The Innovation Engine Podcast

On this episode, we look at how to craft a successful innovation strategy. Among the topics we discuss are why strategy and planning are decidedly not the same thing, how the future impacts strategy and vice versa, and why you have to be comfortable incorporating change into your innovation strategy. Dr. Max McKeown , award-winning author of The Strategy Book  and The Innovation Book , joins us to...

Looking to turn your company into an innovation factory? Scott Anthony, Managing Partner of Innosight , joins us on this week's episode to discuss how to build your company's very own innovation engine. We talk about the 4 component pieces that drive an innovation factory, what the first 90 days  of building your innovation engine should look like, and why it's important to kill "z...

"Riding the innovation cycle" is the topic of discussion on this week's episode of the podcast. Dr. Christopher Wasden, Executive Director of the Sorenson Center for Discovery & Innovation at the University of Utah , joins us to talk about:  Why fast, frequent, frugal failure can be a recipe for innovation success The types of brain waves necessary for any of us to innovate success...

On this week’s episode of the podcast we take a look at why it’s important to get past some of the most common myths surrounding creativity in order to drive innovation. Among the topics we discuss are why creativity isn’t merely limited to those with “the creative gene,” the 4 conditions that must be met for creativity to flourish, and why the quest to build a better mousetrap is a mousetrap in a...

On this week's episode of the podcast, we look at our collective obsession with "screen-based thinking" and how to get past it. Among the topics we talk about are: Why “There’s an app for that” are the 5 most insidious words in the English language 3 principles anyone can follow to create products that don’t force us to interact with yet another screen Why it's important to establi...

Organizing for innovation is the topic of discussion on this week's episode of the podcast. We talk about why corporate innovation is fundamentally broken on a number of levels, what you can do to fix that within your own organization, and what a typical “innovation team” should look like. David Bland joins us this week to discuss those topics and more. David is a Principal at Neo, a “full-sta...

On this week’s episode of the podcast we look at innovation and haptic touch. We talk about why touch is a powerful untapped sense, how touch technology may eventually enable entirely new forms of communication, and why you shouldn’t be alarmed to hear that your clothes may soon reach out and touch you. Chris Ullrich, Vice President of User Experience at Immersion Corporation , joins us to talk ab...

Managing innovation is the topic of discussion on this week's podcast. We discuss what network science tells us about corporate hierarchies, how to know what kind of innovation your company is best equipped to pursue, and what “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” means. Greg Satell joins us to talk about these topics and more. Greg's work is published frequently on sites like Forb...

On this week's episode, we discuss why we'll soon find ourselves in the “post-development language” world, what it means when we talk about being in an age of micro-framework systems, and what skill sets will be most important for developers, product managers, marketers, and members of the C-suite to possess 5 years from now. 3Pillar's Adi Chikara joins us to talk about these topics an...

Entrepreneur, innovator, and MIT Sloan Fellow Stephanie Rowe joins us on this week's podcast to talk about creating organizational change that lasts. We talk about why it's important that companies be able to implement change successfully at scale, the role of design thinking and human-centered design in bringing about lasting organizational change, and what anyone in the government space...

Jane McDonnell & Trevor Knoblich of the Online News Association  join us on this week's podcast to discuss the future of media. We talk about the myriad ways the media & entertainment landscape has changed in recent years, as well as how emerging technologies and social media platforms are changing the way we both consume and create the news. Jane McDonnell is the Executive Director of...

Dr. Timothy Chou joins us to discuss his recently published  Cloud Computing Trilogy . We talk about ways cloud computing is enabling a new breed of software applications and why he thinks you should know that "service is the delivery of information that's personal and relevant to you." Vince Vasquez also joins us for this episode of the podcast. Vince is the founder of Cloudbook , whi...

Mike Shipulski, the #1-ranked innovation blogger of 2014, joins us to talk about starting the innovation process. We discuss the concept of an Innovation Burst Event, why extreme time limits can spark creativity, and why the 2 most valuable phrases in the corporate lexicon are "Thank you for your amazing work" and "What kind of pizza would you like?"  Mike Shipulski is a Product De...

On this week's episode of the podcast we discuss "The Innovator's Method." We cover topics like how lean start-up principles and design thinking can help accelerate the innovation process, the 4-step process that makes up the innovator’s method, and the merits of using Minimum Awesome Products to test out concepts and validate ideas.  Nathan Furr joins us to discuss those topics an...

Best-selling author and innovation expert Rowan Gibson joins us for the 53rd episode of the podcast to discuss his latest book,  The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking . Rowan shares examples of companies like Dell and Rolls Royce that have found success by challenging orthodoxies, talks about how the concept of seeing the future in the present applies to innovating succ...

Best-selling author and innovation expert Rowan Gibson joins us for the 52nd episode of the podcast to discuss his latest book, The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking . We talk about each of the four lenses and how they can be used to drive innovation, how the four lenses can be employed to emulate the mind of the innovator, and what we can learn about innovation from th...

On this episode of the podcast we look at the Internet of Things and how connected devices will change the way we interact with the world around us. We look at how the Internet of Things will eventually mean that the Internet as we know it fades into the background of our everyday lives, how mobile and the Internet of Things will feed off of one another symbiotically, and what a typical "day i...

3Pillar Global CEO David DeWolf joins us for a very special episode of the podcast - episode number 50! David plays host on this episode of the podcast and interviews the regular host of the podcast, Will Sherlin. David and Will talk about the 3 main innovation lessons Will has learned from podcast guests, some of the highlights and lowlights from the first year of "The Innovation Engine"...

Tim Hurson, one of the world's leading experts on corporate innovation, joins us to talk about the power of productive thinking. Productive thinking is the innovation and problem-solving construct that Tim created and teaches alongside his colleagues at ThinkX , an innovation consulting firm that he co-founded. Among the topics we talk about on this episode of the podcast are why the act of th...

Nir Eyal  joins us to talk about how to build habit-forming products. We discuss his recently published book Hooked , which debuted on the Wall Street Journal best-seller list. Among the topics we discuss are his 4-step process for building products that keep users coming back, how tools like the scarcity heuristic can be used to drive intended behaviors, and what the framing effect tells us about...

Elliot Susel of AOL joins us to talk about agile, the Lean Startup movement, and the evolution of software development on this week’s episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast. Among the topics we discuss this week are the "Three Ring Theory" of modern-day product development, the concept of validated learning and why it's so important to startups and, increasingly, large organization...

On this week's episode of the podcast, we look at keys to leading innovative companies. Among the topics we cover are why innovation leaders should be ringleaders and referees more than visionaries; the importance of creative abrasion, creative agility, and creative resolution to the innovation process; and why it's imperative to establish a company culture with a sense of community and ps...

eTrans Systems CEO John Estrada joins us to talk about the coming revolution in the transportation space that will be brought about by connected cars. We discuss what barriers need to be overcome before driverless cars will be available to the general public en masse, when we can expect to start seeing connected cars hitting the highways, and how driverless transportation will impact our everyday...

Author and innovation guru Mitch Ditkoff joins us to talk about the power of storytelling and the parallels between being able to tell a story successfully and being able to innovate successfully. Among the topics we tackle on this week's episode are why it's important in the corporate world for you to be able to tell a compelling story, why humor is an effective tool for connecting with a...

Innovation and business transformation is the topic of discussion on this episode of the podcast. We talk with Dr. Sunil Mithas of the University of Maryland about what companies can learn from the Tata Group's ascension to becoming one of the world's most well-known - and profitable - businesses in the world. Dr. Mithas has studied the Tata Group's success in-depth for his just publis...