How to Innovate – Ryan Jacoby on The Product Experience

Ryan Jacoby is an expert on innovation, but not, perhaps, on optimising book titles for SEO – his book, Making Progress, is a guide on how to ensure that your team is open to and successful at innovation. Ryan has been working in the field since his undergraduate days, when he became the first person to complete Stanford's Design School program.  He joined us to chat about progress vs process, creating an innovation agenda, and how cleaning a room can inspire a team's progress.

Quote of the Episode

You have to be interested in being wrong on purpose, as cheaply as possible, so you can eventually be right.

Listen if you'd like to learn more about

• Where does innovation come from in an organisation?
• The difference between innovation and transformation
• How to be wary of solutions posing as problems
• Is it getting easier or harder to innovate?

Links mentioned in this episode

• Follow Ryan on Twitter, check out his work with Machine
• Read Ryan's book, Making Progress –  US / UK / DE
• Understanding Doblin’s 10 types of innovations with examples
• The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate
• Clayton Christensen's Disruptive Innovation

Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers' meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching ProductCamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of The Product Experience podcast.

A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He's spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg and Manchester), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford, and Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe.

Music

Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more on their Facebook page

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