any form of criticism. Conclusion At this point, you should have a collection of good ideas grouped by similarity. When you combine a tool like SCAMPER (individual ideation) with team ideation, you will generate around 30% more ideas out of your ideation- as compared to doing team ideation and individual ideation separately.

This week’s guest offers some excellent knowledge about productivity and having your priorities in place. Steve Glaveski, CEO and Co-Founder of Collective Campus, joins us to discuss prioritizing high-value work. We talk about his view of the 6-hour workday, and how it helps to better innovation. Steve’s Background Steve went through the motions of getting his degree and climbing the corporate ladder, chasing what society associates with success. He worked for companies such as KPMG and Ernst and Young and found himself miserably comfortable while in his late twenties. Despite reaching these levels of success, but Steve felt it wasn’t doing what he was called to do. He decided to give it all away and pursue entrepreneurship, which led him to co-found Collective Campus, launch other ventures, and write multiple books. The inspiration behind the work he does is helping organizations and people unlock their potential to create an impact in the world and lead more fulfilling lives. One of his ventures is a company called Lemonade Stand that donates a license to children from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas for every license they sell to the developed world. It works as a software service platform that walks kids aged 10-15 through the entrepreneurial life cycle. When it comes to licenses, they work with schools, governments, and individuals. The 6-hour workday Steve has a lot on his plate with all the ventures he runs. People often say you can’t do more than one thing if you want to do it well. According to Steve, it is based on how you go about doing things. If you are intentional about getting rid of unnecessary tasks and focus on the high-value work, you will get a lot done and innovate better. Steve reflects monthly and quarterly on how he spends his time, whether it’s his daily tasks or when he’s working on products. A couple of years ago, Steve and his team ran a 6-hour workday experiment to get more done in less time. The shorter timeframe forced them to do away with meetings/outsource and focus on the high-value work. After the experiment, they discovered that productivity was the same if not higher. People had more time to do things outside of the office. Time Rich: Do Your Best Work, Live Your Best Life Steve’s book is about changing the 8-hour workday. This workday traces back to the last eighty years or so and has acted as a baseline. As the recent times, the nature of work has changed. Work has shifted to more of a cognitive work over purely physical work. A recent study on scientists found that the ones who worked 20 hours a week were twice as productive as their peers who worked 35 hours a week. Even less productive were the scientists who worked 60 hours a week. You might think more hours equals more output, but in reality, you aren’t able to recover and recharge to innovate better. There are many distractions these days, such as social media, which tends to distract us and hinder our productivity. At CableLabs, we have an unlimited vacation policy for our staff. With this option, people can manage their own time and schedules, so they don’t get burned out and lose focus. Advice for the Listeners Money can always be earned back after it gets spent, but time cannot. When you say yes to something, you are saying no to a whole lot of other things. We need to be frugal with how we spend our time. A lot of people say yes to everything which causes them problems. The key to saying no is based on what you truly value and what your goals are.

This week’s guest offers some excellent knowledge about productivity and having your priorities in place. Steve Glaveski, CEO and Co-Founder of Collective Campus, joins us to discuss prioritizing high-value work. We talk about his view of the 6-hour workday, and how it helps to better innovation. Steve’s Background Steve went through the motions of getting his degree and climbing the corporate ladder, chasing what society associates with success. He worked for companies such as KPMG and Ernst and Young and found himself miserably comfortable while in his late twenties. Despite reaching these levels of success, but Steve felt it wasn’t doing what he was called to do. He decided to give it all away and pursue entrepreneurship, which led him to co-found Collective Campus, launch other ventures, and write multiple books. The inspiration behind the work he does is helping organizations and people unlock their potential to create an impact in the world and lead more fulfilling lives. One of his ventures is a company called Lemonade Stand that donates a license to children from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas for every license they sell to the developed world. It works as a software service platform that walks kids aged 10-15 through the entrepreneurial life cycle. When it comes to licenses, they work with schools, governments, and individuals. The 6-hour workday Steve has a lot on his plate with all the ventures he runs. People often say you can’t do more than one thing if you want to do it well. According to Steve, it is based on how you go about doing things. If you are intentional about getting rid of unnecessary tasks and focus on the high-value work, you will get a lot done and innovate better. Steve reflects monthly and quarterly on how he spends his time, whether it’s his daily tasks or when he’s working on products. A couple of years ago, Steve and his team ran a 6-hour workday experiment to get more done in less time. The shorter timeframe forced them to do away with meetings/outsource and focus on the high-value work. After the experiment, they discovered that productivity was the same if not higher. People had more time to do things outside of the office. Time Rich: Do Your Best Work, Live Your Best Life Steve’s book is about changing the 8-hour workday. This workday traces back to the last eighty years or so and has acted as a baseline. As the recent times, the nature of work has changed. Work has shifted to more of a cognitive work over purely physical work. A recent study on scientists found that the ones who worked 20 hours a week were twice as productive as their peers who worked 35 hours a week. Even less productive were the scientists who worked 60 hours a week. You might think more hours equals more output, but in reality, you aren’t able to recover and recharge to innovate better. There are many distractions these days, such as social media, which tends to distract us and hinder our productivity. At CableLabs, we have an unlimited vacation policy for our staff. With this option, people can manage their own time and schedules, so they don’t get burned out and lose focus. Advice for the Listeners Money can always be earned back after it gets spent, but time cannot. When you say yes to something, you are saying no to a whole lot of other things. We need to be frugal with how we spend our time. A lot of people say yes to everything which causes them problems. The key to saying no is based on what you truly value and what your goals are.