Skip to content

Phil McKinney

Phil McKinney is an innovator, podcaster, author, and speaker. He is the retired CTO of HP. Phil's book, Beyond The Obvious, shares his expertise and lessons learned on innovation and creativity.

7 Laws of Innovation and Benefitting from Coaching Insights

Laws of Innovation Why do some organizations have better innovation than others?  Over the years I have collected what I call the “7 Immutable Laws of Innovation.”  No single organization could be successful in all of these laws but there are always opportunities to improve.  Let’s get started with

Laws of Innovation

Education and Change

About a year ago I got a call inviting me to participate in a meeting with the Department of Education because they were actively looking at ways to innovate how kids are educated. I agreed to participate in a meeting in San Francisco, and I was happy to have the opportunity to do so. My […]

Education

Better Ways to Co-Innovation and Strategic Storytelling

Co-Innovation What is Co-Innovation?  Co-Innovation is two parties with unique expertise that come together in a 50/50 funding of resources.  The key component being they have complimentary interests. Think of it as a Venn diagram.  The goal of Co-Innovation is to find where the Venn diagrams overlap.  Co-Innovation means:

Co-Innovation

The Battle for Customers

Odds are that you and your competitors are actually competing in two distinct ways. The obvious battle is the one to win customers from each other. The less obvious, but equally important, one is the battle for the resources required to produce your product. We touched on the concept of unexpected j

battle

Apollo 11 Moon Landing: the Innovation that gave NASA and the World the View

The success of the Apollo 11 mission, the first moon landing, inspires our innovative passions and pursuits.  With the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, I’ve been looking back at all of those that impacted and supported an incredible journey.  In this episode of Killer Innovations,

apollo 11

Pitch Timing and Selling Your Idea

Making Your Pitch Keep the pitch simple, and build it around the Guy Kawasaki Rule of 10/20/30: 10 slides, 20 minutes, nothing smaller than 30-point font. Remember that you are telling a story; you want a spokesperson who can bring the idea to life and get people excited. Practice pitching the idea

Pitch

Innovation Strength: Acquiring Innovation/ Avoiding the Biggest Risks to Innovation

What is the strength of innovation in your organization?  In this week’s Killer Innovations, we explore avenues to building innovation strength.  Innovation from Mergers and Acquisitions can be a fast track to innovation.  What are the pros and cons to this innovation path? We also look at the five

Innovation Strength

Free Shipping!

The other day my daughter Rachel ordered some shoes from Zappos. She’s used them a few times in the past, and the next morning she got an e-mail saying her shoes had been shipped overnight as a reward for being a good customer. Now, one of Zappos’ gimmicks is that shipping is always free, but […]

Shipping

Ideas + Innovation Culture = Innovation Success

Innovation is all about translating ideas into real products, real services and real solutions.   Ideas without execution are a hobby.  Is your organization in the business of innovation?   This week’s show boils it down to a simple equation.  Ideas + Innovation Culture = Innovation Success.  The process starts with ideas and

Innovation Success

Brainstorming Quality Ideas

I’ve given you my system for using the Killer Questions to generate the quality ideas that lead to great innovations. Now comes your challenge: getting this information out of the book and into your organization. In this chapter I’ll give you a few essential rules for running a successful innovation

quality ideas