Tag: #innovating

Innovation & Marketing Strategies With Scott Monty

March 3, 2020 / / 0 Comments

On Episode 112 of The Edge of Innovation, we’re talking with executive advisor Scott Monty about innovation and marketing strategies!

Sections

Introduction
Connection to Innovation
New All Over Again
Influencer Marketing
The Common Thread of Marketing
Customer Experience Is Important!
Make Life More Convenient For Your Customer
Results of Focusing on Customer Convenience
The Obvious is Not Always So Obvious
Conclusion: “Stay Curious”
More Episodes
Show Notes

Innovation & Marketing Strategies With Scott Monty

Introduction

Paul: Good afternoon, everyone. Today we’re talking with Scott Monty of Scott Monty Strategies in Canton, Michigan. Welcome, Scott. Are you there?

Scott: I am here. Good to be with you, Paul.

Connection to Innovation

Paul: So. Tell me. Where are we talking to you? What is your connection with innovation?

Scott: Wow. Uh…

Paul: It’s a big question, I know. We’ve gotta just put some handles on it.

Scott: Nothing like jumping right in. I like that. Well, I think there’s a few different ways to look at innovation. And I think innovation in its more common form is thought of in terms of what new wiz-bang thing are you inventing or creating. And, I think that’s perfectly valid.

My take on things actually comes by looking backward, if that makes any sense. I am a classics major from a long time ago. Communications and marketing professional. And what I’ve realized over the course of two decades in the business is that human nature remains the same. You know, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. We keep reacting the same way to things.

And my message to executives when I work with them and their teams is to not think about the latest trend or technology per se, but to focus on the throughput, that line that we see that, that takes us through humanity for all time and then to decide how you’re going to interact with someone based on knowing that about them. And, you may end up on various platforms. You may end up with different ways of speaking to people. But in a lot of ways, we’re going back to the basics, the things that we knew from 40, 50, 60 years ago that worked in business that somehow we’ve thrown aside. And it seems like they’re new all over again.

New All Over Again

Paul: Interesting. Do you find that the people you’re working with think they’re new?

Scott: In some cases, but in other cases, people just kind of slap their forehead and go, “Oh, that’s so… It’s so obvious. Why didn’t I think of that?” And I think this is, again, human nature. We get so focused on what’s right in front of us and on the things that are most important to us that sometimes we neglect to pick our heads up and see the forest through the trees, as it were.

Paul: Right, absolutely. It’s a very obvious statement when you say it, but yet it’s something that everybody needs to be reminded of. Can you give us some anecdotes of where that’s happened just in your recent experience? Not necessarily naming names or products or thing but just sort of some context… Because I think there’s a lot of people who look at the landscape around them and think, “Everybody else has it more together than I do.”

Influencer Marketing

Scott: Yeah, that’s the common thing. And guess what — nobody has a playbook. You know, when we led digital and social at Ford from 2008 to 2014, we were doing things that had never been done before. We were the first car company to reveal a vehicle on Facebook. We were the first ones to really embrace influencers, right? And here’s a topic that’s really relevant now.

We hear all about influencers, influencer marketing, etc. Well, in 2009, Ford put together a program called the Fiesta Movement. And the idea was this. Ford was in the midst of reinventing itself of becoming one company all around the world instead of a bunch of different siloed organizations. And they wanted to share the same engineering expertise, the same marketing expertise, and really begin to work at scale.

And the idea was, well, if we’re going to create a car — let’s say the Ford Focus — it’s going to be the same all the way around the world. And the Fiesta had just snuck in under cycle but somebody looked at this small car and they said, “Hey, you know what? What is coming out in Europe this year. We’re going to bring it out in America the following year. Why don’t we bring 100 of these vehicles over from Europe and put them in the hands of 100 people who have Twitter accounts, YouTube channels, Flickr accounts, blogs, etc. — and again, this is 11 years ago — and give these cars to a hundred people for six months. And all the requirement was they had to make one video a month. And there was a common theme that everybody stuck to each month.

But the genius here is what Ford did was take all of those people’s feeds — their Twitter feeds, their blog, RSS feeds, etc. and aggregated them on a Ford-owned website and allowed that content to be viewed, unfiltered, unedited, in real time, which did a couple of things.

One, it showed how confident Ford was in its product design, that, people weren’t going to find anything inherently wrong with the car. But number two, it also showed that Ford is willing to take the word of third-party individuals —not only its marketing team — and that’s who people connect with. People like themselves. Right?

So, I recently talked about this as a case study when I was giving a strategic communications speech, and, again, this stuff is 11 years old, and yet it still works today because the principles are inherently the same.

Paul: Right. Right. It’s sort of like physics and mathematics. It really doesn’t change all that much. It’s really how we apply it.

Scott: Yeah, I like that.

The Common Thread of Marketing

Paul: So, that’s fascinating. What do you see as you’re dealing with different people? Is there a common thread of… I’ll just say it. Is there a common thread? I’ll go deeper on that as we go, of reaction or action or lack of action by your consultees, I guess? Is that the word? The people you consult with.

Scott: Why it’s interesting because whether you’re talking about the content that they’re producing online or the experience that they’re creating in real life at a store or a… wherever they’ve got customers coming in, they’re focused on getting attention. And, I’ve worked with a number of auto dealers, and there’s a group that continues to pay for new customer acquisition. You know, that’s where most of their budget goes — into lead generation. I think that’s the case of a lot of B2B companies. They focus on lead generation.

And at the same time, they’re not putting a lot of effort into the actual customer experience. What are you doing to retain your customers? What are you doing to make them feel like they’re part of a community, like you are bringing them value every day rather than they’ve just signed the contract with you?

And, and I think if people can get in the mindset of retention rather than attention that will start to turn the bow of this big aircraft carrier that we’re trying to swing around.

Customer Experience Is Important!

Paul: Okay. So, are you seeing that with the people that you’re working with, that they don’t, comprehend customer experience as the goal? They’re so focused on lead generation?

Scott: Well, I think they certainly want to do what’s right for the customer, but, again, it’s kind of lifting your head up and understanding outside of your own sphere. So many executives, brand managers, they get up first thing in the morning, and that’s all they’re thinking about is their company, their brand. And you can’t blame them. Again, human nature.

But I like to remind them that unless your brand is Dunkin’ or Starbucks, other people aren’t waking up first thing in the morning thinking about you. They have other priorities. They’re getting the kids off for school. They’re planning for 15 conference calls. They’re trying to put a PowerPoint together and on and on and on. So when people do have an opportunity to interact with your brand, what are you doing to bring them value? What are you doing to make things more convenient for them? What are you doing to make their lives a little bit easier through that busy day?

Make Life More Convenient For Your Customer

Scott: So, I’ll give you an example of how this actually came to life with an auto client. I got a call from a gentleman I’ve known for years, certainly from when I was at Ford. He’s the number one Honda dealer in the country. Number one used Honda dealer in the country. Number three, new.

And he called me up and he said, “We gotta work together.”

And I said, “Well, I don’t know how much more I can help you. It seems like you’re doing pretty well already.”

Well, this is a guy who’s never satisfied with the status quo. And he said to me, “Scott, dealers are dinosaurs. We’re dead, and we don’t even know it. The dealership model is broken.” And first of all, this was just music to my ears.

And I said, “Okay, well, how would you like to start?” Right? So, I went to his dealership, and it’s a little lot in Queens, New York. And I walked into the showroom, and cars are crammed into that showroom. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in an auto showroom in a city. They make use of every square foot of floor space that they can so that you’re turning sideways to get between the cars in some cases. So already the, the experience felt like it was, it was difficult.

Paul: Suboptimal.

Scott: There you go. Suboptimal. I love that, Paul.

So he explained to me that he had 180,000 people in his customer email database, which is impressive in and of itself. And he said sales are going pretty well.

And I said, “Well, tell me about your service offering.”

And he said, “Well, our service base…” I can’t remember how many he said. Maybe 12 service bases. He said, “We are booked out six weeks in advance. We’re 100% full.”

I said, “Okay, tell me more. When are you open?”

He said, “We’re open seven days a week, 7 AM to 7 PM.”

And first of all, I thought that was impressive because not every dealer is open on weekends. In fact, in Michigan, they can’t be open on Sundays. It’s one of the blue laws. But I looked at that. I said, “Seven days a week, 7 to 7. Okay, you’re operating at 50%.”

And he said, “What?”

I said, “Yeah, what about the other 12 hours of the day?”

And he said, “Well, who’s going to want to bring their car in at 10:00 at night?”

And I said, “No one. That’s why you’re going to go and pick their car up from them.” And you could have seen his head explode, you know, right in front of me.

And by selecting a couple of vendors and designing a process whereby it was completely transparent to the customer, almost like the Domino’s pizza tracker, when your car gets into the oven, so to speak. They’re updating you. They’re sending pictures of what’s wrong with your car, because so many people have a distrust with dealerships and wondering if they’re getting screwed. They’ll say, “Okay, here’s your old brake pads. Here’s what new ones look like. Would you like us to change them?”

And guess what? You’re comfy at home on your couch watching sports or the latest reality show or The Crown or whatever you’re watching. And this text comes through, and it’s as simple as pressing a button to say “approve” and signing off on it and then you know your car’s going to be delivered to you in your driveway the next morning before you even need to take it to work. That’s a level of convenience and customer design that didn’t take rocket science, and it really didn’t take a lot of comprehensive or complicated technology. It was just about changing your frame of reference to think like the customer rather than to think like a traditional dealer.

Results of Focusing on Customer Convenience

Paul: Right. What were their results so far?

Scott: There have been incredible results. The first six months saw a 36% lift in not only the volume but in the amount of each repair order which dropped directly to the bottom line, because there were very few overhead expenses. They had to put on an additional shift of mechanics, but that was minor.

But there was an added side benefit that no one saw coming. As they were open in the middle of the night and as Uber and Lyft drivers were finishing their shifts and driving by, guess what. These guys need an oil change just about every week, and they just found somebody that’s open their hours. And they’ve become the new best friends of this dealership. And when these guys put 10,000 miles on their cars each week, they’re going to need new cars or used cars in short order. So, guess where they’re going to go to start doing that?

So, not only have you created a sense of loyalty and convenience from your existing customer base, but you’re actually reaching new customers that would have never thought about walking in your doors before.

The Obvious is Not Always So Obvious

Paul: You know, it’s funny. When innovators talk about an innovation, before they say it, it’s not obvious. The minute they say it, it’s completely obvious.

Scott: Right.

Paul: And, you have to arbitrate that because the minute you say it, “Well, that’s obvious, Scott.” Well, it wasn’t before you said it.

Scott: Yeah, if it was so obvious, why didn’t you figure it out? Right?

Paul: Exactly.

Scott: Yeah.

Paul: And that’s a sign of a good innovation. It’s like that’s the night and day difference.

Scott: Well, you know, it’s interesting because, I’ve worked with a number of executives who will dismissively say, “Well, I need a solution for such and such, and I’ll know it when I see it.” Well, no you won’t because if you did, you would have already… You know, you would have mortgaged your house to get opening day shares of Netflix or of Amazon. It’s that kind of thing.

Paul: That’s a great point. I mean, I’ve understood that, but that’s a great point. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Well, why didn’t you buy Apple?”

Scott: Yeah, exactly.

Paul: Yeah. That’s a really good point.

Conclusion

As you’re aware we’ve been talking with Scott Monty of Scott Monty Strategies. There’s gonna be a whole bunch of show notes based on what we’ve talked about and we’ll have his contact information there as well.

So, Scott, thank you very much for coming on the show. We appreciate it.

Scott: It’s my great pleasure Paul, thank you.

More Episodes:

This is Part 1 of 3 our interview with Scott Monty. Stay tuned for Parts 2 & 3 coming soon!

Show Notes:

Stay Curious! Innovation & Motivation

February 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments

On Episode 111 of The Edge of Innovation, we’re continuing our conversation with inventor Falk Wolsky! This time we’re talking about why it’s important to stay curious as an innovator! 

Sections

Introduction
Stay Curious About Everything
What Makes You Unique is Curiosity
Innogate Tech
You Need To Have An API Strategy
Falk Asks About Paul’s Inventions
Is Automation a Good Thing?
Making People Useful Again
Training People Who Are Willing To Learn
How Do You Motivate People To Change?
Conclusion: “Stay Curious”
More Episodes
Show Notes

What Sets Inventors Apart From Other People? – Part 2 of Our Conversation With Falk Wolsky

Introduction

Paul: We’re talking with Falk Wolsky. He’s the Chief Innovation Officer with Innogate Tech.

Is there anything specific you would like to talk about in this interview that would be helpful, you think, that I haven’t touched on yet?

Falk: This is a hard question.

Paul: I know. I’m sorry.

Stay Curious About Everything

Falk: Yes, yes. I will not sell my product. That is not fair. We talked about innovation, but I’m very interesting, hearing about how maybe we all will see supernova very soon. Scientists are very interested in it because in the nebula of Orion, there is one star, and he lose in the brightness, right? And in these days, in these weeks. And people are very curious because it’s maybe a sign that he will have supernovas. First time we actually can watch supernova.

Why I tell you this? Because you come back to this curiosity. Now I might say, “Why I should care? It’s not economically relevant. It’s not relevant for my calendar. It’s not relevant for my relationship and so on and so on.” But somehow, we are all part of this very big game. Right? We are the very small bubble, in a very small blue planet, flying around the very small star, in a very small galaxy and surrounding us. Might say this is a wonderful to trigger to look up and say, “Wow. Cool. Amazing.” This wow-cool-amazing is a wonderful world.” Let’s come back and have a wonderful world for Michael Ende, one of my favorite authors as a child. He was writing “The Neverending Story.” He said if you’re getting adult but don’t stay a child, you’re not a human.

Paul: Yeah, that’s true.

Falk: But what it is, is the eyes of children, not everywhere to see wonders but to stay curious. The one is you cannot see any time. Again, you have seen the buck. It’s still a buck. Wonderful. And after a thousand times, it’s still a buck. You learned it. Nevertheless, there is so much interesting things and to keep curious and stay curious.

What Makes You Unique is Curiosity

Falk: When you ask what is to say, what is to talk about, this is the key. Staying curious. In our world, it’s the definition. Maybe even to connect it to Masamune Shirow’s “Ghost in the Shell.” It is one of the best and most accurate future prediction, some of any book I read. I read Asimov. I read Stanislav Lem and a lot of Strugatski. And so on and so on. Everyone has this vision how the future could be. But this Masamune Shirow was most accurate for fifty years. I’ll watch this because we get a good impression of what will be.

And there’s one scene – everything is very philosophical in this, and very military. It’s crazy all the time. It’s a shooting. It’s the special force of military for the government and so on. But there’s a scene with robots. They’re getting their own artificial intelligence, and they must curious. And that curiosity makes them special. And there’s one sentence in this time in which we live now, when everybody can have access to information as much as he need, because we all have internet. What makes you unique is curiosity. Because only then you will go and search and find and will build your own uniqueness. That’s a wonderful reward.

Paul: Yes, I think you’re right. I think, as I’ve been taking notes here, I underlined curiosity twice. I think that’s the definitive differentiator for an innovator. It’s somebody that’s really curious and how are we going to solve this in a different way.

So, one of the things that we will include in our show notes is some of the links that Falk has alluded to and also some of the things that he reads and frequents, both on the supernova and different things that he’s interested in as well as to his company, which… Well, tell us a little bit about that. You’re headquartered where? And what do you actually do on a daily basis?

Innogate Tech

Falk: The very first is it might be interesting. I live in two different countries, mostly likely in the hotels, because I work in Germany, and I work in Ukraine.

Paul: Okay.

Falk: Ukraine because I met my wonderful wife last year, and she was actually from Ukraine. I was, you will laugh about, curious to fly there and get in contact because she was reading, as one of the last people even I know — and then women — she was reading Strugatski. I said, “Not true. I need to get to know to you.” I come to Ukraine and we get in touch, and we fall in love, and we married. So, Ukraine. This is where Innogate reside.

Innogate is mainly focused to business applications. Roughly speaking about all this AP. And doing this for very big companies in the energy sector. In Ukraine you have DTEK for example. It’s a very big one. And what I dislike, they have, it seems to me still over 80% of charcoal to power. This is coal to power. Right? So, this is not really friendly. And in Ukraine, nobody cares. Right? They are not developed like, for example, Germany, when they look really close to the detail. How will we make electricity?

But they had a very good program and energy tariff in Ukraine to support solar and wind power. And this was a huge push also for this DTEK. And the baseline is still there’s people working there already. Roughly 300,000 people so far, I remember. That’s a lot. And they somehow need to work. And a workplace software all the time, contracted to customers, contracted to suppliers, management, field service — all this stuff.

And this kind of software Innogate makes. And, DTEK has a digitalization, master plan because they also understand when we do all of the paper forms. It will be a little bit slow. We cannot grow internationally. We cannot grow. We cannot save cost. And to digitalize, processes, is a huge thing.

Actually it starts very boring with the first question. Do you have everywhere Wi-Fi?

They say, “Huh? Yes, yes, we have. No, you mean office.”

“I don’t mean office. I mean do you have everywhere Wi-Fi? In the production sites, in the markets, at the stations where you go around?”

And then, ah-ha, okay, if you have everywhere Wi-Fi, people can work in a close network, and you have applications. Everyone has a smartphone that they need to access. That’s the first step.

You Need To Have An API Strategy

Falk: Then the question, do you have an API strategy? API is the possibility to offer you services for first to yourself. You will develop faster when you have a clear API strategy, and you can show others that you have these services. It was a very nice example. I worked once in Germany for E.ON, also energy producer. And they had to — you cannot believe. They had 800 internal — no. 800 external APIs and,1500 internal. It’s pretty lot. They said, “We have somehow we have 18 APIs only to get zip codes.”

Paul: Wow.

Falk: But these APIs, it’s a very good point when you can first invite developers, companies, and external service partners to go with you, together, and create a value. If you have smart meters, it’s very nice but how to connect and how to invite all the companies to invent something on that infrastructure, go with you? You need to have an API.

This, for example, I did also here in Germany, in GK where I worked for retail. This is one of the biggest companies producing software for retail. Whenever you go, for example, there’s retailers like Lidl, Walmart, we step by step. Also, go for American Market. And so, we go step by step then to produce software for the point of sale. One of the biggest, because this is a quite complex process. And it’s the same. I came to company and say, very brave actually, I said, “You don’t have an API strategy. You have to one. You have to have one.” We have now a very good API, and people, step by step, can integrate with us.

Falk: And that’s a very first point when you come in the sense of innovation, first make the basics. Right? Because you cannot invent something if you cannot connect to a company. API first, the right structure to scale. That is the point when you’ll come up, and then you can build step by step. I said, “Okay, we have to payment, we have to integrate with different software windows. We have to do this and this and that, and create products and so on.” And then teams, step by step, develop it.

Paul: Fascinating.

Falk Asks About Paul’s Inventions

Falk: Oh, okay. Now I have a question too. What about you? We talked a lot about me. Pretty boring. What about you? Who are you? And what you did? You’re also an inventor, I heard.

Paul: Yeah, I’m multidiscipline, done a lot of manufacturing stuff, a lot of technology stuff and when technology, computers come out, I saw a way to do a lot of the things that you would do in the manufacturing sector without getting your hands dirty. It’s like a manufacturing suite without – there’s no oil or grease. You don’t have to get dirt under your fingernails. I’ve done a lot of that over years, and I love technology. You know, the same stuff that you’ve done. We’re taking software, writing it. I’ve written software. Did a startup that was e-forensics in the email sector.

Falk: Yeah, okay. Very interesting.

Paul: Ended up selling that. I’ve done publishing software, publishing automation software for financial publishing and things like that. And the company I’m currently doing is sort of more a labor of love, but it’s an IT services firm, and I had an IT services firm in — let me think… I sold it in 2000, after about ten years. I really enjoyed that company. So, I started another one, IT consulting. And I’m sort of building that up right now. And that’s going very well and I’m enjoying it.

Falk: You’re so very early to potential in this software to automate everything. Right?

Paul: Yes.

Falk: This is the footprint I see when you told this.

Paul: Very much so. Very much so. There was an Apple campaign with Kinkos, very old, called Wheels for the Mind. And it really symbolized, or encapsulated, what you could do with technology. It was the ability to automate and give people more efficiency and basically amplify the number of people you had.

Is Automation a Good Thing?

Falk: Let me ask you something about it.

Paul: Yeah.

Falk: With my wife, we will build a foundation. And the foundation should take care about what we call the youthless society. I’m pretty sure you have heard already about it. Youthless society is the people, they get out-automated of their jobs. We have this discussion a lot, and I mean we have now a huge quote of people in the university already, and their jobs they later do still don’t exist.

And on the other hand, we have a huge amount of people, they will just out-automate, I say. As I see two directions as a very first — the truckers and the lawyers. The problem on them is they’re not high-skilled. If the trucks — especially the trucks are super easy in exchange to cars on the street in the city, but on the highway, it’s easier. And the big companies are very near to getting full-automated solutions of that in the range of five years. This is millions of people. Millions.

What they will do? They go to elderly care? I don’t believe so. They have, most of the time, no second job. And this is what you call the youthless society, and they will get more and more by this automation. So, one of the philosophical questions goes exactly this: If a human understands he can automate something, he will do. But it’s not always a good thing. How do you see this?

Making People Useful Again

Paul: Well, first of all, I mean, what we’re doing, we’re in the IT space. And the unemployment rate in the US is under 4%, under 3%. You can’t hire anybody. And what we we’re doing is we’re taking people that are unemployable or not skilled in technology and training them. If we can take a person who has good personality skills, we can add to them systems, automation, that can help them deliver technology solutions to a certain level.

I think that the new economy can be bent to the will of making people useful again. I think there’s a tremendous need for making them useful. And I think it’s going to be interesting because there’s going to be people who are not willing to want to learn something new. That’s the hardest thing to overcome, is how do you motivate somebody who has invested the large majority of their life into something that is now obsolete. And how do you get over that? I think that’s something that we need to come to terms with.

But I think it’s happened. There’s been industries. You know, you look at here in America, there’s been many industries that have come and gone that have been overseas moved to Asia or different countries. And, now many of those people, I don’t think were properly mentored or properly brought along, if you will. They weren’t really stewarded well. They were sort of allowed to just exist or have a basic subsistence life. But I think they also allowed themselves to have that basic subsistence life. And I think our society, in some ways encouraged that through welfare and things like that.

Training People Who Are Willing To Learn

Paul: There’s a big argument there is, well, we should take care of these people. But if you didn’t have it, and they were forced to go out and get a job, then they’d learn the new technologies, and so what I’m trying to do is, I want to take people and offer them free training and see if they’re interested in technology jobs and offer them… and hire people that have a good personality. Because that’s the one thing I can’t train is, if you have a bad personality, I can’t do anything about that. But I can teach you how to talk to a person and say, “Oh, what’s your issue? Oh, okay. Well, let me get the right person for you.” I can do all sorts of levels at that.

And so I think that, in some ways, we have a lot of green fields coming up. You know, that there’s a lot of opportunity in ways that people would have never imagined they could have worked twenty years ago or ten years ago. But it’s what we do with that. I think technology enables that, just like it enables all these other things. These people who are unwilling to change, I don’t think we just dismiss them and say, “Well, tough for you.” I think we need to, as a society, figure out how to shepherd them along so that they feel okay to…

In some ways, it’s sort of like “Well, you made the wrong bet. You went into the wrong career that isn’t going to be a long-lasting career, that you’re not going to be able to retire into.” I mean, even doctors nowadays, who knows what’s going to happen with them in America with the healthcare changes. If you were a doctor, you were set for life. Well, now it may turn into no. You have a standard wage, and that’s the way it is. It’s an interesting change.

So, I agree that we need to be good stewards of technology. And I do think that there is a tremendous potential for it to do exactly what you’re saying, that, for all these people to just be lost and not to be able to do that. I think what will happen is people will realize a little bit too late. I think we’re early realizing this. That they will realize that “Oh my gosh, we need to make these people useful to the technology economy because that’s the only way it’s going to scale.” So that’s my two cents.

Falk: Very good one. Very good one. I liked your answer a lot. Thank you very much. Some points I do agree. Some points are on my radar, let’s say two. Some are completely new.

How Do You Motivate People To Change?

Falk: What I take out of it is, what is not new is education, education, education. What is new to me, motivation. The big point is to motivate the guys who don’t want to learn new things. That is interesting. That is really a point when you say, “Okay, wow! How I do motivate them to change with the time?” And that is maybe the bigger one instead of education. Education you have all the tools in the moment. They’re electronic, classic. Right? You can do it. You can measure it afterward. But to motivate them, it’s a very good question. I will chew on it, I would say.

Paul: That’s the work. That’s the real work is to motivate them. So it’s an emotional thing is to…

Falk: True. That’s very good. This is something for my wife. She’s very good in all emotional stuff. She’s a marketing officer. She created a lot of brands. She’s very famous in Ukraine. [She has her own community, I might say. When she, step by step, going for international, and she is my emotional brain. So, I am the technical brain, and we are absolutely… Some people say we, as a couple, are complete. Might be. Might be.

Paul: I understand. I know exactly what you mean.

Conclusion: “Stay Curious”

Paul: Well excellent. We’ve been talking with Falk Wolsky. He’s the chief innovation officer with Innogate Tech, and you’re headquartered in — what would you say? Both Ukraine and…

Falk: Kiev. The one is in Kiev, Ukraine, and Germany, Berlin. Let’s say Berlin.

Paul: Okay. And we’ve had a great talk about innovation, and there’ll be a lot of links in the show notes to both his company and some of the things we’ve talked about. Any final words you’d like to say?

Falk: If I say now “stay curious,” it’s too, too simple.

Paul: Well. That’s a good one to say. Stay curious. I like that.

Falk: Stay curious. The final thought is that I’m very thankful for the talk. I enjoyed it a lot.

Paul: Excellent.

Falk: It was very good questions. Thank you also for that. And I wish all of us, especially in this times we have, in 2020 good year. Let’s come safe through to the year. This is concerning most of us in the moment, I believe.

And stay curious is the key. Right? Because, especially we see our future is more and more speed up, uncertain, flexible, changing. Everything is not like it was yesterday already. We will only survive if we are flexible and curious.

Paul: Yes, absolutely. Good words. Well, thank you very much.

Falk: Thank you very much too. It was a pleasure to talk to you.

Paul: It was a pleasure to talk to you too.

More Episodes:

This is Part 3 of 3 our interview with Falk Wolsky. If you missed Parts 1 & 2, you can listen to them here:

Part 1: Exploring Innovation & Inventing With Falk Wolsky
Part 2: What Sets Inventors Apart From Other People?

Show Notes:

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