Interview on The Small Business Advocate

Jim Blasingame is one of the best talk show hosts out there. And I had the pleasure, once again, of being on his show. This time I talked about the challenges associated with innovation and the value of open innovation.

This was my 6th appearance on his show. You can listen to all of them here.

Video of My TEDx NASA Speech

For those of you who asked, here is the video of my six minute speech at the TEDx NASA conference. Click the bottom right button on the video player to watch in full screen. Enjoy.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

Podcast: Creating Innovative Products

How do you create products that sell themselves? That is what I will be speaking about at the National Speakers Association (NSA) national convention in Phoenix, AZ this summer.

As a way of promoting that event, I was interviewed by professional MC, Camille Valvo, for the “Voices of Experience.” This audio CD is sent to all members of the National Speakers Association.

Although this 8 minute interview (which you can listen to below) is targeted at professional speakers, the concepts apply to anyone in any industry. After discussing the innovation bell curve and its relevance to the speaking business, I talk about how to create…

• interactive products that can be used during a speech (mine is Personality Poker®) (link).
• books that help your clients quickly understand the breadth of your expertise (mine is “The Little Book of BIG Innovation Ideas”).

What is interesting is that these two products were created “by accident.”

Personality Poker® was originally developed as an innovation tool for me to use with my corporate clients and in my keynote speeches. Inevitably, participants at my events would ask where they could buy the poker cards and the accompanying instruction manual. Instruction manual? I never planned to write one because I never planned to sell the cards. However, I decided to give my customers what they wanted. The first version of the instruction manual was pretty rough but was available within a month. The current version took quite a bit longer. The next version will be available September 2010, but more on that another time.

“The Little Book of BIG Innovation Ideas” was originally conceived as pamphlet. It was going to be 25 tips condensed into a booklet small enough to fit in a jacket’s breast pocket. Each tip would be 3 sentences long. What I discovered was that I had a difficult time choosing only 25 tips. And I had a more difficult time limiting each tip to just a paragraph. The result would have been trite sound bites. But I liked the idea of cataloging my 20+ years of experience into a series of tips. So during my spare time, I continued to write my thoughts in a Word document. I eventually pulled together 75 tips, each between one and two pages in length. I never expected to turn the Word document into a salable product.  But my clients loved the content and wanted to buy copies for the attendees of their events.  So, once again, I decided to listen to my customers and to give them what they wanted.  Interestingly, the current book cover was designed by one of my clients.

In just 9 months I have gone through 1,500 decks of poker cards (enough for 12,000 people), and over the past 18 months I have sold thousands of copies of the “Little Book.” Not bad for two accidental products.

The interview is not a sales pitch.  We do not focus on the products, but rather the thought process I went through in developing them. The purpose is to help people think differently about their products…and to help promote the NSA convention.

Stream the interview…

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Download the mp3 (right click and “save target as” to download to your computer)

Small Business Radio Interview

Today I was interviewed on “The Small Business Advocate” with Jim Blasingame. This internet radio show address a wide range of topics of interest, no surprise, to small businesses. This was my 4th time on his show, and I honestly believe that Jim is one of the best interviewers out there.

On this morning’s show, I spoke about Innovation Personality Poker. And in particular, I spoke about how to create high performing innovation teams by getting each person aligned with their innovation strength.  Be sure to listen in…

Listen to My Innovation Interview

Earlier this week, I was on “Riches in Niches” radio with Susan Friedmann. We discussed innovation and business success in today’s economy. The 30 minute interview (split into two parts) covers practical ways to survive this volatile marketplace.

You can download the both parts at Innovation Interview Part 1 and Innovation Interview Part 2.

Or, you can visit Susan’s page to access streaming audio or to listen to other interviews.

The basis of our interview was my article on “7 Ways Innovation Can Recession-Proof a Business.”

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