Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger, and MileZero's Robyn Bolton as we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact. Let's get started.

Interview Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and today we have a brand-new format. If you've been listening to the podcast for the last eight or nine years, every week I bring in an amazing guest to talk about innovation. I thought we'd try to mix it up and innovate on the format itself. And for the next few weeks, we're gonna have a guest host.

My guest host is Robin Bolton. She's been a guest on the podcast a couple of times in the past. She spoke at our Inside Outside Innovation Summit in 2022. She's the bestselling author of Unlocking Innovation, founder of MileZero, and a good friend. So, Robyn, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:03] Robyn Bolton: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and co-hosting. 

[00:01:06] Brian Ardinger: We need to innovate. We need to eat our own dog food. So I figured after all these years of interviewing amazing people about innovation, we'd mix it up a little bit, and every week we'll try to bring you some insights into innovation from what we've seen in the field and use it as a way to get your feedback from the audience as well.

One of the things we thought about is to talk about innovation and what we're seeing, and so one of the things we do, both Robyn and I publish a newsletter, and we're constantly running into new information sources and new people, new insights into what's going on. Thought the first thing we're going to do is talk about the article of the week or what we've been reading.

We have both called together a, a couple of different articles to start the conversation. Since people may not have heard you on the podcast in the past, why don't you give a short intro of how you got into the innovation space and some of your background? 

[00:01:58] Robyn Bolton: I was lucky enough to get into the innovation space kind of as it was forming, which now saying that makes me feel very old, but coming straight out of university, I went to work at P&G and it's when they were doing the very first iteration of creating new products and new brand teams.

And so straight out of school went into a brand team that was working on a new business, and that new business eventually became Swiffer. I got to experience the life of a corporate innovator and all the scars and all the great stories that go with it very early on.

Then, you know, a couple meanderings later, you know, meandered into Arkansas, the Walmart sales team meandered up to Boston to get an MBA, meandered over to Denmark to work for a big consulting firm. Then I ended up back in Boston and had the pleasure of working with Clayton Christensen at his firm. Spent almost a decade there working across a ton of industries, tons of different types of organizations, but always on innovation.

Then, about six, seven years ago, went out on my own, started MileZero, and you know, have continued the innovation adventure since. 

[00:03:15] Brian Ardinger: We've talked a lot about some of the past things that you've done and the ability that you have to work across different aisles, to work in the corporate innovation space from the trenches. I think a lot of people talk about innovation, have seen it in various formats, but not necessarily the depth and the breadth that you've seen it. So that's where I'm excited to have you as a co-host on the shows. 

[00:03:35] Robyn Bolton: Thank you very much. I'm really glad to be here and talking about all this because it's a tough time out there for innovators. You know, whether you're in a company, you're in a startup, you know, you're an entrepreneur, it's tough times and there's always a way through. I think we're relentless optimists, maybe sometimes delusional, but relentless optimist. So it's great to be chatting about it. 

[00:03:58] Brian Ardinger: One of the articles you sent over was CNBC has come up with a Disruptors 50 List, the top 50 disruptive companies out there.

[00:04:06] Robyn Bolton: Anyone hears a list of innovative companies and immediately our heads go to AI and CNBC delivered on that. You know, their number one disruptor is a company that's actually in the military and defense system space using AI. Number two is Open AI. I mean, it's just all the usual suspects, but what caught my attention was that there were actually non-AI companies on there.

It was exciting to see that. So, there was Thrive Market. You know, full disclosure, I'm a member of Thrive Market and basically, it's kind of like a membership to get discounts on what's essentially kind of Whole Foods online. But they’re, I think in the top 10 of the Disruptors 50 list and because of their supply chain.

So, it was great to see something that you could easily consider pretty old school, grocery online, to be in a a Disruptor's 50 list. So, there were some other examples of that that I was just like, alright, okay. Like where the traditional guys were hanging in there. 

[00:05:10] Brian Ardinger: The one that stood out to me was Fruitist, basically innovating on the ancient art of fruit, creating now blueberries the size of your head, and things along those lines. And again, I think it points to the fact that every company has the ability to be an innovator, even in an industry that's been around literally since the beginning of time. How can you do things differently, build things differently, create different types of value in such a way that it disrupts the existing players in the market. 

[00:05:37] Robyn Bolton: And that you don't have to just go all in on AI. We should all be getting more conversant, but AI and innovation are not synonyms. 

[00:05:48] Brian Ardinger: It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I think in the article it also talked about how the top 10 are largely AI companies and the top five have a valuation of under 500 billion, which I guess is combined total valuation of the past list.

And so the amount of money that's being thrown into the pit of AI, it'll be interesting to see who actually comes out on the other end. And if all the dollars being spent are really being spent wisely, we'll see. But it's definitely, yeah. Obviously driving markets, driving everything that we're talking about right now. So that's important to keep in the conversation but know that it's not the only way to innovate in the world. 

[00:06:22] Robyn Bolton: There are plenty of other ways and you know, the valuations of people far smarter than I look at that and I'm like, you know, I remember the.com boom and bust. I also remember the internet coming out, so you know, we'll see. As you said, we'll see. But there's still lots of opportunity. 

[00:06:39] Brian Ardinger: And it's driving value. I mean, there's actual revenue with these companies, unlike dot.com when it came out, so it's a little different from that perspective. I'm sure this is not the article we were going to talk about, but everybody probably has heard about the report that came out, that 95% of projects in AI are failing in the corporate space.

And it got the attention, obviously in clickbait from a lot of people to, to click on that. You know, if you dig deeper into that particular study and what's going on. I think a lot of it has to do about innovation in general and how existing companies in general don't do very well with innovation because.

It's all about exploration. Innovation is about testing and trying new things and uncertainty, and that's where we're with AI. You know, the tools are not built to execute with known clarity around how it's going to work. And so I think a lot of folks think, well I'll just use this tool and I'll get the result in the ROI that's been hyped around it.

But these tools are so brand new, it's uncertain how you use them. It's uncertain how they're going to fit into existing structures. And so you almost have to go back to like the venture capital mindset from the standpoint like most of these things you are going to try, Ninety percent of 'them are going to fail, but if you get one that actually works, it could be an outlier for return of value to the organization, but you have to be willing to try and have a ninety-five percent fail rate at the very beginning to probably start building those muscles and learning what tools you're going to need to make it worthwhile.

[00:08:04] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, exactly. As with anything new, any kind of innovation business model, product, technology, in the early days in the exploration, it's all about return on learning. Like are you learning quickly? Are you starting even intentionally? You know, I think a lot of people, and I'm guilty of this, the first time you open Chat GPT, you're like, what do I do now?

I'm just going to type something in. You know? In corporations, especially if you're understandably expecting an ROI. What's your intent? What do you want this to do for you? What is this success criteria? And then are you learning quickly on your way there? 

[00:08:41] Brian Ardinger: A lot of the corporations that I've talked to, you know they are trying it embrace, but they're embracing it with the mindset that really doesn't, work well in exploration mode. So, they put a lot of guard rails around it. They're trying to make things fit into the execution mode when they're not at that spot.

Probably much better to figure out, okay, how can we sandbox this or test it over here or try this before we start actually putting it into our core operations and, and trying to make that execution model work.

[00:09:07] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, and what's interesting, there was another study that came out. Actually, a couple weeks ago from McKinsey where one of the things they looked at was using AI and how companies do exactly what you described with like, let's kind of fit AI into how we do things, and just use it as an efficiency tool. Has a much higher failure rate than if you start all over again.

Say, okay, let's reimagine this. what we do with AI in the mix. And you know, it reminds me of the early days of the internet when, you know, like newspapers, they just put a digital copy of the newspaper on a screen, and so I'm like, oh, we're doing that again. Okay. Eventually we'll get to, you want ROI, you need to kind of rethink everything.

[00:09:51] Brian Ardinger: That's probably a good segue to the next article that I wanted to talk about. It's in Forbes, it's the Rise and Fall of the Innovation Movement, and the basic thesis is talking about how innovation has become a cover for profit extraction rather than actually new value creation that benefits the customers.

So you think about things like subscription models and loyalty programs and shrinkflation, and is that really innovation? So, I'd love your take on that article and what you think of how people are defining innovation today and what they're doing with it. 

[00:10:19] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, no, I read that, and I had very mixed feelings because I'm like, well, for me, innovation is something new that creates value, and if you're creating more profit, that is creating value. I think it's always been unspoken on our little innovator hearts to be like, no, no, no. You have to create value for the customer, right? Not just the company.

And so that was my first reaction. Then I was like, well shrinkflation is not innovation. Making a small package just shouldn't the, yeah, like that just shouldn't be in the conversation.

But you know, things like a subscription model, it can be really valuable for the customer. It can really create value because now you don't have to think about reordering things. Loyalty programs can be really valuable. Has the conversation around innovation just gone awry? Are we, you know, really using it?

Innovation is an excuse to kind of do things that only benefit the company. Or is this just, hey, we're being human and we're kind of taking things a little too far. So, I don’t know. I'm curious what your take is.

[00:11:27] Brian Ardinger: I think a lot of times we, again, for clickbait or other reasons, people like to throw out these kind of conversations, and at the end of the day, does it really matter if it's labeled innovation or not. Like if you're creating value for the customer, whether you label innovation or incremental, whatever, does it really matter. And so, a lot times I think we get into semantics of trying to put things into particular boxes to have that particular conversation and that. 

But at the end of the day is this conversation actually moving the ball forward? And I think what does move the ball forward is thinking about, like you said, new ways to create value. And again, you probably, different stakeholders have different definitions of what that is, but business model innovation I think is something that has changed the game.

And a lot of folks weren't thinking necessarily 20 years ago, 50 years ago, what new business models could be created with new technologies and new ways of doing business in new markets. But it seems to be much more on the forefront of like not just innovation for invention's sake, but innovation on the edges of, of everything that can create value for a company and for the customers they serve.

[00:12:29] Robyn Bolton: That feels right. I'm starting to reconsider, you know, even how I define innovation of, it's important maybe to put in that create customer value as just kind of a, a guardrail especially, well, any type of company, whether it's a big corporation or a startup. Whatever happens, you have to serve your customers and create value for them, and if you do that, you'll create enormous value for yourself.

[00:12:55] Brian Ardinger: The counter to that may be, well, you can call on innovation and if you are hindering your customer, you know, it helps you or whatever. At some point the customer may rebel from the new model and find some other innovation that they like from some other person that creates additional value for them. So, it, it's a constant battle that I think companies have to think about, and not even battles not the right word. It's a constant conversation you have to have about like, how are we creating value for the customers that we serve? 

[00:13:20] Robyn Bolton: I'll admit that as I was reading the article and they got to loyalty programs, it happened to be on a day when I was having my own battle with a loyalty program. You know, it, it took like hundreds of thousands of points.

And so I'm like, okay, you know, I know what I've been saving for. This is going to be like a five-day trip to British Columbia to Banff National Park, and like I'm ready to cash it in. And they revised the whole loyalty program. And now the highest-level thing was going to their spa in London, which you have to pay for, you have to pay to get to London, and then you got a 90-minute massage and a 90-minute facial.

[00:13:58] Brian Ardinger: And you've been saving for years for this. 

[00:14:00] Robyn Bolton: And I've been saving for years for this. My husband and I are like, we're going to go to Banff, this is going to be great. It's going to be all expenses paid. And now I'm like, yeah, loyalty programs suck. 

[00:14:10] Brian Ardinger: But Banff is beautiful, so... 

[00:14:12] Robyn Bolton: Banff is beautiful. 

[00:14:13] Brian Ardinger: The last article I wanted to throw out there, I had just in this most recent newsletter, if you're subscribed to Inside Outside Newsletter, it was an article that I threw in there because it was a little bit different off the innovation path, so to speak.

It was an article in Wired. Called the End of Handwriting and it talks about how years of smartphone and computer uses have really threatened the use of handwriting. And is that a good or bad situation to have? And then you came up with another article that you'd read a couple years ago from I think The Atlantic talking about Gen Z never learned to read cursive.

So, I think it both hit a, a nerve thinking about, okay, we're constantly in this digital world. You know, you and I are constantly talking about new technologies, new ways of doing business, but yet there's an advantage and a, an opportunity that we may be missing if we disengage from the analog. And there's probably a lot of examples to that but love your take on that.

[00:15:06] Robyn Bolton: It's funny because we both talked about how we were raised on handwriting. My mom was a schoolteacher, so I had to practice handwriting before I got afterschool snack. Which will get you really good at handwriting if snack is on the other side. Part of me is like, have I just become a grumpy old person?

But there is a lot of data and research showing the benefits of handwriting just in terms of, you know, when you hand write notes in class. And I'm an adjunct professor at Boston College. You as a student, you retain so much more. You're able to synthesize what you're hearing and pull-out insights so much easier.

And so there is a very real benefit to writing by hand, even though every student now has a computer in front of them and takes notes by typing and it's almost, you know, word for word what I'm saying. There's that tension. But then the funny thing is, and this is what made me laugh when I read your article, is we had a faculty meeting last week and all the professors were like, we're going to Blue books.

[00:16:14] Brian Ardinger: Right, exactly. To, to avoid, avoid the AI computer. 

[00:16:17] Robyn Bolton: Yes. You're doing books or oral exams. I'm like, how are you doing an oral exam one-on-one with, you know, 30, 50 people in your class? But that's how education is responding, is going all the way back, even kind of pre-writing. 

[00:16:31] Brian Ardinger: It's definitely interesting. So my father was an English professor, so I remember many a day being kid and watching my Dad in his lounger grading papers with a fountain pen. He'd collected fountain pens. And you know, his handwriting was never very good, even though he used it all the time. Neither was mine. But it's interesting to see how that evolution has changed. And again, I think it goes into other areas as well. So the Kindle versus a physical hard copy book, I, if I have an opportunity, I tend to try to go towards the hard copy book.

There's a lot of great reasons I carry a Kindle around, but at the end of the day, there's something about that analog nature of a book, the ease of being able to flip through pages and being able to find your actual location versus a Kindle kind of book and even audio books. I personally feel like books themselves give you a different way to engage with the information and retain the information differently versus the other senses that you may have with the digital opportunities.

[00:17:22] Robyn Bolton: And I think that was one of the points made in the Wired article around how learning and even just being human is all of our senses. And that's what allows us to be creative, honestly, as human beings and to find the non-obvious connections. And if we're shutting down some of those senses, which people say, you know, if you're not writing, you are kind of shutting down, then that diminishes our ability to think and create.

It's just an interesting topic. I will say take heart. I have a niece who's in fifth grade, and as a reward for her class, her teacher taught them cursive, and you have never seen kids more excited to learn cursive because this was this rare special skill for them.

[00:18:11] Brian Ardinger: My daughter just went to college, first week of class. We dropped her off at the dorms last week. And a good friend of ours who actually runs an emerging media arts program at the university, all about digital, all about AI, and that her gift to her for going to college was a fountain pen to say like, just when the batteries go out, you always have an opportunity to think and act and do things around it. So, I thought that was quite funny.

The last thing I wanted to bring up is I have a preview for the next newsletter. One of the articles is called Always Entertained, Never Thinking. From Think Future, and it talks about why boredom is the hidden engine of creativity, and how we've created an environment where we're always entertained, always stimulated, such that we never have time to be bored.

And how is that impacting? So, it's very similar on the lines of, you know, how is not writing, not being physical with that. How is the fact that we're not giving ourselves the ability to have space to not be stimulated. How is that affecting our creativity, our ability to think? It'll be an interesting conversation to have.

[00:19:11] Robyn Bolton: I think we should all practice getting bored and seeing what that's like. 

[00:19:14] Brian Ardinger: Well, one of the segments we talked about having is something called tactics to try, and so try to leave the podcast with some type of tactic that everybody listening could maybe try and maybe the tactic we should post today should be around writing some hand notes, pulling out a real book, and maybe going for a short walk without your earphones on.

[00:19:32] Robyn Bolton: And you know, don't be surprised if when you're writing out that short note, if your hand cramps a little bit, it's okay. It's just you're working the muscles.

Articles Referenced

[00:19:40] Brian Ardinger: Well, Robyn, this has been great. I look forward to co-hosting our next episode here in a week or two. Thank you for coming on the show. If people want to find out more about you, what's the best way to do that?

[00:19:51] Robyn Bolton: Best way to do it. Go to my website, it's MIleZero.io, or certainly look me up on LinkedIn. 

[00:19:58] Brian Ardinger: Excellent. Well, we'll see you next time, and thanks for coming out to Inside Outside Innovation.

[00:20:02] Robyn Bolton: Thank you.

[00:20:06] Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. Today's episode was produced and engineered by Susan Stibal. If you want to learn more about our teams, our content, and our services, check out insideoutside.io. Or if you want to connect with Robyn Bolton, go to milezero.io