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.
Video courtesy of Streamly
Contributors
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Seth Adler heads up All Things Insights & All Things Innovation. He has spent his career bringing people together around content. He has a dynamic background producing events, podcasts, video, and the written word.
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Matthew Kramer is the Digital Editor for All Things Insights & All Things Innovation. He has over 20 years of experience working in publishing and media companies, on a variety of business-to-business publications, websites and trade shows.
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