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Killer Innovations Podcast by Phil McKinney

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Podcast: Interview with Chuck House


Thu, Oct 29, 2009

In this episode of the Killer Innovations podcast I interview Chuck House. Chuck is one of those individuals whose impact we’ve all felt but didn’t immediately realize. With the recent anniversary of Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon, Chuck turned out to be timely in this interview. Why? He’s the inventor of the early display technology that resulted in Chuck ultimately creating the moon monitor. It was the moon monitor that allowed NASA and the rest of the world see Neil Armstrong step on the moon. Now the interview lasted more than two hours … so this is just a few of the highlights.

Link to audio

Link to the full transcript (PDF)

We are in the process of doing a much needed clean-up and re-design of the blog (www.philmckinney.com) and podcast (www.killerinnovations.com) website.  The new site should be up and live in about two weeks.  We have completed the design work and now in the process of moving all of the content and cleaning up the tags, categories, etc.

We are also moving from MT to WordPress and moving servers to Media Temple.  Lots of change and being the paranoid guy I am, I’m being extra careful to ensure its as smooth as possible.

So – why am I doing this after all of these years??  The objective is to:

• Do a major clean-up of the content that has been accumulated for the last 13 years (since 1996)
• Do a major update on the site design …
• Make it easier for you to find the past podcast shows (now +120 shows in the catalog) for any given topic ..
• Integrate the content that was spread across 5 different blogs (blog, podcast, portfolio, tools, etc) so its all in one place and linked together
• Make it easier for you to contribute and participate in the discussion with community tools provided by WordPress

To make this happen, we are temporally turning OFF comments.  That way, we won’t loose any of the comments that get posted during this transition.

If you have a comment/feedback you would like to provide, please email it to podcast (at) killerinnovations (dot) com.

NOTE:  We will be opening up the new server for “testingâ€� in a week or so.  I will post the URL here for those of you who want to bang around and help find the “issuesâ€� …

As part of the continuing set of interviews with innovation thought leaders, this weeks podcast is part 2 of a 2 part interview with Geoffrey Moore.

As with any interview, I came in with a set of planned topics that I thought were interesting.  Within the first 5 minutes, they were thrown out the window and we went “off scriptâ€�.  Geoffrey’s thinking and writing have shaped the thinking of entrepreneurs around the world and every time I get together with him, I learn something.

Hopefully, you enjoy this interview as much fun as I did recording it …

The full show notes and partial transcript is posted over at thenextbench.com

Link to podcast audio

As part of the continuing set of interviews with innovation thought leaders, this weeks podcast is part 1 of a 2 part interview with Geoffrey Moore. 

Geoffrey is the author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game and most recently Dealing With Darwin, each of which deals with the challenges of leadership and innovation.

He is a co-founder and managing director at TCG Advisors and founder of The Chasm Group

Geoffrey is also a venture partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, providing strategy advice and consulting services across MDV's entire portfolio of early-stage investments.

In this podcast, we discuss a wide range of topics from the economy’s impact on innovation to the challenges of dealing with “corporate anti-bodies�.

I’ve posted a more detailed set of show notes on this interview over at thenextbench.com.

Link to podcast

A video of the presenting at the 2009 Forrester IT Forum on the topic of: "Enabling Innovation - A Strength In Any Economy"

The content addressed the challenges of innovation during especially tough economic times. The material has been tailored to the audience of CIO's and other senior IT executives of leading corporations. The content is universal to any individual or organization looking to support and enable innovation.

Download of video

Photo:  Art showing Phil his HP id badge which he still carries

In next in the series of interviews with creators of killer innovations, Phil interviews Art Fong.  Art was part of the team that invented microwave during WWII, helped develop FM radio and then joined HP when it was still a small start-up.  He went on to create innovations that at one point accounted for staggering 30% of HP’s revenue while also playing a key role in re-igniting education, technology and innovation in China following the revolution.

For excerpts, more photo’s and a transcript of the broader interview, visit thenextbench.com.

Note:  We apologize for the audio quality but felt sharing Art’s stories is worth the effort.

MP3 of the interview with Art Font

UPDATE:  I’ve now setup a channel on blip.tv for the growing set of killer innovation video’s.  The URL for the show is: http://killerinnovations.blip.tv/.   I will be uploading the back catalog a few at a time.

The first video I posted was the Maker Faire presentation . . .

Feel free to embed the video:

<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/hIpTgZWyKAA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="383" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

Below is the link to the video (WARNING: ~200 MB) from my presentation (Creating Killer Innovations) at Maker Faire.   The video includes the “slidesâ€� I presented using a new presentation software tool (Prezi).

This presentation covers the similar material to what I’ve presented before (e.g. FIRE + PO) but aimed at the individual inventor/maker.

Enjoy . . .

Link to Creating Killer Innovations video (mp4) . . . ( here is the link to the slides )

This is the 1st in a series of interviews of individuals and teams who have created what I would consider killer innovations.  In this episode, I recorded an interview with David Cochran, the original Product Manager of the HP35 calculator.  Per the entry in Wikipedia:

The HP-35 was Hewlett-Packard's first pocket calculator and the world's first scientific pocket calculator (a calculator with trigonometric and exponential functions). Like some of HP's desktop calculators it used reverse Polish notation. Introduced at US$395^[1], the HP-35 was available from 1972 to 1975.

Market studies at the time had shown no market for pocket sized calculators. In about 1970, HP co-founder Bill Hewlett challenged his co-workers to create a "shirt-pocket sized HP-9100". Thus, the first ~12 HP-35 portable calculators were made as a "hack" by and for other engineers at HP. It is rumored that the development engineer got carried away and implemented a full suite of scientific functions to satisfy requests from his co-workers. When these prototypes proved popular, HP decided to turn the HP-35 into a commercial product. The HP-35 was the first calculator with a full suite of trigonometric and transcendental functions.

In the first months, orders were exceeding HP's expectations as to the entire market size, which was 10,000 units per year. Before the HP-35, the only practical portable devices for performing trigonometric and exponential functions were slide rules. Existing pocket calculators at the time were only four-function, i.e., they could only do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

In this interview, David not only shares the history and how of creating the HP35, but also shares stories about Bill Hewlett, David Packard and others including Steve Wozniak.

Link to the MP3 of the June 20th podcast

So ... you've come up with that killer idea.  To move it forward, you need to take some risk.  Risk that could include: investing your retirement fund, quitting your job and possibly including convincing others to invest their retirement fund and quitting their job to join you.  Suddenly you hesitate ... the risk seems enormous and you start to second guess the original idea.  Is the potential reward worth the risk?  The natural reaction when fear takes over is to retreat back to the comfort of the "safe" option.

Each individual has their own risk profile (comfort level with taking risk).  A german researcher interviewed 20,000 people about their willingness to take risks.  The researcher found:

• Tall people are more prepared than short people to take risk (not sure I understand why)
• Woman take fewer risks than men
• Willingness to take risk decreased dramatically with age

The key influencers for risk across the survey were: age, genders, height and parental education.  The research also found that people who are most content with their lives (relationships, job, etc) were willing to take more risks.

Does this mean you are doomed to never execute your killer idea if you are in one of the "unwillingness to take risk" groups (e.g. older woman)?  No!!

Recognizing that you have that tendency to shy away from risk is your first step to changing your risk profile. 

To overcome your fear of risk, you need to understand what is driving your fear and then brainstorm ways to neutralize them.

To learn more .. listen to this weeks podcast.

What are the fears that you need to overcome?

(audio)

During a recent press interview, I was asked by a reporter for my view on what the next "hot" thing will be.  A question that is becoming more common with each press interview given the current market conditions.  I shared a few trends of personal interest that I've been tracking.

So, what is the process I use to uncover emerging trends and weak signals?

First, what is a trend?

A trend is a change that will eventually have a significant macro impact on society and business while a fad is a change that will be a fleeting (brief) impact on society and business.

Uncovering trends is about observation ... watching, reading, listening, scanning a wide range of sources.  For me, one key source are a set of observers from all over the world.  They feed me their observations, thoughts, insights which I then synthesize into a long list of trends.  I focus on uncovering the non-obvious.  If its in the press, in an analyst report or on TV, I'm too late.

The process I got through is:

1. Brainstorm a list of trends/changes.  These could include: GDP change and the impact on the economy, aging of the population, shifts in technology, society view on education, government regulation, etc.
2. Take each trend and compare it to every other trend.  For example:  aging of the population and shift in technology.  Identify possible future trends at this intersection.  In the example of aging of the population and shift in technology you could see:  Growth in medical devices such as diabetic meters that will send data to the doctor or the ability to do kidney dialysis from home rather then having the patient go to the hospital.
3. Search for trends at each intersection of trends from your original list.
4. For each emerging trend you've uncovered at the intersections of mega trends from your original list, list the drivers (actions that support the trend and can help it expand) and barriers (roadblocks that will prevent the trend from coming to reality).  For example:
• Driver: escalating cost of healthcare and desire of the population to live at home rather than a hospital or nursing home
• Barriers: Government regulation on launching of new technologies in the healthcare field
5. Be exhaustive
6. Create a grid to identify the ones to focus on. 
• The horizontal axis is barriers (going from "really tough barriers" on the left to "no problem" on the right) while the vertical axis is drivers (going from "no drivers" at the bottom and "major drivers" at the top).
• Size each trend based on impact (size of market, revenue, margin, growth rate, etc)
• Color each trend based on when the trend will go mainstream
7. Focus on the items in the upper portion of the quadrant with particular interest on the ones in the upper right.

Maintain the grid ... Update and add to the grid on a regular basis.

For the rest of the process and in particular, how to stay fresh and hot to uncver weak signals, download the podcast ..

(audio)

I’m amazed at the breadth of human ingenuity to solve social, economic, political and even technical challenges.  The one area where I don’t see ingenuity applied nearly as much is when it comes to planning our careers and preparing future job prospects.

Can you apply the same killer question approach to planning your career?  YES!

By asking better questions, you can greatly improve the quality of the ideas generated which in turn create higher quality innovations.  How?  My adapting the killer questions to your specific needs.  For example, a common killer question used is:

What do people not like about the process of purchasing my product?

You can adapt this question by exchanging key words.  Take the original question and then replace people, purchasing and product for words that better fit your specific needs.  For example:

What do people not like about the process of purchasing my product?

• people = customers, managers, 18-25 years old
• purchasing = ordering, specifying, finding information about
• product = service, solutions, content

So, how would you adjust the killer questions to help you think differently about your career?

1. What assumptions am I making about my managers understanding of my skill and abilities?  What if the opposite where true?  How could you correct/reverse this understanding to your favor?
2. Why don’t companies look for/hire people with my skills set?  How would you change this barrier?
3. What value could I deliver of I had expertise across the entire value chain?  What is the entire value chain?  What are your gaps in expertise? How do you fill the gaps in your expertise?
4. What external jolts have the potential to significantly impact my career?  Create most likely, pessimistic and optimistic scenarios of where your industry/career are going.  What decision would you make today/tomorrow/next month/next year if you know a given scenarios would happen?  Develop career strategies that are robust to withstand most if not all of scenarios.

What killer questions would your create to help think differently about your career?

To learn more, listen to March 1st podcast ….

To receive the weekly twit of killer questions, then follow on twitter....

(audio)

How do you create a convincing message so that others will sacrifice to make your idea successful?  Its all about storytelling.  If you follow the same structure used by movie industry and by book authors, you can create a story that will attract others to your killer idea.  What is that structure?

1. Stimulate their emotion
• Change the mood.  Create an environment for the storytelling (why are movies better in theaters?)
• Establish fear/concern.  Need to create tension so there is something to be solved/fixed.
• Put the listener into the story.  Weave the story so they see the challenges from their perspective.
2. Change their opinion
• Change their mind.  Listeners will immediately try to solve the problem and most likely their solution will not be aligned with your idea.
• Show them a way out.  Just like in the movie, you need to have a way to relieve the fear/concern/tension created.
3. Get them to act
• Create a desire to act.  Establish a sense of urgency.
• Show how easy the idea is to make real.  Focus on simplifying the idea so that listeners don't get distracted.
• Show them what the future will be like.  Establish hope.

This alone will not be enough to ensure you have the right story.  You will need to:

1. Don't wing it.
• Write it out
• Get comfortable with your story so that you can present it without notes/slides
• Be able to adjust the story based on the audience
• Remember - its a discussions not a speech
2. Always end early
• Time is the most precious resource someone can give you
• Show respect for the time and end early.  It will leave a positive impression on your idea.
3. Ask for feedback
• What do you think of the idea?
• How would you suggest I improve the idea/story?
• Who else would you recommend I talk with about the idea?
4. DON'T GIVE UP!!!
• Get out there a tell your story
• Don't listen to the negative voices (inside yourself or from others)

The difference between winners and losers is that winners keep getting up everyday and try.  Losers just give up.

To learn the rest, list to the Feb 8th podcast

After much much procrastination, we finally got around to getting a new logo developed (logoworks.com) .  We focused on keeping it simple and clean while also conveying what the podcast and site are all about.

Inspiring the readers and listeners to use their inherent ability to create breakthrough/killer innovations.

So .. what do you think?

(audio)

So you have a great idea.  How big is it?  What is the value of the idea to the organization?  Most people get hung up trying to come up with the exact answer.  In most cases, you won't find the perfect answer.  Especially if you are breaking new ground.  What I find lacking is the basic skill of "estimation".  Estimating is nothing more than using the information you know to create a "good enough" approximation of the market opportunity for an idea.

The objective is not the find the answer but to find out what makes up the answer.  So what are the steps?

1. Take the question (how big is the total number of customers for my idea?)
2. Break down the drivers that allow you to estimate the answer to the question.
3. For each driver create an educated estimate of its value
4. Create the estimated answer to the question

You're not done yet ... You need to estimate when the value will be realized.

1. Determine the total life cycle of your idea (2 years, 5 years, 10 years, etc)
2. Spread that time line evenly over the five phases of "innovation adoption"
3. Apply the adoption rate for each phase based on Rogers rules ..
• 2.5% for Innovators
• 13.5% for Early Adaptors
• 34% for Early Majority
• 34% for Late Majority
• 16% for Laggards

You're not done yet ... Now you have the total value.  You need to determine the value to you and your organization.

1. For each phase, apply your estimated market share.  Be realistic ...
2. Apply some estimated revenue per unit/customer.

Now you have the estimated value of an idea.

To learn the rest, listen to the podcast ...

This Author: Phil McKinney

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