In this episode we’re speaking with designer, educator and thought leader Per Axbom about his book “Digital Compassion as a Driver of Innovation”. As someone who’s been on the leading edge of UX and digital design for the last 15 years Per talks about the need for designers to recognize and understand the negative impacts that digital design can and does have on people. He also shares both insights and tools to break through the willful ignorance of many organizations.

In this episode we’re speaking with John Mortimer who works with public sector organizations in the U.K. and Sweden to help them reinvent their work and redesign their systems. We talk with John about why it feels like it’s so difficult to innovate in public organizations and the impact that the current paradigm of New Public Management has on inhibiting change and improvement. John discusses the many challenges on the personal level for those engaged in the public sector as well as the need to work at a systemic level to actually change things for the better.

In this episode of Innovation Explorers we’re speaking with the provacative Maria Giudice, who founded the design shop Hot Studio and worked as global design director for Facebook and Autodesk. Maria talks about her new book “Changemakers: How Leaders Can Design Change in an Insanely Complex World”, a follow up to her 2013 book “Rise of the DEO: Leadership by Design.” Maria shares with us her strategies for breaking through the friction of inaction and mediocrity and how changemakers, innovators and designers need to be smart about navigating a system in which they may be seen as a foreign element. And she notes that in order to be a change maker, you have to be optimistic about the future.

Over five years, Mike created, led and scaled the Government Digital Service (GDS) as UK’s first Executive Director of Digital and Chief Data Officer. Mike talks to us about the challenges and successes of creating user-driven public digital policies and how public institutions rather than private ones might be better at taking the risks of creating future-oriented solutions.

Inefficient meetings cost us tons of money. How can we redesign our meetings and conversations to make them better? In this episode we’re speaking with Daniel Stillman, designer, facilitation expert, and author of the book “Good Talk”.

In this episode we’re speaking with Tom Goodwin, author of “Digital Darwinism” keynote speaker and digital and innovation thought leader. Tom talks about how he views the world like a big r&d lab and how he tries to help his clients make sense of it all. Tom talks about a new way of describing “disruptive innovation” that is very different from the  way that Clayton Christensen described it and how the act of asking good questions is not only highly underrated but critical in creating innovation and making our world a better place.

How can you spark delight and joy for your users and customers, and not only solve a problem? In our never-ending pursuit of efficiency and profitability it seems we’ve forgotten something extremely human. Rich talks to Lorie Loeb, Professor of Computer Science and founder of the DALI Lab at Darmouth College, and Talia Wheatley, Lincoln Filene Professor in Human Relations and the Director, Consortium for Interacting Minds in the Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. We talk about Designing for Delight and Joy, those small, hugely valuable moments for ourselves and our brains, and the how we don’t really need to spend all of our time “fixing” or “solving” things.

What is the ISO 56000 Standard for Innovation Management, and why should you care? We talk to Kalle Jegers, PhD, on why there is a standard, what it contains and how organisations can use it to enhance its innovations efforts.

This week Kat Zhou joins us to talk about ethical design, how we as “users” are manipulated much more than we think, and what designers can start doing to resist un-ethical design decisions.

Are you suffering from innovation fatigue?-The power of slow and boring innovation. Are you and your colleagues suffering from “Innovation Fatigue” - a common ailment approaching pandemic levels due to overdoses of Innovation Theater? Listen in on our podcast with author, Alf Rehn, Professor of Innovation, Design, and Management at the University of Southern Denmark as he talks about the power of boring and slow innovation, about the need for Radical Patience and how innovation is like raising a child.

In this episode of Innovation Explorers we talk with Aric Wood, CEO of Xplane and author of the new book “The Strategy Activation Playbook.”  We’ve all heard about various digital transformation or innovation initiatives that have failed spectacularly. Arik talks about the gap between strategy and actually getting organisations to work differently. If you’re trying to figure out how to create a vision for your innovation or transformation initiative and how to get your entire organization to do it (and want to do it), this podcast will help you.

Studies show that 97% of employees are scared of making mistakes, which makes it very difficult to create meaningful innovation. How can we tackle this? Rich Nadworny shares his thoughts and gives some advice on how to handle all this fear in innovation processes. And, as a bonus, why we should beware of experts.

What can innovators learn from Karate Kid? Johan Lager and Simon Mare joins the podcast to talk about the difference between the expectations many have on working with innovation and reality's often hard work.

The culture within your organization has a major effect on how well any innovation initiative will succeed. What kind of culture do you need, and how do you create it? In this episode we speak with Karin Tenelius of Tuff Leadership who has been working with these questions for 30 years.

When innovating, it's crucial to have a clear goal so that you put your resources to work in the right direction and that you can ensure you have a buy in from the organization. In this episode I interview Per Lundgren, who has been working on visions for a large number of organisations.

The 3 Box Solution is a great model for organisations to use to understand and clarify the need for innovation. Our customers love it, much due to the simplicity. Listen to Kalle Jegers, PhD, explain how to use it.

Why is innovation so hard in large organisation? Why do so many initiatives die? We discuss these issues together with Anna Viggedal, who has struggled with these issues for many years in large, international corporations.

We dive into the definitions of, and differences between ideas, inventions and innovation. Why is it important to understand the differences?

A brief introduction to Exploring Innovation. Who is this podcast for? What is our goal? Who are we?