On this special edition of the Innovation Engine Podcast, David DeWolf, Founder and CEO of 3Pillar Global, and Jessica Hall, 3Pillar's Vice President of Product Strategy and Design, discuss their new book, The Product Mindset: Succeed in the Digital Economy by Changing the Way Your Organization Thinks . During our discussion, we'll unpack the key characteristics of successful digital products and the three core principles that drive their creation: minimizing time to value, solving for need, and...
Oct 09, 2019•45 min•Ep. 157
We discuss whether to view innovation as a top-down or bottom-up function, why innovation measurement is a mirage, and why places like Google X believe that rewarding failure is a way to fuel future successes. Joining us to talk about all of that and more is Taylor Ryan, the CMO of Valuer.ai, which helps corporations, accelerators, and investors find high-potential startups that specifically fit the corporation's strategic innovation requirements. In order to achieve this, Valuer has developed a...
Apr 17, 2019•32 min•Ep. 156
On this episode, we’ll be talking about the growing importance of the role of the Chief Product Officer at driving innovation in many companies. Among the topics we’ll discuss are the most important functions the CPO should perform, what kinds of companies are best suited to hire CPOs, and how you’ll know if your company is ready for one. Joining us to talk about all that and more is Ben Foster. Ben is the Chief Product Officer at GoCanvas and an Executive Product Advisor to more than 50 product...
Apr 03, 2019•54 min•Ep. 155
In this episode, we'll be looking at Loonshots and how to nurture the crazy ideas that win wars, cure diseases, and most importantly here on The Innovation Engine , transform industries. Among the topics we'll discuss are why structure eats culture for breakfast, how and why phase transitions make the perfect environment for innovation to flourish, and the difference between P-type and S-type Loonshots. Joining us for this episode to talk those topics and more is Safi Bahcall. Safi is the author...
Mar 19, 2019•38 min•Ep. 154
On this episode of The Innovation Engine , we discuss how to become an insights-driven business and how what we at 3Pillar call the Product Mindset can set you on the path to becoming one. Among the topics that we'll discuss are what it means to be insights-driven, the advantages that are inherent in focusing your efforts on driving business outcomes, and the (possibly surprisingly) role that is becoming the driving force behind this shift within organizations. Joining us on this episode to talk...
Mar 06, 2019•40 min•Ep. 153
On this episode of The Innovation Engine, we'll be looking at unlocking the customer value chain. Among the topics we'll discuss are why companies need to be thinking more about business model innovation than technology innovation, why they should focus far less on the competition and far more on their customers, and what we really mean when we talk about the concept of digital disruption. Here with us today to talk about all that and more is Dr. Thales Teixiera. Thales is a professor at the Har...
Feb 19, 2019•34 min•Ep. 152
In this episode, we'll be looking at what the future of digital healthcare holds. We'll cover the role AI and chatbots will have in the future (and are already having, in some cases), some of the inherent challenges in innovating in the healthcare space, and how one leader at a Fortune 100 company in the healthcare space views the intersection of digital and healthcare. Joining us for this episode to talk about those topics and more is Greg Fitzgerald, the Staff Vice President of Digital Product...
Feb 06, 2019•28 min•Ep. 151
On this episode of The Innovation Engine , we take a look back at the year’s biggest consumer technology show, CES, which just wrapped in Las Vegas. Among the topics we cover are whether AI lived up to the massive hype at this year’s show; why Allstate’s CEO’s says “mobility is the new transportation” and data is Allstate's key differentiator ; and why podcasting – yes, podcasting! – is poised to make a big splash in 2019. We also get the latest from David on his upcoming book, The Product Minds...
Jan 16, 2019•29 min•Ep. 150
For this very special episode of The Innovation Engine , we talk about a new way of measuring podcast analytics that was recently unveiled by NPR called Remote Audio Data , or RAD for short. Among the topics we cover are why RAD was created, what the process was like for bringing it to life, and what comes next now that NPR is opening RAD up to the open source community. Stacey Goers , a Product Manager for Podcasts and Social at NPR, joins us to discuss those topics and more. For the last year,...
Jan 08, 2019•22 min•Ep. 149
On this episode, we'll be looking at choosing the right tech stack to fuel innovation in your company. We'll talk about why the technologies your teams use matter, what the most successful product teams do to ensure the work they're doing has an impact, and how to avoid shiny-new-toy syndrome when it comes to adding new tools to your tech stack. Joining us on this episode is Latif Nanji, the co-founder and CEO of Roadmunk, a road-mapping enterprise SaaS platform that serves thousands of product ...
Dec 05, 2018•34 min•Ep. 148
For this episode, we're talking about innovation and the evolution of the Common Application, a nonprofit membership organization composed of more than 800 colleges and universities around the country and around the world with a common mission of promoting access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. Among the topics we discuss are how the Common App has reinvented itself for the digital age, how they prepare to handle a seasonal rush that leads to massive spikes of usage and ...
Oct 24, 2018•31 min•Ep. 147
On this episode, we'll be looking at “cost-ovation,” or innovation that gives your customers exactly what they want – and nothing more. We'll look at how companies like Planet Fitness have become wildly successful by challenging long-held assumptions about what their customers actually want and need, the three core traits shared by companies that excel at costovation, and why setting a vision with strategic objectives is such a key component for any innovation effort. Joining us for this episode...
Oct 10, 2018•20 min•Ep. 146
On this episode, we'll look at how to decipher the secret code giving companies like Apple, Google, and Uber their edge. We'll also talk about what it means to go through a digital transformation, how you'll know when you've successfully come out on the other side, and why you don't have to work at one of the world's most well-known tech companies to carve out a place for yourself in the digital world. Here with us today to talk all that and more is Pascal Finette, an expert on topics that inclu...
Sep 19, 2018•25 min•Ep. 145
On this episode of The Innovation Engine , we'll be looking at how to go from idea to inception. We discuss how to evaluate which ideas to actually act on, whether there is such a thing as bad feedback, and whether voice technology is an antidote to screen-based thinking that may help save us from ourselves. Joining us again to talk about those topics and more is Golden Krishna, a Design Strategist at Google who works on a “horizontal future team” across all variants of Android and Chrome to pus...
Sep 05, 2018•31 min•Ep. 144
On this week's episode, we look at designing the future and the future of work. Among the topics we'll cover are how we are all capable of designing a better future, how to drive innovation in a global software giant, and what emerging technologies (and human behaviors) our guest believes are set to have a major impact on the way work happens. Joining us to discuss all that and more is Martin Wezowski, the Chief Designer and Futurist at SAP. As the head of SAP's Innovations Center Networks and C...
Aug 15, 2018•29 min•Ep. 143
On this episode, David DeWolf and Jonathan Rivers join us to share an overview of all of the news that was fit to print at this year's Fortune BrainstormTech Conference . We discuss what the prevailing wisdom was in Aspen when it comes to artificial intelligence, how the gig economy is driving a wave of acquisitions and the two-way street of innovation some of those acquisitions have opened up, and what you can expect from an upcoming book called The Product Mindset . David DeWolf, the Founder a...
Aug 01, 2018•22 min•Ep. 142
On this episode of The Innovation Engine, we'll be looking at the connection between story and innovation, why story can be a powerful tool to get teams in the right state for creating the new and novel, how you can learn to tell stories (whether you think you're good at it or not), and how to make sure your stories actually get heard in a world that's increasingly noisy. Here with us again to talk about all that and more, including his new book Storytelling for the Revolution , is Mitch Ditkoff...
Jun 13, 2018•25 min•Ep. 141
We just concluded the second and last - for now - stop of The Innovation Engine ’s Spring 2018 tour, from the floor of Collision in New Orleans. Collision is North America’s fastest growing tech conference, bringing together over 3,000 companies from over 120 countries to see how tech intersects in their lives and businesses. [1:20] Anaid Chacon is a product manager at Dropbox , a secure file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. [1...
May 30, 2018•53 min•Ep. 140
For the second part of this double feature of The Innovation Engine , we have six more insightful conversations from Dig South 2018, a conference bringing together more than 2,500 people who are building digital products that will change the way people live, work, and play. As we mentioned in the last episode, The Innovation Engine ’s Spring 2018 tour is still going! We recorded even more conversations from the floor of Collision in New Orleans, and you can look forward to those in the near futu...
May 09, 2018•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 139
On this special two-part episode of The Innovation Engine , we’re coming to you with conversations from the floor of DigSouth 2018. DigSouth is the largest annual tech conference in the South, bringing together more than 2,500 people who are building digital products and experiences that are changing the way people live, work, and play. DigSouth took place in Charleston, SC from April 25-27. For this first episode, host Julia Slattery speaks with: Soon Yu , an international speaker and best sell...
May 09, 2018•53 min•Ep. 138
On this special episode of the podcast, we're honored to be talking to the brains behind one of the winners of this year's 1776 Challenge Cup. 1776 is a startup incubator headquartered in D.C. with offshoots around the country, and they recently held their annual startup competition, The Challenge Cup, at Anthem, the freshly opened music venue on the wharf in Southeast D.C. We talk about one founder's successful entrepreneurship journey, how an app called Airside Mobile can help you breeze throu...
Apr 18, 2018•17 min•Ep. 137
On this week's Innovation Engine, we're pleased to welcome Alex Tapscott back to talk about unlocking the blockchain. Among the topics we'll discuss are how far blockchain technology has come in just a few short years, what your company may be able to learn about organizing teams from a company called Consensus, and why blockchain may represent the “Internet of value.” Alex last joined the podcast about two years ago, when the book he co-wrote with his father Don had just been published ( Blockc...
Mar 07, 2018•29 min•Ep. 136
Today on The Innovation Engine , we look at how you and your teams can start Running Lean with the man who wrote the book of the same title. Among the topics we discuss are why practice trumps theory, why your actual product is not really your product, how long it should take to figure out whether you have product-market fit, and why constraints can actually be valuable for anyone looking to innovate successfully. Our guest, Ash Maurya, is the Founder and CEO of LeanStack, a company that focuses...
Feb 21, 2018•27 min•Ep. 135
In today’s Innovation Engine , we’re looking at how we can set our product teams up for success in 2018. We discuss the top three things your product team needs to do in 2018, why you and your teams should start viewing the world with a product mindset, and what constitutes a modern day product team. Joining us to talk about those topics and more are Jonathan Rivers and Jessica Hall. Jonathan is the Chief Technology Officer at 3Pillar, a role in which he leads more than 700 software engineers, p...
Jan 10, 2018•33 min•Ep. 134
On this episode of The Innovation Engine, we'll be looking at the evolution of media. We discuss how media companies, or any company really, can make the leap to becoming a digital-first organization, why now is actually a good time to be in the media business (despite everything you may read and hear to the contrary), and what media consumption will look like a decade from now – or our assumptions about what that consumption will look like. Joining us to talk about that and more is Shelby Coffe...
Jan 03, 2018•39 min•Ep. 133
Today we'll be talking about why becoming an anticipatory organization just may be the key to long-term business success. We'll look at why companies like Sony, Dell, BlackBerry, and Blockbuster (all of which were led by talented executives that knew how to be agile and execute strategy) fell behind the competition; how to anticipate and pre-solve problems before your company has them; and how to use hard trend certainties to accelerate innovation and drive results. Joining us today to talk abou...
Dec 06, 2017•33 min•Ep. 132
On this episode, we talk about how to start flexing what is likely an underused muscle, if you're like 98 percent of the population over the age of 31: the creative muscle. Among the topics we'll discuss are why creativity gets to be so difficult with age, five activities you can undertake regularly to make sure your creative capacity doesn't wane, and how IdeaToValue.com can help you make sure your next great idea doesn't fall by the wayside. Here with us today to talk about all that and more i...
Nov 20, 2017•34 min•Ep. 131
Today we examine the dearth of female leaders in technology, and how we can mentor and encourage more female computer scientists. Among the topics we discuss is a new curriculum at Northeastern University, and how that curriculum is evening the demographic playing field. Our guest is Carla Brodley, Dean of the College of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern University. Dean Brodley's interdisciplinary machine learning research led to advances not only in computer and information scie...
Nov 08, 2017•24 min•Ep. 130
Today we’re talking about the (underutilized) power of listening. Our guest, Bob London, shares why listening is such a powerful tool in a world that won't stop talking, key questions you should ask when you get the opportunity to talk to customers, and why you should (metaphorically, at least) burn the white board. Bob is a pioneer in the marketing world – he created the outsourced Chief Marketing Officer concept more than a decade ago – and now he’s out to change the world by evangelizing the ...
Oct 25, 2017•43 min•Ep. 129
On this episode of The Innovation Engine , we'll be looking at why innovation and healthcare do indeed belong in the same sentence, which technology trends are driving innovation for the industry as a whole, and how startups in the healthcare space can (and should) position themselves for success when approaching venture capitalists for funding or partnerships. We’re joined by Irem Mertol and Anahita Nakhjiri of McKesson Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture fund that helps innovators build a...
Oct 11, 2017•29 min•Ep. 128
