Agile Giants: Lessons from Corporate Innovators

Peter Steinberg is rapidly becoming a key partner of ours at the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab.

He is a well know Rugby coach as well as a leader in thinking through executive education. I’m more focused on the later, but the synergy between these is interesting.

The first part of the interview gives you a lens into how Pete approaches exec ed and innovation. Then, the second half of this interview focuses on our collaboration at the Corporate Startup Lab. 

Show Links: 

  Innovative Thought (Peter's Firm) 

  Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab

Every time I sit down with Priscilla, I come away so impressed. The work she’s doing at Bayer partnering with startups to solve internal challenges is a great model for any large company.

We first met at a local (Pittsburgh) roundtable discussion and then she recently participated in a reverse pitch the CMU Swartz Center which my lab did in partnership with another local organization Innovation Works.

If you are trying to figure out how to work with startups in your organization, I’d strongly consider you to look to Bayer’s G4A program. If you are startup working in industries (pharma, consumer and agriculture) that Bayer is involved in pls check out their new challenges for the year live April 1st. 

Show Links:

• Connect with Priscilla on LinkedIn
• Follow Priscilla on Twitter
• G4A Site

Every time I sit down with Priscilla, I come away so impressed. The work she’s doing at Bayer partnering with startups to solve internal challenges is a great model for any large company.

We first met at a local (Pittsburgh) roundtable discussion and then she recently participated in a reverse pitch the CMU Swartz Center which my lab did in partnership with another local organization Innovation Works.

If you are trying to figure out how to work with startups in your organization, I’d strongly consider you to look to Bayer’s G4A program. If you are startup working in industries (pharma, consumer and agriculture) that Bayer is involved in pls check out their new challenges for the year live April 1st. 

Show Links:

• Connect with Priscilla on LinkedIn
• Follow Priscilla on Twitter
• G4A Site

On this week’s episode of Agile Giants, I’m joined by Gustavo Lopez a general manager at MS The Safety Company. MSA is over 100-years old. They historically have sold safety devices, things like portable gas detectors. 

Over the last few years, those devices have started throwing off more and more data about the detection that they’re doing. Two years ago made a decision to launch a new startup within the company called Safety IO. Their corporate startup does big data analytics from the data that those devices are throwing off. 

I should say for full disclosure, January through May of 2018, a team of my graduate students in my Corporate Startup Lab project course actually worked with MSA to refine the ideas for Safety IO. And at the end of that course, when an MSA decided to push forward, I joined their advisory board. Also, Laurie Barkman (on last week’s episode) is also on their advisory board.

While I admittedly am slightly conflicted, I do think this is an amazing story and it’s a perfect illustration of how large established companies are able to leverage their brand and customer relationships to build a new startup inside an existing company. It really would have been challenging for two entrepreneurs inside a startup accelerator to do what Safety IO has done, yet MSA has had a ton of success with it and I’m really excited to be part of it. So even with the conflict, it just felt like a perfect episode to add into our conversation about how large companies can do transformative innovation. I hope you enjoyed this week’s conversation.

Episode Links:

SafetyIO: https://www.safetyio.com/

CMU Corporate Startup Lab Project Course: https://www.corporatestartuplab.com/course 

On this week’s episode of Agile Giants, I’m joined by Laurie Barkman. I’ve known Laurie for a long time. She ran marketing for a startup that I invested in years ago and more recently she’s been an advisor and mentor at the Corporate Startup Lab that I run at Carnegie Mellon. 

We’re also — for full disclosure — on an advisory board together of Safetyio, a corporate startup within MSA, that will actually be featured in next week’s episode of Agile Giants. 

Laurie has some really interesting insights into the similarities and differences between startups and large corporate innovation because she’s built startups inside companies as well as worked at startups. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode.

Disrupt Book - https://www.amazon.com/Disrupt-Think-Unthinkable-Transformation-Business/dp/0137025149/

On this week’s episode of Agile Giants, I sit down with Sylvia Vogt. Sylvia is the President of the Carnegie Bosch Institute, and a co-instructor of the leading innovation executive education course that I talked with last week at the beginning of Dennis Boecker’s interview.

Show Links: 

• Tepper Executive Education Leading Innovation Course (the executive education course Sylvia & I teach together)
• About Damian Killen
• About The Carnegie Bosch Insitute

I enjoyed the entire interview, but particularly would call out: 

1. Her definition of innovation vs creativity (starting at 3:03) 
2. How different personalities approach creativity and innovation (6:43)
3. How team leaders should approach innovation? (13:02)
4. How culture impacts innovation? (26:34) 

On this week's episode of Agile Giants, I have Dennis Boecker. In some ways, this is really a continuation of last week's conversation with Terry Lonier.

Dennis built one of the innovation labs that she talked a little bit about, the Chicago Connectory. It's a fascinating coworking space and innovation center that I would encourage you to check out if you're in the Chicago area.

Show Links:

Chicago Connectory - https://chicagoconnectory.com/

Tepper Executive Education Leading Innovation - https://www.cmu.edu/tepper/executive-education/innovation/leading-innovation/index.html 

Follow Dennis on Twitter: https://twitter.com/boecker_dennis?lang=en 

On this episode, host Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, sits down with an advisor to Cheif Innovation Officers Terri Lonier.      

Terri and Sean have a great conversation, including Terri's insights on: 

1. opportunities and traps around companies setting up innovation labs (starting at 9:07)
2. the Creative Canvas she developed (starting at 12:01) 
3. the importance of having a diverse set of thinkers involved in innovation (starting at 15:47)

Show Links:

You can learn more about Terri here: https://terrilonier.com/

You can download the Creative Canvas she developed here: http://creativecanvas.org/ 

  Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab https://www.corporatestartuplab.com/

  Learn more about Sean https://www.seanammirati.com/ 

Host Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, sits down with Ryan Thomas Vice President, Innovation at The J.M. Smucker Company.    

As a leader of innovation within a $8B Food, Beverage & Pet company, Ryan provides great perspective.  There's a ton of lessons here both for how to do innovation inside a consumer-facing brand like Smucker's, as well as just generally how large companies should approach these processes.  You'll also see many similarities if you're a traditional entrepreneur to the lean startup methodology and design thinking.

Show Links:

  Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab https://www.corporatestartuplab.com/

  Learn more about Ryan https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-thomas-0960831/ 

  Learn more about Sean https://www.seanammirati.com/ 

The premiere episode of Agile Giants. Host Sean Ammirati, Co-Founder and Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab, sits down with author and entrepreneur Neil Soni.    

Author of the book "The Startup Goldmine," Neil and Sean discuss the hidden innovation agendas of large companies to grow your business and how Neil's insights apply to both startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. 

Show Links:

  Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab https://www.corporatestartuplab.com/

  The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Gold-Mine-Innovation-Companies-ebook/dp/B07C622VRY 

  Learn more about Neil http://www.neilsoni.com/ 

  Learn more about Sean https://www.seanammirati.com/