Podcast appearances and mentions of dan toma

Esther Gons is the CEO and co-founder of GroundControl, a software platform that specializes in measuring and de-risking innovation. GroundControl has worked with companies like Colgate/Palmolive, Euler Hermes, DHL, Enexis, and ABN Amro. Esther's expertise extends beyond her role at GroundControl. She is also the co-author of the award-winning book, Innovation Accounting, which offers practical guidance on measuring a company's innovation ecosystem. She co-authored another influential book, The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems. Her expertise and thought leadership has made her an in-demand international speaker, sharing insights on various topics including corporate innovation, innovation accounting, entrepreneurship, startups, lean methodology, business models, and customer development. Esther has mentored hundreds of startups and has served as a lead mentor in prestigious programs such as the Rockstart Accelerator programs, Lean Startup Machine, and Evolv weekends.   Today, Esther and I discuss innovation and her work as an entrepreneur, international speaker, author, and founder of Ground Control. She shares her experience writing her two books, The Corporate Startup and Innovation Accounting. We discuss the maturing of corporate innovation and why it must now be taken seriously. Esther underscores how innovation is a learning process and how it is necessary to make mistakes to understand what works. We talk about why innovation should be treated as a discipline and why the input of specialists who have the necessary skills is crucial. Esther also emphasizes the importance of understanding innovation to succeed and shares some great insights as to why innovation labs are often stopped after only a few years.   “Corporate innovation is maturing. We can no longer play around with innovation. The trend is that people are saying, ‘No, we have to take this thing seriously.'” - Esther Gons   This week on Innovation Talks:   ●     An overview of ISO Standard Certification ●     Why companies are taking sustainability seriously in innovation ●     The benefits of innovation in business ●     The purpose and struggles of innovation labs ●     Challenges in innovation ●     The future of innovation maturity in corporations ●     The responsibility innovation labs hold ●     How open innovation affects corporate ecosystems ●     Esther's experience designing an online course   Resources Mentioned:   ●     Course on Validated Learning (https://togroundcontrol.com/lean-innovation-training-course/) ●     Innov8tors Conference (https://innov8rs.co/lisbon/) ●     Book: Open Innovation Works (https://openinnovation.works/)   Connect with Esther Gons:   ●     Esther Gons on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/esthergons/) ●     Book: Open Innovation Works (https://openinnovation.works/) ​ by Dr. Diana Joseph, Dan Toma, and Esther Gons ●     Book: Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide for Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance (https://innovationaccountingbook.com/)   This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon   Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.   Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/innovation-talks/id1555857396) | TuneIn (https://tunein.com/podcasts/Technology-Podcasts/Innovation-Talks-p1412337/) | GooglePlay (https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9pbm5vdmF0aW9udGFsa3MubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M%3D) | Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=614195) | Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/1dX5b8tWI29YbgeMwZF5Uh) | iHeart (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-innovation-talks-82985745/)   Be sure to connect with us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SopheonCorp/) , Twitter (https://twitter.com/sopheon) , and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/sopheon/) , and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.   For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon's newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com (https://www.sopheon.com/) and click here (https://info.sopheon.com/subscribe) .

Esther Gons is the CEO and co-founder of GroundControl, a software platform that specializes in measuring and de-risking innovation. GroundControl has worked with companies like Colgate/Palmolive, Euler Hermes, DHL, Enexis, and ABN Amro. Esther's expertise extends beyond her role at GroundControl. She is also the co-author of the award-winning book, Innovation Accounting, which offers practical guidance on measuring a company's innovation ecosystem. She co-authored another influential book, The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems. Her expertise and thought leadership has made her an in-demand international speaker, sharing insights on various topics including corporate innovation, innovation accounting, entrepreneurship, startups, lean methodology, business models, and customer development. Esther has mentored hundreds of startups and has served as a lead mentor in prestigious programs such as the Rockstart Accelerator programs, Lean Startup Machine, and Evolv weekends. Today, Esther and I discuss innovation and her work as an entrepreneur, international speaker, author, and founder of Ground Control. She shares her experience writing her two books, The Corporate Startup and Innovation Accounting. We discuss the maturing of corporate innovation and why it must now be taken seriously. Esther underscores how innovation is a learning process and how it is necessary to make mistakes to understand what works. We talk about why innovation should be treated as a discipline and why the input of specialists who have the necessary skills is crucial. Esther also emphasizes the importance of understanding innovation to succeed and shares some great insights as to why innovation labs are often stopped after only a few years. “Corporate innovation is maturing. We can no longer play around with innovation. The trend is that people are saying, ‘No, we have to take this thing seriously.'” - Esther Gons This week on Innovation Talks: ●     An overview of ISO Standard Certification●     Why companies are taking sustainability seriously in innovation●     The benefits of innovation in business●     The purpose and struggles of innovation labs●     Challenges in innovation●     The future of innovation maturity in corporations●     The responsibility innovation labs hold●     How open innovation affects corporate ecosystems●     Esther's experience designing an online course Resources Mentioned: ●     Course on Validated Learning●     Innov8tors Conference●     Book: Open Innovation Works Connect with Esther Gons: ●     Esther Gons on LinkedIn●     Book: Open Innovation Works​ by Dr. Diana Joseph, Dan Toma, and Esther Gons●     Book: Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide for Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you. For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon's newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Mike Bauer is a leading product and strategy executive, business mentor, and the Chief Products Officer of Sopheon. He joined Sopheon in 2021 and has helped the company expand its SaaS solutions, which make it possible for companies worldwide to bring their innovative products to market. His experience in data communications, enterprise software, marketing automation, and big data led him to believe in the power of innovation. He graduated from Harvard Business School and Ohio State University and serves as a business mentor at the Founder Institute. Today, I'm checking back with Mike to continue our conversation from November 2021 about enterprise innovation management and project portfolio management. He shares what he learned from interviewing over 100 clients about approaches to innovation. He defines innovation in the current business landscape and clarifies that the definition is much broader than commonly assumed. He discusses the factors that must come together for a company to innovate and how failure is a part of innovation. Mike also reveals the role of company culture and offers advice on fostering a culture that encourages innovation.  “You don't mandate an innovative culture—you build it.” -Mike Bauer This week on Innovation Talks: ●     Why enterprise innovation management and project portfolio management are two sides of the same coin●     The challenges innovators face ●     Mike's observations from talking to over 100 clients●     What innovation can look like for businesses●     All the factors that need to come together to make innovation possible●     Why 60% to 80% of innovations fail●     What executives need to focus on to be able to innovate “at scale”●     Why ideation is an essential part of innovation●     The most important skill for the ideation process ●     Why coming up with great ideas is only the first step●     Setting up a connected system to drive innovation●     Why Mike supports the idea of DevOps●     Why business owners need to bring together practices, people, and tools to innovate successfully●     Why philosophies aren't enough to operationalize●     Is company culture or the way employees do their jobs more important ●     Why accepting failure is part of innovation●     How to build an innovation culture at your company●     How innovation benefits customers and how Sopheon empowers customers with innovation Resources Mentioned: ●     Book: Inspired: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan●     Book: Innovation Accounting by Esther Gons and Dan Toma ●     Book: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries Connect with Mike Bauer: ●     Sopheon Website●     Sopheon on LinkedIn●     Sopheon on Facebook●     Sopheon on Twitter●     Mike Bauer on LinkedIn This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners like you. For additional information about new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon's monthly newsletter, where we share news and industry best practices! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Join co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender as they close season 4 of the Evolving Leader podcast by sharing some of our favourite moments from the 20 incredible episodes as well as previously unheard bonus material from the Evolving Leader vulnerability interviews.The Evolving Leader podcast will return in September for the start of season 5, but in the meantime sit back and listen to conversations with Caroline Williams, Oliver Burkeman, Steve Fleming, Amy Herman, Susan Neiman, Ranjay Gulati, Dan Toma, Rob Cross, Annie Murphy Paul, Simon Roberts, Tony O'Driscoll, Azeem Ahzar, Rita McGrath and Todd Kashdan.  0.00   Introduction1.01   Caroline Williams3.52   Oliver Burkeman9.12   Vulnerability interview: What's the biggest lie you've told at work?11.14   Vulnerability interview: What personal development topic do you most avoid confronting?13.09   Steve Fleming15.36   Amy Herman18.15   Susan Neiman21.45   Vulnerability interview: Where do you feel most vulnerable in your work?26.34   Ranjay GulatiSocial: Instagram           @evolvingleader LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast Twitter               @Evolving_Leader The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

As organizations innovate at a rapid pace, there is a constant challenge as to how to measure it. . Techsauce Global Content Editor Chaowarat Yongjiranon finds out how innovation accounting can enable growth within companies with Dan Toma, an innovation leader and co-author of the award winning book ‘The Corporate Startup' in the Techsauce Global Podcast.

Dan Toma, Innovation Thought Leader and award-winning author of the Corporate Startup and Innovation Accounting, as well as co-founder of Innovation Advisory Firm OUTCOME, talks with Sarah about the differences between Digital Transformation and Innovation and why/how the terms can be erroneously used interchangeably.

Every company talks about the importance of innovation and investment in innovation continues to grow.  However many companies are finding that the time and money invested is not giving them the pay back that they had hoped for.But Is it possible to structure your initiatives so that you can drive better return on investment?  And if so, what would that look like?Today I'm talking with Dan Toma, an innovation strategist and author of Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide for Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance, which focuses on why a “one-size-fits-all” approach for measuring an organization's innovation investments doesn't work, and how and why the use of a modern and comprehensive innovation accounting system to measure and track innovation is needed for success.In this episode, Dan will be talking about:4 types of innovation and how they help define what innovation means for your company.9 pitfalls venture boards are avoiding to create better outcomes.How to quantify innovation and measure a company's innovation ecosystem's performance.5 stages to develop the best product development framework for your company. USEFUL LINKS Connect with Dan Toma:  Dan's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/Dan's Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/danto_maInnovation Accounting book: https://innovationaccountingbook.com/The Corporate Startup book: https://thecorporatestartupbook.com/Dan's company's website: https://weareoutcome.co/A Seat at The Table podcast website:  https://seatpodcast.comThe Current Situation in Sourcing:  https://thecurrentsituation.net

Can you measure and track how successfully your organisation is innovating? This week on the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Scott Allender and Jean Gomes talk to Dan Toma, co-author of ‘Innovation Accounting‘, who says that the traditional management tools available to leaders wanting to understand investments in innovation are lacking, instead proposing a new set of frameworks and tools that go beyond just financial indicators. Innovation Accounting – A Practical Guide for Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance (BIS, 2021) 0.00 Introduction2.05 Could you start by sharing your journey?4.55 Could you tell us why it's important for an organisation to develop its own innovation ecosystem? 7.24 Is that approach being adopted by organisations or are many sticking with the traditional ‘small innovation team' approach? 9.23 What are the biggest pitfalls for corporates when they start to adopt this?13.40 Could you give us a working definition of innovation accounting and also some of your ideas around the different types of innovation and what they look like?16.34 Can you take us through an example of how an innovation accounting system could be built using the tools and frameworks you provide in your book? 19.42 What mindset shifts does an organisation need to make in order to embrace innovation accounting? 24.30 What is the most useful starting point in order to establish the common ground between finance and innovation teams?27.09 How do people who are prone to big picture large innovation thinking take those ideas forwards in pragmatic, not over romanticised ways?30.45 When you go into an organisation that might be lacking creativity and imagination (where the focus is on maintaining past success), what can you do to start them valuing that from an innovation accounting perspective?33.43 What single piece of advice can you give to our listeners, whether or not they are in formal innovation roles?35.37 What's next for you, what are you working on now?37.25 If an organisation adopts innovation accounting, what looks different and what's happening in the organisation that's not happening today?38.24 How did Covid impact innovation in organisations? Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_Leader The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Interview video available here: https://youtu.be/F3X1BC_HQws  Bio Bruno Pešec helps business leaders innovate profitably. He is the rare innovator who can claim that he's worked on a regulation-defying freight train and an award-winning board game. In addition to his corporate experience with brands like DNV, DNB, and Kongsberg Group, Bruno runs a community of entrepreneurs of several thousand members. Longer version of bio available at https://www.pesec.no/about/ Websites/ Social Media Bruno's website: pesec.no Playing Lean site: https://www.playinglean.com/ LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pesec/ Books The 9 Big Don'ts of Corporate Innovation by Bruno Pešec https://www.pesec.no/9-big-donts-of-corporate-innovation/ The Corporate Startup by Tendayi Viki https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corporate-Startup-Established-Successful-Innovation/dp/9462761507 The Game Changing Strategy by Constantinos Markides https://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Changing-Strategies-Established-Industries-Breaking/dp/0470276878    To Better Thinking by Linda Elder https://www.amazon.co.uk/Better-Thinking-Living-Through-Critical/dp/0133092569 The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig https://www.amazon.co.uk/Effect-Business-Delusions-Deceive-Managers/dp/1476784035 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Surprising-Truth-about-Motivates/dp/B004N74VBK   Episode Transcript Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Guest Intro: Hello everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. My guest today is Bruno Pešec. He is one of those rare innovators and coaches whose focus is on helping business leaders innovate profitably. I had lots of learning moments and ‘aha' moments speaking with Bruno and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I learnt a lot as well. I have no doubt that you will also get some useful nuggets from this episode, so enjoy. Ula Ojiaku:  I have with me here, Bruno Pešec. And, Bruno, welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast, it's a great pleasure and honour to have you here on the show. Bruno Pešec:  Thank you very much, Ula. And I also want to give my special gratitude and thanks for perfectly pronouncing my surname. Ula Ojiaku:  Oh, well, I am very happy about that. I actually wrote it out, you know, phonetically on a piece of paper. But thanks, you taught me well, great. Now let's go straight into the questions we have for you today. So, who is Bruno Pešec? Bruno Pešec:  So, Bruno Pešec is, I will describe an Innovator, Martial Artist and Engineer, that probably sums up like parts of my life that I'm proudest, and that I engage with the most. So, I started my studies as a young engineer, and what I was really fascinated with are problems, wicked problems. Usually wicked problems are described as a collection of problems that don't really have a clear cause, clear root cause, and there is no clear-cut solution, the only thing you can try to do is tame them a little bit, and I was fascinated with that as engineer. That's why I studied industrial engineering, which is a combination of systems and humans. I started my career in defense, and I had the good fortune of working on some very, very difficult products. And one of the projects that I was working on was an innovation completely based on product and technology. We made such a product that was by far the best in the whole world, it was so good, no one believed us. And it was ridiculous, but for me, it was a great learning experience, because, you know, we were a young group of engineers that said, like, hey, let's just do everything we can to make the best product we can, and we succeeded, and nobody on the market believed us. So, what happened, our sales department had to send our product on a tour across the globe. And with a lot of engineering products and solutions, they can be copied by sufficiently proficient engineers, and that is what happened after a few years. It wasn't such a leading product anymore. But for me, it was a very important learning lesson, because I realised that innovation isn't just about this technical side, but also about the human side, you must understand how to talk about innovation, you must understand how narratives form, how stories form and how people interact. And that is kind of how I started to slowly expand my own knowledge beyond just being an engineer, to also invest in a lot of time and effort to understand psychology, human nature, emotions, not just to reading, but also to try to be different myself, whatever that might mean. And it wasn't always pleasant. Ula Ojiaku:  I totally empathise - wow! Could you tell us a bit more about the product? What was the product all about? Bruno Pešec:  So, since I was working in industry, that's, you know, very limited with NDAs. So unfortunately, I can't really go into great specifics, but let's say that innovations were based on the physical properties. And I can say, you know, people expect that the products made out of steel have a specific weight, what we were able to do is, through a lot of engineering trades, using numerical simulations, very advanced computation, a lot of testing in actual manufacturing whole, we were able to make a product that has varying thickness of steel panels, and that reduce the weight of the product and increase the functionality of the product. And that's why I say, when a smart engineer sees the solution, they can easily copy it, but the challenge is seeing the solution, coming to see that. So, we did the heavy working of finding the new improvement, and then it was easy to take over. And if we connect it to what a lot of companies and startups mess up, when they spend their time and effort to educate the market and then somebody else comes and actually picks up the market. So that is, you know, when you have the whole discussion, is it good to be first to the market? Yes, if you can afford to capture it. Ula Ojiaku: Yes. Yes. Very true, because you have the fast followers who just sit back, let you do the heavy lifting and then they, because they have maybe a wide range of resources and deep pockets, are able to mass manufacture what you spent years to put together. Wow! Bruno Pešec: Exactly. Ula Ojiaku: So, what were the key lessons, because you said you now realise that it's not just about having a fantastic product, you also had to focus on the human psychology. So, what's different between then and now? Bruno Pešec: So, one of the things, reflecting here in the moment, one of the very important lessons, for me personally, was that alignment is much more important and valuable than being the most correct person in the room, or following the perfect or the ideal process. So for myself, you know, I have a decade of experience innovating and inventing, not just in defense, but also in transportation in oil and gas, in entertainment, you know, in different industries. And without trying to sound arrogant, I have a good grasp of what it takes to, you know, develop, invent something and take it to the market, which is not necessarily always true. So, when I work, you know, with clients or different teams, I'm usually the person who knows the innovation process, but that doesn't matter a lot if I cannot help those people in the room to actually get from A to B. And that sometimes includes, I don't want to say compromises, but negotiations, both internal implicit, but also external, you know, when do you stop focusing on just the theory and when do you move to, okay, in practice being pragmatic, and moving on. And I would say that Agile and Innovation and Lean and Lean Startup and a lot of these fields, they're guilty of being extremely dogmatic and paradigmatic, and then you have this whole conversation around, okay, when is it about dogma and when is it about flow, customer, value, outcomes? So, that, to me was part of my learning journey, like, sometimes harsh lessons. Ula Ojiaku: I totally am nodding because I experienced this every day, as you know, as an Agile Coach, it's really about, you might know things, you know, but it's also about working with people, because finally, at the end of the day, it's all about people and you need to work with people, you need to establish the relationship, the trust. And for me, a policy is I want to work with people in a way that they would want to work with me over and over again. And sometimes this may be about losing a battle so that you know, everyone can together win the greater war, you know, from time to time. One statement you made now that really stood out to me is that; “Alignment is more valuable than being the most correct person in a room”. That's a great quote. Okay, so can you tell us about your game Playing Lean? I understand you developed the game, how did it come about and what do you currently use it for? Bruno Pešec: So yes, it's called Playing Lean, and I'd be happy to tell you a bit more. So, it's funny, it came through part of this learning experience as well. So, I'm not the only one, it was also Simen Fure Jørgensen, he is the guy that actually started it as well. So, the starting point was very simple. You have a group of people, and you want to introduce a new concept. In this case, it was Lean Startup. And you know how it will go, if you tell two groups of people where here's a book, read it, let's talk in a week. So, maybe there's one person that reads it, the rest might skim it, and the, you know, the other third won't even open it. And what we were inspired with was using games. We were actually inspired with Get Kanban if you know the game for teaching Kanban in software development. And back in that time, Simen just tried to find a similar game for teaching Lean Startup Innovation, entrepreneurship, and there was none, and that was the trigger. So, it was scratching our own need, and what I love and what I'm the proudest was that we used the Lean Startup principles to develop the game itself. That was very important to us, and to the listeners that maybe have heard about Lean Startup but aren't as familiar. So, Lean Startup is a methodology for developing businesses through experimentation, iterative development, and it basically relies on Agile body of knowledge, customer development and business modeling. So, in our case, we decided after we have iterated a lot on the functionality and the desirability of the game, we decided to go down a crowdfunding route. And what happened, it was a big failure. So, we didn't manage to reach our goal, but when we were reviewing, so it wasn't zero, but it was not enough money to actually take us, so, we used Kickstarter as a platform, which is all or nothing, you must reach the goal, otherwise, you receive no funds, but you can see the data. And what we noticed is that the people that were supporting the campaign actually weren't who we thought the players are, but who would use the game to teach Lean Startup. And that is when we realised, hey, our customer segment isn't really the people that will play the game to learn lean startup, but our customer segment is actually people like you and me, Ula, that consult and coach and help others. Now when we realised that, we started focusing, okay, what do these people need? What are their jobs to be done, what is important to them? And then tweak the product, what we learned is to them, what's really important is that the product is extremely polished, they need to be proud of it, it shouldn't look like you know, Microsoft clipboard, or clipart, whatever, it needs to look very professional. So, we partnered with Holger who is one of the best illustrators in the world, he illustrated Business Model Generation and other things like that. So, we partnered with him, the game looks spectacular. Okay, then we said it needs to be reputable. So, we partnered with Ash Maurya who wrote Running Lean, we partnered with Alexander Osterwalder who wrote Business Model Generation and few other books in the series, that was important. And then what was also the thing is the facilitators and coaches and consultants, they're not buying the game, they're buying a new product for their coaching or consulting portfolio. So, our value proposition is the game, plus the facilitating materials, plus the marketing materials, plus everything. So, a lot of learning happened, you know, in that one failed campaign. And then we kept iterating on that, and they usually say the rest is history, I hope it's still not history. But you know, we won awards, first game was completely sold out, we made a new one, that one is also almost sold out, we have a global community of 200 Facilitators. So, it's been going pretty well. And all of this, you know, learning, learning, learning, adjusting, learning, adjusting, learning, adjusting, learning, adjusting. Ula Ojiaku:  You're basically applying the, you know, the Lean Startup cycle as well, because you're adjusting, you learn, you take the learning you're adjusting, and you make an improvement on what's existing. Congratulations. Now, that's an amazing story. And the fact that you said, you know, the Kickstarter failed, it wasn't a failure, it was more of a redirection, because you now got to focus on the right customer, the person who needs the product. Yeah and so, I also understand from your website that you sort of run, Train the Trainer sessions on Playing Lean, is that correct? Bruno Pešec: That's correct. That's correct. Ula Ojiaku: Okay, and when is your next one? Do you have any scheduled in the near future, or, you know, should listeners just go to the website and register? Bruno Pešec: So, listeners can go to playinglean.com. And what we decided to do because of COVID, obviously, and the global situation, so we have a completely self-paced part. So, you can take it any time, and then when you complete it, we schedule, so we have batches of people. So, let's say that you immediately go, you hear this show, and you go, you can take it, you can listen to all the theory or the facilitation, Playing Lean facilitator training. And then when there's four or six, we schedule a private session where we play the game together, and you know, let's say, finish the training, and we came to that because it's pretty flexible for people. And as I said, our customer segments are consultants and coaches, and the thing that they really don't want is to lose their precious billable time. Ula Ojiaku: Yes, yes. And will the follow up sessions, will they have to be in person or have you devised a way of doing it virtually? Bruno Pešec: So, everything is completely virtual for the time being. So, we're using Mural, but any of these can work. And what we basically did is we took and we recreated the whole game in that setup, and I was a bit skeptical at first. I wasn't 100% sure that, you know, it would work in such a setting because it is a board game, Playing Lean is a physical board game, and we purposefully designed it to be physical. Before all this happened, we rejected to make it digital, because there's a special connection when you're doing that together. And so I wasn't sure if we go with, we move it online, but people were asking so much, like, they want to play, they want to attend it. So, we said okay, let's give it a try. What we actually found out was that it works in some cases better, and in some worse. So, one thing that you lose is people cannot talk at the same time.  I'm sure that everybody noticed that now with all zoom and Teams and all the meetings is, it's very difficult, you cannot talk at the same time, which does happen in physical meetings, you might have small groups of people either whispering or saying something. Here, that doesn't work, so, you must facilitate and arrange everything differently. You can have breakouts, but again, you cannot see it as a facilitator. When you coach team, you know, if you tell two of them have a discussion, you can slightly overhear. Yeah, now, you lose that. So, there are some challenges in this. But I'm pleasantly surprised, you know, thinking back 10 years ago, how many digital tools we have today and they're good. They work. Ula Ojiaku: True, true, I mean, that's why we're speaking although we're in different geographical locations. So yeah, definitely. Right, so, I know that you also recently published the book, an E-book, “Nine Big Don'ts of Corporate Innovation: How to Spot and Avoid Costly Innovation Mistakes”, can you tell us a bit more about this? Bruno Pešec: I'd love to. So, the starting point for this, were something that's usually called survivor bias. And I'll just share two stories to kind of illustrate the survivor bias. And funnily, both include aviation. So, in one case is Aeroplane Inspectors, so whatever is their formal title, were investigating plane crashes, and survivals. And what they noticed was that it wasn't the most important, how physically prepared people in the plane were, it didn't matter if they are obese, or if they're healthy, unhealthy, or whatnot, the only thing that mattered, was if people stopped to take their belongings before evacuating the plane. So, everybody who stopped to try to get their, you know, things from the overhead department perished. And that is why you always hear that boring message, back in the time when we were flying much more often, you know, take oxygen first in case of evacuation, ignore your belongings, go out. So, and they discovered it by focusing on all those that perished, not those that actually did manage to run out and escape before the plane caught fire. A similar story, but from wartime, was when they were looking into reinforcing fighter crafts. So, they were looking, they were charting, when the crafts returned, they were charting all the holes on the body of the plane. And then their initial idea was to focus on all the parts where the holes were. But one guy observed and said, “No, that's wrong. Because those planes return, let's take look where there are no holes, because where there are no holes, those planes did not return”. And then they reinforced that and that increased the survivability of the plane. So, this is, it's almost like inversion of thinking. And that survivor bias at the core is, hey, sometimes there is value in looking at all those that failed, and understanding why did that fail, and avoiding the things that they were doing? And that was the logic, that was something that started me here. So, I worked with hundreds of innovators with, I don't, I can't say hundreds of companies, but when you work with a large company, you know, it's easily several hundred people. And I continue to see the same mistakes again, and again and again. And I said, you know, it's not about trying to copy Amazon, or Google or whoever you think is the most innovative company in the world. Stop, pause and take a look at all the failed innovations. And that was kind of the trigger that is, so from experience and observation, I decided to share mine. I will not go into great details of all mine, because everybody who listens to this can get the e-book for free in your show notes, they will be able to find it. If not, they can reach out to you, to me, whoever, we're going to help them. But one that I want to share with your listeners is one of maybe a little bit shocking ones that I say is don't invest in orphans, orphan ideas, and what do I mean by that is ideas by themselves are worthless. We keep hearing that, but we don't take action on that. So, an idea doesn't come out of nowhere, someone must have recommended it, and on the management level, a common mistake is when, let's say there's a group or strategy retreat, and they hire some consultant, they come up with brilliant ideas, but they don't execute on it, they give it to someone else to do it. So, there is a discrepancy, there is this idea, it came from Ula, but suddenly it was thrown to Bruno, go do it. I never met Ula in my life, I'm supposed to be passionate about this? Ula Ojiaku: Exactly. You don't know the context behind the whole idea? How did it come about? But, no, these things happen and I'm thinking of a recent example. Bruno Pešec: But it is, it you know, it is something that resonates, and people are aware of it, but they don't think about it this way, and then they don't realise how damaging this is. And especially, so I don't want to sugarcoat it. Innovation, in a large company, is a very painful process, it is very punishing on people, it's very rarely rewarding, and people that do deal with innovation in companies, they don't do it to get tapped on the back, they do it because they derive pleasure from it, they derive joy from it. But that does not mean that they shouldn't be rewarded, but those people that are like that, they're rare. So usually, you know, I see that happen again, and again, a company decides ‘we want to be innovative'. Everybody, you know, there's a training for everybody in the company, and we will have like, big company meeting from today on, you must be innovative, and, you know, it's forced down the throat. And suddenly, people, you must work on this project, it's very difficult. It's difficult to force people to go through such pain for nothing. Ula Ojiaku: Like you said, innovation is not something you force down people's throats, it has to align with their intrinsic motivation, I believe it was Daniel Pink that wrote the book Drive about what motivates people. And, at the very least, they have to know what's in it for them, which goes back to, you know, your earlier statement about, you're dealing with human beings, you need to understand the psychology, how do you get people's buy in? How do you make sure that they want to do it, even if you're not there watching them? Yeah. Right. So, you've shared one of the don'ts, which is don't invest in orphans, do you want to share maybe one or two more of those ‘don'ts' in corporate innovation? Bruno Pešec: So, the last one, don't make how much time, effort and money you have spent so far, guide your decision. That is also a very common one, it happens to all of us in private life, in business life, I'm sure you experienced this, well, you know, when you're sitting there, the project isn't going as it should be going. And then somebody says, well, we've been going at this for two years, we spent, you know, so much money, we hired people for this, you know, let's keep on doing it, and if that is your only reason to keep on doing it, I'm sorry, this probably doesn't have a very bright future. And the same goes for innovation projects and companies, you know, after some time, you should just cut the losses. It's kind of if you've spent two years and there is no traction in the market, it's just not attracting attention. It's better, you know, to stop leaking more funds, and even worse than that is people's time, like, as far as we know, time goes in only one direction, we can make money again. But to me, especially in large companies, what every leader has is additional responsibility for the time of their employees. The most disrespectful thing you can do is waste somebody's time. It happens, unfortunately, often because people don't understand that it's happening. But when you walk into a room, and you tell someone that they've spent two years on something that's at a dead end, what you did, you threw away two years of their life, they could have been doing something else. Ula Ojiaku: True, true. And there's nothing more demoralising than you know, you're going on a road that's a dead end, and everybody knows it, but nobody wants to say, you know, “are we actually headed in the right direction?” And there's a phrase, I mean, this is in in the scaled agile framework, which is one of the, you know, popular scaling agile frameworks. One of the principles there is to ignore sunk costs. And you know, that's basically, you don't base decisions for the future based on how much time, money, effort, resources, that you've put into it. You have to evaluate it based on the results you're getting - are you getting the outcomes? I mean, if you had if you had made a hypothesis, has the hypothesis been validated or not, if it's not been validated, and you're getting, your indications are contrary to what you expected, it's either you pivot or you kill it. You don't just go on for sentimental reasons. So, no, great one. Yeah. Do you want to add anything else about your e-book? Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience? Bruno Pešec: Well, we could probably go for several hours discussing everything in it. But what I can just say is that, besides just discussing these different don'ts, I also offer specific countermeasures. So, that is something for example, for the sunk cost I completely agree with what you shared. Unfortunately, the side effect is, if you run into someone that doesn't want to see exactly how you describe it, so like, no, no, no, no, that experiment wasn't done correctly, or I wasn't involved in that hypothesis, then one easy countermeasure is to immediately agree on the spot, okay, I see, I understand that you're very involved in that you, you know, your ego is in this. So, let's make an agreement right here, right now. What is it? What terms are we giving to this? What terms are we giving to this to continue? So, we, for example, this is a real one, but I'm removing the details, because of confidentiality. With one executive, he had exactly that problem. He was working on something for three years and he was afraid that if he would stop this, that his career would suffer as well. So, we sat down with his management team, and we said, okay, we are not now ready to immediately kill it, even though we have spent so much, but we're going to give it exactly three more months, and A, B and C, if that happens, it continues. As clear as that, signed by everybody, not for legal reasons, but for psychological reasons. You know, I put my name on this, I commit to these terms. Three months later, they kill it, we didn't even discuss it for five minutes. It was, you know, this is what we said, it didn't happen. Bam! I was shocked, I was shocked how easy that went. So that is, you know, an easy one, because people need to own that, I cannot tell people go and kill it, they must see like, oh, we really should stop this. Ula Ojiaku: Exactly. And there's something about a public commitment as well, it kind of, you know, makes it easier for all parties involved. You know, there is a rational reason for killing it and a rational reason for stopping an initiative, if that makes sense. Now, I'm going to ask you a question as a, you know, you teach innovation and entrepreneurship. Have you ever been in a situation where you've been asked to coach, you know, maybe a team or a particular area, so you have like the leadership buy in, and you've been asked to coach the team, but the team are kind of a bit closed to getting input from you? If so, what have you, you know, could you share with the audience what you've done to win them over or, and get them to actually get to a point where they are seeking and actively drawing your input into what they're doing? Bruno Pešec: So, I had that happen both at the management level and at the team level. So, in one case, I walked in with a team, and the guy immediately told me as I walked through the door, Bruno, this is bull****, I'm here, just because I was commanded to be here. You know, you have three minutes. And I just completely ignored him, I just looked at him, I was like, okay, so, and started the discussion. Why are we here? What do we want to get? In my case, I usually try to avoid confrontation in that sense, because people are, they have the right to be frustrated. Like, if they have really been commanded and just said, "You be here”. You know, it's kind of, I might recognise that and say, okay, I understand that, I'm not here to do innovation theatre, so I don't, how could I say, I don't really do training. When I'm brought in, I do very specific things. So, in this case, I'm really relying a lot on my background as engineer because they can see that I'm one of them in most of the cases, so I'm not like a manager or a sales guy or something like that, I'm very curious. I'm curious about their work, and this is where we start. We start talking about their specific product or service. Understanding that, and I just let them talk, and that's the easiest one, it's kind of, I'm not there to be smarter than them, I'm there because I'm good at the part of the process, and together, we're going to figure out what needs to be achieved, and sometimes they have very strong feelings. I know exactly what needs to be done, but no one in management is listening to me, and then I go, okay, I'm here, I'm listening to you, now share. And we just start from there. And people usually do have, and it is a great starting point, they will say, you know, this product sucks, because of A, B, and C, what needs to happen is X, Y, and Z. And then I start probing, it's like, okay, the things that you said that it sucks, why is that so? Okay, and you say that this will be a solution, why do you think so? And I ask them, we start to have a whiteboard, we start mapping it, if we don't know, we have this conversation, we start going to very specific things. Because what I strongly believe in is go harsh on problems, go harsh on issues, but be gentle with people. So, if you and I, you know, I will always have my utmost respect for Ula, but when we have a problem in front of us, when I go harsh, I'm not going to harsh on Ula, I'm going harsh on the problem. Ula Ojiaku: Don't take it personally. Bruno Pešec: Exactly. I want to rip the problem apart. That's our job as innovators, you have an idea, it's not about kissing that idea on the cheek, it's about breaking it seeing you know, what, if we do this, is it going to hold? What if we do this is it going to hold? What if we do that, is it still going to hold? If not, well maybe this is worth doing, it has nothing to do with you as a person. You and I, we are in a partnership about solving that problem, that issue, and for me, it works because it's genuine and people can feel that. So, I'm, you know, I'm being authentic, I'm being myself. And that is why I also say when people ask me, okay, Bruno, how can I coach like you? How can I, you know, repeat the same thing? I tell them, don't try to copy, you know, I am me, you are you, play to your strength. If you're a quiet person, if you're a gentle person, play to that, you know, be like water, be like river, wear them out, you know, wear them out with kindness, always go back to what you're discussing, be yourself. It's so tiring trying to be somebody else, it's so tiring trying to copy somebody else. It won't always work, but you will know that you were yourself, you did the best you could what's then there left to regret, even if it goes bad. Ula Ojiaku: True, true. I'm beginning to get suspicious that you've been eavesdropping on me, because I recently this week, gave a talk on being yourself and being that perfectly, so it's almost like, hmm, did Bruno eavesdrop on my speech? But hey, well said, well said. Now, let's just round up with a few more questions. This has been a fantastic conversation, I definitely have enjoyed speaking with you. Are there any books that you'd say you've drawn inspiration over the course of your career? You know, if so, what books are these? If you can share? Bruno Pešec:  Since the topics we have discussed today, were about innovation and a little bit of thinking better, I'll share three specific books. So, one for innovation. That is The Corporate Startup by Dan Toma, Esther Gons and Tendayi Viki, it is a great book, it's currently I would say one of the best books on both Innovation Practice and Innovation Management. So, I would definitely recommend it to everybody. It's a bit thick, but you know, you get actually two books in one. And another one, because to me, both Lean Agile Innovation, you know, they're all means to an end. If they become an end in itself, then that's when they become dogmatic. And what ties them all together is, you know, strategy. And the book I would heartily recommend, it's a, I would say, it's a bit underappreciated, is Game Changing Strategies from Constantinos Markides. It's a great book, so, he's a professor from London Business School, I think, or London School of Economics, I don't know, I keep mixing them. And he writes very well for an academic, you know, it's easy to consume a lot of examples. He makes business model innovation come to life. It's not just some theory, but it's specific examples, and for me, it's great because it shows you how to adapt. It doesn't have a lot of modules or anything, so it's more like looking at it and seeing okay, this worked, this didn't work, what's my case? And the third one, to better thinking. So, one great thing I read was that employees can make a bad CEO look great, so, employees can make anything work, bad decisions, bad management policies, you know, if they want to, they will make it work. At the same time, employees can also make the best strategies and policies go to nothing if they want to sabotage them. So, the last book is more on, I would say, for managers and leaders, and it's The Halo Effect from Phil Rosenzweig. What he talks about is exactly like what I mentioned with the survivor bias, but he talks about different views. Let's say that the gist of his book is by focusing on, you know, those perfect leaders with their halo, you become blinded, and leaders themselves become blinded, because they get confused, because they think that it is their ingenuity that created the result and not the employees and their skill. And you know, was Steve Jobs, the one who created everything? Ula Ojiaku: No Bruno Pešec: No, he definitely had some things that were good, he had some things that are horrible, but he had great people around him, they didn't come out of nowhere. Obviously, you could say the same for Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or all the people that we consider, look at that that person, the halo around them. The risk for every leader and manager is to get deluded by their own success. And it's a lovely short book that will show you all these biases and delusions that can happen. I'll stop here. I think three books are enough. Ula Ojiaku:  I've had The Corporate Startup on my reading list, but the other ones, Game Changing Strategy, The Halo Effect definitely have gone onto my reading list now, which is already like this long. So, thanks for sharing those. Now, how can the audience reach you? How can the audience reach you, Bruno, are you online on social media? Bruno Pešec: So, I write a lot about innovation, strategy, experimentation, entrepreneurship, as well. You can find all of that on my website, www.pesec.no. It will be in your show note, as well, so you can find it there. I publish a lot of free resources, templates, sessions like this, webinars, writings, an E-book, etc. So, you can find everything there. I invite everybody who would like to connect on LinkedIn as well, but if you do then then please just drop in “Ula sends me.” Ula Ojiaku:  Well, more like “I listened to your episode on the podcast, and I'm reaching out.” Bruno Pešec: Right? They can make it as detailed as they wish. So, keeping it simple, that is where I share everything, and it's open and free. And I'm happy to share. You know, if you heard something in this conversation, please reach out to Ula or reach out to me if you would like any questions or any specific materials or whatever. Ula Ojiaku: Sounds great Bruno, thanks for that. Now, any final words for the audience before we wrap this up? Bruno Pešec:  Well, before the audience, for you, thank you very much. This has been a great conversation, very engaging. So thank you for creating this atmosphere and making this a very easy conversation. I believe, I mean, I enjoyed it so much, I would be surprised if the listeners don't take a little bit of our energy and conversationA and to the listeners, I just have one thing. So, you heard today a lot of stuff. There's a lot of great stuff to hear from Ula's other episodes, but the most important thing is start immediately, today, don't wait for the perfect moment. Take just one thing from today, and immediately discuss it tomorrow with the team or yourself, just one thing, it doesn't matter what, just immediately try it out. One step at a time. And, you know, a year from now we will look back and see what an amazing year you had. Don't wait for the perfect moment. Just start. Ula Ojiaku:  Fantastic. Well, that's very inspirational, I'm motivated to just go and conquer the world right now. Bruno it's been a pleasure speaking with you and I hope you would want to come back another time for us to have another conversation on this show. So, thank you so much Bruno. Bruno Pešec: Thank you, Ula, would be lovely. Ula Ojiaku: Great! Outro: That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show.  I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless.  

Dan Toma is an author and innovations expert as well as the Co-founder of Outcome, an innovation consultancy focused on supercharging leadership and corporate innovation performance. He wrote The Corporate Startup, a practical guide for companies that want to sustain innovation capabilities, and Innovation Accounting, a book that helps companies track the critical metrics associated with growth and innovation. Dan also holds a dual Master of Business Administration degree from Bradford University and TiasNimbas Business School. Dan joins me today to discuss how large organizations can grow through innovation and how they can track whether their innovations are effective. He shares how he stumbled upon the innovation industry and how the hiring process used to work. He explains the importance of innovating for relevancy and marketing. Dan also describes the benefits of installing an ecosystem for your business. "The organizations doing innovations the best are the ones that talk less about it." - Dan Toma This week on Innovation Talks: How Dan got started in innovation The complexities of the hiring process The purpose of a CV in the job-hunting industry Why companies need startup-like thinking and innovations Understanding whether an innovation is working for your company The purpose of metrics in innovations The benefits of having an ecosystem in place Dan's advice for those who want to propose innovation, but are not getting support from their leaders Resources Mentioned: Book: Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization by Scott D. Anthony, Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchaud, and Andy Parker Connect with Dan Toma: Outcome Blog: Stop Chasing Unicorns Book: The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems Book: Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide For Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance Outcome on LinkedIn Outcome on Facebook Outcome on Instagram Outcome on Twitter Dan Toma on LinkedIn This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | GooglePlay | Stitcher | Spotify | iHeart Be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you. For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon's newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com and click here.

Dan Toma is an author and innovations expert as well as the Co-founder of Outcome, an innovation consultancy focused on supercharging leadership and corporate innovation performance. He wrote The Corporate Startup, a practical guide for companies that want to sustain innovation capabilities, and Innovation Accounting, a book that helps companies track the critical [...] The post Innovation Accounting and Corporate Startups with Dan Toma appeared first on Sopheon.

Dan Toma is an author and innovations expert as well as the Co-founder of Outcome, an innovation consultancy focused on supercharging leadership and corporate innovation performance. He wrote The Corp

When a company is committed to growing through innovation standard accounting documents offer insufficient and, oftentimes irrelevant data. Innovation Accounting is a practical guide for these companies to help them measure and track innovation. Most established organizations have understood the need to innovate and become more digital, however the management tools available to leaders seeking to understand the investments in innovation are lacking. Financial accounting in particular is difficult to use in the context of (digital) innovation. Therefore a new complementary system for measuring and tracking innovation is needed.
The book provides tools, frameworks, templates, and visualizations that can be easily understood and applied. These can all be used by executives looking for a new way of measuring corporate performance in a world where accounting-recognized assets are becoming commodities, by investors seeking better ways of looking at a company's growth potential, and by managers who need to valuate innovation product teams using more than just financial indicators. Today's book is an essential go-to book for anyone that wants to measure their company's innovation ecosystem. We welcome the co-authors of Innovation Accounting, Esther-Emmely Gons and previous guest and friend of the show, Dan Toma More about Esther here: https://togroundcontrol.com/about/esther-emmely-gons/ More about Dan here: https://weareoutcome.co

Contact Dan Toma: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/Outcome: https://weareoutcome.co/Dan's other podcasts: https://theinnovationshow.io/episode/ep-230-the-corporate-startup-how-established-companies-can-create-successful-innovation-ecosystems-with-dan-toma/ https://thinkers50.com/blog/thinkers-50-podcast-dan-toma-and-innovation/ https://open.spotify.com/episode/2HeJjCHvNvCrD6vydCPsG4?si=u3kBTT3yR4W1D1Z_ie3Fxg&dl_branch=1

In this episode of Off the Shelf, John Metselaar, ESF Center Director at The Conference Board, interviews Dan Toma, Founding Partner at Outcome, on his latest book, Innovation Accounting. Innovation accounting is a critical component of the corporate innovation process to manage its inherent uncertainty and risk. It complements the conventional financial accounting system.  It needs to be an integrated system of measures encompassing strategy, management, and tactics. In other words, we can change what we measure so let's measure what adds value!

Dan Toma is an innovation thought leader and the co-author of two of my favorite books on innovation. The award-winning book The Corporate Startup, (awarded "Management Book of the Year for Innovation and Entrepreneurship" by Chartered Management Institute and The British Library in 2018) and his latest, Innovation Accounting. Dan started his career in entrepreneurship, being involved with technology startups across the world. Puzzled by the questions "Why are innovative products mainly launched by startups?," together with his team at the consultancy company OUTCOME, he focuses on enterprise innovation transformation. Specifically on the changes blue-chip organizations need to make to allow for new ventures to be built in a corporate setting. A big proponent of the ecosystem approach to innovation, Dan has also worked with various government bodies, in Asia and Europe, helping develop national innovation ecosystems and implement national innovation strategies. Most noteworthy is his work in the economic aid program of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vietnam where he helped design and manage a nationwide business acceleration program and supported the capability development activities. Dan was also featured on the Thinkers50 2020 Radar list of "Management Thinkers to Watch," while also being a member of the World Economic Forum's working group on accelerating digital transformation. In this podcast he shares: Why the traditional financial metrics we use to manage our core business are inappropriate for measuring innovation.While many people say things like “you have to measure innovation differently” or “we need to start measuring learning rather than revenue for innovation to work,” Dan gives us really tangible, practical advice on how to measure the right things.He also argues that we should not be focused on big “moon shot” ideas and what we should be focused on instead.__________________________________________________________________________________________"There's a gap in the market. There's a lot that talks about employees.There's a lot that talks about customers, and then loosely we'll talk about them together. But what is the value? We went out and did some primary research, and we found that brands that do that really well in the U.S. is 1.8X faster growth rates. For a billion-dollar brand, it's a $40-million impact."-Dan Toma__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Introducing Dan Toma + The topic of today's episode2:32—If you really know me, you know that...2:50—What is your definition of strategy?4:40—What got you interested in strategy?5:27—What are you most known for?5:56—Could you tell us about how Covid-19 has shifted companies' approach to innovation?8:59—What are some of the pitfalls of financial accounting?11:10—Can you give us an indicator or metric that can help us gauge how much we're learning?12:50—How do you measure a learning? 13:30—What do people get wrong? 14:50—What's the error in measuring innovation of "moon shot" ideas?16:00—What's something you've changed your mind about?17:13—Could you describe the framework you lay out in Corporate Startup?18:36—How can people follow, find and learn from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Company page: https://weareoutcome.co/Twitter: https://twitter.com/danto_maLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/Books: https://weareoutcome.co/books/

Dan Toma is an innovation thought leader and the co-author of two of my favorite books on innovation. The award-winning book The Corporate Startup, (awarded "Management Book of the Year for Innovation and Entrepreneurship" by Chartered Management Institute and The British Library in 2018) and his latest, Innovation Accounting. Dan started his career in entrepreneurship, being involved with technology startups across the world. Puzzled by the questions "Why are innovative products mainly launched by startups?," together with his team at the consultancy company OUTCOME, he focuses on enterprise innovation transformation. Specifically on the changes blue-chip organizations need to make to allow for new ventures to be built in a corporate setting. A big proponent of the ecosystem approach to innovation, Dan has also worked with various government bodies, in Asia and Europe, helping develop national innovation ecosystems and implement national innovation strategies. Most noteworthy is his work in the economic aid program of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vietnam where he helped design and manage a nationwide business acceleration program and supported the capability development activities. Dan was also featured on the Thinkers50 2020 Radar list of "Management Thinkers to Watch," while also being a member of the World Economic Forum's working group on accelerating digital transformation. In this podcast he shares: Why the traditional financial metrics we use to manage our core business are inappropriate for measuring innovation.While many people say things like “you have to measure innovation differently” or “we need to start measuring learning rather than revenue for innovation to work,” Dan gives us really tangible, practical advice on how to measure the right things.He also argues that we should not be focused on big “moon shot” ideas and what we should be focused on instead.__________________________________________________________________________________________"There's a gap in the market. There's a lot that talks about employees.There's a lot that talks about customers, and then loosely we'll talk about them together. But what is the value? We went out and did some primary research, and we found that brands that do that really well in the U.S. is 1.8X faster growth rates. For a billion-dollar brand, it's a $40-million impact."-Dan Toma__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Introducing Dan Toma + The topic of today's episode2:32—If you really know me, you know that...2:50—What is your definition of strategy?4:40—What got you interested in strategy?5:27—What are you most known for?5:56—Could you tell us about how Covid-19 has shifted companies' approach to innovation?8:59—What are some of the pitfalls of financial accounting?11:10—Can you give us an indicator or metric that can help us gauge how much we're learning?12:50—How do you measure a learning? 13:30—What do people get wrong? 14:50—What's the error in measuring innovation of "moon shot" ideas?16:00—What's something you've changed your mind about?17:13—Could you describe the framework you lay out in Corporate Startup?18:36—How can people follow, find and learn from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Company page: https://weareoutcome.co/Twitter: https://twitter.com/danto_maLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/Books: https://weareoutcome.co/books/

Amazon, Tesla, and FedEx did not see profit during their first five years, but their investors continued to put their trust in them until they finally hit their breakthrough. How did they make this happen? What motivated the investors to keep investing in these companies? How did they tell their stories? In this episode of Innovation Storytelling, Dan Toma, author of Innovation Accounting & The Corporate Startup, talks about innovation accounting, how it differs from regular accounting, and why it's a crucial tool in innovation storytelling.

Dan Toma, a leading thinker on innovation shares his thoughts and insights on the guiding principles that lie behind having an effective and innovative, workplace culture. Is there a blueprint or a magic formula to having an innovative culture that we can all follow?  Your host, Andy Goram and Dan, discuss the processes. measurements and actions that lie behind making your business truly innovative, and not just a company that has the word innovation in its vision statement. The pair follow the chapters in Dan's book "Innovation Accounting", to outline the steps that should be taken to ensure sustainable innovation lies at the heart of your company culture. They dig into the problems companies face in trying to do that and Dan offers up some advice on how to improve the situation in your business. Check out the show notes below to find out more about some of the topics covered in the show. ----more---- Join The Conversation   Find me on LinkedIn here Follow the Podcast on Instagram here Follow the Podcast on Twitter here Check out the Bizjuicer website here Download the podcast here ----more---- Useful Links Follow Dan Toma on LinkedIn here Follow Dan Toma on Twitter here Check out the We Are Outcome website here Find out about Dan's first book "The Corporate Startup" here Find out about Dan's second book "Innovation Accounting" here ----more---- Full Episode Transcript Get the full transcript of the episode here

After co-authoring the award-winning book The Corporate Startup, Dan founded the consultancy company Outcome. At Outcome, Dan is helping large companies transform to be able to grow for the future while running their today's core businesses. In this capacity, he worked with blue-chip companies around the world, most notably John Deere, Bayer, DNB, Indonesian Telekom, and DNV. In 2020 he was featured on Thinkers50 Radar List of management thinkers to watch. Currently, Dan is writing a second book aimed at helping companies measure innovation; Innovation Accounting will be available in bookstores in September 2021. Learn more about Dan and his Book - Click Here

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Esther Gons, CEO and Co-founder of Ground Control and Author of the upcoming book, Innovation Accounting. Esther and Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Cofounder, talk about the ins and outs of innovation accounting, and what companies should be doing to track and measure their innovation initiatives. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. Interview Transcript with Esther Gons, CEO and Co-founder of Ground Control and Author of Innovation AccountingBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Esther Gons. She is CEO and co-founder of Ground Control, which is a software platform that helps companies measure innovation and co-author of the corporate startup, and upcoming book Innovation Accounting. Welcome Esther to the show. Esther Gons: Thank you, Brian. I'm really happy to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you on the show. We've had Dan Toma, your co-author of the Corporate Startup and Tendayi Viki on the show in the past. How did you get involved in this innovation space?Esther Gons: I think for me, it's been a journey of entrepreneurship. So, my background is basically being an entrepreneur, starting startups, helping startups. So, I've always been an entrepreneur. And one of my first things that I did when I still was actually in my studies of Information Science was starting a business.And one of the things that I was asked to do by one of the bigger computer companies was building something completely new around their selling of computers. And I think that was one of the first corporate startups that I did, but it wasn't called that way, way back when. But I build over the course of two years, a platform with personal logins, with all sorts of new technologies and things that you could do just to sell their computers, to be able to be working from home. So, blog posts that weren't called blog posts. That was just content from people saying your employees will be so loyal. If you have them working from home, all these kinds of things. I even had other vendors ramped up with furniture, stuff like that. It was an amazing platform. And after two years and a lot of money when we finally launched nothing really happened.And the computer company didn't understand because there were no sales whatsoever and they just simply pulled the plug. But for me, that was a really important event because I was asking myself what went wrong there? What was the risk involved? Was it too early? How could I have known? And that was a search that put me on the path of pioneering and innovation and understanding how you could deal with that. So obviously that platform that failed was 20 years too early. If we look at the situation right now and we needed a COVID pandemic to get there. But yes, that got me into the puzzle, discovering things like the Lean Startup methodology when Steve Blank wrote about it and then working with other entrepreneurs to get it working. To evolve it. To make sure that startups heard about it. So that was when I started to volunteer for a lot of startup activity in Amsterdam. And got involved in that in the tech scene, since I've always been a tech entrepreneur. Brian Ardinger: Your first book, the Corporate Startup really gave corporations that inside look on what it was like and what it is like, to think and act, and move like startups. And create new business models from scratch. And it was a great opportunity to provide a framework for how corporations think about that. Your new book, Innovation Accounting, I'd love to start there. What is innovation? Accounting, and why is it so important? Esther Gons: A lot of corporates asked for metrics. You're absolutely right. But they usually ask for the one metric to rule everything, right? So how are we doing in terms of innovation? And then they use innovation as a catch-all phrase. We want to know about all of our innovation, right? We want to see everything in our portfolio. So, what we've seen with working with a lot of clients, because we like to be practical about things that we write.We want to know that it works. Is that for that startup kind of innovation, which is different from what you do in terms of innovation in the rest of your company, you could be doing a digital transformation. You could be optimizing your current processes with startups. It's all innovation, but if you truly want to do new business model innovation. Breakthrough in disruptive innovation. Then you actually need something else than the processes and the accounting systems that you have in your current company. And we noticed that if people didn't have that new system in place and they were trying to do Lean Startup and they were trying to build new business models, if they didn't have the whole system, the whole package, then it all turned back into incremental innovation again.So, then we thought, well, we have to let people know that if they truly want to do new business model innovation, this kind of disruptive innovation, they can measure that with the indicators that they have in their current company with that current system. Because then it will always fail or turn back into incremental innovation again.So, let's talk about that word innovation accounting, that Eric Ries, once coined as being the system that teams needed to have to be accountable for the decisions they made based on data. And talk about how that evolved into something else. And then what do you need inside a company? What kind of system do you need, need inside of a company to actually measure that kind of innovation?Brian Ardinger: I think that's such an important point that corporations really need to define innovation and understand the spectrum of it. You know, everything from, like you said, the stuff close to the core of that optimization of what they're currently doing and how that differs significantly from transformational innovation when you're trying to come up with a brand new business model. Why do you think it's so difficult for companies to understand this distinction and be able to do something about it? Esther Gons: For a company, it's ingrained in their system, that their goal is to optimize and grow their current system. Right? That's what they are there for. The CEO has been appointed by the shareholders to do that specific thing. So that means that their whole existence, their future is based on, on executing on that core thing. And that also means that everything that they have gathered around it, their processes, their culture, their people, are based around that. And it's hard to understand something that isn't there yet. Something that is probably really risky. So, if you can't see it, then it's harder to understand and to act around it. So, I think it's actually a good point that you're making Brian, because what we've seen is that if you do not make it visible by either a new system with innovation accounting, or in any other way, then top level, it's hard to make that distinction because you can't see it. You're just seeing the investment that you're making, but you can see what you're doing. And what I always say is that you have to look at it in terms of buckets, right? There's buckets that do not have a really high risk, and that have business goals that are aligned with your core business. So fine, you can do that with the current systems and your investment will have to return something in probably a year, because that's what you're used to.But if you're investing in a high-risk bucket, startups are high risk. I'm a investor myself. So, most VCs know this. This is a high-risk profession, right? You don't know how many will return, what kind of money. And the timelines are vague, could be three years, could be 12 years. So, these high risk buckets needs to have a different approach.But you need to have some sort of visibility in terms of control. So, if you make the bet in your strategy, just that saying, okay, I have business models that are fading. I need to look at the future. Then at least you should have some sort of visibility of what you are doing with that future. So are you betting on a specific innovation thesis like we've described in the Corporate Startup. So, then you want to understand how that is going along. Are we doing well? Are we turning that strategy into, into something really practical? Is your funnel turning into a portfolio? So, you need all kinds of indicators to be able to understand that without falling back to your financial indicator. Because naturally, if you're looking for something that is really new, you're searching and your core business is learning, which means that you do not have a return in Dollars or Euros. You have a return on insights and learnings, and that's what you work for. The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn.Brian Ardinger: So, let's talk about some of those particular metrics. Traditional metrics might be things like profitability, number of customers, things like that. When you get into, on the innovation front, especially transformational innovation, what are some of the early metrics that you should be looking at? Esther Gons: That sounds really simple, right? And I can give you like three indicators, but it makes sense to sort of understand first that what we understand in terms of innovation accounting is like a whole package of indicators. Because you do not only want to understand every single individual team and how that idea is turning into a business model, right. Because we're talking about that journey from idea to business model, and that is a risky journey because you're searching. But you also want to understand how all of the teams are doing inside of the program that you have. Then you want to understand if you have enough ideas to turn that into future portfolio products or services. Is that going along? Do we need more ideas? Is everything stopped at, I don't know, stage two then we definitely have to look at what's going on here. And then you need to also understand from a strategic level, if your bets for the future are doing well. And if your total investment in the future is turning into something that you want for the company. So, these are three levels of indicators or different kinds of indicators that have some sort of abstraction from each other, right? So, at a team level, you need to understand things. Then the manager needs to understand things in terms of how are the teams doing? That is abstracted from the team indicators and strategy level.They don't want to understand how every team is doing, but they do want to understand how that is translated into their portfolio strategy, for instance. So, I think it's important to understand that where Eric Ries said innovation accounting is for the teams. If you want to do it within a corporate situation, you want to do it in a different setting. So, you need to manage all these things and you need be sort of aware or in control of how all of these investments are doing. And if there is some return, I don't know, in the future. Brian Ardinger: So, if I'm part of an innovation team and I'm trying to understand if I'm making progress, what should I be looking at? Should I be looking at the number of ideas I'm working on, the number of assumptions that I'm testing? Where should I start? Esther Gons: For me, the most important thing for, for this kind of innovation is understanding that your core business is learning. So that means there need to be teams that are doing a unified way of working and validating with experiments. Methodically de-risking that business model. Right. So that means that you want to understand if they're learning well. So how many learnings did they have? Maybe you can look at a experiment learning ratio so that every experiment have a learning or not. Or are we doing experiments for the sake of experiments, for instance. If you put that against time or against cost. Because learning for teams is essentially the core business. Brian Ardinger: So, the idea of measuring that against velocity, how fast do they learn, and the cost of that learning. Is that what you're looking at?Esther Gons: So as soon as you put learning the core, you can look at these things, right? So, what is the learning philosophy? What is the learning ratio? What is the velocity cost ratio? How much time do they spend in a certain state, for instance, doing the learnings? That makes sense if you look at the learnings. That is their core business. But I wouldn't ramp up everything if you start. And just look at the core business and what you want to improve, because you have these indicators to be able to steer and improve of them.Brian Ardinger: So, at the organizational level, what are some of the metrics at that portfolio level that companies should be using to know if they're making progress? Esther Gons: That's the top level. You mean the strategic level? I think it's important to understand if you look at that strategic level. The indicators are basically, framed around questions. So, from a strategic point of view, what you're doing is trying to understand how much your company is really under risk of disruption. Right? So is your current business model under threat of, or fade or disruption? Then that is really important to understand. So, we always say, if you look at your portfolio to understand how much you should invest in this kind of innovation, then look at your portfolio in terms of business models and not in terms of products. People usually look at it, in terms of products, right? But then if you look at it, in terms of business models, most of these products are, have the same business model, especially in product driven companies. But the question is my company under the risk of disruption, or is innovation driving growth in the company, that will give you an answer into how much of your investment should actually go to disruptive innovation.And that could then translate into indicators like portfolio fade, stuff like that. And the other questions you should ask yourself is how does my company future look like, right? Am I betting in the right direction? So how is the innovation thesis doing in terms of progressing towards newer stages. Or how efficient is my innovation ecosystem, if I look into the average speed of these innovation going through the stages or are my investment returning something in so many years. Brian Ardinger: So, looking at things like how much of my revenue is coming from new initiatives, things along those lines?Esther Gons: Things along those lines, but that's the easiest one. And that's one that corporates usually want to see that. So that's why I usually stay away from those in questions like this, because in essence, of course you want to understand how much of your growth is driven by revenue from these kinds of disruptive innovations. If you are starting out with innovation accounting right now, you won't be seeing that until three years or four years from now.I think it's then better to look at different kind of indicators on a funnel level. So, what is going on in the funnel? How many of these ideas are actually starting? And how many end up in different stages. Is that progressing well. With one of your innovation theses that you defined, because you wanted to bet in that specific future, nothing is happening after the second stage, you should ask yourself, is this the right pieces? Should we look at it again? So, you need to have some insight depending on the maturity level of your innovation ecosystem, to be able to steer towards a better ecosystem. Brian Ardinger: The last topic I want to talk about is you're based in Amsterdam, so I'd love to get your insights, and I'm curious to know what you're seeing as it pertains to European companies and their approach to innovation and how it may differ from what's going on in the U S. Esther Gons: So, the things I've seen in Europe, but maybe in the Netherlands specifically, is that the Lean Startup and the Lean Startup Methodology is a little bit farther ahead than it is in the U S maybe, especially in terms of the systematic approach towards the Lean Startup and how to do that within a corporate. Which I'm really happy about because that sort of helps me with the innovation accounting. And then the other way around in the U S there is within startups, I'm not sure how that is in a corporate world. But within startups, there's far more appetite for risk investment. So, in Europe, we tend to be a little bit risk averse. Show me first, and then can you at least show me a revenue first before we do any kind of innovation? So, you're dependent on really early-stage angels, if you want to prove that revenue first. But that differs in country per country. But if you look at ten European investment funds, that those tend to be a little bit more risk averse then the U S. And you can see that back into the amount of investments. So, if you compare VC investments, in terms of numbers, US are higher than they are in Europe. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Well, I can't wait to go a copy of Innovation Accounting. Your books are always so great because they're visual and they're tactical with templates and guides and that. If people want to find out more about your book or about yourself, what's the best way to do that? Esther Gons: For the book, definitely go to InnovationAccountingBook.com, where we have the table of contents and you can download the resources and also look where you can order, and pre-order the book. If you want to know more about me or my company, then simply go to ToGroundControl.Com or might be a little bit more difficult as EstherEmmelyGons.NL. Brian Ardinger: Well, thank you Esther, for being on Inside Outside Innovation. I look forward to continuing to have these conversations about what makes innovation so great and appreciate your time and your insights. Thank you. Esther Gons: Love to be here Brian.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Esther Gons, CEO and Co-founder of Ground Control and Author of the upcoming book, Innovation Accounting. Esther and Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Cofounder, talk about the ins and outs of innovation accounting, and what companies should be doing to track and measure their innovation initiatives. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage, and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. Interview Transcript with Esther Gons, CEO and Co-founder of Ground Control and Author of Innovation AccountingBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Esther Gons. She is CEO and co-founder of Ground Control, which is a software platform that helps companies measure innovation and co-author of the corporate startup, and upcoming book Innovation Accounting. Welcome Esther to the show. Esther Gons: Thank you, Brian. I'm really happy to be here. Brian Ardinger: I'm excited to have you on the show. We've had Dan Toma, your co-author of the Corporate Startup and Tendayi Viki on the show in the past. How did you get involved in this innovation space?Esther Gons: I think for me, it's been a journey of entrepreneurship. So, my background is basically being an entrepreneur, starting startups, helping startups. So, I've always been an entrepreneur. And one of my first things that I did when I still was actually in my studies of Information Science was starting a business.And one of the things that I was asked to do by one of the bigger computer companies was building something completely new around their selling of computers. And I think that was one of the first corporate startups that I did, but it wasn't called that way, way back when. But I build over the course of two years, a platform with personal logins, with all sorts of new technologies and things that you could do just to sell their computers, to be able to be working from home. So, blog posts that weren't called blog posts. That was just content from people saying your employees will be so loyal. If you have them working from home, all these kinds of things. I even had other vendors ramped up with furniture, stuff like that. It was an amazing platform. And after two years and a lot of money when we finally launched nothing really happened.And the computer company didn't understand because there were no sales whatsoever and they just simply pulled the plug. But for me, that was a really important event because I was asking myself what went wrong there? What was the risk involved? Was it too early? How could I have known? And that was a search that put me on the path of pioneering and innovation and understanding how you could deal with that. So obviously that platform that failed was 20 years too early. If we look at the situation right now and we needed a COVID pandemic to get there. But yes, that got me into the puzzle, discovering things like the Lean Startup methodology when Steve Blank wrote about it and then working with other entrepreneurs to get it working. To evolve it. To make sure that startups heard about it. So that was when I started to volunteer for a lot of startup activity in Amsterdam. And got involved in that in the tech scene, since I've always been a tech entrepreneur. Brian Ardinger: Your first book, the Corporate Startup really gave corporations that inside look on what it was like and what it is like, to think and act, and move like startups. And create new business models from scratch. And it was a great opportunity to provide a framework for how corporations think about that. Your new book, Innovation Accounting, I'd love to start there. What is innovation? Accounting, and why is it so important? Esther Gons: A lot of corporates asked for metrics. You're absolutely right. But they usually ask for the one metric to rule everything, right? So how are we doing in terms of innovation? And then they use innovation as a catch-all phrase. We want to know about all of our innovation, right? We want to see everything in our portfolio. So, what we've seen with working with a lot of clients, because we like to be practical about things that we write.We want to know that it works. Is that for that startup kind of innovation, which is different from what you do in terms of innovation in the rest of your company, you could be doing a digital transformation. You could be optimizing your current processes with startups. It's all innovation, but if you truly want to do new business model innovation. Breakthrough in disruptive innovation. Then you actually need something else than the processes and the accounting systems that you have in your current company. And we noticed that if people didn't have that new system in place and they were trying to do Lean Startup and they were trying to build new business models, if they didn't have the whole system, the whole package, then it all turned back into incremental innovation again.So, then we thought, well, we have to let people know that if they truly want to do new business model innovation, this kind of disruptive innovation, they can measure that with the indicators that they have in their current company with that current system. Because then it will always fail or turn back into incremental innovation again.So, let's talk about that word innovation accounting, that Eric Ries, once coined as being the system that teams needed to have to be accountable for the decisions they made based on data. And talk about how that evolved into something else. And then what do you need inside a company? What kind of system do you need, need inside of a company to actually measure that kind of innovation?Brian Ardinger: I think that's such an important point that corporations really need to define innovation and understand the spectrum of it. You know, everything from, like you said, the stuff close to the core of that optimization of what they're currently doing and how that differs significantly from transformational innovation when you're trying to come up with a brand new business model. Why do you think it's so difficult for companies to understand this distinction and be able to do something about it? Esther Gons: For a company, it's ingrained in their system, that their goal is to optimize and grow their current system. Right? That's what they are there for. The CEO has been appointed by the shareholders to do that specific thing. So that means that their whole existence, their future is based on, on executing on that core thing. And that also means that everything that they have gathered around it, their processes, their culture, their people, are based around that. And it's hard to understand something that isn't there yet. Something that is probably really risky. So, if you can't see it, then it's harder to understand and to act around it. So, I think it's actually a good point that you're making Brian, because what we've seen is that if you do not make it visible by either a new system with innovation accounting, or in any other way, then top level, it's hard to make that distinction because you can't see it. You're just seeing the investment that you're making, but you can see what you're doing. And what I always say is that you have to look at it in terms of buckets, right? There's buckets that do not have a really high risk, and that have business goals that are aligned with your core business. So fine, you can do that with the current systems and your investment will have to return something in probably a year, because that's what you're used to.But if you're investing in a high-risk bucket, startups are high risk. I'm a investor myself. So, most VCs know this. This is a high-risk profession, right? You don't know how many will return, what kind of money. And the timelines are vague, could be three years, could be 12 years. So, these high risk buckets needs to have a different approach.But you need to have some sort of visibility in terms of control. So, if you make the bet in your strategy, just that saying, okay, I have business models that are fading. I need to look at the future. Then at least you should have some sort of visibility of what you are doing with that future. So are you betting on a specific innovation thesis like we've described in the Corporate Startup. So, then you want to understand how that is going along. Are we doing well? Are we turning that strategy into, into something really practical? Is your funnel turning into a portfolio? So, you need all kinds of indicators to be able to understand that without falling back to your financial indicator. Because naturally, if you're looking for something that is really new, you're searching and your core business is learning, which means that you do not have a return in Dollars or Euros. You have a return on insights and learnings, and that's what you work for. The Ewing Marion Kauffman FoundationSponsor Voice: The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, that seeks to build inclusive prosperity through a prepared workforce and entrepreneur-focused economic development. The Foundation uses its $3 billion in assets to change conditions, address root causes, and break down systemic barriers so that all people – regardless of race, gender, or geography – have the opportunity to achieve economic stability, mobility, and prosperity. For more  information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with us at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn.Brian Ardinger: So, let's talk about some of those particular metrics. Traditional metrics might be things like profitability, number of customers, things like that. When you get into, on the innovation front, especially transformational innovation, what are some of the early metrics that you should be looking at? Esther Gons: That sounds really simple, right? And I can give you like three indicators, but it makes sense to sort of understand first that what we understand in terms of innovation accounting is like a whole package of indicators. Because you do not only want to understand every single individual team and how that idea is turning into a business model, right. Because we're talking about that journey from idea to business model, and that is a risky journey because you're searching. But you also want to understand how all of the teams are doing inside of the program that you have. Then you want to understand if you have enough ideas to turn that into future portfolio products or services. Is that going along? Do we need more ideas? Is everything stopped at, I don't know, stage two then we definitely have to look at what's going on here. And then you need to also understand from a strategic level, if your bets for the future are doing well. And if your total investment in the future is turning into something that you want for the company. So, these are three levels of indicators or different kinds of indicators that have some sort of abstraction from each other, right? So, at a team level, you need to understand things. Then the manager needs to understand things in terms of how are the teams doing? That is abstracted from the team indicators and strategy level.They don't want to understand how every team is doing, but they do want to understand how that is translated into their portfolio strategy, for instance. So, I think it's important to understand that where Eric Ries said innovation accounting is for the teams. If you want to do it within a corporate situation, you want to do it in a different setting. So, you need to manage all these things and you need be sort of aware or in control of how all of these investments are doing. And if there is some return, I don't know, in the future. Brian Ardinger: So, if I'm part of an innovation team and I'm trying to understand if I'm making progress, what should I be looking at? Should I be looking at the number of ideas I'm working on, the number of assumptions that I'm testing? Where should I start? Esther Gons: For me, the most important thing for, for this kind of innovation is understanding that your core business is learning. So that means there need to be teams that are doing a unified way of working and validating with experiments. Methodically de-risking that business model. Right. So that means that you want to understand if they're learning well. So how many learnings did they have? Maybe you can look at a experiment learning ratio so that every experiment have a learning or not. Or are we doing experiments for the sake of experiments, for instance. If you put that against time or against cost. Because learning for teams is essentially the core business. Brian Ardinger: So, the idea of measuring that against velocity, how fast do they learn, and the cost of that learning. Is that what you're looking at?Esther Gons: So as soon as you put learning the core, you can look at these things, right? So, what is the learning philosophy? What is the learning ratio? What is the velocity cost ratio? How much time do they spend in a certain state, for instance, doing the learnings? That makes sense if you look at the learnings. That is their core business. But I wouldn't ramp up everything if you start. And just look at the core business and what you want to improve, because you have these indicators to be able to steer and improve of them.Brian Ardinger: So, at the organizational level, what are some of the metrics at that portfolio level that companies should be using to know if they're making progress? Esther Gons: That's the top level. You mean the strategic level? I think it's important to understand if you look at that strategic level. The indicators are basically, framed around questions. So, from a strategic point of view, what you're doing is trying to understand how much your company is really under risk of disruption. Right? So is your current business model under threat of, or fade or disruption? Then that is really important to understand. So, we always say, if you look at your portfolio to understand how much you should invest in this kind of innovation, then look at your portfolio in terms of business models and not in terms of products. People usually look at it, in terms of products, right? But then if you look at it, in terms of business models, most of these products are, have the same business model, especially in product driven companies. But the question is my company under the risk of disruption, or is innovation driving growth in the company, that will give you an answer into how much of your investment should actually go to disruptive innovation.And that could then translate into indicators like portfolio fade, stuff like that. And the other questions you should ask yourself is how does my company future look like, right? Am I betting in the right direction? So how is the innovation thesis doing in terms of progressing towards newer stages. Or how efficient is my innovation ecosystem, if I look into the average speed of these innovation going through the stages or are my investment returning something in so many years. Brian Ardinger: So, looking at things like how much of my revenue is coming from new initiatives, things along those lines?Esther Gons: Things along those lines, but that's the easiest one. And that's one that corporates usually want to see that. So that's why I usually stay away from those in questions like this, because in essence, of course you want to understand how much of your growth is driven by revenue from these kinds of disruptive innovations. If you are starting out with innovation accounting right now, you won't be seeing that until three years or four years from now.I think it's then better to look at different kind of indicators on a funnel level. So, what is going on in the funnel? How many of these ideas are actually starting? And how many end up in different stages. Is that progressing well. With one of your innovation theses that you defined, because you wanted to bet in that specific future, nothing is happening after the second stage, you should ask yourself, is this the right pieces? Should we look at it again? So, you need to have some insight depending on the maturity level of your innovation ecosystem, to be able to steer towards a better ecosystem. Brian Ardinger: The last topic I want to talk about is you're based in Amsterdam, so I'd love to get your insights, and I'm curious to know what you're seeing as it pertains to European companies and their approach to innovation and how it may differ from what's going on in the U S. Esther Gons: So, the things I've seen in Europe, but maybe in the Netherlands specifically, is that the Lean Startup and the Lean Startup Methodology is a little bit farther ahead than it is in the U S maybe, especially in terms of the systematic approach towards the Lean Startup and how to do that within a corporate. Which I'm really happy about because that sort of helps me with the innovation accounting. And then the other way around in the U S there is within startups, I'm not sure how that is in a corporate world. But within startups, there's far more appetite for risk investment. So, in Europe, we tend to be a little bit risk averse. Show me first, and then can you at least show me a revenue first before we do any kind of innovation? So, you're dependent on really early-stage angels, if you want to prove that revenue first. But that differs in country per country. But if you look at ten European investment funds, that those tend to be a little bit more risk averse then the U S. And you can see that back into the amount of investments. So, if you compare VC investments, in terms of numbers, US are higher than they are in Europe. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Well, I can't wait to go a copy of Innovation Accounting. Your books are always so great because they're visual and they're tactical with templates and guides and that. If people want to find out more about your book or about yourself, what's the best way to do that? Esther Gons: For the book, definitely go to Innovation Accounting Book.com, where we have the table of contents and you can download the resources and also look where you can order, and pre-order the book. If you want to know more about me or my company, then simply go to ToGroundControl.Com or might be a little bit more difficult as EstherEmmelyGons.NL. Brian Ardinger: Well, thank you Esther, for being on Inside Outside Innovation. I look forward to continuing to have these conversations about what makes innovation so great and appreciate your time and your insights. Thank you. Esther Gons: Love to be here Brian.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company.  For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.  

Shout out to our sponsor High Grade IG @wearehighgradeaz for a dope segment educating the community on growing techniques. "Elevate and Grow" every month we go live from High Grades indoor cultivation and educate you on every step of growing. This month we highlighted IPM which stands for Integrated Pest Management. Growing plants is a process, and it takes a lot of time and money to get to a final product. Taking a gamble by not protecting your crops from devastating pests could mean losing everything. It has happened time and time again, and many people have lost it all to bugs. Dan Toma from High Grade along with VACA walk you through the process of protecting your plants and give you tips to ensure a successful harvest. Check out the episode and learn from industry professionals, Dan is backed with a formal educational to back the experience. I mention that bc education is the key to success. We are collaborating with @wearehighgradeaz to bring you an inside look at what the professionals do to bring you connoisseur grade cannabis. Check out all the past segments and follow along to learn how to grow the dank from clone to harvest.

Today I talk about investing in companies that actually innovate with Dan Toma, an innovation expert who helps companies transform into innovative machines. But first, I  talk about some staggering stats about how underprepared baby boomers are for retirement, and how legislative changes are coming to make saving for retirement easier and more flexible.Outline of this Episode[1:45] Baby Boomer's underprepared for retirement headline[5:25] Interview with Dan TomaBaby Boomer's are Underprepared For RetirementPrior to the 401k, savers relied more heavily on pensions and defined benefit plans. The 401k shifted the onus of saving from the employer to the employee. 40 years after this change, we see the results have been quite mixed. A study from the National Institute on Retirement Security, the median amount of financial assets owned by baby boomers is less than $50,000 which translates to only about $160 per month! I think education is the most important thing. We need to be teaching people about personal finance starting at an early age. A report called the Nations Report Card on Financial Literacy gives 66% of states a grade of C or worse for financial literacy instruction, so there's clearly room for improvement. Investing in Innovative CompaniesDan Toma is an innovation thought leader and the co-author of the award-winning book The Corporate Startup and Innovation Accounting.  His work focuses on enterprise transformation -- specifically on the changes, blue-chip organizations need to make to allow for new ventures to be built in a corporate setting. He was featured on the Thinkers50 2020 Radar list of management thinkers to watch and is a member of the World Economic Forum's working group on accelerating digital transformation. In the interview we discuss:What is innovation?What is “innovation theater”?The value of financial statementsSmithsonian Institute as an Innovation exampleMicrosoft as an innovation exampleRoche as an innovation exampleThings to look for in a company that is fostering innovationESG is a neighbor of innovation?Identifying red flagsLooking at where a company is investingThe New Product Vitality Index (NPVI)Why you shouldn't boil innovation down to one indicatorLearn More About Dan on his website where you can check out his blog and his books:Dan's WebsiteConnect with David DeWittSubscribe to the newsletterGet your free 3-minute financial planRegister for our upcoming webinar on tax planningSubscribe to the Invest Smarter podcast on your favorite platformApple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Castbox 

In today's episode of the Idea to Value podcast, we speak with Ether Gons, Founder of GroundControl and author of the Corporate Startup (with Dan Toma) and Innovation Accounting. #innovation #accounting #metrics #KPIs See the full article at https://wp.me/p6pllj-1Di We speak about what it takes to measure innovation progress, what companies and analysts get wrong, and how to think about metrics and KPIs in a different way. Topics covered in this episode: 00:01:30 - Esther's history with Startups in Holland, and the founding of Ground Control 00:02:45 - What is innovation accounting? It is the twin of corporate accounting but instead it is appropriate for innovation projects 00:04:30 - Traditional corporate accounting and analysis methods are not appropriate for innovation because they are used to reduce risk and improve efficiency, which do not work for innovation projects 00:07:30 - Why do we need metrics and management for innovation at all? 00:10:15 - What is learning velocity? 00:17:00 - Tools and indicators for the whole innovation portfolio 00:19:00 - Hurdles to introducing a system of innovation accounting to decision makers Links mentioned in this episode: Innovation Accounting book: https://innovationaccountingbook.com/ Ground Control: https://togroundcontrol.com/ Esther's website: https://estheremmelygons.nl/ Esther's Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esthergons/ Bonus: This episode was made possible by our premium innovation and creativity training. Take your innovation and creativity capabilities to the next level by investing in yourself now, at https://www.ideatovalue.com/all-access-pass-insider-secrets/ * Subscribe on iTunes to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/idea-to-value-creativity-innovation/id1199964981?mt=2 * Subscribe on Spotify to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4x1kANUSv7UJoCJ8GavUrN  * Subscribe on Stitcher to the Idea to Value Podcast: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=129437&refid=stpr * Subscribe on Google Podcasts to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9pZGVhdG92YWx1ZS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw  Want to rapidly validate new ideas and innovative products and GROW your online business? These are the tools I actually use to run my online businesses (and you can too): * The best email management and campaigns system: ActiveCampaign (Free Trial) http://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=M17NLG2X  * Best value web hosting: BlueHost WordPress http://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=M17NLG2X  * Landing pages, Sales Pages and Lead collection: LeadPages (Free Trial) http://leadpages.pxf.io/c/1385771/390538/5673  * Sharing & List building: Sumo (Free) https://sumo.com/?src=partner_ideatovalue  * Payments, Shopping Cart, affiliate management and Upsell generator: ThriveCart https://improvides--checkout.thrivecart.com/thrivecart-standard-account/  * Video Webinars for sales: WebinarJam and Everwebinar ($1 Trial) https://nickskillicorn.krtra.com/t/lwIBaKzMP1oQ  * Membership for protecting content: Membermouse (Free Trial) http://affiliates.membermouse.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=735  * eLearning System for students: WP Courseware https://flyplugins.com/?fly=293  * Video Editing: Techsmith Camtasia http://techsmith.z6rjha.net/vvGPv  I have used all of the above products myself to build IdeatoValue and Improvides, which is why I can confidently recommend them. I may also receive affiliate payments for any business I bring to them using the links above. Copyright https://www.ideatovalue.com

Welcome to a talk about Innovation Ecosystems, Digital Transformation & Startups. My guest today is Dan Toma, Co-Founder at Outcome, Author “The Corporates Startup” and "Innovation Accounting". Digital Transformation and Innovation Secrets l Invincible Innovation We will discuss: - What are the biggest obstacles to innovation? - What companies have to know about digital transformation? - Why are ecosystems so important for business? Thanks for watching Invincible innovation LIVE A Show About The Future Of People With Tech I'm Adi Mazor Kario, #1 Product Innovation & Value Creation Expert, Invincible Innovation. I'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts in the comments below! If you want to know more about me and my work: https://www.invincibleinnovation.com/ Invincible Innovation on Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xtwPt9 Innovating Through Chaos Book: https://amzn.to/3gAVLbu Adi's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3vuAplA Hope you'll enjoy the talk! #innovation #innovationecosystem #startup #startupnation #innovation #leadership #management #invincibleinnovation #openinnovation #cocreation #opportunities #valuecreation Invincible Innovation Innovation Ecosystems Digital Transformation Startups what is digital transformation in business d digital transformation strategy innovation digital transformation series episode what is innovation digital transformation digital transformation trends innovation ecosystem startup philosophy business building how to innovate Digital Transformation and Innovation Secrets | Invincible Innovation Digital Transformation and Innovation Secrets

Tendayi Viki: Pirates in the Navy Tendayi Viki is an author, innovation consultant, and Associate Partner at Strategyzer, helping large organizations innovate for the future while managing their core business. He has been shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award and was named on the Thinkers50 Radar List for emerging management thinkers to watch. He's written three books based on his research and consulting experience, Pirates In The Navy*, The Corporate Startup* and The Lean Product Lifecycle*. The Corporate Startup * was awarded the CMI Management Book Of The Year In Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also a regular contributing writer for Forbes. In this conversation, Tendayi and I discuss how innovators often take on the role of pirates in the navy. We explore the mindset that innovators inside organizations need to avoid the common mistakes in advancing new ideas. Plus, we discuss why innovators should ignore detractors early on, parter with early adopters, and use early wins to move forward. Key Points Middle managers may stifle innovation, but often that’s because of internal pressure from those at the top to keep results coming. Innovators should beware basking in the glow of the CEO. It’s essential to engage other stakeholders in the business. Partnering with early adopters is essential for innovators. These are the managers who have existing frustrations with the status quo and are already trying new things. Celebrate early wins through blog posts, workshops, success stories, interviews, and even external conferences. These help you gain credibility. Beware basking too much in early wins. The point of early wins is to give you credibility to move on to the next stage. Resources Mentioned Pirates In The Navy: How Innovators Lead Transformation* by Tendayi Viki The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems* by Tendayi Viki, Dan Toma, and Esther Gone The Lean Product Lifecycle: A Playbook for Making Products People Want* by Tendayi Viki, Craig Strong, and Sonja Kresojevic In Defense Of Middle Managers Who Stifle Innovation by Tendayi Viki Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes The Way to Nurture New Ideas, with Safi Bahcall (episode 418) How to Start Seeing Around Corners, with Rita McGrath (episode 430) How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder (episode 470) How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank (episode 476) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.

Tendayi Viki: Pirates in the Navy Tendayi Viki is an author, innovation consultant, and Associate Partner at Strategyzer, helping large organizations innovate for the future while managing their core business. He has been shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award and was named on the Thinkers50 Radar List for emerging management thinkers to watch. He's written three books based on his research and consulting experience, Pirates In The Navy*, The Corporate Startup* and The Lean Product Lifecycle*. The Corporate Startup * was awarded the CMI Management Book Of The Year In Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also a regular contributing writer for Forbes. In this conversation, Tendayi and I discuss how innovators often take on the role of pirates in the navy. We explore the mindset that innovators inside organizations need to avoid the common mistakes in advancing new ideas. Plus, we discuss why innovators should ignore detractors early on, parter with early adopters, and use early wins to move forward. Key Points Middle managers may stifle innovation, but often that’s because of internal pressure from those at the top to keep results coming. Innovators should beware basking in the glow of the CEO. It’s essential to engage other stakeholders in the business. Partnering with early adopters is essential for innovators. These are the managers who have existing frustrations with the status quo and are already trying new things. Celebrate early wins through blog posts, workshops, success stories, interviews, and even external conferences. These help you gain credibility. Beware basking too much in early wins. The point of early wins is to give you credibility to move on to the next stage. Resources Mentioned Pirates In The Navy: How Innovators Lead Transformation* by Tendayi Viki The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems* by Tendayi Viki, Dan Toma, and Esther Gone The Lean Product Lifecycle: A Playbook for Making Products People Want* by Tendayi Viki, Craig Strong, and Sonja Kresojevic In Defense Of Middle Managers Who Stifle Innovation by Tendayi Viki Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes The Way to Nurture New Ideas, with Safi Bahcall (episode 418) How to Start Seeing Around Corners, with Rita McGrath (episode 430) How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder (episode 470) How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank (episode 476) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic.

In this episode I talk to Dan Toma, an innovation thought leader and the author of the book the The Corporate Startup (Vakmedien, 2017)Dan comes has an eminently entrepreneurial background and has been involved with technology start-ups across the world as well as being an innovation community leader in Europe. In many ways Dan is the embodiment of globalization, being a Romanian national, resident in Norway and working internationally. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In today's episode of the Idea to Value podcast, we speak with author Dan Toma about the concept of Innovation accounting. Dan is the founder of Outcome and the co-author of the Corporate Startup. We go through how companies should measure innovation performance, and which KPIs actually make sense for these types of projects. Topics covered in today's episode: 00:01:30 - Dan's history in entrepreneurship 00:03:45 - Why accounting is overrated. It cannot tell you what to do next. It is like driving a car but only looking backwards in the rearview mirror. 00:05:00 - The aspects which create a successful innovation culture are found nowhere in the accounting books.  00:08:00 - Instead of just focusing on inputs and outputs, innovation relies on understanding the process 00:09:00 - Innovation cannot provide information on what has not yet happened, making questions around "Return on Investment" impossible to predict 00:14:00 - Which KPIs and principles work for an innovation accounting system 00:19:30 - What is learning velocity? 00:22:00 - Assessing risk and managing multiple innovation projects across a portfolio Links mentioned in today's episode: The Innovation accounting book: https://innovationaccountingbook.com/ Dan's Linkedin profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/ Dan's Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/danto_ma Bonus: This episode was made possible by our premium innovation and creativity training. Take your innovation and creativity capabilities to the next level by investing in yourself now, at https://www.ideatovalue.com/all-access-pass-insider-secrets/ * Subscribe on iTunes to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/idea-to-value-creativity-innovation/id1199964981?mt=2 * Subscribe on Spotify to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4x1kANUSv7UJoCJ8GavUrN  * Subscribe on Stitcher to the Idea to Value Podcast: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=129437&refid=stpr * Subscribe on Google Podcasts to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9pZGVhdG92YWx1ZS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw  Want to rapidly validate new ideas and innovative products and GROW your online business? These are the tools I actually use to run my online businesses (and you can too): * The best email management and campaigns system: ActiveCampaign (Free Trial) http://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=M17NLG2X  * Best value web hosting: BlueHost WordPress http://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=M17NLG2X  * Landing pages, Sales Pages and Lead collection: LeadPages (Free Trial) http://leadpages.pxf.io/c/1385771/390538/5673  * Sharing & List building: Sumo (Free) https://sumo.com/?src=partner_ideatovalue  * Payments, Shopping Cart, affiliate management and Upsell generator: ThriveCart https://improvides--checkout.thrivecart.com/thrivecart-standard-account/  * Video Webinars for sales: WebinarJam and Everwebinar ($1 Trial) https://nickskillicorn.krtra.com/t/lwIBaKzMP1oQ  * Membership for protecting content: Membermouse (Free Trial) http://affiliates.membermouse.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=735  * eLearning System for students: WP Courseware https://flyplugins.com/?fly=293  * Video Editing: Techsmith Camtasia http://techsmith.z6rjha.net/vvGPv  I have used all of the above products myself to build IdeatoValue and Improvides, which is why I can confidently recommend them. I may also receive affiliate payments for any business I bring to them using the links above. Copyright https://www.ideatovalue.com

The world around us is changing rapidly. There is now more pressure on established companies to innovate. The challenge most companies face is how to develop new products for new markets, while managing their core business at the same time. The principles and practices outlined in this book provide companies with a blueprint of how to manage innovation while they execute on their core business. The Corporate Startup provides frameworks, visualizations, templates, tools and methods that can be easily applied to develop new products and business models. We welcome author of “The Corporate Startup: How established companies can create successful innovation ecosystems”, Dan Toma, welcome to the show A reminder to sign up to the newsletter on www.theinnovationshow.io and you will be in with a chance to win one of 2 prizes, Dan has kindly offered us a copy of the Corporate Startup Book and access to the Corporate Startup video course worth €480 on https://thecorporatestartupbook.com, ends July 30th 2020

This episode is brought to you by Collective Campus brand new online innovation courses. Whether you want to learn about business models and testing ideas with Alex Osterwalder, building a corporate startup with Dan Toma, or learn about topics such as design thinking, and agile fundamentals, head to www.collectivecampus.io/online I’ll also be running a 2-hour webinar on remote work and productivity in early July, based on the popularity of my five levels of remote work article, which you can learn more about at bit.ly/fivelevelswebinar And to today’s episode. Dr. Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is one of the world's most influential strategy and innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur, and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started. Ranked No. 4 of the top 50 management thinkers worldwide, Osterwalder is known for simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. Together with Yves Pigneur, he invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Business Portfolio Map - practical tools that are trusted by millions of business practitioners from leading global companies including Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, MasterCard, Sony, Fujitsu, 3M, Intel, Roche, Colgate-Palmolive, and many more. He returned to the podcast to talk about what leaders can do to build truly invincible companies and weather storms that are a result of technological and social change, financial market shocks and of course, viruses. We explored: 1 - what defines an invincible company 2 - how companies can balance a portfolio between exploration of new business models and exploitation of existing ones 3 - what companies like Amazon, IKEA and Logitech have done to play the long game and stay relevant 4 - and finally, how one such invincible company profiled in the book, Airbnb, might weather the storm of COVID-19 With that, I bring you the one and only, Alex Osterwalder. Topics Discussed: Lockdown in Switzerland Alex’s new book What is an invincible company The wakeup call we needed? Cashflow runway and business model reinvention Case studies and success stories Tools for managing innovation Leading indicators v trailing indicators Hilti Bosch Culture lags systems The optimism bias and the narrative fallacy Transcending boundaries Explore v exploit portfolios When to kill a project Why entrepreneurs are more risk averse than the general public Why market validation isn’t a conclusive test, but an indicative one The ‘science vs art’ of innovation and entrepreneurship How to use patterns to shift from outdated business models Questions to ask when assessing business opportunities How to play the long game amidst ROI uncertainty Metered funding Innovation Project Scorecard Placing many bets, and how Testing business ideas The culture map Values alignement and intrinsic motivation Delegations of authority Airbnb in crisis mode and why they’ll come out of it Show Notes: Online courses: www.collectivecampus.io/online Remote work webinar: http://bit.ly/fivelevelswebinar Strategyzer: Strategyzer.com The Invincible Company: https://amzn.to/2Lg2tEM Testing Business Ideas: https://amzn.to/2YLSpLo Twitter: @alexosterwalder --- Listen to Future Squared on Apple Podcasts  goo.gl/sMnEa0 Also available on: Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher and Soundcloud Twitter: www.twitter.com/steveglaveski Instagram: www.instagram.com/@thesteveglaveski Future Squared: www.futuresquared.xyz Steve Glaveski: www.steveglaveski.com Medium: www.medium.com/@steveglaveski Steve's book: www.employeetoentrepreneur.io NEW Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/futuresquared/ Watch on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2N77FLx

Siobhan McHale Siobhan McHale has worked across four continents, helping thousands of leaders to create more agile and productive workplaces. She has been on the inside, as the executive in charge of change in a series of large, multinational organizations. One of these inside jobs was a radical seven-year change initiative at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) that transformed it from the lowest-performing bank in the country into one of the highest-performing and most admired banks in the world. Professor John Kotter used her work with ANZ as a Harvard Business School case study designed to teach MBA students about managing change. Siobhan is currently employed as the EGM People, Culture, Change at DuluxGroup and is the author of The Insider's Guide to Culture Change. Dan Toma Dan Toma is an innovation thought leader and the co-author of the award-winning book The Corporate Startup (published by Vakmedien in 2017 and awarded ‘Management Book of the Year for Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Chartered Management Institute and The British Library in 2018)

When workflows, even entire workplaces are beginning to stagnate, it’s very likely that a culture change must happen in order to turn things around for the company. Dr. Diane Hamilton speaks with Siobhan McHale, who’s helped thousands of leaders create more agile and productive workplaces. Learn how to get to the heart of your company’s issues and create the culture change you want to see.A company’s growth is reliant on what it can provide the very customers it aims to serve, which is why adapting through innovation is such an important piece in every company’s toolkit. Innovation thought leader Dan Toma discusses how workplaces can foster innovation. While innovation isn’t a measurable quantity or statistic, it certainly can make or break the future and fortune of your company, so don’t get left behind.Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here’s How »Join the Take The Lead community today:DrDianeHamilton.comDr. Diane Hamilton FacebookDr. Diane Hamilton TwitterDr. Diane Hamilton LinkedInDr. Diane Hamilton YouTubeDr. Diane Hamilton Instagram

Dan Toma and Stuart Crainer discuss the impetus of his book, The Corporate Startup. Is it possible for large corporations to understand the innovations lifestyle movement? How can innovation be accounted for so that its KPIs are meaningful?

In this episode I talk with Dan Toma, the co-author of the book The Corporate Startup. We talk about the challenges inside large corporation that keep them from being innovative and how his method helps corporations get over them and start to innovate once again. Find out more about SEAC: https://www.seasiacenter.com

In this episode I had the pleasure to speak with Dan Toma, one of the authors of The Corporate Startup. Dan started his career in entrepreneurship, being involved with technology startups across the world. Puzzled by the questions ‘why are innovative products mainly launched by startups?’, he focuses on enterprise innovation strategy - specifically on the changes blue-chip organizations need to make to allow for new ventures to be built in a corporate setting. In this capacity he worked with companies like Deutsche Telekom, Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover, Bayer, John Deere or Allianz. From innovation to startups and management mistakes, we discussed about everything and there is a little for everybody. Enjoy the episode! Dan's Website: http://danto.ma ------- You can subscribe to my personal newsletter: https://goo.gl/iEq3Po You can follow me on: https://twitter.com/esanueugen https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanesan/ https://www.instagram.com/larochefm/ ------- Podcast Website - https://www.laroche.fm/ My Blog: https://www.eugenesanu.com/ About Laroche: https://www.laroche.co/

Dan Toma is an expert on corporate innovation and he is the co/author of "The Corporate Startup". But most importantly he will be speaking at The Shift conference, in Oslo, November 14th.Some of the topics we cover: What is corporate innovation, and why it is so hard.What are the essential steps to be able to innovate substantiallyWhat are the mistakes most companies are doing when trying to innovateInnovation Theatre and lipstick Innovation Accounting: How to measure innovation?In studio:Dan Toma, Author and consultant.Lucas Weldeghebriel, journalist and founder of Shifter See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan Toma is the co-author The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems. Puzzled by the questions ‘why are innovative products mainly launched by startups?’, Toma focuses on enterprise innovation strategy - specifically on the changes blue-chip organizations need to make to allow for new ventures to be built in a corporate setting, and has worked with the likes of Deutsche Telekom, Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover, Bayer, John Deere or Allianz. Dan holds a dual degree MBA from Bradford University and TiasNimbas Business School while being certified lean startup acceleration specialist by Columbia University through the Lean Launchpad program. We riffed on all things corporate innovation, viable alternatives to common pitfalls and given Dan’s Romanian heritage, the 94 Romanian World Cup team. On corporate innovation, expect to learn about: An innovation thesis and why your company needs one Why it’s imperative to get the plumbing right by building an innovation ecosystem The importance of getting the metrics right and going beyond mere activity metrics to what Dan calls impact metrics We covered a lot more ground in this conversation that will be of serious interest to intrapreneurs so sit back, relax or enjoy your walk, workout or wherever you happen to be listening to this, for my conversation with yet another critical thinker on the topic of corporate innovation and on thriving under conditions of uncertainty,  Dan Toma. Topics Discussed: Dan’s background Why companies need an innovation thesis The paradox of innovation within a large company What is an innovation thesis and why do companies need one? Why startups aren’t a smaller version of a large company and vice versa Lessons from venture capital How to build an innovation ecosystem Why metrics for sustaining innovation don’t support adjacent or disruptive innovation Diversity not just of what you can see, but what you can’t see - in particular, how people think Budgeting for corporate innovation Lean leadership Success stories and case studies The value of premortems and retrospectives to get buy-in for ‘iterative’ ways of doing things How to support the taking of lots of small bets instead of few large ones Show Notes: Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dantoma/ Get Dan’s book, The Corporate Startup: https://amzn.to/2Nx63tC Twitter: @Danto_ma Dan’s site and consulting: danto.ma Innov8rs Sydney conference: innov8rs.co/sydney Get the book, Clarity First: https://amzn.to/2NyNJjP Coupon code: 8-steve I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you’d like to receive a weekly email from me, complete with reflections, books I’ve been reading, words of wisdom and access to blogs, ebooks and more that I’m publishing on a regular basis, just leave your details at www.futuresquared.xyz/subscribe and you’ll receive the very next one. Listen on Apple Podcasts @ goo.gl/sMnEa0 Also available on: Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher and Soundcloud Twitter: www.twitter.com/steveglaveski     Instagram: www.instagram.com/@thesteveglaveski  Future Squared: www.futuresquared.xyz Steve Glaveski: www.steveglaveski.com  Medium: www.medium.com/@steveglaveski  Terminator clips sourced from www.terminatorfiles.com and intellectual property of Tristar Pictures. 

Dan Toma is a co-author of the book "The Corporate Startup" along with Tendayi Viki and Esther Gons. He got his start as an entrepreneur working in and around startups and then in accelerators. The book came out of one of his first corporate innovation jobs with Deutsche Telekom, which is the third largest carrier in the world. Dan and Josh talked about some of the trouble spots for corporate innovation teams, how to measure results for optimization and innovation differently, and some examples of what those different innovation accounting measures look like. Find his book on Amazon and find Dan on LinkedIn. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

In this Episode, MTN co-founder Aaron Eden hosts entrepreneur and intrepreneur, Dan Toma.   As an entrepreneur, Dan has been involved with high-tech startups globally.  Over the last few years he’s been primarily focused in the enterprise and has worked with companies like DT, Bosch, Jaguar and Allianz.  He has also recently co-authored a book titled The Corporate Startup - How established companies can develop successful innovation ecosystems. Our areas of focus for this episode are: Why the enterprise ecosystem should mimic a living organism. Innovation thesis. What is an innovation thesis and why is it important? Is it different from a company or product vision? How can we use it to ensure we aren’t killing opportunities too early? Why it is important to focus on arenas rather than industries. What Dan Toma is reading: Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap