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.

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.

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.

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 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.