Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney - A Show About Ideas Creativity And Innovation

Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney - A Show About Ideas Creativity And Innovation

An award winning podcast and nationally syndicated radio show that looks at the innovations that are changing our lives and how their innovators used creativity and design to take their raw idea and create a game-changing product or service.

Episodes

How To Master Lateral Thinking Skills

August 19, 2025 • 32 mins
A software engineer grabbed a random word from a dictionary – “beehive” – and within hours designed an algorithm that saved his company millions. While his colleagues were working harder, he was thinking differently. This breakthrough didn't come from luck. It came from lateral thinking – a systematic approach to finding solutions hiding in plain […]
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Why ‘Fail Fast’ Innovation Advice Is Wrong

August 12, 2025 • 22 mins
The most popular piece of innovation advice in Silicon Valley is wrong—and it's killing great ideas before they have a chance to succeed. I can prove it with a story about a glass of water that sat perfectly still while a car bounced beneath it. My name is Phil McKinney. I spent decades as HP's […]
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Innovation Partnership Autopsy: HP, Fossil, and the Smartwatch Market

August 5, 2025 • 22 mins
Innovation partnerships can create breakthrough markets—or hand them to competitors through terrible decisions. I know because I lived through both outcomes. Bill Geiser from Fossil and I had it exactly right. We built the MetaWatch—a smartwatch with week-long battery life, Bluetooth connectivity, and every feature that would later make the Apple Watch successful. We had […]
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Why Great Innovators Read Rooms, Not Just Data

July 29, 2025 • 26 mins
You know that moment when you walk into a meeting and immediately sense the mood in the room? Or when a proposal looks perfect on paper, but something feels off? That's your intuition working—and it's more sophisticated than most people realize. Every leader has experienced this: sensing which team member to approach with a sensitive […]
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Why Your Best Employees Are Sabotaging Your Decisions (And How to Fix It)

July 1, 2025 • 20 mins
The $25 Million Perfect Presentation Picture this: You're in a conference room with 23 executives, everyone has perfect PowerPoint presentations, engineering milestones are ahead of schedule, and you're about to sign off on a $25 million bet that feels like a sure thing. That was the scene at HP when we were developing the Envy […]
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3 Innovation Decision Traps That Kill Breakthrough Ideas (And How to Avoid Them)

June 24, 2025 • 14 mins
Every breakthrough innovation starts the same way: everyone thinks it's a terrible idea. Twitter was dismissed as “breakfast updates.” Google looked “too simple.” Facebook seemed limited to “just college kids.” Yet these “stupid ideas” became some of the biggest winners in tech history. After 30 years making innovation decisions at Fortune 100 companies, I've identified […]
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The $1.2 Billion Innovation Disaster: 5 Decision Mistakes That Kill Breakthrough Technology (HP WebOS Case Study)

June 10, 2025 • 30 mins
In 2011, HP killed a $1.2 billion innovation in just 49 days. I was the Chief Technology Officer who recommended buying it. What happened next reveals why smart people consistently destroy breakthrough technology—and the systematic framework you need to avoid making the same mistake. HP had just spent $1.2 billion acquiring Palm to get WebOS—one […]
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How AI Dependency Is Rewiring Your Child’s Creative Brain (And What Parents Can Do About It)

June 3, 2025 • 29 mins
University of Washington researchers discovered something that should concern every parent: children who use AI to create can no longer create without it. And here's the concerning part: most parents have absolutely no idea it's happening. If you've been following our series on Creative Thinking in the AI Age, you know I've been tracking how […]
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Human-AI Creative Partnership: How to Harness AI While Preserving Your Innovative Edge

May 27, 2025 • 33 mins
The most innovative creators don't use AI as a replacement – they use it as a strategic partner in a carefully choreographed dance of human and machine intelligence. Welcome to Part 4 of our series, Creative Thinking in the AI Age – on strengthening your uniquely human creativity while using AI as a partner, not […]
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How to Strengthen Creative Thinking: The 10-Minute Daily Brain Workout Based on Neuroplasticity Research

May 20, 2025 • 29 mins
Humans who committed to four thinking exercises for 10 minutes daily generated 43% more original solutions than the most advanced AI systems. Welcome to Part 3 of our series, Creative Thinking in the AI Age – on strengthening your uniquely human creativity while using AI as a partner, not a replacement. In Part 1, we […]
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Train Your Brain to Outthink AI: Boost Creativity 40% (2025)

May 13, 2025 • 23 mins
Harvard neuroscientists confirm: creative thinking uses neural pathways that AI can't replicate – and never will. Hello, I'm Phil McKinney, and welcome to my innovation studio. Welcome to Part 2 of our series, Creative Thinking in the AI Age – on strengthening your uniquely human creativity while using AI as a partner, not a replacement. […]
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Your Brain on AI: The Shocking Decline in Creative Thinking (2025)

May 6, 2025 • 11 mins
Our ability to solve complex problems without AI has plummeted 30% in just five years. That's not just a statistic – it's the sound of your brain cells surrendering. We are announcing a new series we are calling –  Creative Thinking in the AI Age – on strengthening your uniquely human creativity while using AI […]
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The Five Questions That Unlock Breakthrough Innovation

April 29, 2025 • 35 mins
In 2007, two designers struggling to pay rent in San Francisco had a seemingly simple thought: “What if people could rent out their spare rooms to travelers?” This question—posed by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia—sparked what would become Airbnb, a company now valued at over $100 billion that has fundamentally reshaped how millions of people […]
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How to Improve Your Strategic Thinking Skills

April 22, 2025 • 38 mins
While most people scramble to adapt when the unexpected happens, a select few are already three steps ahead. They saw the change coming, prepared for it, and positioned themselves to benefit. Their secret weapon? Strategic thinking. By the end of this episode, you'll master 6 powerful strategic thinking skills and 5 practical exercises that will […]
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5 Critical Thinking Skills for Digital Literacy: Spotting Misinformation & Manipulation

April 15, 2025 • 25 mins
Your phone pings. A bold headline lights up your screen. A friend shares a “must-see” video. But how do you know what's real? In today's hyperconnected world, critical thinking skills are no longer optional. They're essential tools for digital literacy—your ability to find, verify, and act on information online. Without them, you risk falling into […]
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7 Physical Thinking Tools That Will Improve Your Creativity More Than AI

April 8, 2025 • 33 mins
In a world obsessed with digital tools and AI-generated solutions, it's easy to forget the original engines of creative transformation—our hands, our senses, and the objects we manipulate. Sure, artificial intelligence can analyze patterns faster than we can blink. But if you're searching for that breakthrough moment that flips a challenge on its head, you're […]
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Think Like Bill Gates: The 6-Step System That Built Microsoft and is Changing the World

April 1, 2025 • 53 mins
What made Microsoft possible? Binary code, four kilobytes of memory, and 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. But what truly set Bill Gates apart was a distinct system for solving problems—a mental algorithm that turned complexity into clarity and chaos into systems. The real genius of Bill Gates isn't just the software he wrote or the […]
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Think Like Steve Jobs: 6 Strategies Behind Billion Dollar Ideas

March 25, 2025 • 41 mins
When you think of game-changing innovation, one name stands above the rest—Steve Jobs. His ability to reimagine entire industries didn’t come from technical know-how alone; his way of thinking truly set him apart. Steve Jobs approached problem-solving and creativity in a way that merged art with technology, bringing human experience to the forefront. Let’s dive […]
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Pay It Forward: How Three Words Created Podcasting’s Longest-Running Innovation Show

March 18, 2025 • 15 mins
Have you ever wondered what it takes to build something that lasts? Not just a fleeting success, but a platform that grows, evolves, and continues to impact people decades later? The answer isn't high-end production equipment or a flawless business plan. It starts with a simple idea: pay it forward. That philosophy is the foundation […]
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Tesla vs Edison: The Innovation Methods That Changed The World

March 4, 2025 • 17 mins
On a stormy night in the 1880s, two men were working relentlessly to shape the future of electricity. In Menlo Park, Thomas Edison meticulously tested another filament variation for his electric light, documenting every failure in his growing logbook. Across New York, Nikola Tesla paced frantically, visualizing complete rotating magnetic fields in his mind, spotting […]
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