Greg Brandeau is the former President and COO of MakerMedia. Previously he served as the Chief Technology Officer for The Walt Disney Studios. Prior to that, Brandeau held the post of Senior Vice President of Technology for Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. He joined Pixar in 1996 as the Studio’s director of Technology. After five successful years, during which he was promoted to Vice President, he left the studio to broaden his expertise within other areas of technology. He returned to Pixar in 2004 and was promoted to Senior Vice President in 2006. In that role, Brandeau was responsible for providing, maintaining, and continually adapting the systems and technology used in creating computer animated feature films that allowed Pixar to continually be on the cutting edge of filmmaking. Among his other career milestones, Brandeau served as chief information officer for the biotechnology startup company, Perlegen Sciences. His resume also includes a variety of senior level positions in Silicon Valley, including director of Operations at NeXT. Brandeau is co-authoring a book, Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation to be published by Harvard Press. Brandeau earned BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from MIT . After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he continued his education at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, where he received an MBA.

On the show, Greg discussed his experiences working with Pixar and Disney and their creative processes. He explained the early challenges for Pixar, when initially creating Toy Story, and the computer animated films that were created right after. There was a give and take between the technology engineers, who would show the artists what was possible, and the artists, who would give the engineers graphic goals to strive for. This created the perfect marraige of creating technology that was highly optimized for what the artists wanted to create. Greg says, “Art challenges technology, and technology inspires art.” Greg also talked about how Pixar was able to keep their core beliefs as they scaled. Finally, he talked about the ways creativity and culture was incorporated into both the Pixar and Disney animation studios.

Dean M. Schroeder is an award winning author, consultant and scholar. His work focuses on creating high-performing organizations and improving people’s work lives through the application of better management. Dr. Schroeder is the author of The Idea-Driven Organization: Unlocking The Power in Bottom-up Ideas and his best-selling book, Ideas Are Free: How the Idea Revolution is Liberating People and Transforming Organizations (co-authored with Alan Robinson). Dean shares the “Author of the Year – 2010” award from the Swedish Standards Institute with co-authors Louise Östberg and Alan Robinson for SMÅ IDÉER – STORA RESULTAT (Small Ideas – Huge Results). As a consultant and speaker, Dr. Schroeder has worked with many types of companies and organizations in North America, Europe, and Asia. He has personally led organizational turn around and transformation initiatives, and served on the Board of Examiners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for five years. Dr. Schroeder is the Herbert and Agnes Schulz Professor of Management at Valparaiso University and has taught at the University of Massachusetts, St. Petersburg Technical University in Russia and at ALBA in Greece. He received his Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the Carlson School at the University of Minnesota, his M.B.A. from the University of Montana, and his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota.

On the show, Dr. Schroeder discussed the importance of bottom-up ideas in business. 80% of growth ideas and improvement potential come from companies’ front lines. He gave an example of the success of these ideas by using Stockholm, Sweden’s Coca-Cola bottling plant, which implemented a solution from their line worker that saved the plant $17,000 per year. Dr. Schroeder talked about how to encourage bottom-up ideas in company culture, and how to coach employees to develop a common language for innovation. At the end of the segment, he explained the importance of collecting ideas from the customer and how to successfully filter the information from these customers.

Andrew C. Marshall [Drew] is the Principal of Primed Associates, LLC, an innovation consultancy. He lives in central NJ and works with clients across the USA and around the world. Prior to founding Primed Associates, LLC, Drew spent ten years with Princeton-based management consulting firm Kepner-Tregoe where he rose to become a Partner and the Chief Innovation Officer. He is a co-host of the weekly innovation-focused Twitter chat, #innochat, the founder, host and producer of Ignite Princeton, a contributor to the Innovation Excellence and BrightHub sites and numerous other blogs, and the presenter of the recently launched innovation podcast “Hooray for Failure!” He is also providing support for the implementation of the Design Thinking for Scholars model with the Network of Leadership Scholars (a network within the Academy of Management).

During his segment, Drew Marshall discussed how he helps clients pursue breakthrough innovation. Marshall says breakthrough is tougher than incremental innovation to pursue in most companies because it requires trying something new. Companies should strategically invest 70% in incremental innovation and another 10-30% in breakthrough innovation. Marshall says innovating on multiple fronts is the best way to get to breakthrough innovations. He coaches clients in human-centric design thinking to design for something that does not exist.

Roger Dooley is the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing, and writes the popular blog Neuromarketing as well as Brainy Marketing at Forbes.com. He is the founder of Dooley Direct, a marketing consultancy, and co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. That business was acquired by Hobsons, a unit of UK-based DMGT, where Dooley served as VP Digital Marketing and continues in a consulting role. Dooley spent years in direct marketing as the co-founder of a successful catalog firm and also was director of corporate planning for a Fortune 1000 company. He has an engineering degree from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the University of Tennessee. Dooley is currently focused on spreading his ideas through writing and speaking, with limited engagements for training, coaching, and facilitation.

On Tuesday’s show, Roger Dooley discussed the role neuroscience plays in product design and marketing. A great example can be seen in the way the relationships between people and pets is changing the pet-food industry. 85% of owners refer to pets in child terms. There has been a growth of pet foods that require preparation by the owner. This growth results from the owner’s appreciation for the “happy moment” when the pet realizes it is about to be fed and the desire to prolong this moment. Dooley talked about all the different ways neuroscience influences consumer decision making. According to Dooley, “95% of decision making processes are non-conscious.”

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Over a thirty-year career in corporate identity, Lindon has earned significant recognition worldwide, testimony to the merit of his two-word design philosophy: simplicity and clarity. His work has appeared in numerous publications and his FedEx logo was cited by Rolling Stone magazine’s twenty-fifth anniversary issue as one of the eight best American identities of the preceding twenty-five years. Lindon’s comprehensive strategic branding and identity design program for São Paulo’s Banco Bradesco has assisted the bank in gaining recognition in 2014 as one of the top ten most valuable brands in all of Latin America. Since 2001, Lindon has built a successful strategic design consultancy, Leader Creative, in Park City, Utah where he continues to serve the branding needs of clients around the world. In April 2014, Lindon was an honoree at the 5th Annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards in New York City. He has also been named a Fellow of the Disruptor Foundation. Previously, Lindon served as executive creative director for Addison and senior design director for Landor Associates. After receiving degrees in Political Science from Stanford University and Advertising Design from the Art Center College of Design, Lindon began his career with the legendary designer Saul Bass.

On Innovation Navigation, Lindon Leader first explained how he got into the advertising and logo design business. He then went on to talk about his creative process, which is always very client-dependent. Lindon Leader told the story of the creation of the Fed-Ex rebranding. Leader Creative performs research, market analyses, and management interviews to get a rounded idea of the company’s strategic marketing objectives, and they work to develop a logo for each client. A logo should be a company’s signature: “a sense of the company and its endeavor.”

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Austin Ligon worked with the CEO of Circuit City, Richard Sharp, to develop the CarMax idea in 1991 and launched the first CarMax store in Richmond, Virginia, in 1993. Austin became president of CarMax in 1995. He led the company through a decade and a half of rapid growth, and added the title of CEO upon the company’s spin off from Circuit City in 2002. Ligon came to Circuit City from Marriott Corporation where he had been senior vice president of strategic planning for Marriott Hotels and Resorts. He joined Marriott in 1984 as director of corporate planning, and served as vice president of both marketing and concept general management in the family restaurant division.

During his visit to Innovation Navigation, Liggon gave credit to rapid-testing for Carmax’s early success – he and his team went to market as soon as they felt they had the basics of their product, always expecting and embracing ways to improve it. He emphasizes the importance of being an expert in your organization’s consumers first and foremost, and structuring systems, incentives, and roles to stay attuned to consumers’ experiences and measure their real behaviors rather than profiling their demographics, as the traditional car sales competitors to Carmax famously do. Original Airdate: 4/8/2014

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On the show, Dan discusses a variety of topics with Professor Robertson. These include the challenges and rewards in producing a highly innovative movie, creating an innovative atmosphere in the office, creating and recreating a story for the movie, and cultivating a successful partnership with LEGO. Dan Lin was born in Taiwan and attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Harvard Business School. He began his career at Warner Bros., eventually becoming a Senior Vice President during his eight years there. He started Lin Pictures in 2008, based at Warner Bros. He is married with two children, and his credits as a producer include Terminator Salvation, Shorts, The Invention of Lying, The Box, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Gangster Squad, and The LEGO Movie. Original Airdate: 3/24/2014

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Kevin Allen is the Founder & Chairman of Planet Jockey and best-selling author of The Hidden Agenda: A Proven Way to Win Business and Create a Following. He worked for McCann Erickson, where he led the pitch for the famous MasterCard “priceless” campaign, and has since founded his own firm, KevinAllenPartners. He has worked with Google, Microsoft, Burberry, and many others, along with being featured in AdWeek, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and has given lectures at Columbia University and Regent’s College London.

Mr. Allen spoke about coming up with the MasterCard “priceless” campaign, and how it was a fundamentally human process of showing people that were buying things that really mattered. It was about recognizing the shift in attitudes from the outgoing 1990s to the directed, personal, meaningful early twenty-first century. He spoke about how innovation means coming up with a specific, but seemingly impossible statement, similar to Kennedy’s “we choose to go to the Moon,” and often in the form of a “we will…” statement. His process to pitching strong, innovative ideas to the company centers on identifying the people in the audience. “Catalysts” must be parsed out from “Followers,” “Observers,” and “Resistors.” Tune in to learn more about who these people are and how they can be won over. Original AirdateL 4/1/2014

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Jon Schaeffer is the Director of New Media for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Triple-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. He is responsible for the innovative urinal gaming system at Coca-Cola Park, which combines games that improve bathroom cleanliness while allowing marketing efforts to reach consumers. The effort also aims to promote messages of screening for prostate cancer to bathroom users. Schaeffer is also a broadcaster for the IronPigs radio play-by-play.

Mr. Schaeffer talked about the unique challenges of innovation in minor league baseball: baseball is baseball, so the core product cannot be changed, and furthermore, the goal of minor league ball isn’t even winning baseball games, it’s about an affordable, family-friendly experience. He talked about how in the IronPigs organization, innovation is about coming up with a lot of new ideas and hoping to come up with a big success, like his free funeral giveaway or the urinal games. The culture he helps build to cultivate this innovation relies on openness, and everyone’s understanding that all ideas should be shared, whether they appear to be good or bad, because all are welcome. Original Airdate: 4/15/2014

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George S. Day is the Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor, Professor of Marketing and co-Director of the Mack Institute For Innovation Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was previously the Executive Director of the Marketing Science Institute. He has been a consultant to numerous corporations such as General Electric, IBM, Metropolitan Life, Unilever, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, W.L. Gore and Associates, Coca-Cola, Boeing, LG Corp., Best Buy, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Medtronic. He is the past chairman of the American Marketing Association. Dr. Day has authored eighteen books in the areas of marketing and strategic management and won ten best article award and one best book award. Two of his articles were among the top 25 most influential articles in marketing science in the past 25 years. He was honored with the Charles Coolidge Parlin Award in 1994, the Paul D. Converse Award in 1996, the Sheth Foundation award in 2003, and the Mahajan Award for career contributions to strategy in 2001. In 2003 he received the AMA/Irwin/McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award. In 2011 he was chosen as one of eleven “Legends in Marketing.”

On the Show, Day talked about growth and innovation. He explained that “growth prowess” is the game changer for growth leaders. “Growth Prowess” relies on the following inate abilities: strategic growth-seeking discipline, the ability to execute, and the ability to identify opportunities and threats. Day gave examples of companies that have these abilities, such as Lego and Samsung. He discussed disciplines of peripheral vision and “outside-in” thinking- being customer focused and understanding how to innovate for their needs. Day also talked about “Small I,” incremental, innovation, and ways to manage “Big I,” Blue Ocean, innovation. He explained that there are risks involved with both types of innovation, and leaders should look for the best balance between risk and reward.