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We hear about innovation so much nowadays in the business world - we hear it in company earnings releases, we hear it internally in place of work, and we see it in peoples titles on LinkedIn, but what exactly is Innovation, what is Open Innovation, and how is it changing in our current technology landscape?

Today's conversation is a Simply Tech LIVE interview recorded June 17th, of this year 2021, featuring my co-host Ali Mazaheri, and our special guests Jason Deskin, and Lisa Griego. Jason Deskin is the Chief Technology Officer for Digital Advisory in Microsoft's US West Region business, and in the US Retail & Consumer Goods Business. Lisa, is a Director in the Retail & Consumer Goods business supporting organizations in the West US, and both of these incredible voices are joining this discussion today to talk through the importance of innovation, and how critical it is for different organizations to bring together their strengths and weaknesses to meet unmet market needs. We're going to talk about different ways of approaching problems, and this idea of the "learn it all culture" vs the "know it all culture" - what this actually means and how to deploy curiosity at scale. We're going to talk about empathy and it’s role in innovation, and finally, were going to talk about overcoming the barriers to innovation and how to build programs that can jump start organizational change, differentiation, and maybe even some re-direction.

Technology has never been more important in our world - and understanding how to bring different thinking, mindsets, people, ideas, and cultures together, to stimulate new ideas, WILL be the future of how we create novel innovations and solutions for a very quickly evolving world.

***Navigate the episode***

[11:05] The roles of Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) within Microsoft organization

[12:37] The Idea of Open Innovation

[14:30] What Innovation generally means and “the surgeon’s dilemma”

[15:22] The power of unconscious bias, and how it impacts innovation

[16:16] The innovation toolkit: design thinking, open innovation, business model canvas, and purposeful diversity – how using a series of high impact framework can direct the accelerate of out of the box thinking

[18:48] Mixing industry expertise with a holistic approach through the “Open Innovation Lab” to find new business opportunities.

[24:02] Every company will become a software platform company

[25:00] Business disruption, and how technology organizations help create a competitive edge, through strategic partnerships.

[28:50] The challenges due to Covid and managing open innovation virtually: tools, mindsets, and experiences.

[39:27] Expectations from businesses and organizations betting big on technological transformations

[48:41] The power of diversity in Innovation, lessons learned from empathy and leadership in diverse environments

***Resources and Links***

Contact our guests:

-Jason Deskin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondeskin/

-Lisa Griego: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-griego/

Surgeons Dilemma: http://atchub.net/diversity/the-surgeons-dilemma-a-test-for-unconscious-bias

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*The views and opinions expressed in this discussion are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the official position of their employer, Microsoft"