How to innovate IRL with me

Hello,

What’s in the works for you this fall?

This September, I kicked off a new semester of teaching the executive cohort of the Columbia University Technology Management program; began revamping the Mastercard Digital Safari program in my role as Executive in Residence; shared insights about innovation, change, and transformation as a keynote speaker, panelist, and fireside chat facilitator; and so much more.

Plus, I celebrated the 6th anniversary of publishing The Change Maker’s Playbook: How to Seek, Seed and Scale Innovation in Any Company, my award-winning book now in its second edition.

Today, in all of my work, I am proud to guide organizations to understand what their customers need — from the non-obvious to unarticulated — and translate that into clear, actionable steps that lead to organizational success on all levels. 

Read on to learn more, and get in touch to explore how I might be able to benefit you and your organization.

5 Ways to Reach Your Customers Today

One challenge that marketers across industries face: we all engage with multiple platforms and content, which means that our brands’ customer journeys must align with how they like to get things done. During a recent webinar in partnership with The Financial Brand and iQuanti, I shared these recommendations for reaching today’s customers:

1. Get outside your sector and industry for fresh ideas your competitors haven’t yet discovered.

2. Start asking better questions to reframe your perspective.

3. Take a few bets and experiment with new tools and platforms. Testing, iterating, and learning is what drives improvement.

4. Expand your use of video content and create high-quality, cost-effective videos quickly by taking advantage of GenAI capabilities.

5. Strengthen your team’s critical thinking skills, cross-team collaboration, qualitative insight gathering, and analytics capabilities to unearth hidden opportunities.

Innovate IRL With Me

As a catalyst for leaders seeking bold, powerful, new directions, I am proud to empower up-and-coming change makers and seasoned executives to find out what their customers need and deliver on it exceptionally. Here’s how:

1. Team skill builder: Your team needs to innovate — and build momentum for that innovation among stakeholders. With hands-on workshops, we turn the complex into achievable, making it possible for your team not only to envision change but to make it happen.
2. Strategic problem solver: You’re stuck and you need to rethink your opportunities. We’ll understand your customers’ needs — the ones that may not be surface level and well-articulated — and then provide straightforward roadmaps with clear steps to guide your team members through process, talent, and technology changes so they can deliver what matters most to customers.
3. CEO and c-suite advisor: As your eyes and ears, I help you define and address the gaps between your current offerings and customer expectations, ensuring your organization adapts in ways that are both practical and sustainable.

When companies understand their customers and employees and connect their needs — both rational and emotional, articulated and unarticulated — to their business model and every daily decision they make, change can begin to happen.

From my roles as chief innovation officer to advisor, and from author to keynote speaker, and scholar-practitioner at Columbia University, I am proud to guide executives at startups and leading organizations to create this essential foundation.  

How do you and your organization need to change to keep up with and surpass your customers’ changing needs? I’d love to hear about it and see how I can help.

Warm regards,