The Innovators Studio with Phil McKinney

Artificial Intelligence (AI)  is quickly becoming a key element for today's innovations. While many think that AI is new, its been around for decades but just now finding the traction it needs to be applied to a broad set of innovations. In today's show, we have a discussion with Kerri McMaster, co-founder and head of […]

The hope and dream of every innovator is to come up with an idea that disrupts and transforms industries. To do it multiple times over a career puts that person in to a category of being a disruptive entrepreneur. Our guest this week, Sachin Dev Duggal, is an innovator, serial entrepreneur, and an advocate of enterprise […]

When you are tasked with coming up with a new produce or service, the immediate reaction for most is to panic. Where and how do you start? The approach I've used for decades and that has helped me to create hundreds of products and services generating billions in revenue — ask questions. There is a […]

In June 2007, after finding himself creatively drained,  Noah started a personal project — Skull-A-Day. This yearlong art project's objectives was to create challenges that would jumpstart his personal creative energy.  What started out as a personal project ended up transforming his creative future. The project went viral and became an Internet sensation which led to a […]

Culture is hard and creating and maintaining an innovation culture is even harder. One of the challenges for creating a culture of innovation within an organization is our ability to get along with others. Innovation is about constant change which is uncomfortable and stressful. The result is that some individuals/groups will not respond and actually become quite negative […]

As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. As I look back over my career leading innovation teams and organizations, I wish someone had sat me down and shared some of the core fundamentals to innovation leadership. These "hacks" are part of my core rules that I attempt to follow. I'm not perfect and still stumble […]

During a recent mentoring session with a Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) of a major multi-national company, the executive expressed a private fear. He attributes his past success as "being lucky" .. "being in the right place at the right time". His fear is someone would find out that "he wasn't that good" and this his […]

I came across a recent article where the Managing Director of Accenture Digital made the bold claim that large companies cannot do innovation. More accurately, Narry Singh said, ".. Corporate innovation does not work." He goes on to claim that innovation at large companies do not work because ".. the firms are too slow to move – […]

Innovation is all about change. The need to change includes you and your career, the organizations you are a part of and even the governments that serve us. This change requires us to be in a constant state of being uncomfortable. This weeks guest on the show is Gretchen McClain. I met Gretchen back in […]

It's hard to believe that it was 12 years ago when I released the first episode of Killer Innovations in to the wild. Its been a wild ride. What I find especially interesting is how has innovation changed over the last 12 years. The original motivation for the show came from my mentor, Bob Davis. […]

I am a believer that constraint based innovation creates better ideas. It forces the team to throw out the old rule book and innovate a new approach. The same applies when you are forced to innovate under financial constraints. While my staff doesn't always agree that constraints are good, in my experience a team that […]

Everyday, we can't avoid reading articles that tout the latest and greatest technology and innovation. What we don't see that often is the role innovation can and should play in philanthropy. If you agree that it has a role, how do you bring innovation to philanthropy? This weeks guest, Jared Angaza, has spent his life […]

We've heard the mantra in the past. We are all creative. We are born creative. That is a nice idea but not helpful when you need to call on your muse to be creative when you need to be creative. What are the secrets to personal creativity? If creativity is natural – then why is […]

As an officer in two public companies and a Board member for a third public company, I've seen up close and personal the challenges executive leadership faces when trying to balance achieving the quarterly results while knowing that they  need to make long term investments in research and innovation.  This short-term thinking on quarterly results has […]

Innovation is not constrained to individuals, teams or organizations. In some cases, the best to way to innovate is when entire industries comes together to share the effort and the investment necessary. Industry innovation is one approach that is commonly overlook and undervalued. In today's show, we talk with John Osborne who is General Manager […]

When it comes to innovation, there are a collection of unwritten rules of thumb and myths of innovation that both help and hurt innovators. We all use rules of thumbs and myths in our everyday lives such as estimating how long something will take to complete. At the same time, rules and myths can be […]

Innovation is everywhere – in our pockets, in our cars, in our work and in our home. Where do these new ideas come from? New ideas are the foundation of our future and growing economic driver of society. This emerging innovation economy, which value ideas over anything else, is quickly overtaking the information/knowledge economy that […]

Many make the mistake of thinking that their lives are going to work out as planned. It never does. What would happen if you treated your life like a startup? The guest for this weeks show, Dr. Anna Akbari, discusses her book, "Startup Your Life: Hustle And Hack Your Way To Happiness." As an entrepreneur, […]

This time of year, I take a moment and look at innovations that were announced in the last year whose impact will be significant in the next 12 to 24 months. This year's list contains some intriguing innovations that are less about "new tech" and more about human ingenuity to look at problems and opportunities […]

It can be extremely frustrating when your ideas can't seem to secure support or backing. Why? Is it the idea or is it you? In this weeks show, I share some of my personal lessons learned along with the collection of frustrations and lessons learned from my mentoring and coaching clients on the challenges of securing […]

Getting innovation advice from actual innovators is invaluable. In this weeks, show, we hear from Tyler Reynolds, the CEO and Co-founder of Trinity Mobile Networks. Tyler and his co-founder,  Stephen Hall, are innovators who were inspired to innovate a solution to a problem they themselves had. During the show, Tyler shares how the idea behind Trinity […]

I have a morning routine where I run down a set of daily questions that help me stay on track and focused on the right things. These question have come about over my years of learning the hard way. The inspiration for the questions came from Ben Franklin who asked himself two questions ever day. […]

There is an explosion in companies who are securing innovation by M&A (mergers and acquisitions). In the last 36 months, 57% of M&A deals were based on innovation. When companies find themselves behind the market, "innovating by acquisition" becomes a quick way to catch-up through the work of others. At the same time, if an […]

Limiting beliefs are those that constrain you in some way. Just by believing them, we do not think, do or say things because this limiting belief inhibits us. Our limiting beliefs originate from self doubts that then become "rules" we apply to our everday activities. In extreme cases, limiting beliefs can sabatoge our hapiness, our […]

While many companies recruit for start-up experience, large company experiences can be a secret ingredient to success. The ability to call on executives who have the experience of understanding scale, managing remote staff, complex manufacturing, global markets, selling to large organizations and much more is invaluable. In today's show, we discussed: Barry's career at IBM and the […]