AI & Innovation Converge at Harvard Business Publishing
Release Date: 07/08/2024
The AI Experiment: How Corporate Innovation Will Change in 2025
Innovation Answered
For the latest episode of our Innovation Answered podcast, we decided to do something experimental. We’re leveraging all of the AI tools that can possibly help us create a podcast episode — and using them to summarize some of our best content from 2024, and also hone in on some of the important dynamics that will impact corporate innovation work in 2025. We deployed ChatGPT, of course, but also Suno, Google’s NotebookLM, and ElevenLabs to clone the voices of episode co-hosts Scott Kirsner and Alex Slawsby. (And we comment on and criticize their outputs as we go.)
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Innovating Disney's Theme Parks: Success (and Failure) at Walt Disney Imagineering
Innovation Answered
In this episode, we talk with Bob Weis, the former President of the legendary Imagineering division at Disney and author of the new book, Dream Chasing: My Four Decades of Success and Failure with Walt Disney Imagineering. If you've been to a Disney theme park, resort, or cruise ship recently, you've experienced Weis' work. He has helped design theme parks in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Orlando, and he also had a hand in rethinking the California Adventure theme park in Anaheim after it got off to a rough start. We talk about the origins of Imagineering under Walt Disney; why it's...
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Bringing Outside Ideas in at LG NOVA
Innovation Answered
In this episode, we connect with Dr. Sokwoo Rhee, EVP of Innovation at LG Electronics and Head of the LG Nova Innovation Center in Silicon Valley. We talk about Dr. Rhee's past as an entrepreneur and Presidential Innovation Fellow, and also the goals of LG Nova — collaborating with startups and new partners, and making investments. Two areas of interest: healthcare and cleantech. Dr. Rhee also serves up advice about getting (and keeping) the backing of senior leaders.
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AI & Innovation Converge at Harvard Business Publishing
Innovation Answered
In this episode, we talk to Laura Northridge, Senior Director of the AI Innovation Lab — previously just the "innovation lab" — at Harvard Business Publishing. As is the case with many corporate innovators, she’s helping shape AI strategy and policy for the Boston-based nonprofit, an affiliate of Harvard Business School. It’s one of small number of organizations we’ve been tracking where the innovation lab shifted its focus entirely to AI earlier in 2024. Harvard Business Publishing is best known for the Harvard Business Review — in print and online — but it also...
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Steve Blank on Why 'Innovation Heroes' are a Bad Sign
Innovation Answered
In this episode, we talk with Steve Blank about why celebrating innovation heroes is symptomatic of a problem in large organizations. Steve is a serial entrepreneur, author, and educator and leading advocate for the methodology of customer development and the lean startup approach. In a recent , Blank writes about an innovation awards ceremony he attended at a government agency: "I'm constantly puzzled why thoughtful and astute CEOs and agency directors never asked, why is it that innovations require heroics to occur in our organization? Why don't we have a repeatable process for innovation?...
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GenAI Hits the Road with Mercedes-Benz
Innovation Answered
In this episode, we talk about generative AI, speech interfaces, and evolving the customer experience for one of the world’s top luxury car brands: Mercedes-Benz. At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year, Mercedes made a major splash with a new virtual assistant that leverages advanced software and generative AI — along with on-screen visuals — to provide more proactive support and a more intuitive way of interacting with the vehicle. One of the people behind that project is James Liu, the head of customer experience for the Mercedes-Benz operating system. "I always joke with...
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AI Anxiety and Automotive Futures
Innovation Answered
We talk AI, employment disruption, UBI, corporate innovation, and the future of the automotive industry with Evangelos Simoudis, an author, investor, and advisor based in Silicon Valley. At Synapse Partners, he invests in early-stage startups that develop enterprise software and AI applications and also advises big companies and governments on the use of data and AI to address strategic problems. "This is not the first time that we've seen this bringing together of both anxiety and excitement" around AI, Simoudis says. "My perspective is colored by the fact that I've seen three...
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Innovating Coffee, with Starbucks Veteran Mesh Gelman
Innovation Answered
From six years spent at Starbucks to designing a new countertop coffeemaker that cranks out cold brew, Mesh Gelman has been working at the cutting edge of coffee. During his time at Starbucks, he witnessed the rising popularity of cold beverages, a trend that his new startup, , aims to capitalize on. In this podcast episode, we talk with Gelman about coffee trends; developing a new product from scratch; the difference between big organizations and start-ups; and his past work as an innovation consultant.
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Geoffrey Moore on Generative AI, Zone to Win, and Crossing the Chasm
Innovation Answered
In this episode, we catch up with Geoffrey Moore, the best-selling author, consultant, and venture capitalist whose groundbreaking work has shaped how we think about innovation strategy. If you’ve ever talked about a technology "crossing the chasm" from the realm of early adopters into the early majority, or your company has put a high potential project into the incubation zone, you’ve been using language given to us by Moore. His best-selling books including Zone to Win, Inside the Tornado, and Crossing the Chasm — and lately, he’s been publishing a series of insightful...
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Driving Innovation in Biopharma and Other Regulated Industries
Innovation Answered
In this episode, we talk about the challenges of innovating in biopharma with a veteran of that industry, Dan Seewald. Seewald is the former Head of Worldwide Innovation at Pfizer, the $100 billion pharma giant headquartered in Manhattan, and now the founder and CEO of the consulting and training firm Deliberate Innovation. Among the questions that InnoLead CEO Scott Kirsner covers with Seewald: How do you create space for new ideas in a regulated industry? What's your advice on exploring the potential of AI? How do you effectively communicate an internal innovation initiative? How do...
info_outlineIn this episode, we talk to Laura Northridge, Senior Director of the AI Innovation Lab — previously just the "innovation lab" — at Harvard Business Publishing.
As is the case with many corporate innovators, she’s helping shape AI strategy and policy for the Boston-based nonprofit, an affiliate of Harvard Business School. It’s one of small number of organizations we’ve been tracking where the innovation lab shifted its focus entirely to AI earlier in 2024.
Harvard Business Publishing is best known for the Harvard Business Review — in print and online — but it also publishes business books, learning materials, and the famous Harvard Business School case studies.