Tag: innovation

In Always Day One, tech reporter Alex Kantrowitz explores the industry’s unique culture of innovation. More than just a catchy slogan, the book’s title refers to the bedrock principle employed by one of the largest, most successful companies in the world: Amazon. The logic being that failure to invent like a start-up will eventually lead to irrelevance and decline. Kantrowitz builds upon this principle, along with other tools and tactics, used by the tech giants to propel their growth and dominance at the stage when most big companies begin to fail.

Though these companies do receive a fair amount of criticism, Kantrowitz argues that we must extract the most useful tactics in their playbook in order to level the playing field. “The tech giants are successful largely because they’ve reimagined how we approach work. With the assistance of automation and collaboration software, they’ve figured out how to maximize the time their employees spend coming up with new ideas and minimize the time they spend supporting existing products,” Kantrowitz says. In other words, by not becoming overly attached to their flagship products, companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are able to continually reinvent. And it’s time that other organizations started taking note. The economic hardship presented by COVID-19 leaves no other choice.

In a post-pandemic world, the leaders who cling to their legacy assets and protect them at all costs won’t get very far. But the leaders who build cultures like the ones modelled by the tech giants—cultures that prioritize invention and reinvention—will have more than a fighting chance.

To book speaker Alex Kantrowitz for your next virtual event, contact The Lavin Agency today, his exclusive speakers bureau.

When it comes to loss of life, the coronavirus is no doubt a human tragedy of epic proportions. But when it comes to the future of our economy? It’s not necessarily all doom and gloom. In his latest LinkedIn article, Public Sapient’s John Maeda explains why this crisis is different from those we have previously experienced. 

In Create the Future, Trend Hunter CEO and New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Gutsche reveals the frameworks that have helped 700 of the world’s most powerful brands, billionaires, and CEOs, accelerate real change.  

Through his consulting work with Trend Hunter—not to mention his experience hosting the world’s #1 innovation conference, Future Festival—Jeremy Gutsche has helped countless brands realize their full potential. In his new book Create the Future, he aims to help readers do the same.

“You likely already realize that survival in business today requires grabbing hold of tomorrow's opportunities with disruptive innovation, before your competition or a new startup gets there,” writes Martin Zwilling in his review of the book for Inc. “The challenge is to create a culture of forward thinking in your company, and avoid the traps of following the paths of least resistance that often appear in mature companies.”

With his captivating writing, Gutsche shows readers how to avoid these common traps that prevent progress. Create the Future is a tactical guidebook chock-full of strategies tested by leaders at Disney, Starbucks, Google, and even NASA. Better yet, the book is paired with a revised edition of Gutsche’s first book Exploiting Chaos—an Inc Best Book for Business Owners, an Axiom International Book Award Winner, and a #1 CEO Read.

Read the full Inc review here.

To book speaker Jeremy Gutsche for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency today, his exclusive speakers bureau.

As the co-founder of innovation consultancy Innosight, Mark Johnson helps leaders envision their future, create new growth, and manage transformation. His upcoming book Lead from the Future breaks down what truly sets a visionary leader apart—and how to instill their unique approach into your own organization.  

There’s no special mix of attributes that create a visionary leader like Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs. But there is a special way of thinking that makes their extraordinary successes possible. In his upcoming book Lead from the Future,  Mark Johnson breaks down such visionary leadership into a process called “future-back.” Unlike present-forward thinking, which imagines an organization in the future in small increments, future-back thinking empowers leaders to make a clean break from the past and present so they can truly own the future.

A lucid thinker and an even more brilliant explainer, Johnson can transform even the most complacent company into a visionary powerhouse. In his talks, he walks organizations through the visionary fundamentals: creating a vision, connecting it to a strategy,  then programming and implementing. Not only does he help companies think creatively and expansively; Johnson helps embed the revolutionary process of ‘future-back’ thinking into the very heart of an organization: its culture.

To book speaker Mark Johnson for your next corporate event, contact The Lavin Agency today, his exclusive speakers bureau. 

More than just a business buzzword, innovation has become a coveted ideal for nearly every organization on earth. The problem is, though everyone wants innovation, few know how to actually attain it. In his upcoming book Create the Future, Trend Hunter CEO and New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Gutsche offers a guide for mastering real change. 

If you want to understand the most creative people—and companies— in business today, look no further than Stephanie Mehta. A veteran in business journalism, Mehta spends her days talking to corporate leaders, social innovators, and creative minds. Her exposure to inventors and entrepreneurs give her a unique perspective on where business is going. What makes these leaders and their cutting-edge companies successful? How do they motivate their teams? Implement new trends? Learn from their mistakes? With care and consideration, Mehta breaks down the culture and processes that allow for innovation, adaptation, creativity, discipline and resilience in a business landscape changing at a dizzying pace.  

To book speaker Stephanie Mehta for your next speaking engagement, contact The Lavin Agency today, her exclusive speakers bureau.  

In her latest op-ed, Harvard Business School professor Laura Huang explains how Universal Basic Income will revolutionize the start-up world for those who are systematically disadvantaged.

Trend Hunter CEO Jeremy Gutsche invited New York Times alum Malcolm Gladwell to the Trend Hunter offices for a thoughtful discussion on how and why we should challenge our assumptions—and the value it brings.  

To book an Innovation speaker for your next speaking event, contact The Lavin Agency today.

How can you maximize innovation, reduce risk, and build an entrepreneurial organization? Harvard Business Professor Laura Huang explains the importance of the Minimum Viable Product in achieving all three goals. 

To book speaker Laura Huang for your next event, contact a sales representative at The Lavin Agency for more information.  

Over 300 of the most influential entrepreneurs will gather for the fourth annual Forbes Under 30 Summit Asia. Creator Randall Lane discusses the significance of the event, and the Under 30 platform as a whole.

Forbes 30 Under 30 is practically a cultural institution. Conceived in 2011 by the magazine’s Chief Content Officer Randall Lane, the Under 30 lists began as curated collections of industry leaders and entrepreneurs. Today, Forbes Under 30 has exploded into a vibrant global franchise, hosting live summits and events throughout the United States, Asia, Europe, and Israel. “The Forbes Under 30 Summit Asia will see these young leaders exchange stories, share ideas, and present innovative solutions as they drive and effect positive change to make a lasting impact on our world,” said Lane.

Lane started at Forbes after graduating college, but left to start his own entrepreneurial ventures in 1997. He returned to the magazine after 15 years, bringing with him the idea for 30 Under 30. “With Forbes, the first thing I did when I got back here, the first thing that I put into motion was 30 Under 30,” he explained in an interview with The Idea. “But I said, we’re going to do twenty different categories, we’re going to bring in some outside judges in the world so it’s not just a bunch of editors coming up with a list: it’s the creme de la creme, the gods of each of these fields, and then we’re going to take it global, so we’re going to have a real global community of influencers. So again, the idea had been kind of tested, but to tie it in with a brand, and then with a major execution, was really the Edison moment.”

Now a cross-platform, 365-day community, Forbes Under 30 is especially celebrated by younger audiences, who engage with it as almost a consumer product. “It’s popular in the younger demographic because everybody wants to keep tabs on who in their generation is making change and making things happen,” explained Lane. “[…] A lot of the interest is […] from people who want to know who’s next, and that’s what this list does, it’s the early warning system for every single field in every single major country.”

Themed “A Lasting Impact,” this year’s Summit in Asia will feature panels and keynotes across three main topics: Innovating for the Long Haul, Driving Sustainability, and Solving Today’s and Tomorrow’s Social Problems.

Visit our dedicated Innovation Speakers page, or contact The Lavin Agency for more information on how to book a speaker.

Charles Fishman is a world-class storyteller. He’s spent his career getting inside organizations—big and small, familiar and unknown—and explaining how they work. In his New York Times bestselling The Wal-Mart Effect, Fishman transformed the public’s understanding of the mega-corporation. In The Big Thirst, he cracked open our complex relationship with water. His latest, the forthcoming One Giant Leap tells the story of the moon landing like its never been told before, focusing on the extraordinary team of ordinary people who made it happen. 

Fishman—a three-time winner of the prestigious Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism—is a renowned investigative and explanatory journalist. His talks, filled with memorable stories and anecdotes, draw from years of his original research. In his TED talk below, he explains why asking questions is one of our most underrated tools.   

To book Charles Fishman for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency, his exclusive speakers bureau. 

The world is changing—fast. Innovation and creativity are becoming the most valuable assets a company can hire for, encourage and cultivate. But how does innovation actually happen? What does it really look like in action? These innovation keynote speakers are professors, entrepreneurs, scientists; they’re working on the front lines of innovation, helping you to better understand—and manage—your future.   

Safi Bahcall is a physicist, entrepreneur, and innovation keynote speaker who’s spent his career studying “loonshots”: wild, innovative ideas, that are largely considered crazy—until they change the world. In talks, Bahcall uses illustrative historical examples and bold analysis to reveal the surprising ways that group behavior stifles innovation, and how corporations can restructure to nurture it.  

“The winner with consumers will always be whoever has the best strategy for managing the cultural, ethical and political factors of their innovation,” says Markus Giesler—one of the 40 Best Business Professors Under 40, an incredibly influential consumer sociologist and a top innovation keynote speaker. 

Science and tech are changing our lives, and no one’s more equipped to tell the story than Nicholas Thompson. As editor-in-chief of WIRED, Thompson is the first person to know, and investigate, and deliver keynote talks on the technological innovations and ethical questions unfolding in Silicon Valley. 

We tend to imagine innovation as slow, incremental change or else industry-shifting disruption. Yet for most companies, neither works. In innovation keynotes, MIT Sloan professor David Robertson outlines a third way of innovation—actual working strategies for world-class companies. 

Ari Wallach is a futurist, strategist, and social innovation expert. He is an innovation keynote speaker and the founder and Executive Director of Longpath Labs—an initiative focused on cultivating long-term ways of thinking, acting, and being to create futures of collective human flourishing. 

Jeremy Gutsche is “an intellectual can of Red Bull” (Association Week), a New York Times bestselling author and one of our most booked innovation keynote speakers. With contagious enthusiasm, he shows audiences how to use methodical innovation to generate ideas and kickstart creativity in times of rapid change.   

Michael Katchen is the founder of Wealthsimple, the easy-to-use service that’s redefined investing for the next generation. In keynotes, he talks about how embracing innovation as an organic, practical process allows companies to solve big problems, to reinvent themselves and, of course, to grow. 

Disruptive technologies are permanently changing the way we conceive, design, manufacture, and sell products. To veteran innovator Tom Wujec—Autodesk’s former ‘Chief Disruptor’—this revolution isn’t intimidating, but an exciting opportunity. And Wujec’s keynote talks are the perfect guide.   

Nina Tandon works on growing artificial hearts and bones that can be put into the body, and studies the new frontier of biotech: homes, textiles, and videogames made of cells. Her keynote talks are on the future of healthcare and technology, and biology's new industrial revolution. 

Doug Stephens is one of the most influential retail futurists and speakers on the planet. His innovation keynotes are required listening for any company that orbits the retail world, explaining how to stay ahead of rapidly changing mega-trends, and what it really takes to be truly innovative.

To learn more about Lavin’s cutting edge innovation keynote speakers, contact us today.  

The four-day summit, named WIRED25, was a celebration of the ideas, innovations, and icons that made the world wired. In addition to work immersions, keynotes, and even a robot petting zoo, editor-in-chief Nicholas Thompson, conducted thoughtful, illuminating interviews with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, and Stacy Brown-Philpot of TaskRabbit, about the future of work.

In the interview below, Thompson asks the LinkedIn CEO, who has access to the best data set on the world’s workforce, what he knows about the future of work that no one else does. One surprising answer (among many) is that he believes the biggest skills gap in the US is soft skills. “Written communication, oral communication, team building, people leadership, collaboration.”

You can watch and read more WIRED25 content here. 

To book Nicholas Thompson—or another keynote speaker on technology, digital innovation and the future of work—for your next speaking event, contact The Lavin Agency today.