Out of the Lab and into the Marketplace

Out of the Lab and into the Marketplace by Rachel Antalek

Rachel shared some of the experiences and tools from her time as VP, Concept Innovation at Starbucks, during her interactive keynote.

She emphasized the importance of starting with the end in mind; from:

Ideation – Concept design – Experimentation & iteration – Testing — Launch

Think about what implementation challenges would arise in the concept design stage.  Prototype and iterate while experimentation, early in the process.

Mitigate the blockers and win the uncommitted in the organization.   Don’t bring blockers in with the idea of winning them, but rather bring them in early, to get all the issues right on the table.  Flood them with data as you advance in the process.  Bring the uncommitted to observe, critique and contribute, as you are designing and experimenting.

“Nail the hand-off”: find your internal client, invite them to be part of key activities during the design.  Assign an innovation team member to ride along for testing and launch as needed.

Measure for success.  Syndicate business models and learnings.  Confirm the business model at statistical scale and tighten revenue projections as you scale.

Business Model Innovation: Prototyping your way from Concept to Commercialization, by Peer Insight Team

Natalie Foley, Clay Maxwell and Mike Johnson, brought their boards along and led the attendees to action with their open and collaborative ways.

To illustrate how they de-risk the investment along the innovation process, they had the attendees team-up in groups of 3, and practice with their tools to discuss how to test the proposed  case study concept and business model for desirability of use, economic & technical feasibility.

It was a great way to practice many of the concepts discussed during the last 3-days!

Marga is a technology leader with an international background and a passion for innovation.  During the last 20 years she has grown her expertise in research and business development, focused in industrial and manufacturing applications of polymer and materials science, bringing technologies to commercialization in multiple markets.  She holds a PhD, is the inventor of several patents and a published author in technical, trade and conference proceedings.