October 2024 - All Things Innovation

Empowering Innovation Through People and Culture

FEI 2024’s People & Culture track explored the multifaceted nature of innovation and the importance of effective communication, collaboration, and a willingness to embrace uncertainty and experiment with new ideas.

Five key overall takeaways from the track follow, but click the below links to dive into each session:

Mastering An Upfront R&D Strategy: An Innovation Culture Case Study: Liza Sanchez, Vice President, Research & Development, PROCTER & GAMBLE
Collaborative Edge: Research Partnerships Fueling Innovation: Kofi Gyasi, CEO, NotedSource & Ny Mia Tran, Professor of Psychology, Salem State University
From Idea to GTM: Innovation & Sales Uniting for Growth: Michele Sandoval, Director of Innovation & Steve Wallace, National Sales Director, E&J Gallo Winery
Zero To N Innovation: Attaining Ambidexterity: Prapti Jha, Former Design Strategy & Research Design Thinking & Innovation, Harvard
Next Generation Technologies: Putting The Talent Puzzle Together: Serene Hamsho, President, American Offshore Wind Academy
Introducing Smart Sensors: Understand Consumer Behavior Better Than Ever With New Tech: Nihal Advani, Founder & CEO, QualSights

Key Takeaways:

1. Innovation as a Continuous Journey: The sessions emphasized that innovation is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that requires constant adaptation and experimentation. To sustain innovation, organizations must create a culture of continuous learning and improvement, and they should prioritize ongoing experimentation and iteration.

2. The Importance of Culture: A supportive and collaborative culture is essential for fostering innovation. Organizations must create environments that encourage risk-taking, experimentation, and diverse perspectives. This can be achieved through leadership that champions innovation, clear communication channels, and a focus on employee empowerment.

3. The Power of Storytelling: Effective storytelling is crucial for connecting with consumers and building brand loyalty. Companies should focus on creating compelling narratives that resonate with their target audience and evoke emotions.

4. The Value of External Collaboration: Partnering with external experts, such as academics and industry leaders, can provide valuable insights, diverse perspectives, and access to specialized knowledge. By collaborating with external partners, organizations can accelerate innovation and gain a competitive edge.

5. The Future of Innovation: The sessions highlighted the need to prepare for an uncertain future by embracing futures thinking, considering multiple scenarios, and staying ahead of emerging trends. Organizations should invest in foresight capabilities, scenario planning, and emerging technology research to navigate the future with confidence.

Innovation and Adaptability

These sessions explored the multifaceted nature of innovation and the importance of adaptability in today’s rapidly changing business landscape. Speakers discussed the need for a culture of innovation, the challenges of balancing disruptive and sustaining innovation, the power of storytelling and consumer engagement, and the potential of external collaboration.

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The Innovation Process: Culture, Data, and Partnership

FEI 2024’s Process track delves into the multifaceted landscape of innovation, exploring strategies for fostering a culture of innovation, leveraging emerging technologies, and navigating the challenges of a rapidly evolving business environment.

Five overall takeaways from the track follow, but click the following links to dive into each session:

FEI 2024 Process track overall key takeaways:

1. The Importance of a Culture of Innovation: Creating an environment that encourages experimentation, risk-taking, and collaboration is essential for driving innovation. Organizations should foster a culture of psychological safety where employees feel empowered to share ideas and take risks without fear of failure.

2. The Power of Partnerships: Collaborating with startups, academic institutions, and other external partners can provide valuable insights, resources, and expertise. These partnerships can help organizations access new technologies, talent, and markets.

3. The Role of Emerging Technologies: AI, automation, and other cutting-edge technologies offer significant opportunities for innovation but also present challenges that must be carefully navigated. Organizations should develop a clear strategy for adopting new technologies and mitigating potential risks.

4. The Importance of Data-Driven Insights: Leveraging data and analytics can help organizations identify trends, anticipate future needs, and make informed decisions. Data-driven insights can help organizations optimize their operations, improve customer experiences, and develop innovative products and services.

5. The Need for a Holistic Approach: Innovation requires a multifaceted approach that considers social, technological, environmental, economic, and political factors. By taking a holistic approach, organizations can identify innovative solutions that address complex challenges and create sustainable value.

Overall Message:

The future of innovation is a complex landscape shaped by technology, society, and economics. To thrive, organizations must foster a culture of innovation, leverage emerging technologies, and adopt a holistic approach. By creating an environment that encourages experimentation and collaboration, organizations can unlock the full potential of their workforce. Emerging technologies offer unprecedented opportunities, but careful consideration must be given to their potential risks and challenges. Data-driven decision-making is essential for identifying trends and making informed choices. Adapting to a rapidly evolving business environment requires flexibility, resilience, and a focus on building partnerships. While technology plays a crucial role, human creativity and ingenuity remain indispensable. By investing in employee development and creating a supportive work environment, organizations can empower their workforce and achieve long-term success.

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Driving Strategy and Transformation Through Innovation

FEI 2024’s Strategy and Transformation track collectively highlights the imperative of aligning strategy for transformation in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. Breaking through the innovation readiness lull is a strategic necessity for organizations to survive and thrive.

Five key overall takeaways from the track follow, but click the following links to dive into each session:

FEI 2024 Strategy & Transformation track overall key takeaways:

1. The Multifaceted Nature of Innovation

Innovation Beyond Products: Innovation extends beyond product development, encompassing branding, partnerships, services, business models, and even internal processes.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Successful innovation requires breaking down silos and fostering collaboration across departments, functions, and levels of the organization.
Consumer-Centricity: A deep understanding of consumer needs, preferences, and behaviors is fundamental to driving innovation that resonates with the target audience.

2. The Transformative Role of AI and Technology

AI as an Enabler: AI and emerging technologies like big data and predictive analytics can significantly enhance the innovation process by streamlining research, generating ideas, and accelerating decision-making.
The Human-AI Dance: The most impactful innovations arise from the synergistic collaboration between human creativity and AI capabilities.
Democratizing Discovery: AI-powered tools can empower teams across the organization to conduct independent research and contribute to the innovation pipeline.

3. Navigating Challenges and Embracing Change

Balancing Today and Tomorrow: Organizations must manage the tension between current operational demands and future-focused innovation efforts.
Flexibility and Resilience: The innovation journey is not always linear; organizations need to be adaptable, resilient, and celebrate incremental progress.
Cultivating Influence: Building coalitions, securing buy-in from leadership, and engaging key influencers are crucial for driving enterprise-wide innovation.
Self-Disruption: Embracing discomfort, taking calculated risks, and continuously challenging the status quo are essential for personal and organizational growth.

4. Strategic Approaches to Innovation

Systems Design: A structured process that integrates AI and human efforts is essential for achieving predictable and efficient innovation outcomes.
Agile Research: AI-enabled anthropology can accelerate agile research and insights by providing deeper, human-centric understanding at scale and speed.
Leveraging Data: Utilizing internal and external data sources can inform decision-making, uncover opportunities, and drive innovation strategies.
Acquisition for Disruption: Strategic acquisitions can provide access to new capabilities, technologies, and talent, enabling organizations to achieve disruptive innovation.

5. Fostering a Culture of Innovation

Leadership and Mindset: A culture of innovation requires leadership support, a willingness to embrace change, and a growth mindset among employees.
Purposeful Growth: Defining clear goals and metrics for innovation ensures that efforts are aligned with the organization’s overall strategy.
Continuous Learning: Embracing a learning mindset, experimenting with new approaches, and iterating based on feedback are crucial for sustained innovation.

Synergistic Insights

The sessions collectively emphasize that innovation is a holistic process that requires a multi-faceted approach, encompassing people, processes, and technology.
AI and technology are powerful enablers of innovation, but their true potential is unlocked when combined with human creativity and strategic thinking.
Building a culture of innovation requires a combination of top-down leadership support, bottom-up engagement, and a willingness to embrace change and self-disruption.
Successful innovation is driven by a deep understanding of consumer needs, a data-driven approach, and a willingness to experiment and iterate.
Organizations that embrace innovation as a core value and embed it into their DNA are better positioned to thrive in today’s dynamic and competitive landscape.

Drive Strategy & Transformation Through Innovation

These sessions offer valuable insights and actionable takeaways for organizations seeking to drive strategy and transformation through innovation. By embracing the key themes and strategies discussed, businesses can unlock their full potential, create a lasting impact, and achieve sustainable success in the ever-changing world of tomorrow.

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The First Steps to Transformational Innovation

Like a star or comet shooting out rays of light beams.

In Part 1 of our Innovation Roundtable series, the participants explored the possibilities of transformational innovation. In Part 2, the roundtable discussed the aspects of attaining sustainable innovation on the spectrum of “zero to one.” The concept of “zero to one” innovation, as described in Peter Thiel’s book Zero to One, is the idea of creating something new and unique, rather than simply copying something that already exists.

In Part 3 of the series, the roundtable participants discuss the human element of innovation. With AI influencing tools, systems and frameworks, how can humans evolve to continue learning and leading the way when it comes to transformational innovation?

Finally, in Part 4 of the roundtable series, our group goes through a lightning round, featuring the question: If you could just select one thing on the way to achieving transformational innovation out of this roundtable, what is that first step?

Seth Adler, Head of IMI Media at Informa, brought together an impressive group of nine innovation experts from diverse fields to explore these issues. All Things Innovation would like to thank them for their innovation and insights expertise:

Tammy Butterworth, Product Innovation Director at Welch’s
Lisa Costello, Director, Head of Platform, Prologis Ventures at Prologis
Milan Ivosevic, VP of R&D and Innovations at CooperSurgical
Prapti Jha, former Design Strategy & Research, Design Thinking & Innovation at Harvard University
Cherie Leonard, Head of North America Insights at Colgate-Palmolive
Nevada Sanchez, Co-Founder and Vice President of Core Technology at Butterfly Network, Inc.
Michele Sandoval, Director of Innovation at E&J Gallo Winery
Leslie Shannon, Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting at Nokia
Harsh Wardhan, Innovation Lead, Design Strategist at Google

Roundtable Part 4: The First Steps to Transformational Innovation

Seth Adler: While we conclude this year’s roundtable, in a lightning round, if you could just select one thing, or one step to take, on the way to achieving transformational innovation out of this roundtable, what is that first step?

Leslie Shannon: The thing I’m worst at is actually enlisting the help of others. Both peers and leadership. I tend to try to do it all myself.

Prapti Jha: I would say it’s collaboration. Now this collaboration also involves the age of machines. We also talked about it’s not just about the users or our customers, but also the other stakeholders in your company or whatever organization you are in. Collaboration in a true sense where you’re bringing AI, you’re bringing all the stakeholders within the company, partners outside, and the users. Kindred spirits. That would be my onset to any kind of transformation that we want to do.

Lisa Costello: If I was going to build on that, I keep going back to the need to look at and identify champions. So internally, that can be stakeholders at the top. But then also those people in your organization that are just really, really excited to dive in with you and be the person that their peers listen to when you’re trying to drive change externally. Those are the influencers. And I think that’s why that’s been so popular and why they’ve been able to drive so many product sales is because they have that network and that it doesn’t mean we have to build it ourselves. We just have to tap into what they’ve already built.

Michele Sandoval: I’m going to say passion. Passion can get you a really long way. If you think about when you’re really passionate about something, you have so much energy you put into it. People build off that. They get excited by what they see. And if you’re really going to transform and change, you need to be the champion of that idea and bring that passion to others because without it, it’s just going to wither and die.

Nevada Sanchez: I would say autonomy and empowerment. So you can drive that in your organization, where you devise units that are autonomous and they’re empowered. Even small teams of your employees, just showing them that you trust their judgment and that you’ve created this independence. You know the right guardrails so that they can communicate when things get solved quickly. I think it’s motivating and also very important for transformational innovation.

Milan Ivosevic: I would say critical thinking because we might get a false impression with all the AI technology. There is a big difference between knowing and understanding. We should not lose track of the power of critical thinking that humans have.

Cherie Leonard: I would say it’s all about culture. Internal culture certainly is setting us up for transformative thinking and breaking down those barriers and leaning into the speed, the empowerment, the creativity externally. Again, I think we can’t be so internal focused and navel gazing. We have to understand the externalities, the weak signals, the culture around us and how we can tap into that and leverage that to go from zero to N.

Harsh Wardhan: Learning and teaching. I’ll stick with the AI theme. If you don’t learn to use these tools to supercharge your work today—you won’t be replaced by an AI, but you’ll be replaced by the person who is using AI.

Also, not being protective about what you learn. It happens, it always happens. You learn something new, you want to keep it exclusive and you want to be like, I’m going to be the rock star using this thing. Don’t do that. Learn the AI, bring your team, and then your organization with you. Teach them how to use it because you are not a single person making transformational innovation.

Tammy Butterworth: I’m going to go back to rogue mindset. It’s been a big thing across day one at FEI. It applies in so many ways. So, one is question all the assumptions that we know, so the example you brought about the iPad and the friction. We all made an assumption that that’s a pain point for people, but we need to really lean into that and understand what are the true insights, true problems to solve and break any assumption that we’re making.

The second way I’d look at it is we heard that there are still companies that are saying don’t use AI. They’re doing it for their reasons like they want to handle the bias, they want to handle the IP. I entirely understand, but for the people that are being told not to use it, they need a rogue mindset to use it on their own time. To understand how it’s working, how to use it, how to prompt engineer, so that when it’s ready in that organization, they can hit the ground running because they’re being left behind.

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The Blockbuster Blunder: A Cautionary Tale of Strategy Gone Wrong

A roll of film moving off into the sunset.

Many of us have fond memories of Friday nights at Blockbuster, perusing shelves of VHS tapes and DVDs, debating whether to rent “Jurassic Park” for the 17th time or take a chance on that obscure indie film. But nostalgia couldn’t save this once-dominant brand from becoming the punchline of business school case studies. Blockbuster’s downfall offers fundamental lessons about the importance of sound strategy and the role data science can play in shaping it—or in Blockbuster’s case, how ignoring data can lead to a business horror story scarier than anything in their “Late Night” section.

The Meeting: A Desperate Grab for Relevance

Picture this: There I was, the head of analytics at a major ad agency, sitting across from Blockbuster’s C-suite in their Texas headquarters. The tension was thicker than the plot of a Christopher Nolan movie. The CEO, looking like he’d just watched his company’s stock price perform a Swan Lake death scene, outlined their strategy to turn the struggling company around, which included such straw-grasps as:

Transform rental locations into retail stores selling merchandise.
Branch out into selling tickets for live events.

As he spoke, I felt a growing sense of unease, like I was watching a car crash in slow motion. This wasn’t a strategy; it was a Hail Mary pass thrown by a quarterback who wasn’t sure which end zone was his.

The Problem: Misguided Desperation

Now, don’t get me wrong. Blockbuster’s team wasn’t stupid. They were desperate, and desperation can make even the smartest cookies crumble. Their core business was eroding faster than a sandcastle at high tide, thanks to Netflix’s DVD-by-mail business and the rise of streaming services. In their panic, they had broken the glass to grasp desperately at the emergency lever, concocting a strategy that was more wishful thinking than coherent plan.

Their approach was problematic for several reasons. First, Blockbuster had about as much experience in merchandising or event ticket sales as I do in neurosurgery. They were ignoring the real threat—the shift to digital streaming—like an ostrich with its head in the sand, if the sand was a pile of unsold DVDs. Transforming their stores would drain resources faster than a leaky bucket, leaving nothing for potential digital innovations. And let’s not forget they were trying to muscle into markets already crowded with specialized competitors—they were bringing a plastic knife to a gunfight.

The potential consequences were severe: wasted resources, confused customers, and a continued decline in their core business. Ultimately, this misguided strategy accelerated Blockbuster’s demise rather than saving it. It was like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon—energetic, but ultimately futile.

The Broader Context: A Common Pitfall

Blockbuster’s misstep isn’t unique in the business world. It’s like there’s a support group out there: “Welcome to Strategic Blunders Anonymous.” Consider an old client of mine, Kodak, who invented the digital camera but clung to their film business like it was the last life raft on the Titanic. They filed for bankruptcy in 2012, proving that even being first doesn’t matter if you’re running in the wrong direction. Then there’s Borders Books, who expanded aggressively into music and video, neglecting the growing e-book market. They ended up liquidating in 2011, a cautionary tale of what happens when you bring a bookshelf to an e-reader fight.

These cases share a common thread: wishful thinking masquerading as strategy, like a kid wearing their parent’s clothes and pretending to be an adult. It’s cute when a five-year-old does it, less so when it’s a billion-dollar corporation.

What is Strategy, Really?

So, if we know what strategy isn’t (a wish list, a Hail Mary, or a series of random tactics thrown at the wall to see what sticks), what is it? Strategy isn’t just a fancy word to make the C-suite feel important. It’s a cohesive framework for achieving a specific, well-defined goal. Think of it as the GPS for your business road trip—without it, you’re just driving around aimlessly, burning fuel and getting nowhere.

Richard Rumelt, in his book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, outlines three key elements of a solid strategy. First, you need a clear diagnosis—understanding the challenges and opportunities facing your organization. It’s like going to the doctor; you can’t treat the disease if you don’t know what it is.

Next comes the guiding policy, a general approach to overcoming the challenges identified in your diagnosis. This is your North Star, providing a consistent direction for decision-making throughout the organization. Without it, your company is like a ship without a rudder, at the mercy of whatever wind happens to be blowing that day.

Finally, you need coherent actions—a set of coordinated steps designed to carry out your guiding policy. Without this, even the best policy remains just a good idea, like that gym membership you bought in January and haven’t used since February.

The Role of Data Science in Strategy

This is where data scientists come in, armed with our algorithms and our slightly unhealthy obsession with spreadsheets. We’re not just number crunchers or the folks you call when your computer acts up (that’s IT, for the last time!). We can play an essential role in developing and executing strategy.

We’re the Ghostbusters of the business world, but instead of proton packs, we carry powerful forecasting models to project future trends. We’re the reality check when the sales team starts spouting off about hockey stick growth projections that look more like a giraffe’s neck. We can set realistic KPIs and develop SMART goals, ensuring your objectives are more achievable than time travel and more specific than “do better.”

But wait, there’s more! We’re also your guides through the maze of data-driven decision making. We can provide insights from complex data sets that are clearer than a bell and more actionable than a triple espresso on a Monday morning. And when it comes to preparing for the future, our scenario planning capabilities make us the corporate world’s equivalent of fortune tellers, minus the crystal ball and questionable fashion choices.

Learning from Blockbuster’s Mistakes

What can we learn from Blockbuster’s ill-fated attempt to blockbust itself? First, stay true to your core. Blockbuster trying to sell t-shirts and concert tickets was like McDonald’s deciding to pivot into haute cuisine—stick to what you know. They could have leveraged their brand recognition to move into digital streaming, but instead, they zigged when they should have zagged.

Second, don’t ignore the elephant in the room, especially when that elephant is stomping all over your business model. Blockbuster should have tackled the shift to digital head-on, instead of pretending it was just a passing fad like pet rocks or low-rise jeans.

Third, use your data wisely. Blockbuster probably had more data than they knew what to do with, showing the rise of streaming. But having data and using it effectively are two different things—like owning a treadmill and actually using it to exercise instead of as an expensive clothes hanger.

Fourth, think long-term. Avoid short-term fixes for long-term problems. It’s like putting a band-aid on a broken leg. It might make you feel better for a moment, but it’s not solving the real issue. And come to think of it, it probably wouldn’t even make you feel better for that moment.

Finally, be realistic. Optimism is great, but too much of it is like too much sugar—it’ll give you a quick high before the crash. Blockbuster’s plan to suddenly dominate new markets was about as realistic as my plan to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skating (I can’t even ice skate).

The Power of Good Strategy

In the end, Blockbuster’s story serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of sound strategy in business. As data scientists, we have the tools and skills to contribute meaningfully to strategic discussions, grounding them in data-driven insights and realistic projections. We’re the voice of reason in a world that sometimes seems to have lost its mind, the ones who can tell you that no, the emperor really isn’t wearing any clothes. And we’re the digital tailor that can take the measurements to sew him some.

But remember, while data is super-extra-duper important, it’s not everything. Good strategy also requires creativity, industry knowledge, and the courage to make tough decisions. It’s about combining the art of business with the science of data, like an awkward make-out session between intuition and cold, hard facts.

So let’s learn from Blockbuster’s mistakes. Let’s harness the power of data, craft strategies that stand the test of time, and maybe, just maybe, avoid becoming the next cautionary tale in the business strategy hall of fame. After all, in the game of business, you either win and become a case study, or you still become a case study, just a much more depressing one.

Your move, C-suite.

For more columns from Michael Bagalman’s Data Science for Decision Makers series, click here.

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Measuring the Human Element

Graphic features a kind of lightspeed with flashes of colors in the center.

Here in Part 3 of the series, the roundtable participants discuss the human element of innovation. With AI influencing tools, systems and frameworks, how can humans evolve to continue learning and leading the way when it comes to transformational innovation?

Tammy Butterworth, Product Innovation Director at Welch’s
Lisa Costello, Director, Head of Platform, Prologis Ventures at Prologis
Milan Ivosevic, VP of R&D and Innovations at CooperSurgical
Prapti Jha, former Design Strategy & Research, Design Thinking & Innovation at Harvard University
Cherie Leonard, Head of North America Insights at Colgate-Palmolive
Nevada Sanchez, Co-Founder and Vice President of Core Technology at Butterfly Network, Inc.
Michele Sandoval, Director of Innovation at E&J Gallo Winery
Leslie Shannon, Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting at Nokia
Harsh Wardhan, Innovation Lead, Design Strategist at Google

Roundtable Part 3: Measuring the Human Element

Seth Adler: Let’s bring up humans. We’ve looked at GenAI as a tool. And we’ve explored how to strategically take innovation from zero to N. Now we know we’re going in the right direction. How do we evolve?

Cherie Leonard: I think it goes back to something Tammy mentioned earlier, about starting with the internal process. I think there’s an incredible importance of having people along for the journey and creating a sense of empowerment, whatever that might look like. Especially as it comes to the diversity of thinking. One of the presentations this morning at FEI talked about GenAI as the engine of innovation. And one of the key kinds of areas in the journey was making sure you have diversity. I think it said anytime and always or something to that extent. But to me it was not just about the technical diversity of the models for the things that you’re trying to evolve, but it’s the human diversity around the table.

If you think about this group here, we’re all coming from different places. A similar interest in innovation with extraordinarily different experiences, different industries, different challenges. And I think creating the space for that human interaction and discussion will be critical just to continue to evolve the richness and ultimately the actionability of any of this. Because if it’s not actionable, you can’t make decisions or it’s not driving a business forward. What’s the point?

Adler: Michele, it feels like spirits is very human in the way that you run the organization.

Michele Sandoval: That was the first thing I thought of. I was reacting, you’re talking about this in the context of the business and the business framework, and the first place my mind went to was the consumer. Being in the alcohol beverage industry, that’s part of our company mantra, which is we serve people. Joy and the moments that matter. It’s about the consumer. When I think about the role of innovation and what we’re doing, it’s to serve them. It’s to be at their behest, and yes, all this other stuff matters, but how can we as innovators think about the consumer every step of the way throughout the process? We try to put that mindset even into the folks that run the bottling lines, the folks that pick the grapes, the winemakers that make the wine. How do you make sure that stays at the forefront?

Tammy Butterworth: Absolutely. I work in R& D and I’m designing products for humans. Everything we do is human centered. And we think beyond just the product, to the experience. So, to what Michele was just saying, if they see it on a shelf. Why are they picking it up? What are they going to do with it? What problem are we solving for them? How are we doing it differently so that they want to buy our product and not someone else’s? We’re always thinking about that human experience. We’re humans designing it as well, and we touched on AI. We’re going to use AI to augment what we do, to make us faster, to help us get to what are some of the questions that we need to answer, or what are some of the hypotheses, so that we get there faster, so we can design a product for that experience.

Nevada Sanchez: We have the benefit of a product needing a human to work. I mean, there’s really two different people involved in the value that we’re delivering. On the one hand, our customer is able to do their job better, easier, get better insights. Just as important as that, and maybe even more so is the first time they’re actually helping. And that human touch has probably been one of the most motivating factors for a lot of people that continues to work and advance our mission. Some of the stories that you get are pretty incredible.

A nurse took their device home just to practice getting better at imaging and found a cancer in her daughter’s kidney that would have been a big problem if she hadn’t seen it. I hear those stories every day. You can also see some of the work that we’ve done bringing things to low- and middle-income countries, we put a thousand devices in Kenya and seeing just the way we’ve impacted their lives by bringing this capability to them is pretty impactful. That human connection is incredibly important to our mission, but also for the people that work with us in advancing our mission.

Lisa Costello: We work in supply chain, so we’re always thinking about our customers that are in our warehouses trying to operate these facilities and the ebb and flow of human workforces and what they’re able to get access to. During the pandemic, it was a lot lower. They were starting to get really excited about robotics machines. Now it’s equalizing a bit more. Now they’re not spending as much. We’re constantly tracking that. And I think it’s always going to be a collaboration between humans and machines doing the work. Back to the crisis mentality, there’s going to be opportunities to bring in more or less depending on what’s happening in our wider market.

Milan Ivosevic: I hope so. This year, our plenary panel hit on human centered design. It hit the core of this. I was there with my colleagues from CooperSurgical, we are positioned as a fertility company that helps families and couples getting babies. It doesn’t get more human than that and I can tell you this really comes to the essence of who we are as humans. Imagine if you have family or couples they want to build a family and they can’t and then you go there and you help them, it’s so rewarding. It’s very emotional. Empathy plays a big part.

Prapti Jha: Maybe because we’re living in a world where we can be proven wrong anytime. And I totally take that assumption. But from what I see and feel right now, I have this bias that I feel a machine cannot have the same level of empathy like a human. Because as humans, we are just a different organism. It’s we see stuff. We shift our thoughts and mindset. According to that, whatever machine would do is like what we feed into it. And then from all the so-called case studies or how humans have reacted in the past, and then that machine would react for you if it is being empathetic. But that’s a horror for me, just because of the area I work in, it’s like a machine would provide that level of empathy because that’s so core to being a human. And then I would ask the question, then why would humans exist? That’s one of the biggest strengths that we as humans have.

Leonard: The idea, obviously, we talk a lot about people centricity, in the business and making sure that everyone around the table, no matter the function, is empowered for that. But I think also part of the beauty and what we’ve heard these stories of people being human is that you can’t always predict. We say one thing, we do another, or emotions, motivations shift over time, and I think that’s something, and hearing you talk, AI at the moment can’t replicate that, so that gives a reason for being, for all of us being humans around the table. Interacting with family and friends and all those things that make life meaningful.

Ivosevic: Aren’t we so subjective about humans? We all fear that these things will never go there, but my biggest fear is not will the machine feel it, really, but the machine can mimic and express that feeling, it can get trained how to talk and can express it, even if it’s not really feeling down in the core, and that can manipulate a lot of things and steer it in a very wrong direction.

Jha: Absolutely, that’s going to happen. It would be just those situations where the machine is not trained on, that’s when you would know, oh, this is the machine’s reaction, or it’s a human’s reaction. We are going to get there. We’ll come back to this roundtable and see how the world is right now.

Adler: It does feel like at least you brought up, that’s going to be the combination of humans and artificial intelligence. The phrase collective intelligence feels like that’s what maybe the theme of FEI 2025 will be, is how can we marry our humanity. How can we find the lane for our humanity with the ever-expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence?

Leslie Shannon: This year at FEI 2024, you asked me to speak about virtual natives, which is the topic of people born since 2000 and how they’re different from those before and they have a very different way of looking at things. They are extremely digital savvy, and it goes beyond that. But they look at things differently and they’re willing to challenge. They’re willing to see things that are inefficient and they’re like, that’s ridiculous. I’m not doing that. And so they’re actually going to be upending things and disrupting things and making them more human.

That’s one of the big things that is coming out of this generation. And so I am really encouraged. One of the things we’ve done at Nokia is we’ve taken some actual virtual natives and we brought them together in groups and given them problems within the company and asked for their opinion and then had them present to senior leadership because we find that they’re extremely fresh out of the box. Thinking helps us be better. And hiring younger people, creating workspaces that are what they expect and then listening to them. That actually has guided us towards more humanity in our workplace.

Harsh Wardhan: This whole conversation about digital natives is so fascinating. I’ll give you an example of a kid. We were talking about getting the feeling of writing on the tablets and paper. This kid uses an iPad to sketch and they’re amazing artists blowing up on Instagram. And I was watching them draw. Tell me about this. How do you feel about drawing on iPad? And they, they were like, yes, it’s good. It’s amazing. I mean, it is what it is. I was like, don’t you feel the need of that friction or tactile feedback when you are drawing on iPad? And they were like, no, why would I need that?

My mind was blown at that moment because it is something that we expect because we have written on paper and that’s how we started, that’s how we started our lives and education. And they’re like, no, this is amazing, I can actually change pens and I can do this and that. Then they started showing me that. It made me feel we must think differently for these folks who in their language are built different.

Since you gave me the opportunity to talk, I’ve been bottling these things up as everybody was talking, going back to the human centered aspect of it. When you think about innovation at its core definition, there are three things. Not human centered innovation. There’s business, there’s technology, and there’s desirability. And for those of you who recognize the DVF framework, I think we have been losing out on the desirability aspect.

We are over indexing on building the technology. Still is, it’s still happening even though we preach, we talk, and so on. We speak at conferences, it’s still happening. And then we want to make money. Everybody wants to make money. Who doesn’t? So we are forgetting about people, what people actually want.

And I’ll say this last thing. Why it is important to think about desirability is because it’s like you are hosting a vegan group of people and you make chicken tikka masala for them. That’s the worst thing that you can do to them if you don’t have the right menu. We don’t want to do that. That’s why we need empathy. And we don’t really need empathy by building products and services. You need it throughout the process. Because you said, for couples who are trying to bear a child. It’s not just that you give them injections and if you give them whatever they need, that’s not it. You have to be a human with them. You have to understand the feeling that they’re going through, whether you have a child or not.

Shannon: And I would say you need to treat your employees with empathy as well.

Wardhan: Exactly. It has to be in the system. And that’s what AI is missing right now.

Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for more posts featuring All Things Innovation’s roundtable discussion on transformational innovation.

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Capturing Innovation Engagement

A mousetrap set with cheese ready and waiting.

“Leonardo is a think tank at the nexus of art, science, and technology,” says Rassi. “We have been around for a very long time, since the 1960s, and we’re the publishers of the first peer reviewed academic journal that brought together art, science, and technology. Today, we’re global. We have a salon series in 58 cities around the world. We publish our peer reviewed journal at MIT Press along with our book series, the Leonardo series. We have a strategic partnership with ASU, and we have several different residencies and fellowships. Our work is about incubating creativity and collaborative problem solving to address complex issues in the world.”

Speaking of an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, we had a roundtable featured here at FEI, and it was all about the creativity of cross collaboration, of how these innovators can come together with other parts of the company. Did you have any key takeaways on what you gained from that?

“I love that we’re having this conversation. I think it’s an important one,” she says. “I also think it’s important to distinguish between capital ‘I’ innovation and lower ‘i’ innovation when we talk about this kind of approach and the way that we move forward. One of the speakers talked about kind of going rogue. That made me smile, but I also think that we need to include more stakeholders in what that means. A lot of organizations speak about innovation but want to time box it. They also want to control it. Part of innovation is about play. It comes about from unintended consequences, recognizing it and being able to capture it. I think when we talk about innovation, we really need to be more specific about what type of innovation and for what purpose.”

The Lifecycle of Innovation

“Going rogue” was an impactful comment during the FEI roundtable presentation regarding the innovation mindset and the overall culture. Is the process of innovation becoming more of a democratized system in the corporate enterprise, where everyone is involved or should be involved in the process?

“I think we go in cycles,” says Rassi. “If you think about 15 or 20 years ago, you had Starbucks come out with their idea platform where everyone across the company could give ideas and people would give thumbs up, thumbs down, how it went. I myself have rolled out a number of different organization wide innovation processes. I think the key is about really intending for the engagement to be authentic and not just for people to give ideas and never hear back. Some of the things that I have seen work well is to engage individuals whose ideas people think are good and have them have a part in the development of that idea from beginning to the end. That provides a really good way for them to grow and really allows everyone to feel like they own the innovation process versus just the ideation or just the execution. You want think about the full life cycle, I think, when you’re thinking about democratization. How can you engage everyone along the way?”

It’s not just the leadership from the top down, but also perhaps getting all of the employees involved in this more open innovation process.

Rassi observes, “It’s the stakeholder engagement that can fuel innovation, not just the leadership but also the employees, the curious, the creative, the ones that want to create and engage with innovation. We all do. I mean, I don’t think anyone owns the innovation label. We all are innovative in our own ways. And so how do we bring people together? And really for people who are lucky enough to have a leadership role in innovation, how do you take a step back and make room for other people to come in? That sometimes is very challenging. You sometimes find innovation groups becoming very insular in organizations. Being able to fight against that is kind of where you get to that democratization process.”

What is your perspective on the future of innovation?

“Uncertainty is a given,” says Rassi. “I think that we’re still trying to get our language aligned around the new tools that we have. Everyone likes to say AI. We’re talking about several different technologies and tools under that umbrella. It’s going to take a while for us to learn this new language and learn this new conversation. And I think that’s to be expected. We just are implementing a disruptive technology, so we’re going to have a little bit of time to get used to it.”

For more of the interview with Termeh Rassi, check out the video from FEI 2024.

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Unlocking the Potential of Data Innovation

Big pile of light bulbs with one lit up.

You were a moderator at some of the morning roundtables during the FEI conference. These roundtables touched on a lot of different insights and innovation topics such as interdisciplinary activity, artificial intelligence, and human centricity. What are your thoughts on the roundtables that you moderated as far as key takeaways?

“I think there are a few takeaways, because the tables I moderated, they came from different industries with different backgrounds,” says Kuo. “Take the conversation on AI, for example. There was a gentleman from the design industry. He was discussing how he used AI for some design purposes, but then in the meantime, the clients raised some questions about the copyright and who owns the ideas. The lesson is that there are a lot of opportunities, but there are certain things we still need to further validate.”

Kuo adds, “Another example is an executive who said they use AI in part to leverage their past data to create synthetic data. That’s something I’m very interested in learning more about. I’m sure once I bring those findings back to my team, they will ask how you validate that synthetic data and how do you compare with the current methodology?”

Synthetic data is an interesting topic to bring up because, obviously, you work for a financial company, and synthetic data is said to be useful in the finance field.

“Absolutely. I can see how it could be useful, especially in certain industries,” agrees Kuo. “I will imagine, for example, in the medical and healthcare fields there are certain data that’s difficult to obtain. There are certain diseases that are rare and so it will be hard to find a patient to get the data. But then again, there’s also the question about how much we can trust the data. In this whole area, it creates a lot of opportunities but also brings a lot of uncertainty in how we communicate and make the best use of it.”

She continues, “My background is insights. The question becomes how we can rely on AI for ideas and insights that it generates compared with what we have done from real human beings. There were a few good case studies at FEI, and I learned further from the roundtables. It’s well worth bringing back these findings to the team.”

Lessons Learned for the Next Generation

With the developments in AI, there’s a lot of questions about privacy and security, as well as accessibility. Do you feel that in today’s corporate world there’s a democratization of data and insights?

“I think it probably depends on your company, and your industry,” she says. “Because my company is in the financial industry, it might be stricter. We have a lot of transaction data. Usually, it’s only accessible for the data science team because they are trained to use it properly, because security is a top priority for our company. We have certain procedures to access the data.”

What about the journey of data and innovation together? Is there more of a growing connection today that relates to the data-innovation pipeline?

“I do see that,” says Kuo. “Because right now, people are thinking, OK, now we don’t have cookies and we also have more privacy regulations, how can we learn more about consumers given all these constraints. There are many new ideas coming up. But I feel that everybody’s looking for case studies. Who is doing what and how successful has it been or what’s the learning from failure?”

What do you think the future holds?

“For my personal and professional growth, I would like to see more in AI, data, and human, and how those three play together,” observes Kuo. “Because we all feel like AI is growing so fast. But at the end of the day, we are humans. What kind of role are we going to play in this? That’s critical, because now we have seen how perhaps a lot of jobs might be reduced or might be replaced because of AI, and so I feel this is really the time we think about what we can do as a human being. What kind of jobs will the next generation have? The job might not exist yet, but how are we going to educate the next generation? We must think about that to better prepare for the future.”

For more of the interview with Su-Feng Kuo, check out the video from FEI 2024.

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Attaining Zero to N Innovation

A background of rising laser beams, kind of like a sunrise on the horizon.

In Part 1 of our Innovation Roundtable series, the participants explored the possibilities of transformational innovation. Here, in Part 2, the roundtable discussed the aspects of attaining sustainable innovation on the spectrum of “zero to one.” The concept of “zero to one” innovation, as described in Peter Thiel’s book Zero to One, is the idea of creating something new and unique, rather than simply copying something that already exists.

Tammy Butterworth, Product Innovation Director at Welch’s
Lisa Costello, Director, Head of Platform, Prologis Ventures at Prologis
Milan Ivosevic, VP of R&D and Innovations at CooperSurgical
Prapti Jha, former Design Strategy & Research, Design Thinking & Innovation at Harvard University
Cherie Leonard, Head of North America Insights at Colgate-Palmolive
Nevada Sanchez, Co-Founder and Vice President of Core Technology at Butterfly Network, Inc.
Michele Sandoval, Director of Innovation at E&J Gallo Winery
Leslie Shannon, Head of Trend and Innovation Scouting at Nokia
Harsh Wardhan, Innovation Lead, Design Strategist at Google

Roundtable Part 2: Attaining Zero to N Innovation

Seth Adler: We’ve all had many conversations around 0 to N. Let’s break that down. I think everybody at the table, 0 to 1, sure. But 1 to N is where the rubber meets the road. What might you share in that area?

Harsh Wardhan: When you think about 0 to 1, it’s the MVP. You are trying to disrupt the market. You’re trying to do something new, and that’s where everybody’s head goes to, because that’s exciting. But how do you take it from 1 to N, which is sustainable innovation? How do you sustain it? You’re beyond the crisis. You have built something. How do you sustain it? How do you keep doing it? That’s where most of the challenges lie, such as when Prapti spoke about culture and structures. How do you sustain that?

I’ll give an example of a company I worked for, Ford Motor Company. In the 2020 time frame, when Tesla was still a kid, I would say nobody cared about Tesla. Let’s say 2019. I joined the company and I was like, wow, this is an amazing vehicle. Why don’t you talk about it? I was right in the heart of the automotive scene in Detroit. And Ford was like, ha, they are kids. In 2020, the Tesla cyber truck is launched. What happened? That was the crisis for Ford (the best-selling truck in the world is the Ford F-150). They saw a threat in the cyber truck. That’s when they started developing more sustainable innovation in the context of trucks. And so now you have the Ford Lightning truck. You have so many trucks being introduced with all new technology that we see now.

Cherie Leonard: That got me thinking about the importance of not only the way that we develop and scale internally, but the critical component of culture and context of what’s happening around us. It actually took me back to music streaming. Think about Napster. You could argue that they were one of the first. It gained some momentum and then failed pretty quickly. I would argue it never got to the end. But then you have something coming along a couple years later, like Spotify. What were those externalities that helped drive or help propel or help scale it to what it is today from a subscription perspective? Was it the smartphone, the fact that you needed that sort of device in order to create the demand or the occasions for streaming? Was it something else about the bandwidth and the technology? Was Napster ahead of its time? It got me thinking a little bit more about the externalities as well.

Tammy Butterworth: I think the reason I was nodding, it was reminding me of a previous experience I’ve had. I think a minimum viable product is great. I had the experience of launching one where the R&D team knew that, the marketing team knew that, but the sales team and the route to market was quite traditional. And so we take a non-perfect product, we put it into market and it quickly gets taken out. And there’s no more permission to be there. I think you need to have that approach holistically across an organization or it turns into a disaster that nobody wants to talk about.

Michele Sandoval: That really struck a chord with me. With Gallo, sales are our bread and butter. We are always trying to find ways to test and learn. Once you’ve burned that bridge, it is so hard to go back and go to a retailer and say, well I know we introduced this brand or we introduced this new line extension. It failed, but we’re going to introduce it in a different brand in a different way with a different proposition. We think now it’s going to succeed. And they’re like, yeah, right. Even getting that internal buy-in from your own sales organization is challenging. Once it’s failed, you lose that chance. You must be so sure. We are trying to find new ways to be able to get that learning in the hands of our customers. We call it sips to lips. Get that learning in the hands of our consumers, and be able to learn and iterate without the fear of losing that opportunity long term.

Leslie Shannon: History is littered with examples of companies that innovated, had a great idea a little too soon. Xerox with the mouse, Nokia phones. And even the iPhone, it wasn’t the first iPhone. It wasn’t the second iPhone. The one that really exploded and took down networks was the iPhone 3. Because that was the first one that had 3G and the App Store, the first two didn’t. That was the iPhone 3, not the one in 2009, not the first one in 2007. Apple stuck with it. It was the same thing at Nokia on the mobile phone side as Ford with the Tesla. It’s a terrible telephone, which it was, but Apple had changed the paradigm to the thing in your pocket going from a phone to being a computer. And that’s what we didn’t see.

Prapti Jha: If I may just add to that point. Knowing what the future might look like is really important when it comes to 0 to 1 and 1 to N. In my talk yesterday at FEI, I was saying zero to N as a company mindset. We must start thinking that way because of the place that we are in right now. Future thinking is one way that you plan for scenarios and do all those exercises.

But once you start seeing those scenarios, signals of change around you from social, technological, political, all these perspectives, rather than just tech, then you are more ready and prepared for what the future might look like. And then you’re working towards that. To your point, iPhones at first did they fail? Still, they stuck with it because they saw the future would change. It won’t be the Blackberries in the know or Nokia. Having that confidence is from that kind of thinking and their methods and frameworks to do that and bring that into the organization.

Adler: Milan, where do you come in here? Prapti is kind of trying to take the one out and just go zero to N.

Milan Ivosevic: I would like to build on that because that resonates with me. I don’t think we can separate it, because actually zero to one defines where you are going. Are you running left or right? If you miss that, it doesn’t matter what you do along the way. Your one to N could be a very wrong direction. And I’ll just add that the scale element here is very key. What is good business for a $10 billion company is very different than a $100 million company. That’s where that 1 to N and investment, if you move wrong, it gets magnified. And sometimes many companies we are mentioning here, they go way back, go too far on that. So the 0 to 1 scale will define where you’re aiming. And if you’re in the right direction, 1 to N actually magnifies that.

Jha: To clarify, I just said having that compass is important for where you are going, for both kinds of innovations.

Adler: Nevada, where does your company fit in here in the zero to N continuum?

Nevada Sanchez: It’s been an incredible story in that we did something very disruptive to the industry, bringing very low cost, very powerful imaging to the medical world. Unfortunately, it was also probably the most slow moving industry you could possibly bring an innovation into. And so navigating that, that sustainable aspect, how do we survive this long struggle to enact this change? And that industry has been an incredible topic of focus for us.

And I think it was key to being obscenely tuned in to what are the barriers in place? Is it image quality? Let’s invest in that. Is it enterprise software? Let’s invest in that. So that you’re prepared to address all of these things that are going to stand in your way. Perseverance is incredibly important here. You have to be really attentive, strategic and reactive to those signals that you’re getting, when you talk to the customers. Why are you not adopting this? What’s in your way? And so you really have to be tuned into that, react to it quickly, make sure that strategic input is going into all of your strategies as a company.

Lisa Costello: I would say a lot of this work has to be done at the same time. As you’re building your MVP, you also have to be doing the work of making sure that it’s ready for the market or ready for your internal organization to be ready to adopt. And if you haven’t done that work at the same time, then you can end up forcing something through that just doesn’t feel good. Then you did the work before it was ready.

Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for more posts featuring All Things Innovation’s roundtable discussion on transformational innovation.

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