philmckinney

Creative thinking is a critical skill for personal, professional and business success. When you look at others who have been highly successful, such as Elon Musk, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, the common skill they have is a well exercised skill of creative thinking. Creative thinking is the fuel to everything you do. According to a TIME Magazine poll, 91% of people say that unleashing creativity is vital to our personal lives and 83% believe it’s important for our professional development. But an Adobe survey shows that only 25% of us think of ourselves as creative. That translates into 75% who do not believe they are creative. This podcast shares 3 actions to improve your creative thinking.

What Are The Steps To Go From An Idea To On The Shelf S12 Ep1 Guest: Tracy Hazzard of Hazz Design whee she has co-invented 35 patents with an 86% commercialization rate and designed 250+ consumer products bought everyday generating over $750 million for her clients. Show Notes: http://KillerInnovations.com

Valuable Secrets From Innovation Coaches and Mentors S11 Ep52 If you are interested in putting your name on the list for the Innovation Mastermind Group, visit: http://killerinnovations.com/mastermind http://killerinnovations.com/valuable-secrets-from-innovation-coaches-and-mentors-s11-ep52/

Robert Scoble on Virtual Reality - Augmented Reality S11 Ep51

7 Parts to an Innovation Pitch for Your Idea S11 Ep50 Show notes at: http://KillerInnovations.com

I'm a big Tom Fishburne fan. Tom's cartoons hit close to home because of his keen observation and commentary on creativity and innovation. S11 Ep49

For this weeks show, Phil invited Kym McNicholas (Emmy award winning journalist) to join him to discuss and debate the latest innovations coming from startups. They cover startups that presented at Sir Richard Branson's Extreme Tech Challenge finals on Necker Island, the personal reactions from seeing the reveals of new VR technologies at TED and the latest mobile devices and applications from Mobile World Congress.

Most organizations use the traditional approach to host brainstorming session with their teams. If they took the time to evaluate the impact, they would recognize that there are some inherent weaknesses in the way brainstorming have been done in the past. This week, I will share with you how I run what I call a next generation brainstorming session. The structure will look similar but there are a few key differences that will have a major impact on the quality of the ideas generated. Killer Questions: What are the criteria to select research and development projects?

6 Golden Rules of Brainstorming In my experience, most brainstorming sessions fail because they lack an effective plan. Brainstorming is an invaluable and essential tool—when it works. Killer Question: Who do I not want to use my product now, but may want to in the future? S11 Ep46

This weeks show continues our discussion from last week. Now that you understand what an innovation timeline is, what should you do next? You need to take each of the innovation items on your timeline and scout the innovation landscape or battlefield depending on the level of competition in the space. This scouting will build you and your teams context and provide inspiration. If you skip this step, your brainstorming session will generate a large number of duplicates of what others are doing. Show notes at: http://killerinnovations.com/scouting-the-inn…lefield-s11-ep45/

Part of my job has been and continues to be about predicting the future. A few weeks back, I shared with you my prediction about what was going to be the hot innovations of 2016. Most have been already validated by the buzz coming for the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Lets be honest, predicting out one year is fairly easy and low risk. What about predicting 5 years out? .. or 10 years out? It's these longer timelines that help you and your team by providing a vision and direction. So what I have learned over the years of doing longer range predictions? Predicting the future is the easy part. Creating the future is where the real work is at. Note: You can download the sample innovation timeline mentioned in the show at: http://KillerInnovations.com/timeline

In this weeks show, we take a look at the innovation happening in the sharing economy (shareconomy) in non-traditional industries such as customer care. Guest: Antony Brydon CEO of Directly Killer Question: What will your company’s value chain look like in five years? S11 Ep43

Internet of things has become a hot space for innovation over the last few years. Smart thermostats, smart light bulbs – heck even internet connected smart sprinkler systems. Where is this going and what opportunities does this open up for innovators? This week, we have the CEO of Ioterra (iotatracker.com) Ben Wild joins us to talk by IoT and how his firm is solving some of the technical challenges that face this new and emerging industry. Some of the topics we cover include: Where did the idea of Iota come from? Why did you go with crowdfunding (Kickstarter) as your way to bootstrap? What were some of the challenges you came across? What would you do differently? What are the plans for your network that you are building? What are the challenges in the IoT space? Do you think some form of compatibility will emerge in the IoT industry? Where are there still innovation opportunities in the IoT space?

Phil McKinney and Kym McNicholas talk about the winners of the technology & innovation competitions held at CES along with an eclectic set of fun innovations.

This weeks show shares the insights from Kevin Kruse based on his 300 interviews with top performers and how they maintain their productivity. Hint: Time Management

This weeks show is the annual "prediction" of what will be at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and what that means for the innovation and technology trends for 2016. Killer Question: What products and services will I need to develop and offer to stay ahead of my competition in the next five years? S11 Ep39

Starting Selling and Pivoting Start-up Companies Guest: Jeff White of Gravy Killer Question: Who am I not selling to because I think they can’t or won’t pay for my product? S11 Ep 38

Kym McNicholas joins Phil to share her surprise and enthusiasm for the Boulder start-up scene and her work with Sir Richard Branson and the Extreme Tech Challenge. S11 Ep37

How do we help our kids to discover their own creative ability? With the emerging creative economy, creativity is quickly becoming a foundational skill that everyone will need to have to succeed and where better to start than with our kids creativity. Guest: Vitali Minin - Founder and CEO of Modular Toys Killer Question: What would happen if I realigned my industry relationships (i.e., partners, suppliers, etc.)? S11 Ep 36

This weeks show centered around the answers to the most common listener questions. These questions included: What is the biggest challenge (mistakes) organizations face when it comes to innovation? How did the “7 Laws of Innovation” come about? (Link to poster) What was your biggest innovation success? What was your biggest innovation failure? How did you get into doing the Killer Innovations podcast? What is your opinion of the decision for HP to split into two separate companies? Given that you worked with Carly, what is your opinion of her? Show Notes: Listeners can request a FREE digital download of Phil’s two-audio course. This is the same course being sold on Amazon for ~$20.00. Visit http://KillerInnovations.com/innovate Killer Question: Who complains about my product?

Why are some companies more successful than others? Why Do Only 13 Percent of Companies Successfully Execute Their Strategy? What are the 87 doing wrong? Topics in the show include: Why conversations control everything in your business? What are the 10 conversations that create a connected organization? How can truth combat the the Execution Virus (innovation antibodies) that infect every business? How important is it to "declare" your vision? What is the one advice that all CEO's show follow to become the 13 percent? Guest: Dan Prosser Daniel Prosser, as CEO of The Prosser Group, has over 40 years of experience as an entrepreneur CEO, speaker, teacher and mentor, coaching business leaders, entrepreneurs and micropreneurs to cultivate an uncommon approach to building an extraordinary competitive edge. Killer Question: How could my product change in five years?

This episode, we dive into an innovation that is bringing mobile broadband access to the rural and developing countries.

In this episode, we discussed the process (and challenges) of going from invention, to innovation and then ultimately to commercialization. Guest: Dr Tom Cellucci Killer Question: What are we throwing away because we assume it has no value? S11 Ep31

Culture is critical for teams and organizations looking to be have significant innovation impact. Based on working across large, small, non-profit and government agencies, I’ve discovered what are a common set of four culture attributes in organizations that were highly innovative. We validate these and other attributes that make-up culture for an organization with this weeks guest. Guest: Dr. Natalie Baumgartner Dr. Natalie Baumgartner is a Co-Founder and the Chief Psychologist at RoundPegg. RoundPegg is The Culture and Engagement Platform for all companies. S11 Ep30

When someone says innovation, most default to products or services but innovation can be applied to anything. In this weeks, show, we will take a look at innovating a brand. Our guest, Michael Mendenhall, will share his thoughts and experience in successful brand innovation.

Yesterday, I had a chance to visit Boomtown – a next generation #startup #accelerator that has greatly improved the accelerator model. Boomtown startups currently enjoy a 96% survival rate and 78% of them are generating revenues.

Why are stories so important? What's the difference between a good story and a great story? How should we think about audience and the relationship we have with them? Have you ever been surprised by a story that you thought was great but the audience didn't get it? What are the three things every listener should do for better storytelling? Why have partnerships been such a key part of your business activities? What is the criteria you use to select a partner?

Summer is long over and now we are getting into the fall. This time of year always makes me look back on the summer internships. I’m a big believer in “internships” as a way for people to “learn”. Each summer, we bring in interns across a wide range of disciplines: technical, legal, marketing and this year social media. This years interns were impressive. Over the years – I use interns to be my pulse on what is happening in the education system. In my previous role, I would select two and have them stay at my house. For their internship, they would report to someone else. At night – it was the barrage of constant questions. Why must we do something a certain way? Why aren’t we doing this? Most people think I’m nuts for even doing this. I learn so much. It’s a process I call “reverse mentoring” And what did I learn??

What goes into creating an idea that can impact 100’s of million of people? If I polled most people they would say it’s the “idea”. The core of the “idea” is table stakes but it does not guarantee success. Others would say PR and marketing. While PR and marketing are important – it does not guarantee success. So what are we missing? I have a saying I use: ” ..the different between a good innovation and great innovation is the timing”

Every August, I host an annual event for about 600 people, discussing tech and innovation. This event has been going on for more than decade and I’ve been hosting it 4 years now. The challenge is how do you keep an event – or any creative endeavor fresh and interesting?? One common approach is to go out and “copy” what others are doing such as “make it just be like TED”. I’ve been going to the main TED event for years and even they are challenged to change it up. Repetition is boring. The world changes and your ideas/innovations need to change with it. We all get caught in the rut and we tell ourselves it worked for us “last time” it will work for us next time. Experience is not always a good thing. That is until it doesn’t work. Then what? How do you push yourself to constantly be looking for ideas?

Sharing is Critical for Innovation - I regularly get emails from innovators looking for advice or feedback on an idea and most are very appreciative.

Does neural diversity hiring impact your innovation success? Neurodiversity (neural diversity) describes those who have a different thinking process than those who are neurotypical. By using a diversity hiring effort around the way people think, an organization can greatly improve their creative and innovation output and impact. Check it out .. http://ow.ly/RgiD1 #autism

Many believe we are facing one of our largest and most important challenges – the education system. We are transitioning from an information and knowledge economy to that of the creative and innovation economy which requires a different skill set. Many are attacking the problem but is it enough? S11 Ep21

“You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” ~ Zig Zigler Companies employing an innovation strategy consistently exceed investors’ expectations and this is reflected in the stock price. S11 Ep20

Social innovation is about being unreasonable so that you change the world. Must it be non-profit or can you be successful in social innovation as a for-profit entrepreneur? Here are two entrepreneurs stories that will inspire you ... http://ow.ly/Q6H4B

Have you ever done something that others said couldn’t be done? This weeks Killer Innovations radio show was all about doing the #impossible. Our guest was Rahul Sood, co-Founder and CEO of Unikrn, talking about his founding of VooDoo, being acquired by HP, going to Microsoft and his latest dive into the gaming world with Unikrn. You can find the show notes at http://ow.ly/POspE

Killer Innovations Radio Show July 12, 2015 Topic: Perseverance and Pivots Guest: DP Venkatesh - Founder of mPortal Killer Question: Who is using my product in a way I never intended — and how? S11 Ep17

Learning to innovate is not about acquiring a new skill. In fact, it's re-learning the skills you have had since birth. Thus why I believe everyone is a born innovator. Show notes at: http://bit.ly/born-innovator

The more knowledge and memories we store about a subject, the more our awareness dims; our thoughts conform to a pattern and we think in trenches, unable to see something in an entirely new light. It's time to play like children and see through fresh eyes. To once again be beginners and restore our passion and excitement for new possibilities. S11 Ep15

If rejection only makes you more passionate, you may have a great idea on your hands, and now you need to bring it to life It's what is called a - can't not do innovation Show notes at: http://bit.ly/must-do-idea

Creativity is usually associated with open spaces, uninhibited freedom, and a lack of anything to stifle expression. However, sometimes it can be beneficial, even essential, to build walls, make rules and impose constraints on ourselves in order to get our creativity flowing. http://bit.ly/creative-constraint

In the middle of the second world war, James Wright was hard at work, trying to invent a synthetic rubber substitute. He was employed by the U.S. War Production Board who were very interested in cheaper options for rubber as the war had led to severe shortages. His innovation was the result of an unintended consequence. Show notes are at: http://bit.ly/WWII-innovation Visit the blog for past shows at: http://philmckinney.com/

Everyone dreams of a better future. Some of those dreams are more commonplace, like getting a better job; while others are bigger challenges, such as creating something innovative that will change the world or writing a bestselling book. I believe everyone should dream big. Unfortunately, for some people, achieving those dreams feels impossible from the beginning, and they never see them become reality. Have you ever wondered why some people are able to achieve their wildest dreams, while others never seem to make it past the first step? Show notes can be found at: http://bit.ly/innov-goals Visit the blog at http://philmckinney.com

Dissonance is just one way to describe how innovators see the world, but I find it particularly apt in that so many unexpected innovations spring from disharmonies that were invisible to most people — at least until someone decided to resolve them. It’s all about training yourself to accept nothing as the “natural” state of things. Situational dissonance – when something just doesn't seem quite right to you – is a chance to explore the imbalances and inefficiencies that are present everywhere. Here are two inspiring stories of innovation show us how simply recognizing a problem as an unnatural form of dissonance can open up new creative paths and vital solutions. Show notes at: http://bit.ly/situ_dissonance

When the mantra “innovate or die” is invoked, two companies who are often mentioned as examples are Nokia and Kodak. But in what ways, exactly, did these two companies fail to innovate? and what lessons can we learn from their failures? Here are the 5 innovation blind spots that ultimately doomed #Nokia and #Kodak to failure … Show notes at http://bit.ly/nokia-kodak

Multiple studies have shown that frequent lucid dreamers are better at cognitive tasks that involve insight and thinking creatively. So how can you harness the power of lucid dreaming to improve your personal creativity? Show notes at: http://bit.ly/how-lucid-dreaming

We are creative beings, but we don't create alone. While some will try to make the claim of being the sole creator of an innovation, the majority of our ideas are inspired by things and processes already in existence. Show notes can be found at: http://bit.ly/1decOxQ

It is amazing how much can be learned about an innovator’s style and thought processes from the confines of Twitter, so I’ve put together my personal list of 12 principles of innovation Elon Musk displays in 140 characters or less. Show notes and links at: http://bit.ly/elon_tips

Everyone knows of the old saying “Great minds think alike,” usually said as a kind of joke when two people have the same idea at the same time. But just how true is that statement? In fact, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that bigger, better innovations happen when people of wildly different backgrounds and ideas come together and combine their expertise. For show notes, visit: http://bit.ly/Associative-Fluency

Though the market can be great at fostering innovation, it often gets stuck in the same old self-perpetuating ruts because no one wants to take the risk of exploring other options. One of my favorite innovation stories is that of the company GoldieBlox. The founder of the company, Debbie Sterling, had been inspired by a high school math teacher to pursue engineering. She went to Stanford and loved her engineering major, until about halfway through when she struggled in an engineering drawing course and was humiliated in front of the class by the professor. So what did she do? She innovated. You can find the show notes at http://bit.ly/innovation-frustration