So hello everyone. Welcome to this session. I'm gonna start with a self assessment. So I have run um Paul. So please answer. I want you to reflect and think how strong are you when it comes to innovation?Let's use an scale from 0 to 5 where we say zero, very weak, innovation is not in my DNA. And you are this kind of person that when you hear brainstorm, I think outside of the voice, you get nervous or you want us to disappear, run away. Let's say one is weak. I have an idea what innovation is but I'm not innovating. Two will be a little bit. I know some tools to come up with ideas but I don't know how to implement and create innovation. Three will be moderate. I use innovation in some stages of the innova the innovation process. For example, I explore, I generate ideas. Sometimes I improve or create product process or services. Four will be strong. I have produced something that could be considered innovative, maybe sometimes I have failed, but I was able to experiment again and try it. Five will be very strong. Innovation is a component of your everyday work. So a little bit about me um Paula um based in Munich, but I was born in Colombia. I had lived in several different countries and almost half of my life in Germany. So um my background is I'm a process engineer. I start in innovation.

At the end of my studies, when I work in rit of uh in biotechnology, I was really in shares of calling a process to produce biop pesticides using crystals that uh bacteria produce. Then I moved to Germany also continue researching this time, I was involved in new materials. My focus was Biota polymers and then I pursued a master's a long time in Germany. And after the master, I start working in operation, my my role was to improve the production, introduce new products and also new technologies. And then I transitioned to product development and innovation management until a friend invited me to join him as a co-founder of biotech start up. So that's when I started learning design thinking in a start a methodology. I also became a Scrum master. And when I was looking for the intersection between design thinking and Scrum, I discovered live innovation lab which is a nonprofit organization based in Munich. And then we have the mission to democratize innovation, make it accessible for all, also bridge the innovation gap between different fields and the woman gap. So that is what I have been doing the last two years. And what I'm gonna share here in this presentation is the methodology that we develop in order to become a better innovator. So um in this presentation, I'm gonna go a little bit about the origins of innovation, what type of innovation?

But as I say, I'm gonna focus more in the innovators mindset and the role of the technology. So where does innovations come from? It sounds like a philosophical question but actually, it's very simple. The answer is an an historical one where would be the standard today if it wasn't for innovation, like we fire and electricity. If we think about communication technologies, medicine, even democracy, we humans have always innovated. What changed was the scope of innovation during their history?

So the war especially the digital world that where we are living right now is a result of a complex innovation. So the originals of innovation lie in the big and the small things of everyday life, these things that we want to improve or adapt to our changing needs and wishes the also our resources, our fitness. So we are forced to develop new solutions. Another thing that is very important is our human imagination that propel us to strive for radical new technologies. We also are always asking questions how we can do something in this way in a different way. So we need to find the knowledge and doing that. We will inability to encounter problems and confront them with some limited and constraints that what is currently possible. So the starting point is the emergencies of innovation is desire for change and progress, but overcoming all the V calculus and shifting boundaries. So innovation, transparent history comes from identifying problems from passion and it's really important preserving. So we can see here uh graphics and what I want you is first to get rid of a misconception that innovation is an aha moment. It's an E A moment and happen for magic.

Now, innovation is a process. It's actually a long continuous learning process with several input is not linear. It's not sequential. We might iterate many times, we need to interact and feedback. So we start exploring we, as I say, we it's very important to observe and empathize with the consumer users or beneficiaries. If you are involved in social innovation, we need to connect with other people. Not only the bear, we are gonna get in fired from ideas from others. It's also important collaboration. We are gonna work in teams, we need to experiment to test and to validate many absorptions. And sometimes we have to question again and call back. But the important thing is a learning process. And another thing that um that is important is like, you know that in the la in our economy and in life, there are many un uncertain times. And actually what only is certainty is that change will happen and that happened fast and that is why we need to adapt and we also try to reduce the risk. The best way is when we empathize. But anyways, it could come that we want better and we have to iterate. So another important point here is that every person has very indi an individual set of knowledge, characteristics.

We have skills and valuable experience that help us in many situations in our lives, professional and also personally. So every human being has the potential to become a catalyst for innovation and to participate in the implementation. We are gonna come further on that when we talk about the innovation model. But now I would like to move to the different types of innovation because I think that also make some confusion. So when we look about innovation, there are some commerce way to look at it. One is the innovation matrix where this classify accord in both technology and and the uses of technology and in the market that it operates. So when we will have four different types of innovation, incremental innovation, which is the most common and every company is involved in that in one way or another is when we implement an existing technology, but we try to increase the value to the customer. It could be we do some design changes. We add some new features, we also can simplify that also will have a small value in them customer experience. Then we come to the disruptive innovation is a term that was popularized by Clayton Kristen. Then is when we refer to an innovation that creates new value network, it can be as if either when you create a new market or you entered an existing one and show how the consumers interact with that. So we all have here about Netflix disrupting Blockbuster.

Also how the digital camera and Instagram the disruption of Kodak and then we will come to architectural innovation which is simply taking the lessons, the skills and the technology and apply it in a different market. We will see that this sometimes is a lower risk involved because we already relied in the on a proven technology and we just reintroduce it in another field, but it requires tweaking and matching the requirements of the new market. And radical innovation is what most people think when they hear innovation start the keeps the world of new industries involves creating revolutionary technologies as computer internet. So another thing that is important in innovation is how we management. And it's also um another what we see in the second graphic is called the three horizons of growth. If if you want to um live very far, you can read parts of mckenzie. But the idea of this is that we have three different horizons where companies should focus not only in one, the number one is actually the core business where they provide the greatest profits and cash flow. They are focused in pro improving um performance, maximizing the value and encompass emergency opportunities. But then when we see the horizons, number two is new opportunities, new writing, entrepreneurial ventures, generate profit, but that will be in the future.

And then we have the third one where is like um really thinking in the future and creating bar options. So what is here is important is the how you manage the portfolio. And as I say that companies should work simultaneously in the three horizons, then we will see another which is called the innovation ambition is uh also it's a further development from the three horizontal. And here is more like the strategy management of innovation, you will see that is also in two dimensions and that you don't have a binary, you will have also a series of values and it's you will have three kind of innovation, core assistant and transformational. And here is like as I say, the strategy because you define in which market you are gonna play and how you're gonna win there. So if you are gonna use the existing products, are you gonna do some incremental products and assets or are you going to develop new? Thanks. But what I really like is the a more holistic overview of different types of innovation is a framework called the 10 types of innovation. And is it was developed by Larry Quill. And after examining over 2000 business innovation from the history, they uncovered that most of the breakouts are necessary stem from engineering invasion or discoveries actually, you will see that they categorize in 10 different dimensions.

And if you go from the is in color, so the red color is configuration that will be more inside a company. And then you will move more in the direction of the customer where you can, which are offering, you can have um product system, then you will have also product performance. One example is Spotify, then you move to more as I say to the consumer experience. So you can work in your service in your channel, in your brand and inno innovator and also customer engagement. You will see like service like Amazon Prime, how it's always offering more and also updating and trying and every day they try to improve the user experience in channels like Met Press with the Coffee Capsule where there is a club and brands like what you want to that your consumers feel like Patagonia, more sustainability in fashion and customer engagement.

You can see the automotive industry, Mercedes and BMW using the different apps. So we have talked about innovation management strategy and what worries about the practice. We will see that there are many methodologies frameworks and that brings a lot of confusion when you try to think about what is my perfect model that will foster innovation within my company. So you will see different methodologies as I say, why? Because in every field, we are trying to de risk and reduce the uncertainty. So they have evolved different methodologies. It's sometimes difficult to, to see. OK, where is the this limit? Because there are many overlaps they use sometimes very similar tools. So I like uh graphic when, when you think about innovation and business innovation, you will always think about this intersection between disability viability, feasibility and of course adoption. So you also think about what is the problem, the solution and for innovation, you have to bring it to the market. So there is also important to develop a business model. You have also to validate that. And that is when all methodologies come soon. So at the beginning, you can see in this graph, it's very useful to, to use design thinking in order to really understand why the need.

But then you will come to a part where you already defined your problem also come to the solution and then is where you can start using a giant methodologies or lean start up is when you start thinking about your different prototype, what is your product, your minimal buyer product?

But as I say, like you the most innovation, deception is incremental innovation, you will need a new business model. So you also have to be there and discover try iterate. So this is a really useful methodology. It was developed by Natalia Food and Jeff as model and they see it as an end to end process to bring innovation. So now it's come to the question how we become innovators because we have talked about innovation management, innovation strategy practice. Uh But we are the ones who are gonna actually implement all of these innovation. So I wanted to introduce you a methodology that we develop a live innovation lab. We are, we have different backgrounds starting from marketing, business, communication, learning experience and engineer.

And we have worked in different countries, regions and industries and we have come to the same conclusion that they are skills that foster innovation and these skills that are innate and we can further develop. So we wanted to create a methodology that brings into the focus.

The core issues of an innovator such as limited resources and credibility continues changing context. So we explore the theory of fun and the importance of incorporating play in our daily life to feel imagination, creativity, problem solving abilities, cross collaboration, emotional well being, which we know that these are essential elements, driving innovation. So why we decided to use play as a tool for innovation? Well, it's because we know that the most effective way to learn is learning by doing. But actually when we were Children, we learn more and faster. And during our first year, we all learned to play, we learn and grow exploring and creating. So there are also studies that show us, for example, everything starting in the Spain show using bracelet in students for one week, how the brain response is when they are in class and also the whole day. And at some point, you will have the same responses in the, in a classroom than in watching television. So for learning, you also need fun and you need to engage and chemical.

Um and there are many reasons also chemical and biological reasons why plague makes you feel better and connect our b brain hemispheres. Researchers have found that plague helps produce more powerful, feel good hormones such as endorphin, dopamine, oxy and serotonin. And some of them help you learn because they increase your attention. For example, dop mining has the cognitive ability and improve the ability to learn and pay attention. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that impacts your mood, memory and learning. So for this talk, I'm gonna explain the innovative mindset that is going that we can train using play innovation, we explore in this concept, three components, people, ideas and things and we combine it with key innate human traits that help us to drive innovation. So normally a play innovation session takes two hours where we help people identify the components of the innovator mindset within them. But due to the format of this talk, I'm on going only to explain the mindset that we identify and train and give you some tips and tools to training your skills. But we will also you can also join us in a the innovation session. The next one is gonna be virtually in July. So you can register if it's free, but we have the space limited. So let's come to our model. So when we think about innovation, there are many definitions.

But the one that we use is innovation is finding the non evident connection between people, ideas, things and things to generate a greater value. So I would like to give you an example of this. So I don't know, maybe some of you already know that this example is the origin of the internet of things. When Kevin Ashton was working for the Cosmetics division of product and gamble, they had problems keeping the products on the shelf. Also it was enough product in the warehouse. So he was looking for the cause of this problem. And he realized that the problem was an information problem because they didn't know the individual product level in this case was the lipsticks in the shelf of the store. So he told about and how to solve it. And he came to the idea to use radio frequency identification, using microchips and using the internet. You could also connect and see when, when a product was run out in the in the start, you will get a sign and you know, you can go to the warehouse and put more. So he proposed that to the leadership team of Proctor and Gamble and just give it the name Internet of things and they start working on that and work with mit and it took some years to develop the technology as we know today with many applications.

So what I also want you to think about is that we all you know that we have talked about many methodologies. But at the end, what is really important is the mindset because the mindset affects how you see things in the world. It can be that one person sees situation, a situation as a problem, another person sees as an opportunity and our mindset is what brings us to react and move. So mindset is everything. So remember the self assessment that we did at the beginning, I would like you to reconsider your answer at the end of the talk. And I'm gonna start explaining you the mindset. So when we think about people, we identify two very important mindsets. One is open-minded listener, which is a person that is actively willing to consider different ideas or opinions. It's not judgmental, it's receptive and reflective and also empathetic playmate is very important to be, to develop the human condition, understanding the motions, the different points of view, the needs and the concept of others. Why? Because we are creating things for humans and at the same time, we work with other people, we collaborate. So it's really needed. So how you can train that. So one very simple thing is start observing people. So try to intuit what they are feeling and thinking.

You can observe people for 10 minutes during your commute. If you are not commuting, you can do it at the supermarket or when you go for a walk, pay attention to everything. It's not just listening. For example, when you go to a new country and you are not fluent in this language or if you don't know it, you pay more attention to the other, not only the language, you know, not the communications and then other things how the people behave more, you try to intuit what they are thinking also, it's like in design thinking, we say like if listening also with your eyes and other senses, you pay attention to everything, colors, the smells, all sounds and things.

So that will help you for listening, you can do a simple exercise at home or you with your colleagues, try only to listen, don't talk and I guarantee that will improve also the communication and you relation try for once just to hear what the people is saying, try not to give opinion just us and try to confirm if you are understanding how they feel.

So when we move to ideas, it's really important to be curious, learner, you know that curiosity is very important in innovation and we need to learn. So if this person is the one that is eager to acquire knowledge and skills, they also have a deep desire to explore experiment and engage. And if you want to start trying to be more curious and learn more, there are many things I think before we say like knowledge, what's reading is also true, we can keep reading I what I like is for example, Fast Company because they send newsletter with this about different industries.

So you get also to know other field that is not your working field and it gives you interesting ideas and stories of new things that are emerging. Also, we have very a lot of resources that are free. For example, Harvard Business Review, the Economies Medium, you all have access between two and three articles per month, you can attend meet up. There are right now many data virtually. So use this moment to explore our meetups in other countries in other cities, also other fields we use all also the spirituality to explore some museums. It might be that we continue with some virtual and I think we are gonna be have a, a risk system but you can also watch recording if we really want to, to get news, interesting news, something that is emerging. I recommend you the hacker news of Y Combinator. And there is a really incredible website called The Bar of Innovation. They have really create blogs, articles in the blog and tools and templates that are a lot for free. So just go there and try to explore new tools and use it. And there is also the possibility to right now, we can hear a lot of podcasts for free. So idea has a really good podcast. Stanford has the E Corner Harvard Business Review has the ECA So I also like to hear interviews and see the story of the people.

You can also rediscover your city and see and think always how can you turn each moment into a learning opportunity? One way is thinking and and I'm sorry, questioning, you have to ask a lot of questions in order to learn. So connection builder is when you are able to identify relationship among things that are unrelated as objects and ideas and that helps you to overcome a ideation roadblocks and identify different opportunities. So a game is how you can build connections, try to use association could be random words, something, something that is has nothing to do with your challenge. Since you can use also random association looking at Wikipedia for potential association. What I also like is using analogies.

One example that hurt me was when I was designing an app for the immigrants in in Germany that they understand the complexity of the school system where in fourth grade, they decided between three different schools and only in one school, you can go directly to the university so that create really entity in the parents.

And I was thinking in analogies but different take this analogy with an experience. So for example, for me was something that is unknown, but even this unknown, I have a good experience. So I talk about vacation and what was the things that gave me this good experience like which information I received when I receive it if it was that someone pick up at the airport, the information in the hotel and all these kind. And I transferred that to my prototype. Also, I thought about things that I don't know and produce the same feeling. For example, going for a diagnosis at a medical center where you don't know how it's gonna be. It's your first time there. But when you Immers in yourself in this experience, you realize, OK, how the reception is, how the information is delivered and then you are getting out of this anxiety. So again, that helped me to put some transfer some ideas to this prototype. And what I also recommend in innovation is that you have an idea inventory, you can use it digital or classical way writing. For example, for me, I'm more like a mix of my own Pinterest with pictures. I also may Miss Kessel's notes, but that help you also to, you could also keep track of your learning and then we will come to things. And in this mindset, I think that the Children are our inspiration.

When we think something about fearless to work is when you have challenge and you are also you have this notion you are starting to engage. When in the unexpected you experiment, you fail, you learn and try again. As I said, as Children where they, they just try it. And the creative explorer is when you train your own creativity skills by testing maybe some unexplored approaches that empower you creation and build up your confidence. So it's important that you try yourself out and remember that at the beginning, we, we are not the best.

It's like drawing your first draw or writing. Remember how was it and how fast you can improve, but you have to try it. Also, another thing that I consider really important is that you reframe what failure is and get more in the scientific models. So when we are working in science, for example, we run many experiments because we have some assumptions and we want to, to try and validate that. But we are not, we are not afraid of having the assumption, not validated because we know, OK, even if it's not true, my assertion that can give me in another direction and I can learn something new. And so that's how you can stick in innovation every time that you test something you can measure and then you can reduce your risk and come again and use your learning. So how you can do that? So try new experience as a lot of about yourself. And you also need to analyze, I really like the five wives. It's similar as Children when they ask why, why when they are three years old and they challenge you with conception that you think, you know, but they ask so many times why, why that you also have to think more.

And we in engineers use it for failures to, to measure what happened in safety and all these things. And it's also helping in other fields. And we will come to the innovator, the core of all the mindset and this is resilient, is able to recover from difficult situation, adapt quickly to changing conditions by finding meaning in a birth experience. Here is important that you don't have to always be like happy if you have a failure is like a learning. And I think that in innovation, a lot of things happen came through because of frustration, because of sadness, that also kind give you the energy to create something new. So it's how you see the things. And if even if things that is not in your control, you are able to move forward, purpose driven, I think is a very important thing. Most of the most important because is what gives us the energy and this inner drive when we find our passion and we engage. So it's important that you been aware that we all have a unique success, skill set and experience and background and we can engage in innovation. So you can see that all these mindset are grow mindset and all are interconnected and master.

You start with new habits that will evo evolve in capability. So it's possible to train your innovative muscle, consider as your heart, for example, with your body that gives you the oxygen, your mindset is your field, gives you energy. And make possible to bring you in motion in order to be innovated. So it's important to find your inner drive and passion as I say, and then we are gonna move to the next topic I already explained that. So some other example of innovation is when you think about the cloud and that you have someone necessity was like different user, they needed computational power, they needed data storage. But what it makes us more useful was to think in another way, like to think in this multi tenant and different paying methods and also offers like and this giving the opportunity to have the infrastructure as a service platform, as a service or work as a service. And if we think about the cloud and connecting other other sectors like the pharmaceutical and medical sector. One recent example of innovation is when we think about moderna the pharmaceutical company and when Corona COVID-19 appeared, they were land for some time working with Amazon cloud and they were able to connect.

And in one month after they start analyzing the virus, they were able to, they call this virus and start working in a new vaccine. So in less than three months, they were able to develop a new technology and start to to conduct the clinical trials. What I think it was really new in drug discovery that you can develop so fast and have it in the market. So that brings us to the importance of technology. So why I also wanted to tell you is like for me, the drivers of innovation are mindset also diversity and technology, why technology? Because I see also technology, I was one of the best tools to connect people, ideas and things to drive innovation. Because when technology is not only a tool, we are right now connect in many fields that they can work together and they become even greater things. So technology is a maier of the human intent, but it's very important to apply it with empathy and thoughtfulness so that we can substantially improve our life. When we think also about technology, it has also impact our life because it has increased and improved the communication and education accessibility. So connection is really important in innovation where we get ideas and we right now through communication, we are most connected with the whole world.

Of course, there are some barriers to technology adoption. It will be also the low income or user capabilities. But even though more people are getting access to information and that is improving your their knowledge despite where they are located in the world and their socio-economic position.

So we have seen that thanks to technology, the whole pandemic time was easier to management because we could even having homeschooling, we go keep the do the connectivity, keep working, keep studying. And also we start using more telemedicine and have access to that. So when we also think about the future of technology. We have this called general purpose technology, which are the technologies that have the potential to affect our entire economic system and can lead us to many changes in the society. And we have seen it in through the history when the steam engine came, then the railways, telephone of electricity, computers, internet. And in the last decade that we have seen in some emergent technologies as artificial intelligence, energy ST robotic genomes, Blockchain, they are changing.

Not only one sector, many sectors as I say, think of only about telemedicine or, or think about block chain when you apply it in agriculture and you can reduce the food waste. So I I'm one that I think that innovation can help us to try a better future for everyone. A sustainable one. And here again, the takeaways that we have and if you would like to contact us, you can find us in our website in linkedin, you can contact me or the or live innovation lab. We also have a uh we are in meet up and in Instagram. So feel free to contact us. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.