When I run into fellow innovators, they often want to share their ideas with me and get advice. In many cases, they have an idea that they believe is the?pinnacle of ideas. They love their idea to death and hold it close to them. While they may have a great idea, it has no value in this state.

Having a mind-blowing idea without any execution is pointless. When I question these “idea hoarders,” I often discover...

While innovation leaders have the same core behaviors all great leaders have, they carry important additional behaviors. Today’s topic is the 9 leadership behaviors for innovation leaders which was inspired by an article on Forbes by Jack Zenger. Applied to the topic is my own forty years of experience in the innovation space. These behaviors are foundational for innovation leadership success. 

What comes to mind when you hear the term innovation burnout? Webster's dictionary says that burnout is the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive or prolonged stress. Burnout occurs when we feel overwhelmed, drained, and unable to meet that constant demand.

For innovators, it's that constant demand for coming up with new ideas. Being in the innovation game for some forty years, I ...

Co-innovation is a common term used in the innovation space. It describes two organizations of any kind that come together to innovate in an area of common interest. I am not only talking about collaboration. Co-innovation seeks to deliver a result such as a product or service. There is a 50-50 contribution with this model, whether that’s money, people, labs, etc.

During my tenure at HP, co-innovation...

Whitney Snider is the Head of Alexandria's LaunchLabs and the VP of Alexandria Venture Investments. Alexandria Real Estate Equities is a real estate investment trust that provides housing and labs for life science and tech companies. Whitney will share what ARE is doing to fuel innovation through collaborative campuses.

Whitney works at Alexandria Real Estate Equities and is involved in venture investme...

Cyril Bouquet joins us to discuss "A.L.I.E.N. Thinking: The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas." His book breaks down five keys to creating disruptive ideas called ALIEN Thinking: Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation, and Navigation.

Cyril is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy at IMD. Growing up, both of his parents were professors, but he had no desire to become one. Cyril h...

Have you noticed that there is a constant cycle of new product releases? Organizational quarterly results often drive these releases. Cars, smartphone devices, home automation products, applications all follow this pattern of release cycles. I believe the fear of being left behind is what draws people to upgrades. They don't want to pull out an old generation of a phone or drive an outdated car.

In most com...

Wicked problems are problems that are extremely difficult or impossible to solve. The best example of a wicked problem comes from a project I did with the Department of Education.

This project aimed to innovate kindergarten through 12th-grade education in the U.S. We ran a series of workshops in our attempt to transform education. The project turned out to be an extremely frustrating endeavor. Looking back, I realiz...

Is creative thinking based on a born ability, or can you learn it like any other skill? Is it nature or nurture? There is research that argues both cases, and I believe you can do both. I would say that we are all born highly creative.

Children use problem-solving and their imagination every day. Here's some insight into this creative transition from child to adult. In 1968 George Land teste...

As innovators, we should always ask ourselves what the unintended consequences of our inventions will be. Some unintentional things can be positive, but some can be very negative. Let's look at a list of past innovations that I would uninvent if I could.

The first invention that I would like to uninvent is robocalls. These calls include anything from selling automobile maintenance contracts to variou...

We often wonder if people will accept our ideas or criticize them. This fear can halt us from utilizing our creative expression, which ultimately affects how we innovate. When our creativity is encouraged, it can have a positive impact.

When coming up with new ideas, early encouragement gives you the motivation to repeat them. In my seventh-grade art class, my teacher was showing us how to cut linoleum blocks. B...

We all struggle with being creative from time to time. We may feel like we have lost something, and nothing seems to spark that creative flow. What is killing your creativity? Your ego is the biggest killer of creativity. The struggle tends to become an issue for people in the middle and later years of their career.

When you are called upon to be highly innovative and creative, the fear of failure can...

The Importance of Utilizing Tools

I really enjoy reading as well as listening to podcasts and audible books. With all the information I come across, I have to be able to capture, organize, and recall it to properly utilize it. I’m currently working on a new book as well as some disruptive innovation courses and workshops. The real challenge for me is finding a single tool that solves the issues stated. Over the last six months, I c...

Sam Liang is one of the key innovators behind the scenes in Silicon Valley. He is one of the founders of Google's location services and on the Google Blue Dot patent. Sam is the co-founder and CEO of Otter.ai, which specializes in live transcription services.

Same earned his Ph.D. at Stanford in hopes of becoming a professor. While in school, he met many smart people working on startups, which influe...

We will pick up from the previous show's topic, "What is Innovation?" and talk about innovation types. There are three types that I use. These are institutional innovation, social innovation, and technological innovation.

Institutional innovation is the type that is most commonly overlooked by organizations. Institutional innovation applies to organizations, teams, companies, industries...

A term often abused through advertising, marketing, business meetings, innovation means to introduce something new. A more expansive definition of innovation is — the result of a multi-stage process whereby organizations, teams, and individuals take an idea and transform it to make an improved product, service, or process to compete in the marketplace.

Ideas made real— that is my definition of innovation. W...

Consumer Electronics Show 2021 (CES) will be held virtually due to COVID-19. Despite this change, the show will be available virtually and in seventeen different languages. On top of that, if you are registered, you get thirty days to view all of the content available. Karen Chupka, the Executive Vice President of CES will be joining us to discuss what to look forward to at CES 2021. 

Transitioning from a physi...

Building a library of inspiration in your innovation studio is what ensures you have a ready source of ideas. This can come in the form of a collection of innovation books. I am a visual learner, so reading books is where I often find my inspiration. I am going to walk you through some important books I have and explain why I value them. The first book is “Frank Lloyd Wright: A Visual Encyclopedia”. I grew up in Chicago where Fra...

This episode is the last of Killer Innovations as a radio show. Not an easy decision, but as part of our drive for innovation, we believe this is the best decision. We will discuss the show's history, my book and radio show deal, and what Killer Innovations will look like moving forward. 

Throughout the show, we have talked about how important it is to re-evaluate and try new things. This is a challenge that ...