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

What do you do if you have that next great idea but don't have the technical skill to turn it into that next breakthrough innovation? Would you even know how to interview and qualify a person to take on your idea? Many will turn to their network of friends and family or to one of the hundreds of technical out-sourced companies. There needs to be a better way. How do you find top talent? This weeks guest is Breanden Beneschott, co-founder of Toptal. Toptal finds and qualifies the absolute best technical talent (e.g. software engineers, user interface designers, etc) so that their clients can be assured they always get the “A” team. Topics we covered this week include: * Breanden's experience as a contract software engineer while going to school * His challenge in scaling an engineer team for one of his first companies * What was the aha moment that led to Toptal being launched? * Why do only 1% of those that apply to Toptal qualify to become part of the network? * What are the three most common reasons someone doesn't meet the Toptal criteria? * What should an organization have in place in order to benefit from outsources resources? * What is the process for an innovator to go from idea to innovation using outsourced resources? About Breanden Beneschott: Breanden has been an engineer, founder, CTO, and consultant in industries ranging from aerospace to financial services to high tech. As a Toptal co-founder, Breanden frequently writes about scaling a hyper-growth and distributed company, and he has been featured on the blog of Tim Ferriss, The Huffington Post, and many others. Having been on both sides of the hiring equation as an engineer and team lead, Breanden combines his technical expertise and management experience to ensure that clients, developers, and team members at Toptal continually strive for excellence as the company rapidly scales. Show Links: * Breandon Beneschott on LinkedIn * Breanden Beneschott on Quora * Toptal on Wikipedia * Toptal site Note: Since this show was broadcast, Toptal has become a sponsor for the Killer Innovations show and has created a special offer for listeners.  Killer Innovations listeners will receive a no-risk trial period of up to 2 weeks on Toptal talent. If at the end of the trial period you are not 100% satisfied, you will not be billed and you can even keep any work completed during the trial. Listen to this week's show, How To Find The Top Talent For Your Next Innovation S12 Ep4

One of the more common questions asked by innovators is about patents and trademarks. For some reason, many innovators focus on patents believing that they need one to secure funding and/or support for their idea. That somehow a patent validates novelty. Given the average cost to secure a patent ($20,000 to $30,000 USD), how should you compare/think about funding a patent and/or a trademark? In this weeks show, we have Andrei Mencov the founder and CEO of Trademark Factory to share his expertise in trademarks and why they are important for innovators to think about when launching their new idea. Topics covered in this weeks show include: * How did you get interested in intellectual property? * What was the driver for you to come to Canada? * Why do so many entrepreneurs/innovators overlook trademarks? * How should someone look at the importance of a trademark? * If someone has limited funds and can only fund one, should it be a patent or a trademark? * What drove you to give up being a lawyer to become an entrepreneur? About Andrei Mencov: Andrea began my legal career more than 20 years ago when his father, a well-known composer, asked him to help protect his copyrights. While he was still in law school, he successfully represented him in a lawsuit against a radio station that used his music in an advertisement without his permission.  In 2007, he moved his family from Russia to Canada and after 3 more years of law school, he received his Canadian license to practice law and became a registered trademark agent. Driven by his passion for protecting creativity and innovation and rewarding talent and achievement, in 2011, he  founded Mincov Law Corporation, a business law firm for clients who value intellectual property as a legal tool for protecting ideas and creativity. In 2013, he came up with an idea of Trademark Factory®, a service that allows businesses register their trademarks with a free comprehensive trademark search, for a single comprehensive flat fee, with a 100% money-back guarantee. An disruptive business model for trademark agents and attorneys. To satisfy his desire to help as many clients as possible, he voluntarily gave up his lawyer license in 2015 to be able to scale Trademark Factory® internationally, something he could not do while he was holding on to his Canadian lawyer license. This marked a milestone in his transition from an intellectual property lawyer who worked with entrepreneurs to an entrepreneur with deep knowledge of intellectual property. Show Links: * Trademark Factory * Andrei Mencov on LinkedIn * Trademark Factory on Facebook * Books * The Ultimate Insider's Guide to Trade Secrets: A chapter from Andrei Mincov's The Ultimate Insider's Guide to Intellectual Property * From Faceless to Legendary for Bars, Cafes & Restaurants: The Ultimate Insider's Guide to Intellectual Property * From Faceless To Legendary: The Ultimate Insider's Guide to Intellectual Property for Coaches, Mentors,

It seems that every organization is looking for the secrets to make their teams more innovative. Is it hiring? Or is it office space design? In this weeks Killer Innovations Show, Thomas D. Kuczmarski, president and founder of Kuczmarski Innovation and co-founder (with journalist  Dan Miller) of the Chicago Innovation Awards, shares his thoughts on what to do and what NOT to do when it comes to innovations. The topics covered during the show include: * What are the three things that every organization should do to be truly innovative (hint: culture is one of them) * What are the things organizations should avoid doing (hint: money) * Can innovation specific compensation (innovation incentives) have an impact? * How does culture play a role in the innovation efforts? * What is the one thing to avoid when it comes to an innovation culture? * How hard is it for established organizations to embrace an innovation culture? * How do innovation awards like the Chicago Innovation Award have an impact on a region? About Tom Kuczmarski: Thomas D. Kuczmarski, president and founder of Kuczmarski Innovation, is a nationally recognized expert in the innovation of new products and services. Over the course of his career he has helped hundreds of clients, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 corporations, learn to systematically unlock the value of innovation. Mr. Kuczmarski teaches product and service innovation at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management where he is Senior Lecturer and Visiting Scholar in the Center for Innovation and Technology. Mr. Kuczmarski is also founder and board member, along with journalist Dan Miller, of the Chicago Innovation Awards, which annually celebrates, educates, and connects innovators in the Chicago region. The awards are endorsed by every major business association in the Chicago region and showcase the creative spirit of America’s heartland. In 2013, the Awards expanded to include a new venture, The Innovators Connection, designed to help expand the local economy by creating business connections among the region’s innovators, large and small. Mr. Kuczmarski is the author of six books on innovation and leadership. Links Mentioned in the show * Tom Kuczmarski on LinkedIn * Kuczmarski Innovation * Chicago Innovation Awards * Tom Kuczmarski faculty at Northwestern Kellogg School 

In this weeks show, we talk with Tracy Hazzard of Hazz Design whee she has co-invented 35 patents with an 86% commercialization rate and designed 250+ consumer products bought everyday generating over $750 million for her clients. How does she go from idea to on the shelf? On the show, we discuss: * The common challenges innovators run into when trying to go from idea to “on the shelf” (hint: passion is not always a good thing) * What are the seven steps that Tracy uses whenever she is starting a new project to commercialize an idea? * Tracy's experience with on-shore and off-shore manufacturing? * What is the critical “double check” before scaling production? * How important is a patent to getting “on the shelf”? * What's the trick to making a design patent valuable? (hint: its all about the pieces) About Tracy Hazzard: Tracy Hazzard, a Rhode Island School of Design graduate, has been designing with husband Tom for over 20 years. Through her Inc. magazine column, By Design, she pushes companies of all sizes to strategically and tactically design in success and accelerate business growth. Tracy also co-hosts the WTFFF?! 3D Printing Podcast, the start point for the next industrial revolution. Her methods are taught in Harvard Business Review courses at universities worldwide.  Show Links: * Hazz Design * Tracy Hazzard on LinkedIn * Tracy's podcast, WTFFF?! 3D Printing Podcast * Tracy's column, By Design on Inc. * Hazz Design on Twitter * Hazz Design on Facebook Listen to this weeks show, “What Are The Steps To Go From An Idea To On The Shelf“

This week, I share my experience with innovation coaching and innovation mentoring in response to questions from a recent blog post. Over the years I've mentored and coached hundreds of executives, teams and entire companies. Each one is unique and different and I walk away learning something from each and every one. Over the years, I've talked about and posted many times on mentoring and coaching. Without my early mentor, Bob Davis, I'm convinced by career would not have turned out the way it did. So what is the difference between coaching and mentoring? A coach provides specific instruction regarding how to improve your performance. For example, a baseball coach will help his team members improve specific functions, like pitching, catching or batting. A mentoring relationship is less specific and looks more at the big picture. A mentor becomes more of a trusted adviser in areas that can cross personal and professional lines. Based on my experience, everyone should invest in finding a mentor that can act as that adviser across personal and professional boundaries. The time to look for a mentor is not when things get tough. My advice is to find a mentor before you need them. Here are the links mentioned in the show: Innovation Mentor vs. Innovation Coach: Which Do You Need * Innovation Coach: 4 Questions You Should Ask Before Selecting One As I mentioned in the show, I'm thinking of starting an Innovation Mastermind Group targeted at “innovators” – people who are actively taking ideas and transforming them into breakthrough innovations. If this sounds like something you would like to hear more about, then add you name to the list of people interested. Listen to this weeks podcast: Valuable Secrets From Innovation Coaches and Mentors S11 Ep52

This weeks guest was Robert Scoble. Robert was the futurist at Rackspace who recently announced he was joining UploadVR. In this new role, Robert will be covering the latest advances in virtual reality and augmented reality. During the interview, Robert and I discussed: * SXSW and what was the buzz at the show. * His perception of hot innovation and technologies from his most recent travels (e.g. South Africa) * His passion and interest in virtual reality * Why he thinks augmented reality will be the big game changer for adoption * His view of the types of content that are coming and when. * His plans with the move to UploadVR Some of the companies we talk about include: * Oculus * Meta demo video * Magic Leap * Unity VR engine About Robert Scoble Robert is a blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his now-defunct blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technology evangelist at Microsoft. He previously worked for Rackspace and the Rackspace sponsored community site Building 43promoting breakthrough technology and startups. He previously worked for Fast Company as a video blogger. On March 10, 2016, Robert Scoble announced via his blog that he will be joining UploadVR. April 4, 2016 will be his last day at Rackspace. Listen to this weeks show: Robert Scoble on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality S11 Ep51

In this weeks Killer Innovations radio show, we pick up on a series we started in early February to take you from a blank page to brainstorming to a killer idea.  Now you need to create and deliver your innovation pitch. As background, those shows covered: How to create and use predictions to create an innovation timeline (Feb 2) How to use the predictions to scout the future (Feb 9) 6 Golden Rules for Brainstorming (Feb 16) How to run a next gen brainstorming session (Feb 23) Each of the above shows has a free download bonus material such as a sample innovation timeline, innovation scouting worksheet and a detailed PDF on how to run a next generation brainstorm session. This weeks show focuses on how to create a killer innovation pitch for the top ideas that came out of the brainstorming session. We took a look at: How to prepare your idea for an innovation pitch * Refine the idea that came out of the innovation brainstorm * Determine the type of innovation and then scope the pitch accordingly * Understand who needs to approve the idea along with possible innovation antibodies and then tailor the pitch. * Create a draft of the pitch (see below) * Test the pitch * Deliver the pitch and deliver “the ask” * If the answer is “no” then learn from it * Go do it yourself 7 Parts to a Killer Innovation Pitch Before you get started, get an “endorsed introduction” the person you are going to pitch. Find someone who knows the decision maker who will not just forward the email but who will give you a strong endorsement and the background on who you will be presenting to. The introduction is key to establishing your credibility as a person before you even start the pitch. * Start with a Vision. Describe what life will be like in the future as if your idea were fully realized. This should be a concise and impactful vision that is calculated to surprise and ignite interest in hearing more. * Create the “5 second” description of you idea. Build on the vision and explain how your idea would allow the vision to become a reality. List ways you would solve hurdles and  problems and clear the way to the impact you've already promised. This is where you want to use figures to show size, impact, etc. * List benefits/impact. Clearly describe the benefit deliver products faster, earn a margin premium, provide better customer experience, or improve overall effeciancy. * Analyze the competition. Demonstrate that you know the business environment by showing competing products or services and explaining why your offering is better. * Why are you the person to back for this idea? Describe why they should back you. This includes your background on success and challenges that you've had in the past. Putting this section at this point in pitch keeps the focus on the idea and not you while also allowing you to address the elephant ...

This weeks guest on the Killer Innovations radio show was Tom Fishburne. Tom is a cartoonist that pokes fun at marketing, creativity, design and innovation and I've shared his cartoons on my blog many times. His work is meant to challenge conventional thinking and to cause teams and leaders to see themselves in the cartoons. While I'm a big Dilbert fan, I'm a bigger Tom Fishburne fan. Tom's cartoons hit close to home because of his keen observation and commentary on creativity and innovation – especially inside larger organizations. While we talked about cartooning, we also cover a wide range of topics on creativity, design and innovation including: * What was first cartoon you drew when a student at Harvard? * Did you really use a cartoon as a way to get a job? * How scary was it to leave your “day job”? * What is the “V1” analogy and how did it help you finally jump and start your cartoon business? * How does Tom keep the ideas coming, even during those creative dry spells? * What are the inspirations that help keep the ideas coming? * How do you keep the productivity up so that you can be “creative on demand”? * What is the concept of the “wikiwall” and how does it help in team creativity? About Tom Fishburne I'm a longtime fan of Tom Fishburne and his cartoons. Tom started cartooning  as a student at Harvard Business School. While in various marketing roles at General Mills, Nestle and Method, Tom parodied the world of marketing in a weekly cartoon. His cartoons have grown by word of mouth to reach 100,000 business readers each week and have been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, and the New York Times. Tom soon realized that cartoons are a remarkable form of shareable media. He launched Marketoonist to help large and small businesses such as Google, GE, Kronos, Motista, Rocketfuel, reach their audiences with cartoons. Tom is a frequent keynote speaker on innovation, marketing and creativity, using cartoons, case studies, and his marketing career to tell the story visually. The Huffington Post ranked his South-By-Southwest (SXSW) talk the third best of the conference out of 500. You can find Tom at: * Marketoonist * Tom Fishburne on Twitter * Tom Fishburne on LinkedIn * Tom Fishburne on Facebook  

For this weeks show, Phil invited Kym McNicholas (Emmy award winning journalist) to join him to discuss and debate the latest innovations coming from startups. They cover startups that presented at Sir Richard Branson's Extreme Tech Challenge finals on Necker Island, the personal reactions from seeing the reveals of new VR technologies at TED and the latest mobile devices and applications from Mobile World Congress. The topics included: * Is the pace of innovation slowing down, speeding up or staying the same? * What will impact the pace of innovation? * What is Richard Bransons thoughts on autonomous vehicles and space travel? * Who won the finals of the Extreme Tech Challenge? * What happens when you only do one thing (e.g The Longaberger Co. )? * What did Al Gore say at TED this year? * What was it like to see the Microsoft Halo Lens virtual/augmented reality technology? * How did it compare to the Meta demo that was also at TED? * What is 5G and when will we see it deployed? * What's coming from mobile VR? * What did Mark Zuckerberg say at Mobile World Congress? * What was the hot technologies and gadgets at Mobile World Congress? Listen to this weeks show on “What Are The Latest Innovations Coming From Startups?“

Most organizations use the traditional approach to host brainstorming session with their teams. If they took the time to evaluate the impact, they would recognize that there are some inherent weaknesses in the way brainstorming have been done in the past. Is there a next generation brainstorming approach? In this weeks show, we share with you how to run a next generation brainstorming session. The structure will look similar but there are a few key differences that will have a major impact on the quality of the ideas generated. The 4 Phases of a Next Generation Brainstorming Session * Sharing Homework Observations * Ideation * Sharing and Grouping * Ranking The 5 ranking questions I use * Does this idea improve the customer’s experience and/or expectation? * Does this idea fundamentally change how you’re positioned competitively in the market? * Does this idea radically change the economic structure of the industry? * Do you have a contribution to make? * Will this idea generate sufficient margin? Why is this a better way? It's not tied to number of total ideas Focuses on identifying the 2 or 3 best ideas Communicates to leadership the team recommendation of the best ideas To help you facilitate a next generation brainstorming session, I've prepared a free PDF that gives you the steps and a sample timeline/schedule for a one-day session. Killer Question What are your criteria for deciding that an idea is worth pursuing? We all have our own set of selection criteria, the first of which is usually looking for profits. However, selecting a course of action based solely on ROI can be limiting. If you are doing something really innovative, how on earth can you determine what the margins will be at an early stage of the product? The problem is, if you filter out new ideas based solely on whether they meet your financial projections, then you’re going to miss some great—perhaps groundbreaking—concepts. As mentioned in chapter 5, when you get to the ranking phase of FIRE, ROI shouldn’t be your first filter in deciding whether an idea is worth pursuing. When HP first got into printers it seemed like a tiny and not particularly interesting category. Now it’s one of our highest profit-producing businesses at HP. If we’d said, Nah, not doing it; it’s too small to be worth it, we would have made a catastrophic mistake. [P1] The printer division isn’t the first example of where HP has made a tough call. Back in 1968, Bill Hewlett wanted to get HP into calculators.[i] He took the idea to the marketing team, and they said, “Don’t do it, no one’s going to pay that much for a very expensive calculator.” Bill said, “I don’t care, I want one,” and he made the decision to create it. And that one product was the catalyst for transforming HP from a test and measurement company into a computer company.[ii] [P2] I know from personal experience that projected ROI can be misleading. Be aware of your bias toward flashy and exciting numbers, and remember that figures on a page are easily malleable. Don’t turn down an opportunity because you think the market is too small. When a guy comes in with a $200 million idea, and it piques my interest, I ask him, How do you make this idea big enough to make me care? What do you need— more money, more resources? Are you being conservative in your estimates? How do you take this smaller idea, and make it ten times better and ten times bigger? Sparking Points What is the one key criterion that you must meet for a project to get approved? What would happen if you ignored this criterion in the evaluation process? What are the criteria used by others either inside your industry or outside of your industry? Based on this, what would you change in your criteria?

Two weeks ago where we discussed creating an innovation timeline and last week we then discussed on to take the items from a timeline and do prepare scouting reports for each item. This week we are going to take the next step and discuss how to take all of this and generate ideas  by understanding the rules of brainstorming. In my experience, most brainstorming sessions fail because they lack an effective plan. Brainstorming is an invaluable and essential tool—when it works.  There are a set of common mistakes that can derail a brainstorming session and severely limit its chances of coming up with a killer idea that will accomplish anything substantial.  None of these mistakes are flaws of character, passion, or ability on the part of the participants. They are simply inherent weaknesses in the way brainstorming have been done in the past.   Here are the 6 golden rules of brainstorming to help you avoid the common mistakes: Rule #1: Set a focus. Focus is essential in order to give people a targeted, specific area of investigation. Rule #2: Assign homework (Killer Question). It’s critical to ask your group a set of well-written questions that will force them to look beyond the obvious. Rule #3: Encourage investigation. Get out in the field and actually investigate. Rule #4: Don’t filter. Be aware of the biases that are going to pop up in your head. Rule #5: Set a schedule for generating ideas—and stick to it. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll do the idea generation when you have time, because odds are it won’t get done. Rule #6: Ranking isn’t a dirty word. Don’t create lists just for the sake of it, because then you lack the focus about which ideas to go after. I've prepared a document that at gives a more complete description of the rules of brainstorming. You can download it by clicking the button below. Killer Questions We tend to assume that any customer is a good customer. However, if you find that you’re working like crazy and have a solid and reliable customer base, but you’re still not making the profits you expected, then ask the Killer Question, Who do I not want to use my product? Do you remember back when dial-up Internet service first started to transition to the mainstream? In the early ’90s companies like AOL, CompuServe, and EarthLink began offering access to the web that was billed by the minute. The more you used, the more you paid. Logical, right? These three companies essentially offered the same product on the same terms. Very quickly, the people who used the services they offered divided into two camps. The majority logged on once or twice a day, checked their e-mail, read some sports stats or gossip, and logged off. However, a small minority logged on for hours or days at a time. These people quickly ran up bills in the thousands. Now—pop quiz—is this a good thing or a bad thing for your business? These high-volume users love your service, but paradoxically their passion for what you offer will almost inevitably force them to stop, or drive them into an untenable situation if they try to continue. So, if you were running AOL, CompuServe, or EarthLink, what would you do? Continue the same pricing structure that strongly disfavored your most ardent users, or figure out some way to continue improving profits without punishing the people who really, really love what you do? In other words, would you decide to keep or push out these high-use customers? In the end, AOL was the first to take a radical step to address these questions. In 1996, they switched from a pay-per-minute system to a fl...

This weeks show continues our discussion from last week. Now that you understand what an innovation timeline is, what should you do next? You need to take each of the innovation items on your timeline and scout the innovation landscape or what I call the innovation battlefield – depending on the level of competition in the space. This scouting of the innovation battlefield will build you and your teams context and provide inspiration. If you skip this step, your brainstorming session will generate a large number of duplicates of what others are doing. What are some of the areas you should scout: * Government (DOD, DARPA, etc) * Universities (PhD, company funding, etc) * Venture Capitalists (portfolio companies) * Start-ups (founders, investors) * Large corporations (corporate R&D labs, etc) * Non-profit/Non-traditional (industry R&D labs) * Media (industry, research, analysts, etc) You should also scout what customers are doing today to solve/address the opportunity. The innovation battlefield is crowded and those that have a system to search out ideas from a wide range of sources is the one who will take the innovation lead. Killer Question  In the traditional R&D process, the product is developed and then handed off to the design team to “wrap” it and make it look pretty. The drawback is that this approach is out of date; in the last ten years consumers have become much more design-savvy. Consumers want functional, usable design that highlights ease of use, or a more emotive design that adds a personal connection with the product or in some way broadcasts a statement about the user’s more subtle, hard-to-define beliefs about themselves. We can all name a handful of companies that are melding form and function in a way that resonates with users and creates a deep-seated brand loyalty. Look at JetBlue. They are essentially a low-cost carrier, but their design does a masterful job of suggesting that they provide a full-service experience. Their terminal at JFK is a flashback to the old-world style of travel—more elegant and sophisticated than its customers would expect it to be, and more pleasant to spend time in compared with the terminals of most of its competitors, the so-called legacy carriers. It’s important to constantly ask why you develop your product elements in a particular order. This is especially true if your organization has been in business for a substantial length of time and yet you’re still developing your products in an order that was devised to suit production methods from decades ago. Ford Motor Company worked with Ideo and the New York–based design firm Smart Design on the Ford Fusion.[i] This was a daring move for Ford, as the car industry has always believed in keeping new ideas proprietary. By bringing in outside firms they risked their design being leaked prematurely. However, they recognized both that they needed to do something bold with the design to reflect the radically new nature of the car and that they didn’t know where to start. Sparking Points * In what order do you develop an idea and its components? What would happen if you changed that? * How did you make the determination about your customers’ priorities in regards to how you ordered the phases of R&D? * When do you involve design in the R&D? What would be the impact if you change it?  

Part of my job has been and continues to be about predicting the future. A few weeks back, I shared with you my prediction about what was going to be the hot innovations of 2016. Most have been already validated by the buzz coming for the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  Lets be honest, predicting out one year is fairly easy and low risk. What about predicting 5 years out? .. or 10 years out? It's these longer timelines that help you and your team by providing a vision and direction. Is there a way to create better predictions? So what I have learned over the years of doing longer range predictions? Predicting the future is the easy part. Creating the future is where the real work is at.  Allen Kay, a pioneer in object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design during his time at Xerox PARC and HP, is famous for saying: Allen, who worked with with me at HP, also said: In my mind, creating and sharing your predictions of the future is having an opinion. So how do you come up with predictions? By asking questions. Here are the six (6) steps/questions I use. * Over what time period are you looking across? I tend to focus on 3 to 8 years. * What are the foundational elements in your industry that are exponential in impact? In the computer industry, that would be Moore's law. Come up with 3 to 5 that are meaningful to your industry. * What demographic/customer segment/society shifts are happening in your industry? For eCommerce, this could be the role of social media plays in buying decisions. * Look at each combination of foundational elements and society shifts and come up with ideas for each part of your timeline. You can do this by creating an idea grid (details given in the show) * Go back and circle the ideas that seem to have the highest potential. You can do this alone or by inviting people to vote. The show gives details on how best to facilitate this. * Create an innovation timeline that shows these predictions. Use graphics to help support the story behind why this is important. Rather than just talk about, here is an example you can download of how I used what I've learned to create better predictions of the future. Here is a video of this show that we did as a test. Let us know what you think. Killer Question: The other day my daughter Rachel ordered some shoes from Zappos. She’s used them a few times in the past, and the next morning she got an e-mail saying her shoes had been shipped overnight as a reward for being a good customer. Now, one of Zappos’ gimmicks is that shipping is always free, but you can pay more to get your shoes sooner. Persuading customers to pay more for next-day shipping is a core part of many online retailers. It’s the same kind of upsell you get when your waiter convinces you to order the Italian artisanal water, rather than tap. What most people don’t know is that whether you opt for free shipping or expedited overnight delivery, your book or shoes still ship via the same service. It’s just that the goods shipped free get a bonus of going via the slow route. FedEx and UPS have both taken interesting steps to maximize the speed with which they can ship their customers’ deliveries. FedEx has businesses that are actually located within its SuperHub in Memphis to minimize the turnaround and delivery time.[i] UPS has customers who stock their spare parts at the UPS hubs. For instance, car manufacturers who need to have parts available almost instantly to dealerships and mechanics, but don’t want to distribute them before they are needed, can store them with UPS and have the company pull and ship them as required. In some cases the part can get from one area of the country to ano...

Sharing has become the new business model that is being applied to a wide range of industries. The most popular sharing economy companies include Airbnb, Uber and Lyft. Can the sharing economy take over your industry? If so, what would that look like? In this weeks show, we take a look at the innovation happening in the sharing economy in non-traditional industries such as customer care. The topics covered in this weeks show includes: * What is the sharing economy? * Why does the sharing economy give a better experience? * How is the sharing economy a predictor of the future workforce model? * Is this the new model for customer service to the millennials? * What role does the combination of cultural and social shifts have on innovation? * How important is picking a personal problem to success? * How does Ronald Coase look the Theory of the Firm predict the share economy? * What advice would you give entrepreneurs when they are launching their innovation? * Pick a problem you are passionate about * Be radically open with your idea looking for feedback and validation * Build the product and get into the market very quickly (~30 days) About Antony Brydon: Antony Brydon is CEO and co-found of Directly. He is an entrepreneur who focused on the moments when new technology and shifts in culture collide. Directly is his fourth venture with partner and co-founder Jeff Paterson. They were behind Iuma, the first self-service website creation tool that launched 50,000 artist sites and was acquired by eMusic in 1999. They co-founded Visible Path, a corporate social networking company funded by Kleiner Perkins and acquired by the Hoovers division of Dun & Bradstreet in January 2008. They launch Shopwell, a web and mobile site focused on personal nutrition and food shopping. And their current venture is Directly, a company that takes the on-demand work model of Uber & Lyft and applies it to business problems like improving customer service. Links: * Directly * Antony's blog * Antony on LinkedIn Killer Question: So, how do you determine where you, as an individual or a business, will be in five years? You can’t say where exactly you’re going because you can’t predict what’s going to happen in the world. However, you can challenge yourself to change. Apple Value Chain In 2001 Apple’s sales figures were in decline. The company had yet to launch the iPhone, iPad, or iPod and was struggling to get their computer products into big-box stores that were primarily focused on PCs. Their small market share made them a low priority for most retail outlets, and the company was frustrated by their lack of control over their potential customers’ experiences with Apple products. By opening their own chain of stores, Apple was able to control their entire value chain from start to finish. The stores purposefully simplified and enhanced the customers’ experience with Apple products, and today the physical stores alone pull in upward of 33 million dollars in annual revenue. Can you replicate this kind of experience in your own business? Healthcare Value Chain Look at how the health-care industry is adapting to the coming “gray wave.” The gray wave refers to the way our population demographics are skewing older.

Internet of things (IoT) has become a hot space for innovation over the last few years. Smart thermostats, smart light bulbs – heck even internet connected smart sprinkler systems. Where is this going and what opportunities does this open up for innovators working with the internet of things (IoT)? This week, we have the CEO of Ioterra (iotatracker.com) Ben Wild joins us to talk by IoT and how his firm is solving some of the technical challenges that face this new and emerging industry. Some of the topics we cover include: * Where did the idea of Iota come from? * Why did you go with crowdfunding (Kickstarter) as your way to bootstrap? * What were some of the challenges you came across? * What would you do differently? * What are the plans for your network that you are building? * What are the challenges in the Internet of Things space? * Do you think some form of compatibility will emerge in the IoT industry? * Where are there still innovation opportunities in the Internet of Things space? Show Links: * $10.00 off purchase of an Iota Tracker. Use discount code INNOVATION at iotatracker.com * Ben Wild on LinkedIn Killer Question: Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about the impending retirement surge caused by baby boomers finally leaving the workplace and how it will affect changes in the tech industry. The combined worth of this market segment is roughly in the $2 trillion bracket. That’s a lot of disposable income—and a lot of freed-up time for them to engage with new products, new hobbies, and new life goals. I mention the boomers because they represent a truth about customer bases: They are always in flux, and you need to constantly be thinking about how you can modify your sales approach to appeal to them. When you’re looking for ways to reach out to new customers, keep in mind that you need to think of new ways to reach existing customers as well. An existing customer base still has the potential to change so radically that it can essentially become a new customer base as their passions and needs change over the years. I’ve been interested to see how the health-care industry responds to the evolution of its existing customer groups, and the influx of new groups of aging patients dealing with the chronic diseases associated with age and poor lifestyle choices. A number of companies have become interested in using technology to support health care by reversing the idea of a patient traveling to see a specialist at the specialist’s office. These companies are in trials around the broad concept of “remote medicine,” which allows for highly interactive virtual medical appointments. A nurse examines a patient while a specialist—perhaps in another city, state, or even country—observes and directs via video conference. The nurse and the equipment can be stationed either in a local doctor’s office, or potentially in a mobile clinic. This is a huge boon for a massive section of the American population—those people who live hundreds or thousands of miles away from specialists but require frequent appointments and checkups. Remote medicine companies have upended the traditional experience of how a patient and specialist meet and interact. By doing so they have created a system that has the potential to not only vastly reduce the associated health-care costs but also allow a whole new customer group to utilize their services.[i] Sparking Points * How are you currently reaching out to new customers?