Inside LaunchStreet interviews Evan Shellshear, a commercialization and innovation expert. He has delivered cutting-edge software solutions to both Forbes 500 companies and SMEs. He is a seasoned entrepreneur with experience covering all aspects of startups and product development. He is also the bestselling author of Innovation Tools. We have a great convo about how to find opportunities to innovate in your everyday life, and what it takes to bring those ideas to market. We cover crowdsourcing, tapping hacker spaces and how processes can actually help you innovate.

 

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Key Takeaways:

[1:54] Find out how Evan began his innovation journey. Evan defines innovation as a new product or service development.

[3:56] How can people dial into their intellectual curiosity? What things drive that curiosity?

[7:08] Tamara and Evan discuss the challenge of finding the amazing balance between processes and structure, versus the capacity to create and innovate. Processes are in place to remove the mistakes that we make.

[11:58] Evan discusses myths of innovation. He debunks the myth that innovation is a big mystery and only geniuses can innovate. Evan believes that innovators  possess two characteristics: First, a huge depth of personal experience in their area of expertise, Second, the ability to connect the dots. Real design-led thinking will help you for the rest of your life in innovation.

[15:50] Find out how dishabituation factors into innovation. Successful innovators notice the pain points and stop putting up with them. Find the points where you get annoyed, and fix the problem.

[19:56] Evan challenges listeners to think of the one thing that poses something that is challenging, too complex, and takes up too much time. That’s the thing you should begin exploring and innovating! Focus on your user and integrate feedback. This concept can be applied to how you approach both work and life.

[23:43] Evan suggests three easy-to-implement tools from his bestselling book, Innovation Tools.  First, tap into crowdsourcing, like Kickstarter. Let the latent expertise that exists in the world help you solve your problem. Second, use the hacker space and make a space movement to help you prototype your idea. Third, factor in behavioral innovation. How do biases affect our decisions?

[28:30] What did Evan do to win Australia’s Good Design Award and beat out Tesla Model X? Who is the real winner? The winner creates value for the consumer.  You must put the human at the center and discover what people love.

[33:23] Tamara reminds us not to assume because you do or don’t want something that other people share your opinion. Understand who your niche is, and what value you can provide.

[34:40] Product development doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Infuse marketing and sales from day one into the development. This helps to ensure buy-in, and create the lean utopia you are seeking.

[36:50] The Game of Awesome was developed in New Zealand to teach students in grades 5-8 the concepts about problem solving and creativity, with design embedded into the game. Within 24 days, the students had won the design winning award. Because it had the end user in mind from day one, they made few mistakes and capitalized on the award!

[40:04] Connect with Evan at: Linkedin and on Twitter

Mentioned in This Episode:

EBEX

Innovation Tools, by Evan Shellshear