Author Archives: Braden Kelley

About Braden Kelley

Braden Kelley is a Human-Centered Experience, Innovation and Transformation consultant at HCL Technologies, a popular innovation speaker, and creator of the FutureHacking™ and Human-Centered Change™ methodologies. He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons and Charting Change (Second Edition) from Palgrave Macmillan. Braden is a US Navy veteran and earned his MBA from top-rated London Business School. Follow him on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Chance to Help Make Futurism and Foresight Accessible

Leave a reply

I’ve been hard at work building all kinds of tools to help innovation, change, transformation and design thinking practitioners be more successful in their jobs.

The number of human-centered tools in the Change Planning Toolkit v13 from the initial fifty (50) to more than SEVENTY.

I also introduced lots of inexpensive tools like the:

  1. $9.99 – Problem Finding Canvas
  2. FREE – Innovation Maturity Assessment
  3. FREE – Visual Project Charter™
  4. FREE – Experiment Canvas™
  5. FREE – ACMP Standard for Change Management® Visualization

And the core of the forthcoming Human-Centered Innovation Toolkit is well underway.

But I’ve also been exploring the very obtuse realm of futurism and foresight and pondering how to make it more accessible to us ordinary humans, and I think I’ve done it!

Chance to Help Make Futurism Accessible

I’ve created a set of TWENTY (20) simple but powerful foresight and futurism tools to power my FutureHacking™ methodology.

To spread them farther and faster I’m looking to partner with a forward-thinking organization to bring them to market.

  • Does your organization view itself as leading its customers into the future?

  • Are you looking for an amazing marketing opportunity?

  • One that would empower thousands of innovation and strategy professionals to do their own foresight and futurism work?

If so, then contact me here and we’ll build a launch plan together that connects your brand to a powerful new FutureHacking™ movement!

FutureHacking Tools Collection

Benefits to you will include, but will not be limited to:

  1. Joint promotion of your brand via my site, social media, email newsletters, etc.
  2. Presence of your logo as a sponsor on the tools and educational assets
  3. Access to the tools for your employees
  4. Other ideas you suggest!

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Creating the World’s Best Change & Transformation Book

Leave a reply

The Perfect Change & Transformation BookOn Friday I was speaking with my publisher Palgrave Macmillan (now part of Springer) about doing a second edition of Charting Change.

This means that my publisher is interested in having me create a new version of Charting Change that would include most, if not all, of the content contained in the first edition, while also adding thousands of words of new insights (plus new pictures and tools).

This causes me to ask you the following questions:

  1. What human-centered change and transformation topics are missing from Charting Change?

  2. What information would the perfect change & transformation book contain?

  3. What tools do change management professionals and transformation leaders need to enjoy greater success in their jobs, projects, and programs?

  4. Toolkit subscribers – which of my new tools should I highlight in the second edition that I didn’t introduce in the first edition?

  5. Who do you think has something compelling to add to the conversation in an additional guest expert section in the book? And what is the topic you want to hear from them on?

Charting Change introduced my Human-Centered Change™ methodology and a suite of 50+ tools available for purchase (book buyers get access to 26 of the 50+ tools). That toolkit has since grown to a collection of 70+ tools available to toolkit subscribers.

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported the first edition thus far and also to my Human-Centered Change™ Toolkit subscribers.

I’m interested to hear in the comments below your thoughts on the questions above!
(or send me an email)

If you don’t already have a first edition copy of Charting Change, you can get one here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1137536950/
(support my sharing of free Human-Centered Change & Innovation tools and insights)

And don’t forget to download your Free Human-Centered Change Tools!

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Marketing Gimmick of the Year – 2021 – Air Protein

1 Reply

Marketing Gimmick of the Year - 2021The winner of the 2021 award for Marketing Gimmick of the Year has to be Air Protein.

The marketing premise is that the company is creating a scalable process for creating protein from ‘thin air’ using a $32 million Series A funding round and 1960’s era NASA research.

Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?

And that’s why it’s the marketing gimmick of the year.

It’s not technically untrue, but it doesn’t give the whole picture of how the protein is actually created.

According to The Times out of the U.K., the production of Air Protein begins when purified carbon dioxide is mixed in a fermenter with hydrogenotrophs (naturally occurring microbes) to produce a flour-like substance that is 80 percent protein. This protein is then mixed with other ingredients to create meat alternatives. And believe me, this takes a lot of additional work.

So “thin air” is a bit of stretch and the marketing tagline “Meat Made from Air” stretches the depiction of reality near to the breaking point. But, it doesn’t mean the technology is still not potentially amazing and transformational.

The reason is that the way plant-based proteins and other alternative proteins are made are often even less ‘natural’.

So, it will be interesting to see how the finished product of Air Protein grades out versus the titans of the alternative meat market – Beyond and Impossible – but from a marketing perspective, they are off to a strong start!

Image credit: Air Protein

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Is Now the Time to Finally End Our Culture of Disposability?

1 Reply

Is Now the Time to Finally End Our Culture of Disposability?Quality used to mean something to companies.

A century ago, when people parted with their hard-earned money to buy something, they expected it to last one or more lifetimes.

Durability was a key design criteria.

But, as the stock market became more central to the American psyche and to executive compensation, the quality of available products and services began to decline in the name of profits above all else.

.

Ford Quality is job oneThere was a temporary consumer revolt decades ago that resulted in companies pretending that quality was more important than profits, but it didn’t last long. In the end, Americans accepted the decline in quality as outsourcing and globalization led to declining prices (and of course higher profits) and fewer goods carrying the “Made in the USA” label, quickly replaced by Japan, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the rest.

An Inconvenient TruthAround the turn of the century we had the birth of the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) movement followed a few years later by Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Perhaps people were beginning to wake up to the fact that our planet’s resources are not infinite and our culture of disposability was catching up to us.

But these movements failed to maintain their momentum and the tidal wave of stores stocking disposable goods continued unabated – dollar stores and party stores spread across the country like a virus. States like New York began shipping their garbage across borders as their landfills reached capacity. Unsold goods began being dumped on the African continent and elsewhere (think about all those t-shirts printed up for the team that didn’t end up winning the Super Bowl).

Is now the time for the winds to shift yet again in favor of quality and sustainability after decades of disposability?

Will more companies better embrace sustainability like Patagonia is attempting to do?

People have been complaining for years about the high cost to repair Apple products and the increasing difficulty of executing these repairs oneself. Recently Apple was FORCED by shareholder activists to allow people to repair their iPhones. Here is their press release that tries to put a positive spin on what they were pressured into doing.

This is the moment for shareholder activists and governments around the world to force companies to design for repairability, reuse and a true accounting of the costs of their products and services inflict upon the populace and the planet. The European Union and Mexico are working together towards this not just because the planet needs this, but because The Circular Economy Creates New Business Opportunities.

Meanwhile, Toyota recently announced that starting this year (2022) in Japan that they will retrofit late-model cars with new technology if the customer desires it. The company aims to let motorists benefit from new technology without having to buy a new car. The LoraxToyota calls this “uppgrading” and defines it as retrofitting safety and convenience functions, like blind spot monitoring, emergency braking assist, rear cross-traffic alert, and the addition of a hands-free tailgate or trunk lid. Remodeling will also be an option and will include replacing worn or damaged parts inside and out, such as the upholstery, the seat cushions, and the steering wheel.

Are these two companies voluntary and involuntary actions the beginning of a trend – finally?

Or will the culture of disposability continue unabated until our natural resources are exhausted?

Do we truly live in the land of the Lorax?

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons, OldHouseOnline

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

600 Free Innovation, Transformation and Design Quote Slides

1 Reply

600 Innovation, Transformation and Design Quote Slides on Innovation, Change and Design

Free Downloads for Keynote Speeches, Presentations and Workshops

Looking for a compelling quote for a keynote speech, workshop or presentation on any of these topics?

  • Innovation
  • Digital Transformation
  • Design
  • Change
  • Creativity
  • Leadership
  • Design Thinking

I’m flattered that people have been quoting my keynote speeches and my first two books Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire and Charting Change.

So, I’m making some of my favorite quotes available from myself and other thought leaders in a fun, visual, easily shareable format.

I’ve been publishing them on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

But now you can download twelve (12) volumes of fifty (50) quote posters, for a total of 600, for FREE from my store:

You can add them all to your shopping cart at once and download them for FREE.

Print them, share them on social media, or use them in your presentations, keynote speeches or workshops.

They are all Adobe PDF’s and the best way to add them to your presentation is to:

  1. Put the PDF into FULL SCREEN MODE
  2. Take a screenshot
  3. Paste it into your presentation
  4. Crop it and adjust the size to your liking
  5. Change the background color of the slide to a suitable color (if necessary)

Contact me with your favorite innovation, design thinking, change, transformation, or design quotes and I’ll consider adding them to my library of future downloads.

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Bureaucracy and Politics versus Innovation

4 Replies

Bureaucracy and Politics versus Innovation

Innovation in military hardware is really hard.

I wanted to call this article “Corruption versus Innovation” but I sailed back from the precipice to a more forgiving title to give the government and military contractors the benefit of the doubt that the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program – aka Little Crappy Ships – was not corporate welfare but merely a poorly executed military contract.

Back in 2004 the Bush administration decided it wanted to increase military spending.

One of the ways they decided to do this was to initiate a new shipbuilding program that benefited Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. The initial phase of the project called for two ships of each design to be built at an estimated cost of $220 million each. The initial phase of this suspect shipbuilding program went so poorly that congress canceled the second ship each company was scheduled to build and re-opened bidding.

The government pushed for fixed price contracting, and despite agreeing to a fixed price of $432-437 million each, the first ship set sail at a price of $637 million and the second at a whopping $704 million. This for a ship that was initially envisioned to only need a crew of forty sailors (eight officers and 32 enlisted) to operate. This was later changed to a crew of 73 sailors and 20 airmen to operate helicopters, UAV’s or other special equipment.

After beginning the LCS program in 2004, it wasn’t until 2013 that the initial LCS achieved its first deployment – to Singapore. That’s nine years from initiation to product launch. Think about how much has changed in the last nine years – we’ll come back to this point later.

The continuing poor performance of both the program (never-ending cost overruns), and the ship itself, forced the US Navy to reduce its orders from 55 of the ships to 32. Despite this reduction in the number of ships, the Navy chose to still take delivery of all 120 of the helicopters designed to pair with the ships, deeming it more expensive to cancel the contract for the excess helicopters than to go ahead and take delivery.

You can probably see now why I was going to call this article “Corruption versus Innovation” as the billions of dollars siphoned from the taxpayers to the military contractors and their shareholders pile up.

What’s worse, not only have the ships proven to be THREE TIMES more expensive to acquire than advertised, but they break down all the time and cost nearly as much to operate annually as an Arleigh-Burke Destroyer AND they have still yet to deploy their mine countermeasure and anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

The situation is so bad that the Navy is abandoning the program and looking to replace its little crappy ships (LCS) with a new Frigate program – the FFG (X) to be constructed by an Italian shipbuilding firm.

So, what went wrong?

Through the eyes of both a U.S. Navy Veteran, and as an innovation professional, here are my thoughts about how the U.S. Government can require its contractors to leverage more innovation best practices in their provision of services on behalf of the American people. Here are five places to start:

1. Pick the Right Time Horizon for Your Design Challenge

One of the biggest mistakes that organizations make is not consider how long it takes to develop, launch and market a new product or service without considering how an identified customer insight might change over that timeframe. For example, if it takes you two years to launch a new product and you’re developing that product based on a customer insight identified today, there is a chance that two years from now the customer may no longer value the key elements of the solution you’re designing. So, you must make sure that you’re designing against a customer insight that will still be relevant at the end of your product development and launch timeline.

Innovating for the Future Present

For more, see my article Are You Innovating for the Past or the Future?

2. Make Sure You’re Solving a Problem Worth Solving

It is really easy to latch on to a single problem and decide to solve it. But is it the right problem to solve?

Smart organizations don’t jump to problem solving too soon, but instead start with problem finding in a divergent manner before converging via problem prioritization, then diverge again in a problem deep dive and finally converge into a problem summary and a research brief focused on a carefully chosen problem worth solving.

Preparing to Solve the Right Problem

For more, see my article Picking a Problem Worth Solving From a Sea of Problems

3. Identify Potential Fatal Flaws

No idea is perfect, and so when you can identify the potential fatal flaws or the high hurdles that have to be overcome, you can challenge them, you can solve for them, you can unleash the passion of your team on trying to find a way around them.

The fatal flaws are always there, and the wise innovator doesn’t ignore them or assume that they will overcome them at some point in the future, but instead invests energy upfront into both trying to identify the fatal flaws of their idea and into identifying whether they can isolate the solutions before moving the idea forward.

For more, see my article Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fatal Flaws

4. Create an Experimentation Strategy and a Plan for Learning Fast

When it comes to innovation, it is not as important whether you fail fast or fail slow or whether you fail at all, but how fast you learn. And make no mistake, you don’t have to fail to innovate (although there are always some obstacles along the way). With the right approach to innovation you can learn quickly from failures AND successes.

The key is to pursue your innovation efforts as a discrete set of experiments designed to learn certain things and instrumenting each project phase in such a way that the desired learning is achieved.

The central question should always be:

“What do we hope to learn from this effort?”

The Experiment Canvas

My Experiment Canvas is a great free tool you can download from this web site to help you design and execute a series of carefully selected experiments to help you get the right learning and to help identify early on whether or not you can realistically solve for the potential fatal flaws – as early as possible – while investments are low.

For more, see my article Don’t Fail Fast – Learn Fast and download your free Experiment Canvas poster to print or to use as a background to lock down and put virtual sticky notes on top of in online whiteboarding tools like Miro, Mural, LucidSpark or Microsoft Whiteboard.

5. Design for Modularity to Reduce Obsolescence

The LCS was promised to be a modular warship capable of performing multiple missions, but the contractors have failed to deliver on this promise.

It takes a really long time to put a new ship design to sea and into service. So, if you get it wrong, like with the LCS program, it will be many more years before you can replace a faulty design with a new design.

We rarely successfully predict the future, so it is important to design in the capability to adapt solutions as they are developed to match emerging realities. Otherwise, you can end up designing a solution for a problem that goes away.

To reduce the chances of designing a new ship for a mission that may no longer be needed by the time it is put to sea, it is imperative that each ship is designed to be intentionally modular. It is imperative that each ship is designed as a platform of platforms.

The automobile industry has gotten really good at designing in this way. Different trim levels have different stereo options, for example, or a dealer can install a spoiler or a luggage rack pretty easily if a customer desires it.

Designing with modularity and upgradeability in mind to change out key components to different mission needs that may emerge over time or new technologies that may create new or enhanced capabilities, is an incredibly powerful way to extend the usefulness and lifespan of each new maritime defense hull.

Conclusion

The U.S. Navy is in a quandary about what to do with the Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) it already has.

So much so that it has reached out to fleet commanders to inquire what missions the ships should be deployed against – according to Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener.

The Navy should consider opening up their queries for help even wider, perhaps to the global innovation community.

But, with that said, as a U.S. Navy veteran I think the perception of the success or failure of this program would be seen much differently if they had successfully deployed the Anti-Mine Countermeasure and Anti-Submarine Warfare capabilities BEFORE the Surface Warfare capabilities.

Frigates and Destroyers are much more capable surface warfare platforms, and in hindsight the billions of dollars wasted on this program could have been much better spent for the benefit of the American people.

So, I hope that military contractors and the U.S. Government will improve their ability to deliver increased value at a decreased price as they pursue future shipbuilding programs and leverage some of the innovation best practices above.

Grabbing a copy of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire would also be a great place to start.

Go Navy!

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons (ship photo)
All other images: Braden Kelley (All Rights Reserved)

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Teaching Old Fish New Tricks

1 Reply

Teaching Fish New Tricks

We used to assume that the world was flat.

We used to assume that the sun orbited around the earth.

We used to assume that it was impossible to go faster than the speed of sound.

These assumptions were all challenged and proved to be wrong, fundamentally extending the boundaries of potential innovation and exploration in the decades that followed.

Challenging orthodoxies or questioning your assumptions is one of the key techniques to use with your innovation teams to uncover new insights to form the seeds of future innovation.

This isn’t always easy to do, and in workshops it can be a challenge to put people in the right frame of mind for questioning assumptions and challenging orthodoxies.

I find that having a stable of short videos can help in setting the stage for the very important innovation work.

Now, let’s have a look at one of my new favorite assumption-challenging videos…

Who says you can’t teach old fish new tricks?

Yes, I said fish, not dog – which challenges an orthodoxy in and of itself.

I was intrigued to hear recently that scientists in Israel have managed to teach goldfish how to drive a car.

Don’t believe me?

Check out the video:

Gradually, we are finding out that humans aren’t as special as we like to believe.

We’ve learned that trees can communicate via root systems, research is progressing into plant sentience and yes apparently, goldfish can be taught to drive.

Now that you’ve seen this video, you can now see that the assumption that fish can’t navigate vehicles through physical space – is incorrect.

What other assumptions do we make about goldfish and other living creatures that might be incorrect.

How might we set up experiments to test these assumptions?

What are some of your favorite short videos to put people in the right mindset to challenge orthodoxies and question assumptions?

Add them to the comments!

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2021

Leave a reply

Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2021

2021 marked the re-birth of my original Blogging Innovation blog as a new blog called Human-Centered Change and Innovation.

Many of you may know that Blogging Innovation grew into the world’s most popular global innovation community before being re-branded as InnovationExcellence.com and being ultimately sold to DisruptorLeague.com.

Thanks to an outpouring of support I’ve ignited the fuse of this new multiple author blog around the topics of human-centered change, innovation, transformation and design.

I feel blessed that the global innovation and change professional communities have responded with a growing roster of contributing authors and more than 15,000 newsletter subscribers.

To celebrate we’ve pulled together the Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2021 from our archive of over 700 articles on these topics.

We do some other rankings too.

We just published the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021 and as the volume of this blog grows we may bring back a monthly ranking to complement this annual one.

But enough delay, here are the 100 most popular innovation and transformation posts of 2021.

Did your favorite make the cut?

1. All Leadership is Change Leadership – by Randy Pennington

2. Next Generation Loyalty – Part One – by Braden Kelley

3. Visual Project Charter™ – 35″ x 56″ (Poster Size) and JPG for Online Whiteboarding – by Braden Kelley

4. Where Do Innovation Strategies Usually Go Wrong? – by Jesse Nieminen

5. Black Friday Shows No Loyalty – by Braden Kelley

6. The Fail Fast Fallacy – by Rachel Audige

7. Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020 – by Braden Kelley

8. What is Human-Centered Change? – by Braden Kelley

9. 10 Clever Ways to Stop Ideation Bullies from Hogging Your Brainstorming Sessions – by Howard Tiersky

10. 50 Cognitive Biases Reference – Free Download – by Braden Kelley

11. Free Customer Experience Maturity Assessment – by Braden Kelley

12. The Human-Centered Change Methodology – by Braden Kelley

13. Innovation vs. Invention vs. Creativity – by Braden Kelley

14. America Drops Out of the Ten Most Innovative Countries – by Braden Kelley

15. The One Movie All Electric Car Designers Should Watch – by Braden Kelley

16. Nine Innovation Roles – by Braden Kelley

17. No Regret Decisions: The First Steps of Leading through Hyper-Change – by Phil Buckley

18. Free Innovation Maturity Assessment – by Braden Kelley

19. Myths About Physician Entrepreneurs – by Arlen Meyers

20. Human-Centered Change – Free Tools – by Braden Kelley

21. The Five Keys to Successful Change – by Braden Kelley

22. Discipline Has a Role in Innovation – by Jesse Nieminen

23. Advances in the Management of Worthless Meeting Syndrome – by Arlen Meyers

24. 550 Quote Posters – by Braden Kelley

25. The Jobs-to-be-Done Playbook – by Braden Kelley

26. We Need a More Biological View of Technology – by Greg Satell

27. Free Human-Centered Change Tools – by Braden Kelley

28. Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire – by Braden Kelley

29. The Pyramid of Results, Motivation and Ability – by Braden Kelley

30. Experience Thinking – The Next Evolution for Design Thinking – by Anthony Mills

Build a common language of innovation on your team

31. Scaling Innovation – The What, Why, and How – by Jesse Nieminen

32. Charting Change – by Braden Kelley

33. The Experiment Canvas™ – 35″ x 56″ (Poster Size) – by Braden Kelley

34. To Change the World You Must First Learn Something About It – by Greg Satell

35. Digital Transformation Virtual Office Hours – Session One – by Braden Kelley

36. Lead Innovation, Don’t Manage It – by Arlen Meyers

37. Are doctors wasting their time on entrepreneurship? – by Arlen Meyers

38. What is design thinking? – EPISODE FIVE – Ask the Consultant – by Braden Kelley

39. Zoom Tutorial – Amazing New PowerPoint Background Feature – by Braden Kelley

40. COVID-19 Presents an Opportunity to Create an Innovation Culture – by Pete Foley

41. Increasing Organizational Agility – by Braden Kelley

42. Innovation Requires Going Fast, Slow and Meta – by Greg Satell

43. Remote Project Management – The Visual Project Charter™ – by Braden Kelley

44. Is innovation everyone’s job? – by Braden Kelley

45. What is your level of Innovation Maturity? – by Braden Kelley

46. Flaws in the Crawl Walk Run Methodology – by Braden Kelley

47. Innovation Teams Do Not Innovate – by Janet Sernack

48. We’re Disrupting People Instead of Industries Now – by Greg Satell

49. Don’t Forget to Innovate the Customer Experience – by Braden Kelley

50. Change Management Needs to Change – by Greg Satell

Accelerate your change and transformation success

51. Everyone hates to fail, why do you? – by Janet Sernack

52. Going with the Flow – by John Bessant

53. Can You Be TOO Strategic? – by Howard Tiersky

54. Competing in a New Era of Innovation – by Greg Satell

55. Fast Company is Wrong – by Braden Kelley

56. A New Age Of Innovation and Our Next Steps – by Greg Satell

57. Avoid the Addition Bias – by Paul Sloane

58. Visualizing Project Planning Success – by Braden Kelley

59. Innovation Ecosystems and Information Rheology – by Arlen Meyers

60. Rise of the Evangelist – by Braden Kelley

61. Creating 21st Century Transformational Learning – by Janet Sernack

62. Re-Skilling and Upskilling People & Teams – by Janet Sernack

63. Creating a Movement that Drives Transformational Change – by Braden Kelley

64. How to Scale Your Culture – by Arlen Meyers

65. A Trigger Strategy for Driving Radical, Transformational Change – by Greg Satell

66. Human-Centered Innovation Toolkit – by Braden Kelley

67. You Must Play and Experiment to Create and Innovate – by Janet Sernack

68. Managing Both the Present and the Future – by Janet Sernack

69. Why Change Failure Occurs – by Greg Satell

70. Developing a Future-Fitness Focus – by Janet Sernack

71. Using Intuition to Drive Innovation Success – by Braden Kelley

72. The Academic Intrapreneur Dossier – by Arlen Meyers

73. The Rise of Employee Relationship Management (ERM) – by Braden Kelley

74. An Example of Successful Alchemy – by John Bessant

75. The Dreaded Perfect Entrepreneur – by Arlen Meyers

76. Should intrapreneurs really ask for forgiveness and not permission? – by Arlen Meyers

77. Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow – by Robert B. Tucker

78. Importance of Long-Term Innovation – by Greg Satell

79. Co-creating Future-fit Organizations – by Janet Sernack

80. What you should learn from the Google Health failure – by Arlen Meyers

Get the Change Planning Toolkit

81. Teaching to Win the 4th Industrial Revolution – by Arlen Meyers

82. Catalysing Change Through Innovation Teams – by Janet Sernack

83. Innovation and the Scientific Method – by Jesse Nieminen

84. Being Too Focused on the Test is Dangerous – by Arlen Meyers

85. Architecting the Organization for Change – by Braden Kelley

86. Healthcare Jugaad Innovation of a 17-Year-Old – by Braden Kelley

87. New Capability Mapping Tools for Business Architects – by Braden Kelley

88. How can I create continuous innovation in my organization? – EPISODE TWO – Ask the Consultant – by Braden Kelley

89. Thank You for Your Thinkers50 Nominations – by Braden Kelley

90. Preparing for Organizational Transformation in a Post-COVID World – by Greg Satell

91. Why Change is Hard – by Braden Kelley

92. Building a Better Change Communication Plan – by Braden Kelley

93. What is digital transformation? – EPISODE THREE – Ask the Consultant – by Braden Kelley

94. ACMP Standard for Change Management® Visualization – 35″ x 56″ (Poster Size) – Association of Change Management Professionals – by Braden Kelley

95. Borrow an Idea from a Different Field – by Paul Sloane

96. How to Go From Nail It to Scale It – by Arlen Meyers

97. Innovation in the time of Covid – Satisfycing Organizations – by Pete Foley

98. Sickcare Culture of Conformity versus a Culture of Creativity – by Arlen Meyers

99. Start 2021 with a Free Innovation Audit (Now in Portuguese or English) – by Braden Kelley

100. Outsmarting Those Who Want to Kill Change – by Greg Satell

Curious which article just missed the cut? Well, here it is just for fun:

101. Why so much medical technoskepticism? – by Arlen Meyers

These are the Top 100 innovation and transformation articles of 2021 based on the number of page views. If your favorite Human-Centered Change & Innovation article didn’t make the cut, then send a tweet to @innovate and maybe we’ll consider doing a People’s Choice List for 2021.

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 1-5 new articles every week focused on human-centered change, innovation, transformation and design insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook feed or on Twitter or LinkedIn too!

Editor’s Note: Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all the innovation & transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have a valuable insight to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, contact us.

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021

18 Replies

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021After a week of torrid voting and much passionate support, along with a lot of gut-wrenching consideration and jostling during the judging round, I am proud to announce your Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021:

  1. Janet Sernack
    Janet SernackJanet Sernack is the Founder and CEO of ImagineNation™ which provides innovation consulting services to help organizations adapt, innovate and grow through disruption by challenging businesses to be, think and act differently to co-create a world where people matter & innovation is the norm.
  2. Greg Satell
    Greg SatellGreg Satell is a popular speaker and consultant. His first book, Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age, was selected as one of the best business books in 2017. Follow his blog at Digital Tonto or on Twitter @Digital Tonto.
  3. Braden Kelley
    Braden KelleyBraden Kelley is a Human-Centered Experience, Innovation and Transformation consultant at HCL Technologies, a popular innovation speaker, workshop leader, and creator of the Human-Centered Change™ methodology. He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons and Charting Change from Palgrave Macmillan. Follow him on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

  4. Jesse Nieminen
    Jesse NieminenJesse Nieminen is the Co-founder and Chairman at Viima, the best way to collect and develop ideas. Viima’s innovation management software is already loved by thousands of organizations all the way to the Global Fortune 500. He’s passionate about helping leaders drive innovation in their organizations and frequently writes on the topic, usually in Viima’s blog.
  5. Robert B Tucker
    Robert TuckerRobert B. Tucker is the President of The Innovation Resource Consulting Group. He is a speaker, seminar leader and an expert in the management of innovation and assisting companies in accelerating ideas to market.
  6. Rachel Audige
    Rachel AudigeRachel Audige is an Innovation Architect who helps organisations embed inventive thinking as well as a certified Systematic Inventive Thinking Facilitator, based in Melbourne.

  7. Howard Tiersky
    Howard TierskyHoward Tiersky is an inspiring and passionate speaker, the Founder and CEO of FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency, innovation consultant, serial entrepreneur, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance. IDG named him one of the “10 Digital Transformation Influencers to Follow Today”, and Enterprise Management 360 named Howard “One of the Top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers That Will Change Your World.”
  8. Paul Sloane
    Paul SloanePaul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader and editor of A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing, both published by Kogan-Page.
  9. Pete Foley
    A twenty-five year Procter & Gamble veteran, Pete has spent the last 8+ years applying insights from psychology and behavioral science to innovation, product design, and brand communication. He spent 17 years as a serial innovator, creating novel products, perfume delivery systems, cleaning technologies, devices and many other consumer-centric innovations, resulting in well over 100 granted or published patents. Find him at pete.mindmatters@gmail.com
  10. Nicolas Bry
    Nicolas BryNicolas is an International Innovation Executive, expert in corporate innovation programs, and innovation labs, designing place where good innovation thrives! He currently helps the 20 innovation managers of Orange Africa to develop their projects locally. In 2019 he wrote The Intrapreneurs’ Factory, a practical guide to leverage intrapreneurship for your company, and is the writer of the innovation blog RapidInnovation.fr.

    11. Build a common language of innovation on your team

  11. Arlen Meyers
    Arlen MyersArlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org
  12. Linda Naiman
    Linda NaimanLinda Naiman helps executives and their teams develop creativity, innovation, and leadership capabilities, through coaching, training and consulting. She brings a multi-disciplinary approach to learning and development by leveraging arts-based practices to foster creativity at work, and design thinking as a strategy for innovation.

  13. Anthony Mills
    Anthony MillsAnthony Mills is the Founder & CEO of Legacy Innovation Group (www.legacyinnova.com), a world-leading strategic innovation consulting firm working with organizations all over the world. Anthony is also the Executive Director of GInI – Global Innovation Institute (www.gini.org), the world’s foremost certification, accreditation, and membership organization in the field of innovation. Anthony has advised leaders from around the world on how to successfully drive long-term growth and resilience through new innovation. Learn more at www.anthonymills.com. Anthony can be reached directly at anthony@anthonymills.com.
  14. John Bessant
    John BessantJohn Bessant has been active in research, teaching, and consulting in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. Today, he is Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Research Director, at Exeter University. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank, and the OECD. John has authored many books including Managing innovation and High Involvement Innovation (Wiley). Follow @johnbessant
  15. Mike Shipulski
    Mike ShipulskiMike Shipulski brings together people, culture, and tools to change engineering behavior. He writes daily on Twitter as @MikeShipulski and weekly on his blog Shipulski On Design.
  16. Scott Anthony
    Scott AnthonyScott Anthony is a strategic advisor, writer and speaker on topics of growth and innovation. He has been based in Singapore since 2010, and currently serves at the Managing Director of Innosight’s Asia-Pacific operations.

  17. Jeffrey Phillips
    Jeffrey Phillips has over 15 years of experience leading innovation in Fortune 500 companies, federal government agencies and non-profits. He is experienced in innovation strategy, defining and implementing front end processes, tools and teams and leading innovation projects. He is the author of Relentless Innovation and OutManeuver. Jeffrey writes the popular Innovate on Purpose blog. Follow him @ovoinnovation
  18. Phil McKinney
    Phil McKinneyPhil McKinney is the Author of “Beyond The Obvious”​, Host of the Killer Innovations Podcast and Syndicated Radio Show, a Keynote Speaker, President & CEO CableLabs and an Innovation Mentor and Coach.

  19. Gijs van Wulfen
    Gijs van WulfenGijs van Wulfen helps organizations to structure the chaotic start of innovation as author, speaker and facilitator. He is the founder of the FORTH innovation method and author of the innovation bestseller The Innovation Expedition. He was chosen by LinkedIn as one of their first 150 Influencers. Follow Gijs @gijsvanwulfen

  20. Kate Hammer
    Kate HammerKate Hammer is a joint founder of KILN, working with large-scale companies in the USA and Australia to transform their internal innovation processes. Kate works as a business storyteller. In 2012, she created StoryFORMs to help others articulate their commercial & organisational stories. Kate offers workshops & 1:1 coaching.

    21. Accelerate your change and transformation success

  21. Phil Buckley
    Phil BuckleyPhil Buckley is an award-winning author and change management strategist with over 32 large-scale change initiatives, including co-leading global change management for the $19.6 billion Kraft Foods acquisition of Cadbury. He is the author of two books: Change on the Run and Change with Confidence. You can find Phil’s podcast and monthly newsletter at www.changewithconfidence.com.
  22. Tamara Ghandour
    Tamara GhandourTamara Ghandour of GoToLaunchStreet is a TED speaker and entrepreneur. From building and running multimillion dollar businesses, advising Fortune 500 like Disney, Procter and Gamble and RICOH on fostering innovative ideas and people. Tamara’s life is about breaking through the status quo for game-changing results, and that’s what her keynotes, online programs and assessments can do for you.
  23. Tom Koulopoulos
    Thomas KoulopoulosTom Koulopoulos is the author of 10 books and founder of the Delphi Group, a 25-year-old Boston-based think tank and a past Inc. 500 company that focuses on innovation and the future of business. He tweets from @tkspeaks.
  24. Michael Graber
    Michael GraberMichael Graber is the cofounder and managing partner at Southern Growth Studio, a Memphis-based firm that specializes in growth strategy and innovation. A published poet and musician, Graber is the creative force that complements the analytical side of the house. He speaks and publishes frequently on best practices in design thinking, business strategy, and innovation and earned an MFA from the University of Memphis.
  25. Yoram Solomon
    Four Rules to Snap Judge a New VentureDr. Yoram Solomon is the author of The Book of Trust and 12 more books, a TEDx and keynote speaker, the founder of the Innovation Culture Institute, and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship. You can follow him everywhere on @yoramsolomon.
  26. Shilpi Kumar
    Shilpi KumarShilpi Kumar an inquisitive researcher, designer, strategist and an educator with over 15 years of experience, who truly believes that we can design a better world by understanding human behavior. I work with organizations to identify strategic opportunities and offer user-centric solutions.
  27. Shawn Nason
    Shawn NasonShawn Nason, founder and CEO of MOFI, lives his life with a commitment to make everyone he meets a part of his family. Armed with the gift of discernment, he has the uncanny ability to walk alongside people as they struggle to connect with their deepest passions and engage their most debilitating demons. He challenges the world around him to be fully present, get real, and knock down the barrier that separates the various compartments in their lives.

  28. John Carter
    John CarterJohn Carter has been a widely respected adviser to technology firms over his career. John is the author of Innovate Products Faster: Graphical Tools for Accelerating Product Development. As Founder and Principal of TCGen Inc., he has advised some of the most revered technology firms in the world.
  29. Jeff Rubingh
    Jeff RubinghJeff Rubingh is a technology innovation expert, consultant and analyst. Focused on the intersection between technology and business, Jeff helps clients identify ground-breaking solutions that maximize ROI across existing and emerging technology disciplines.
  30. Ludwig Melik
    Ludwig MelikLudwig Melik is CEO of Planbox, whose mission is to help organizations thrive by transforming the culture of agile work, continuous innovation, and creativity across the entire organization… Connect with him on LinkedIn or join the conversation by following Planbox on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

    Get the Change Planning Toolkit

  31. Soren Kaplan
    Soren KaplanSoren Kaplan is the bestselling and award-winning author of Leapfrogging and The Invisible Advantage, an affiliated professor at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, a former corporate executive, and a co-founder of UpBOARD. He has been recognized by the Thinkers50 as one of the world’s top keynote speakers and thought leaders in business strategy and innovation.
  32. Shelly Greenway
    Shelly GreenwayShelly Greenway is a front-end innovation strategist and partner at The Strategy Distillery – a brand innovation consultancy that specialises in opportunity hunting and proposition development. Their success rates are driven by their proprietary consumer co-creation IP. Follow @ChiefDistiller
  33. Eric Eskey
    Eric EskeyEric Eskey is a Managing Director at Strategyn, an innovation consultancy. Eric is in the business of creating the future. I aim to use the resources he has – his work, investments, voice, and imagination – to encourage innovation and defeat the hidden forces that resist it.

  34. Mick Simonelli
    Mick SimonelliMick Simonelli is an innovator with 20+ years of implementing change and positive disruption at USAA. As a military veteran, he held transformation roles in numerous military organizations; and as a business executive, he purposely hired vets to help launch numerous innovations as the Chief Innovation Officer for a Fortune 500 company. Mick currently serves as an innovation consultant and can be found at www.micksimonelli.com Follow @MickSimonelli

  35. Mitch Ditkoff
    Mitch Ditkoff is the Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions and the author of “Awake at the Wheel”, as well as the very popular Heart of Innovation blog.

  36. Peter Cook
    Peter CookPeter Cook leads Human Dynamics and The Academy of Rock, providing Keynotes, Organisational Development and Coaching. He is the author of seven books on business leadership. His three passions are science, business and music, having led innovation teams for 18 years to develop life-saving drugs including the first treatments for AIDS and the development of Human Insulin. Peter is Music and Business editor at Innovation Excellence. You can follow him on twitter @Academyofrock.

  37. Mukesh Gupta
    Mukesh GuptaMukesh Gupta is Director of Customer Advocacy, SAP India Private Limited. He also served as Executive Liaison for the SAP User group in India, and as a Global Lead in Sales & Business Development. He blogs, and shares podcasts and videos, on his site rmukeshgupta.com

  38. Paul Hobcraft
    Paul HobcraftPaul Hobcraft runs Agility Innovation, an advisory business that stimulates sound innovation practice, researches topics that relate to innovation for the future, as well as aligning innovation to organizations core capabilities. Follow @paul4innovating
  39. Ralph Christian Ohr
    Ralph OhrDr. Ralph-Christian Ohr has extensive experience in product/innovation management for international technology-based companies. His particular interest is targeted at the intersection of organizational and human innovation capabilities. You can follow him on Twitter @Ralph_Ohr.
  40. Randy Pennington
    Randy PenningtonRandy Pennington is an award-winning author, speaker, and leading authority for helping leaders deliver positive results in a world of uncertainty and change. To learn more or to engage Randy for your organization, visit www.penningtongroup.com, email info@penningtongroup.com, or call 972-980-9857 (U.S.).

If your favorite didn’t make the list, then next year try to rally more votes for them or convince them to increase the quality and quantity of their contributions.

Our lists from the ten previous years have been tremendously popular, including:

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2015
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2016
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2017
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2018
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2019
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020

Download PDF versions of the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020 and 2021 lists here:


Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020 PDF . . . Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021

Happy New Year everyone!

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.

Entrepreneurs Must Think Like a Change Leader

2 Replies

Entrepreneurs Must Think Like a Change Leader

Some entrepreneurs start a business because they want to be their own boss doing something they understand. But many startup entrepreneurs start a business because they want to change something, to deliver more value for customers than existing solutions, to disrupt an industry, to become a unicorn, etc. Entrepreneurs like this will need to become masters of change.

You have a great idea.

And you’re hoping to launch a business and change the world, making a dollar or two along the way.

Does this describe you?

If so, you will need to know how to build and operate a business. You will need to be able to profitably manufacture and sell your product and/or service. But you will also need to be really good at something that many people don’t think about when they’re creating a startup.

You must become good at leading change because you are going to be asking people to change their behavior, and people don’t do this easily and may even resist.

But it is possible to understand and harness the Eight Change Mindsets™ that cause people to choose change. These include:

  1. Mover ’n’ Shaker: give these people the chance to be first

  2. Thrill Seeker: these people like to try new things and experiment

  3. Mission-Driven: these people need reasons to believe

  4. Action-Oriented: these people just want to know what needs to be done

  5. Expert-Minded: teach these people how to do it, and they will seek mastery

  6. Reward-Hungry: these people want recognition for adopting the change

  7. Team Player: these people are happy to help if you show them why the change will be helpful

  8. Teacher: show these people how to get others to choose change

Getting people to choose change is important because you’ll be asking people to abandon their existing solution to adopt yours – even if it is the do-nothing solution. This is not easy because people get comfortable using their existing solution and will be uncomfortable with the idea of doing something different.

Eight Change Mindsets to Harness for Success

If you read through this list and imagine what might happen if you haven’t addressed these mindsets in your business plan, you should quickly find yourself with eight potential explanations for why people might resist your new product or service and start having ideas about how to create initiatives to leverage them to overcome potential resistance.

When we break out the trap of thinking about all customers as the same or out of demographic segmentation traps we can start to see our potential customers as people and to identify their different motivations that will determine whether our business is a raging success or a humbling failure.

This is of course assuming that you’ve leveraged my Innovation is All About Value approach to make sure that you’re hitting on all three cylinders with the product or service that you’re bringing to market:

  1. Value Creation is pretty self-explanatory. Your innovation investment must create incremental or completely new value large enough to overcome the switching costs of moving to your new solution from the old solution (including the ‘Do Nothing Solution’). New value can be created by making something more efficient, more effective, possible that wasn’t possible before, or create new psychological or emotional benefits.

  2. Value Access could also be thought of as friction reduction. How easy do you make it for customers and consumers to access the value you’ve created. How well has the product or service been designed to allow people to access the value easily? How easy is it for the solution to be created? How easy is it for people to do business with you?

  3. Value Translation is all about helping people understand the value you’ve created and how it fits into their lives. Value translation is also about understanding where on a continuum between the need for explanation and education that your solution falls. Incremental innovations can usually just be explained to people because they anchor to something they already understand, but radical or disruptive innovations inevitably require some level of education (often far in advance of the launch).

Doing well on two of them and poorly on the third will still lead to failure. Too often people only focus on value creation – to their own detriment. Helping people access the value you’re creating and to understand how it fits into their lives are equally important.

If you invest in doing all three well for your product and/or service and leverage the Eight Change Mindsets™, introduced in my latest book Charting Change, you will be unstoppable!

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.