SlideShare Innovation – Kit Seeborg and Andrea Meyer

 

2013-12-16_2142Present Yourself. Did you know that presenting an idea is key to driving innovation, collaboration and growing a business? If you are not on slideshare, it’s time to get a clue; slideshare is now a full-scale multi-media publishing platform. In this weeks interview, Drew and I will interview authors Andrea Meyer and Kit Seeborg on the business imperative to create and publish presentations and how using slideshare can drive innovation. Andrea is a writer and the founder of WorkingKnowledge.com  Kit served as the content manager and editor for SlideShare from 2010 to 2013.

 

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Making Innovation Happen With Stella – Chris Trimble

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When was the last time you read a parable? Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble have just published a book,How Stella Saved The Farm; on how to make innovation happen.  The most important factor is the team!   This radio interview will also take place on the prestigious #innochat twitterchat with some the most dynamic thinkers & writers on innovation – the innocats know that faster, stronger, and more efficient does not always get us where we need to be.  Drew Marshall one of the most respected thought leaders and conveners on innovation will co-host this week. This is going to be a very interactive show – please call in as Drew and I put author Chris Trimble in the hot seat!

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Nine Innovation Roles – Braden Kelley

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Have you ever worked with a high performing team that just seemed to click? Chances are, if your experience was positive, the team members were creatively diverse and understood the importance of roles. Braden Kelley, author of, Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, will share his insights on the Nine Innovation Roles. “… often we treat people as commodities that are interchangeable and maintain the same characteristics and aptitudes. Of course, we know that people are not interchangeable, yet we continually pretend that they are anyway — to make life simpler for our reptile brain to comprehend.”

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Big Sexy Healthcare Data – Kevin Fickenscher MD

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The healthcare industry is all aflutter about big data. I’ve done my homework, if you need to fake it till you make it, just say – volume, velocity and variety when talking about big data. We are fortunate that Kevin Fickenscher, M.D., CPE, FACPE, FAAFP, the President and CEO of the American Medical Informatics Assoication is our guest today. We will discuss how big data can add value to your business and improve healthcare business models. This show will be incredible because two of my favorite big thinkers are co-moderating with me: Tom Lee, co-founder of Symplur and Ken Rosen, Vice President of Marketing for Chiliad

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HBA WOTY13 – an exclusive with Julia Kelly

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Who are the women behind the prestigious Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Woman of the Year event? Each year, extremely remarkable women make this event happen flawlessly, and 2013 is no exception. This 24th event will be held Thursday May 9 to celebrate the achievements of renowned leaders in healthcare from across the industry. Julia Kelly, this years chair, will share an inside glimpse of what is planned and why WOTY is so meaningful to the thousands of HBA members. Our interview takes place at lunchtime, so grab a bite and join in on what will be an inspiring conversation!
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has, Maragret Mead

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The New Chiefs #CDO by LeAnna J. Carey

Businessman working on new ideasLet me begin by asking who in your company is managing the big sexy data, the ominichannel customer, or building digital products that can be monetized? I thought so, now might be the time to consider hiring a Chief Digital Officer.

I recently interviewed David Mathison on how CDO’s can impact the  growth, innovation and sustainability of companies.  Mathison is the curator of the Chief Digital Officer summit and founder of the CDO Club. More than 65% of global CDOs are members. He was most recently the founder and Managing Director of the Digital Media practice at Chadick Ellig, a premiere executive search consultancy named by Business Week as “one of the world’s most influential headhunters.” Mathison is also the author of, BE THE MEDIA, and was featured in the NY Times after he pre-sold over 5,000 copies in 11 days via his web site, Twitter, and Facebook. He travels internationally to share his insights on the evolving role of Chief Digital Officers, everywhere from Columbia University to the United Nations from Amsterdam to Zagreb. Enjoy!

LeAnna J. Carey: The Chief Digital Officer community is growing. David, you have been tracking the numbers; why has this space taken off, and how many CDO’s are there?

David Mathison: First of all, thank you for taking the time to interview me. To answer your first question; there has never been a better time to innovate, and this space is certainly a reflection of what is going on, with digital disrupting business across all industry sectors.

I’ve been tracking the Chief Digital Officer trend, and have developed a deep database of who exactly all these CDO’s are; toward the end of 2011 there were 75 Chief Digital Officers on the planet, and by the end of 2012 that went up to about 300. If we stay on track for this year there should be close to 500 or 600 Chief Digital Officers — at major organizations. So, we’re seeing the trend tick up quite significantly over the last two or three years. We are at a point now where it is getting exciting; entities such as Gartner, Deloitte, MIT Sloan Management Review, Capgemini, Forrester, and McKinsey are all beginning to see the same thing – that this is a growing and influential group.

LC: What should a CEO be looking for in a CDO?

DM: I like to quote Gartner; they predicted that by 2015, 25% of all organizations will have a CDO, and it will prove to be the most exciting strategic role of the decade.  There is going to be a tremendous amount of demand for this position because we are at a point where technology has become invisible – so, I would say that there are four strategic imperatives for a CEO to hire a CDO:

1. Opportunities to increase revenue.

2. Opportunities to improve the bottom line by decreasing costs. For example, music and film companies are already decreasing costs by using digital fulfillment, publishers are lowering costs by using ebook and other digital content creation and distribution.

3. Improving the ROI both on the web and mobile sites.

4. Implementing strategies to improve customer service, such as using social media like Twitter to stay in touch with customers and partners.

LC: How does a CDO differ from a Chief Marketing Officer and where are they coming from?

DM: I just finished a two and half year study of this space, and compiled it into what we’re calling the Chief Digital Officer Talent Map; which looks at CDO skill sets, compensation, tenure, race, age, education, gender, etc. What is interesting is that ‘technical skill’ is not the fundamental skill set. Most CDO’s are coming from an entrepreneurial background, they’ve been general managers, building businesses, with overall management experience with P & L responsibility.

There is an overlap between the marketing and the digital function, whereas the CMO continues to manage customer engagement, which includes traditional (print, broadcast, etc) plus social outreach (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc); the CDO is really more focused on building a digital business through innovation, generating revenues, cutting costs, etc. For example, they are responsible for turning consumers of data on the website into actual purchasers or long-term customers. It is very important to view each sector differently – for example, Columbia or Harvard University requires different skills from a CDO than a retail outlet like Sears, or an Ad Agency like Oglivy.

CDO’s are coming in from one of 2 categories; they are merged into the company through an acquisition, or they are being hired/recruited into an organization; for example, they’ve got a proven history of having been successful in a digital division of a company, or as a general manager. What has surprised me is how quickly these people move from CDO to CEO (in 2013, 6 CDOs became CEO), because they tend to be risk takers, entrepreneurial, with cross-sector and deep industry experience.

Gartner predicted a year ago that CDO would be the next hot executive title, and apparently their predictions are not far off the mark. Marketing has changed forever, however the focus on growth and sustainability are here to stay. The new role of Chief Digital Officer has some big shoes to fill and they will probably succeed because of vast experience they bring to the table.

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The Collective Force of SlideShare August 22, 2013 by LeAnna J. Carey

There is much more to the SlideShare story than the ‘presentations no longer need to suck’ factor; SlideShare has opened up a distinctively new creative class of visual thinkers doing their part to make complexity disappear. Think about it, do you understand the world more through images or words? Studies consistently suggest that visual communication can be more powerful than verbal, and SlideShare has successfully run with this idea to the tune of $119 million in cash and stock, when they were purchased by LinkedIn last year.

Drew Marshall and I had the great pleasure of interviewing, co-authors, Andrea Meyer and Kit Seeborg on their new book, Present Yourself, How to Use SlideShare to Grow Your Business. This book was not written as a social media how-to manual on sharing documents and presentations, but rather as a meaningful business book focused on visual thinking, innovation, and collaboration. Right out of the gate, the authors speak to the visionary work of Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas and the importance of images to succinctly convey information to sharing how innovation teams or startup companies can leverage SlideShare.

This May, SlideShare celebrated a milestone of over 10 million presentation uploads.  Now, with a massive community of over 50 million unique users each month, Seeborg shared that from the beginning, SlideShare had a strong vision of their core business model and implemented an aggressive growth strategy. The early users of SlideShare were from the interactive design and user experience community. Seeborg advises others needing to grow a customer base to, “go with who you know and use your first tier contacts as your beginning base.” She goes on to say that SlideShare had a great idea and the other part of their good fortune was timing.

 

Meyer agreed by stating that, “it has been a perfect setup for visual communication. The pace of communication has increased, as has the need to communicate quickly and effectively. Those of us in the innovation and creativity space are continually bombarded with the new and fabulous, and visual thinking plays a role in how ideas and concepts are both captured and remembered.” Meyer continued by stating that the two main advantages of imagery are:

  1. The acceleration of productivity: studies show that people are 17% more productive and use 20% fewer resources when using a visual language.
  2. By using visual artifact, it is easier to structure a team’s thinking around the different elements of a project.

Given the explosion of startup-and-comers, (business rumor has it that there is a new startup every 48 hours), and larger companies with startup mentalities, the importance of visual communication has never been more important. One of the top reasons for a failed startup is wasting funds on an advertising budget. Present Yourself provides concrete examples of how startups can optimize SlideShare tailored for investors, target market engagement, and content marketing. For example, Dave McClure, founder of 500 Startups, has more than 200 presentations archived from his startup community that serve, not only, as inspiration but as a way to gain understanding of customer needs. Seeborg states that, “the style of delivering presentations has evolved. It’s more interactive and integrative; you can now upload a slide deck with the big guys and look bigger than you actually are.” Meyer laughed and agreed that, “the Google juice is just huge for getting found, broader tribe connectivity, and sharing your ideas with customers.”

It was George Bernard Shaw who said that the single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. SlideShare was designed to enhance communication based on understanding that visualizations amplify our cognitive ability – people think more about images. Think about it.

 

About the authors of Present Yourself:

As the community manager and editor for SlideShare from 2010 to 2013, Kit Seeborg curated and featured presentations on the SlideShare home page, wrote and edited its blog and newsletters, and represented SlideShare on its social platforms. Kit’s extensive work in digital communications for Fortune 100 companies includes live streaming media, content strategy, and public speaking. She is also the founder of the digital music licensing company, BumperTunes. Kit received serious kudos from SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinhain in the book’s foreword, being referred to as the ‘voice of SlideShare.’ While Seeborg stated that writing this book was like laying an egg and is still amazed over the mental work involved, Drew and I are fairly confident that there is more to come from Kit!

Those of us from the innovation community have engaged with the highly respected and award winning author Andrea Meyer online, or read one of her 35 books, or have had the privilege of hearing her speak about innovation, business, and psychology. Andrea founded WorkingKnowledge.com in 1988 and works with CEOs, professors, and consultants to write their books, blogs, white papers, and online learning content. Her clients include IBM, Cisco, MIT and Harvard Business School. We know that Andrea has already picked up her pen – yes, there will be more.

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The Driving Force in Healthcare Innovation Today October 8, 2012 by LeAnna J. Carey

Do you know how to read the signals of change? In my recent interview with Dr. Indu Sabaiya, she could have said that the most significant driving force in healthcare innovation today is a result of consumers becoming more interested in their own health, the explosion of sensors and devices, or even technological possibilities – but, she did not. Instead, she went to the to the core of the matter and said that the single most important driving force is that the current healthcare system is not sustainable and that, “healthcare for the most part is still a source of frustration and heavy financial burden for the average person, and that force is causing healthcare stakeholders to innovate, change and improve.”  That’s a true innovator talking – opting out of the buzz.

 

I had the great privilege of interviewing the highly respected innovators and founders of Health2.0 this week, Matthew Holt and Dr. Sabaiya, who have taken their business from an idea to the global arena.  If you are wondering if this is your time to innovate, take a few minutes to listen to their deep experience on how to listen for signals of change.

 

While there are some CEO’s who have been successful at reinventing and innovating, like Aetna’s Mark Bertolini, Holt admits that it is not easy to spot the signals of change.  This is true especially for larger companies because once they identify a market tipping point, making the jump from a declining business model to one that is on the incline is difficult.  He pointed to the importance of looking for signal events like companies coming to the market with different offerings, legislative mandates like ACO’s, companies buying products in different ways.  Holt added that the most difficult element of growth is discerning if the market is moving beyond those early adopters into a real tipping point, then ask, “How is it different this time?”

 

Dr. Sabaiya agreed by sharing that Health2.0 is observing three different behaviors from both inside and outside of their innovation network:

1. Notable activity in buying innovation and acquisitions; she used Aetna’s recent acquisition of Healthagen, to leverage iTriage for its ACO offering as a key component for consumer engagement, as an example.

2. Interest in partnering strategies with ahead of the curve mobile app companies to accelerate growth.  In fact, Health2.0 holds matchmaking forums to provide larger organizations and retailers to explore the startup ecosystem, before making a decision to build internally.

3. The use of prize money to find the best and brightest developers to build a solution that does not exist yet; the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Kaiser Permanente and AT&T are successful users of crowdsourcing.

 

Both of the founders agree that the most disruptive and exploding innovations (whether devices, sensors or trackers) are those that capture some aspect of a consumers health that is computable and integrates with the healthcare system in usable ways.  Matthew emphasized that healthcare innovation does not have to be “hugely futuristic,” but easier, affordable, and putting it in the right place.  Innovative tools for understanding the best places to receive healthcare, “doctor search, best outcomes, price, quality, and transparency that interface with providers and consumers is a huge growth area to watch.”  At this year’s conference, they will feature a panel specific to this growing interest.

 

For those needing to develop their innovation network, collaborate on crowdsourcing opportunities, or keep pace with the healthcare segment should use Health2.0 to capitalize on their world view and experience of innovation. The relationship that both Matthew and Dr. Sabaiya have with their community is a competitive differentiator and key to their success, but at the end of day, they are serving an unmet need in healthcare – driving innovation.

Before closing, these founders took the time to mention several companies that will be showcased at this year’s Health2.0 conference.  One company that I’ll give a shout out to as well is Audax Health.  Its CEO is extraordinary and I’m gonna love watching Grant Verstadig do his part in transforming healthcare.

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Competition Is Making a Comeback! May 27, 2012 by LeAnna J. Carey

Sometimes we get it wrong. Einstein did not invent the theory of relativity; it was Galileo. We do not have five senses; we have nine. And the business competitive spirit is not lost; it’s trying to reignite. Business leaders know they need to rethink competition – in the March issue of Harvard Business Review, Editor-in-chief, Adi Ignatius, and Dean of Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria, posed a difficult question, “has the United States lost its competitive edge?” While I’m not convinced that we have lost our competitive edge, I will submit that it does originate with competitive leaders and that is where we are in short supply. Think about the 2012 Right Management survey, where the top concern of companies is the lack of high-potential leaders within an organization. In light of the market changes, how do emerging leaders instill the qualities of competitive advantage throughout a company?

 

For those holding on to traces of skepticism let me share that competitive leaders in healthcare do exist and they are driving their own trajectory with vision, innovation and competitive advantage. Innovation performance expert Drew Marshall and I had the privilege of interviewing the respected CEO of TeladocJason Gorevic, who embraces the new reality of retaining top talent and thrives on the business imperative of innovating for current customers. Gorevic is a refreshingly present CEO, who understands why Teladoc is in business and confidently manages the competitive edge of his company.

Gorevics company, Teladoc was founded in 2002 and is the first and largest telehealth provider in the nation that provides 24/7 access to U.S. board-certified doctors and pediatricians via phone or online video consultation. Teladoc leverages change with the interplay of the market and his culture, for example, he redefined the remote telehealth model to systematically scale the innovative potential to address the challenges of access, volume and reimbursement. This past February, Gorevic successfully launched TeladocConnect which provides a physician’s office the ability to always be available for their patients “whether it’s the physician themselves – we give them the first opportunity to respond to their patients needs or our network of physicians who are always there as sort of a safety net for any time if that physician is not available.” Gorevic plans to continue differentiating Teladoc by not taking a breather with this latest launch, “today, we really focus on primary care, so we work with internists and family practitioners, pediatricians and emergency physicians. We’re looking at extending into some other specialties – I think dermatology and behavioral health are two examples of services that would work well.”

The creative edge that Gorevic is creating, is not a result of marketing savvy, but true leadership capability; identifying opportunities for competitive advantage, leveraging a top notch team, and understanding the innovation process. Like most big thinkers, Gorevic weaved his blue print for creating a competitive advantage throughout the interview:

1. Keep big ideas focused and manageable. “It’s easy to get spread too thin and try to tackle too many things at once…”

2. Create a culture of innovation. Look for potential leaders who have ambitions for “creating things and making an impact, intellectual curiosity, integrity, and a commitment to excellence -one requirement for my management team is that they act like adults.”

3. Stay in touch with the market. “…lose sight of the outside market and it’s hard to innovate – I’m a huge fan of process design, process engineering and efficiency.”

4. Create a product road map. Clearly, they have been able to implement their big ideas. They have a well-developed product road map including a mobile strategy. “It goes out probably two years with specifications, then it’s more of a strategic framework.”

 

During the radio call in time, VioSearch executive recruiter, Dennis Salinas called in asking Gorevic what was the most important aspect of retaining top performers in order for a company to remain innovative and competitive. From Gorevics perspective, “generally companies focus on the knowledge and skills component and frequently they forget about the cultural component and we spend as much time as we can on a cultural component because the cultural aspect of the on boarding process really is a determinant of how quickly they become a part of the fabric of the organization. He added that “the people who are most loyal are the people who are continually challenged, engaged and feeling successful about the work that they are doing…”  Gorevic also has a deep understanding of payment models as he shifted gears to answer questions from Boulder physician innovator, Dr. Virginia Gurley on aligning incentives, “there is a lack of payment for outcomes. There is too much payment for activity and services, which really is the wrong set of incentives… So we put parts of our fees at risk specifically focused on outcomes and results and you know I think that’s generally that we will see – the market move in that direction…”

 

Time went by fast with this interview and throughout, I was continually reminded of the Bill Gates quote, “bringing together the right information with the right people will dramatically improve a company’s ability to develop and act on strategic business opportunities.”  Gorevic is it getting right – but, I don’t have to tell him that, he’s a leader; he already knows.

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