• AI Judgment, Work Trends, and the Angel Investor Gap with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2026/02/24
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about Anthropic's bet on philosophy, trends shaping work in 2026, and why we need more angel investors. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger and Miles Zero’s Robyn Bolton. As we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact, let's get started.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn BoltonThinkers50 Recognition and the Role of Modern Management Thinkers in Innovation[00:00:30] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And with me, I have Robyn Bolton. Robyn, welcome to the show. [00:00:43] Robyn Bolton: Thank you. Great to be here again. [00:00:45] Brian Ardinger: We are excited as always, to talk about innovation and all the things that we've learned. Anything going on in your life that you want to share?[00:00:52] Robyn Bolton: Got some exciting news actually a couple weeks ago. Don't know if folks are familiar with Thinkers 50. That is kind of like the list of the top management thinkers and they have a radar list of up-and-coming thinkers and found out that I got named to that list. [00:01:08] Brian Ardinger: Yes, that's awesome. [00:01:10] Robyn Bolton: 30 up and coming thinkers and very excited. I'm a thinker now. [00:01:15] Brian Ardinger: It's always good to be recognized and even more to be recognized as a thinker. I think, especially in today's world. [00:01:21] Robyn Bolton: Yes, yes. Thinking is good. Doing is good too. And you know, it's an organization, they always say thinking plus doing equals impact. And I'm like, yep. [00:01:30] Brian Ardinger: There we go. [00:01:30] Robyn Bolton: Gotta be doing too.[00:01:32] Brian Ardinger: Well congratulations on that. [00:01:34] Robyn Bolton: Thank you. What about you? What's new in your world? [00:01:36] Brian Ardinger: Right now, we are buried in seven inches of snow, so that was fun. The week before we were in Phoenix, so I think I picked the wrong week to go on vacation. Other than that, unburying from email and unburying from snow this week. So, it's all good. [00:01:51] Robyn Bolton: Well, at least you had a week of warm to remember what that's like. [00:01:53] Brian Ardinger: Exactly. Remember what it was like. Excellent. Well, let's get started. We've got a couple of different articles over the last few weeks. The first one we want to talk about is a YouTube video from AI News and Strategy Daily by Nate b Jones.He had a video a couple weeks ago talking about Anthropic CEO's bet on the company and his philosophy, and the data says that he's right, that he's thinking about things in a little bit different way. It really talks about the constitution that Anthropic has put together. They put together an 80-page Claude constitution outlining the principles of how they've developed Claude and thinking about it, quite frankly, in a different way than a lot of the other AI companies have been thinking about it.What they've said that they've done is really look at how do you build these AI models using core principles, rather than having to build out every single rule and what the AI has to do based on rules and more about what's the philosophy of how the AI model should think through the system so that gives it more flexibility.And basically, this idea of having a more. Flexible constitution or way of thinking versus a strict rules-based approach may actually be a, a way that is going to give Claude an edge in the future. Anthropic’s Claude Constitution, AI Judgment, and the Future of Large Language Models[00:03:05] Robyn Bolton: Yeah. This was really fascinating because it brought up a theme that we've talked about several podcasts since the start of the year, which is judgment.And we've always talked about, and we've seen it written about it, it's like, hey, judgment is what is going to continue to give humans relevance. Because we have judgment and AI is just rules based. And so, what was fascinating and terrifying was in this constitution, it's based on Aristotle's philosophy and it emphasizes that they're trying to build Claude to exercise judgment versus following rules.And I was like Uh oh, if that was the, a human moat to kind of give us relevance and we're building Claude that I use daily to exercise judgment this is going to result in some very interesting things. And so, kind of early on, obviously Claude has not progressed to being, having full wisdom and judgment. But now with this constitution, one of the things that Nate mentioned is that when you're prompting Claude, the why matters more than the what.So, the importance because of this constitution and how they're programming Claude, that when you ask for something, you're...
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    13 分
  • AI Agents, OpenClaw, and Rise of Bot Networks with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2026/02/10
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, Robyn Bolton and Brian Ardinger talk about OpenClaw, how you can't work out on a limb if you can't trust the trunk, and how to hire the right people in an AI era. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger and Mile Zero’s, Robyn Bolton. As we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact, let's get started.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robin BoltonAI Agents, OpenClaw, and the Rise of Autonomous Bot Networks[00:00:00] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and I have Robyn Bolton with me today. Robyn, hello, how are you? [00:00:49] Robyn Bolton: I am good. How are you, Brian? [00:00:51] Brian Ardinger: We are well recording this right before the Super Bowl this weekend. [00:00:56] Robyn Bolton: I live here in Boston, so you know who I'm betting on.[00:00:59] Brian Ardinger: Well, we will get started with the innovation side of this podcast. We've got a number of different things to discuss. If you don't start a discussion around Open Claw, you're clearly not in the innovation space. So, we thought we'd talk about a couple of articles or a couple things that we've seen that are fairly recent.One, I looked for a couple summaries that were pretty good at giving everybody who's not familiar with this an overview, and one of them is from the AI Daily Brief, which came out a couple days ago talking about Moltbot and the Agent Social Network is the craziest AI phenomenon yet.And for those who are not familiar with it, OpenClaw, which started out as ClaudeBot and then was sued, and then changed the name to Moltbot and then changed it again to OpenClaw is a new agentic platform that allows anybody to set up a MAC mini or a computer to have their own personal agent.The interesting thing about this is folks have been playing around with this and have let their agents go wild out to talk to other agents and other things and let them do things on their behalf. And what has happened is these agents have connected and communicated and created some amazing things like their own Reddit thread where they are interacting, talking with each other, not humans. They're allowing the humans to view what's going on in this social network, and it's quite fascinating to see the things that they've done and they've created. What OpenClaw Reveals About AGI, Security, and Human Trust[00:02:22] Robyn Bolton: So fascinating. You also, in the newsletter that you sent out, you included a link to a YouTube video on MoltBot. It is so worth the 20 minutes of people's time to watch because it kind of traces the whole arc up to this point, and it is so entertaining and mind blowing and bizarre.It is like, seriously, this was my entertainment last Friday night, was following the saga of cba because you have all these little, well, I imagine them as little bots all on a social network talking to each other. It's becoming, it's looking like Reddit and they're debating consciousness and they're sharing cute stories about their humans and they're trading advice with each other. And it's just, it is so wild because it looks like kind of an actually like functional, healthy version of a social network with these things that they're not real. They're code.It's just so bizarre. But I think just such a reflection of holding a mirror up to us as humans, because that's what gen AI is prediction models, it's regression analysis. And so, everything they've learned and they're doing, they've learned from us. [00:03:39] Brian Ardinger: It's quite interesting. They've started their own religion and it's just interesting to see what are the first things that they do to kind of communicate or collaborate together. And the other thing, obviously there's a lot of debate about, you know, some people are saying, well, this is AGI, they're thinking for themselves. And you know, the other side of the coin is they're just mimicking back what they've seen. And that is scary as well. And how does that play out for us as humans?And then I think the other thing about this that obviously that's getting a lot of headlines in that, but the interesting thing about it as well is like, I think it's opened people's eyes to what happens when you do have an AI buddy or an AI agent such that you can actually get real work done.I think that's always been the promise. Ask Siri to do something and it does it for you, but because of security and there other reasons, Siri does not have access to all your emails and your files and everything else, where a lot of these folks who have created these OpenClaw agents have kind of opened up their system, opening up a lot of vulnerabilities as ...
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    14 分
  • When AI Works and When It Doesn’t with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2026/02/03
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about the red pixel in the snow, why MVPs should be delightful, and the robot AI deployment gap. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger and Miles Zero's, Robyn Bolton. As we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact, let's get started.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton[00:00:00] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And with me I have Robyn Bolton. Hello, Robyn. How are you? [00:00:48] Robyn Bolton: I am great. How are you, Brian? [00:00:50] Brian Ardinger: We are surviving the cold.[00:00:52] Robyn Bolton: The sub-freezing temperatures. Yes, I know it's January, but that doesn't mean it has to be as bitterly cold as it is. [00:01:01] Brian Ardinger: Absolutely. Well, hopefully this conversation will warm people's souls and hearts. As we talk about innovation in its various forms, we'll get right into it. We've gathered a couple of different articles that resonated with us over the last couple weeks. How AI and Drones Are Transforming Search and Rescue InnovationSo, the first article we want to discuss is titled A Red Pixel In the Snow: How AI Solved the Mystery of A Missing Mountaineer. And this came from the BBC. It's very fascinating article for a couple different reasons, but the basic premise, it's a story about a missing mountaineer. This person was hiking and went missing a 66-year-old hiker and they sent out all the helicopters and that to try to find him. They were unsuccessful, but closer to the spring when some of the snow was melting, they decided to go back out and see if they could actually find the body.And they used drones and AI, as a way to map the area. And what they found was they could put all that AI pictures into the system and they were able to find a red pixel in the snow that was effectively his helmet, that they were then able to find the person and go and retrieve the body and such.What I found fascinating about this is, again, in this particular instance, it wasn't successful in finding him and saving him, but just the ability for new technologies like drones, just taking random pictures and then putting that in through the AI and having the AI look for anomalies. They were able to identify something that they couldn't have done in the past, and obviously at a much faster speed than they could have done in the past as well.[00:02:26] Robyn Bolton: This was such a great story, tragic ending for this hiker, but a phenomenal story of when AI is good, it can be great. And you know, it's an instance of AI doing something that humans are not good at. We're not good at finding a pixel in the snow. We have bias when we see things, and so we're more likely to overlook something red. Because we just don't see it.So, it was just a great story of how AI is augmenting what humans do. It is taking things that need to get done that we're not good at, and that it's equipped to do better than us. And you know, even though this story didn't have a happy outcome for the hiker, I bet the family is still happy to have him recovered and not be wondering. And as AI gets better, there's probably more people who will be rescued because of it. So, I thought it was just a wonderful story. Augmenting Human Judgment with AI and Drone Technology[00:03:25] Brian Ardinger: And it was interesting just to read through actually how the AI worked. The software managed to detect a kind of a red color, even though the helmet was in shade. So again, a human might not have been able to detect it, and it was very good at identifying anomaly.So, it didn't necessarily say this is exactly where the hiker is, but it was able to go through the mounds of image data and say, here's some possible places. Humans still had to go through and actually find it, but it again, sped up the process.And then I guess the other interesting point about this is the other technology, if you stack that on top of AI, the drones themselves, being able to get into crevices and places where traditional helicopters couldn't get into.What's interesting is again all these particular technologies that we're talking about are hitting all at once, and when you start looking at the cumulative effect of how these things can add value or create interesting solutions and that, that's what's accelerating innovation. It's this ability to add on, and it's not just one thing that can make a difference. It's this combination of things. [00:04:20] Robyn Bolton: And it's the combination of the technology and the humans versus trying to use the technology to replace humans. I mean even the drones, as you mentioned, the drone operators had to go...
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    15 分
  • Youth Buzzwords, Innovation Team Value, and Side Projects with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2026/01/27
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about youth culture buzzwords, calculating the value of your innovation teams and how your side project won't save you anymore. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger and Miles Zero's, Robyn Bolton. As we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact, let's get started.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn BoltonYouth Culture Moves Faster Than Innovation Cycles[00:00:40] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And with me I have Robyn Bolton from Mile Zero. Welcome back, Robyn. How are you? [00:00:48] Robyn Bolton: I am great. How are you doing, Brian? [00:00:51] Brian Ardinger: I am doing well. We're excited to have another opportunity to talk about innovation and its various forms. Maybe we'll just get right into it. 2026 is moving very fast. One of them that popped up is from the Substack AfterSchool by Casey Lewis. Casey is an amazing person who really looks at youth culture. And the article that she has just published is Buzzwords that Define 2025 and Youth Culture in Review.And she spent her Substack culminating all the things that she had been researching in the year 2025, looking at youth culture, what are kids looking at? How are they talking everything around that particular space. And came out with a great article that gives you a highlight of what it's like to be Gen Z.From Feeling “Old” to Feeling “Ancient”. Generational Language Gaps[00:01:33] Robyn Bolton: Reading this article, I already felt old, this made me feel ancient. Because I hear all this stuff, all the slang and everything. I'm like, yeah, I'm up on my slang. I don't know what any of it means, but I at least have heard it. And then I read this article, I'm like, I have heard none of these terms. I mean, some of them are like Lemony Miso Hutu Schwan. I can't even say it. Ego scrolling. Zen Dia theory. Ballerina Cappuccino. I had actually heard of that one. I was like, wow. I have gone from hearing terms and not understanding them to being so old and ancient that I haven't even heard them. It's a great view into. What's going on in Generation Alpha.Analog Revival and Escaping “Slop Life”[00:02:19] Brian Ardinger: She talks a lot about how 2025 was defined by Gen Z's seemingly endless enthusiasm for pre-digital experiences. You know, which is a counterintuitive to what we think about, especially in the space that we live in and technology and innovation. But there seems to be a big push, especially the younger folks around, how do they not have all this stuff define them and or control them, which is kind of interesting.Physical media is coming back in unprecedented demand. Everything from Pokemon cards to vintage CDs, et cetera. Talking even about how New York City schools have phone bans that have sparked a rush to kids bringing in rector watches. So bring back the Time Max and the Casio, and teaching kids how to actually rediscover what analog timekeeping is.I thought that was fairly interesting about what she's seeing in the youth culture. And then of course, she has some great terms that we'll probably start seeing pop up. We've seen six, seven, but that's come and gone. But things like slop life where acceptance of overstimulating, low quality consumption is the default mode. And how do you get out of slop life?Things like festivals, which is, you know, you have this festival culture like Coachella now, but the ship is now moving towards live streaming and at home experiences rather than physical endurance of a two and a half day in the sweaty sun for a festival. And what I think about all these kind of things is what stood out to me is the importance of understanding this, not just if your audience is youth culture, but the importance of customer discovery and living with your customers and understanding how they think, how they act, how they talk, and the fact that the speed of these culture changes are shifting so fast.As soon as you figure it out in the mainstream, it's already been moved to the next thing, the next meme, et cetera. And so as a corporate innovator, as a startup, being focused on customer discovery, being focused on living with your customers, being focused on keeping up and keeping pace with what's going on is so important.You Can’t Read Your Way Into Understanding Youth Culture[00:04:15] Robyn Bolton: The pace of change, I mean it just, the fads, the trends, the terms, the language, the slang, it moves so much faster, certainly than when I was growing up. The other thing that really struck me about some of the buzzwords was just that they were a sign of how plugged into the broader world that...
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    14 分
  • Counterintuitive Trends, Building Products, and TSMC Chips with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2026/01/20
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, Robyn and I talk about counterintuitive trends for 2026, tactics for building great products, and how one company is controlling 64% of the future. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger and Miles Zero's, Robyn Bolton as we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with Impact, let's get started.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton[00:00:40] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. With me, I have Robyn Bolton. How are you, Robyn? [00:00:49] Robyn Bolton: I am good. How are you, Brian? [00:00:51] Brian Ardinger: I'm doing great. It's the beginning of 2026 in the midst of trying to ramp up new talent, and that's always fun. So that's what's new on my side. What's new in your world? [00:01:02] Robyn Bolton: The course that I teach at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design is starting in a couple weeks, so I've been busy putting together my syllabus to teach strategy and business models and had to go in and change things up, though I'm very excited. We will be doing a case on Taylor Swift this semester.[00:01:21] Brian Ardinger: The world is changing fast. We'll get into it now with our articles. There are a number of things we've pulled together for this episode.The first one we want to talk about is called Six Counterintuitive Trends to Think About for 2026, and this is from Barry O'Reilly. Barry wrote a book called Unlearn, and he talks a lot about all things lean startup and, and everything, his particular take as he was looking forward into the 2026 and some of the things that he's seeing and how we should be pursuing this whole innovation space.The article talks about the fact that a lot of managers and that are asking the wrong questions, especially when it comes to AI, and we're talking too much about the technology and how fast is AI improving. When the better question that we should be asking ourselves is, how is AI quietly changing how people work, think, decide, and trust themselves at work?And I thought that was an interesting way to rephrase how we go into 2026 and move away from the technology itself and really think about like, how is this technology impacting people?[00:02:25] Robyn Bolton: Completely agree. I've definitely seen that shift from what is our AI strategy to what is our strategy to accomplish our goals through people, through AI, et cetera, kind of the AI enabled strategy. So, it's nice. It's refreshing to see that shift reflected. Again. I loved his very first counterintuitive trend.I was like, oh, please let this be a trend that leadership will be redefined around judgment, not control. And I would argue that leadership was always about judgment. Management was about control, and that was one of the big differences between leaders and managers. But overall, like I really do hope that he's right, that executives, managers, you know, those senior levels of any organization, that they are shifting to more judgment, like not judgment as in condemnation judgment, but like critical thinking, problem solving versus trying to manage every aspect of their direct reports. [00:03:30] Brian Ardinger: Yes. And talks about creating space for reflection and that, not just, again, I think we have a tendency, especially with all the pressure that we're feeling around AI in that to do the next pilot, use the next tool, keep up to speed on what's going on, and keeping in mind that that reflection period is actually where the learning happens a lot of times, and not being afraid to slow down.Having said that, you know, the other thing that he talks about is the speed in which we have to go and deploy things in 2026 and beyond, making sure that we are learning fast. Strategy will ship from planning fast to learning fast. That is the key. It's not about planning per se, it's about, you know, how fast can we learn in this new world of uncertainty. [00:04:14] Robyn Bolton: And the learning being so key for a whole host of reasons, but especially his third point that AI is quietly eroding human confidence. And so it's kind of this interesting juxtaposition of trends in his list of, hey, we have to start focus on learning faster. Leadership is going to be defined by judgment. And by the way, this tool that we've spent certainly all of last year talking about is actually eating away at all of those things.And I think it just highlights the importance of that reflection step and kind of saying, all right, yeah, I got an answer from AI, but does this make sense? Is this actually what I think or am I just parroting what Claude, Chat GPT, et cetera has said? [00:04:57] Brian Ardinger: And then the final ...
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    17 分
  • Mental Models for AI, Middle School Dating, and Robot Olympics with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2026/01/13
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down to talk about new mental models for working with AI, the similarities between startups and middle school dating, and lessons learned from the robot Olympics. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger and Miles Zero’s Robyn Bolton as we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact. Let's get started.Interview Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton[00:00:40] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and I have my co-host, Robyn Bolton. Welcome, Robyn.[00:00:50] Robyn Bolton: Thank you. Great to be here as always. [00:00:52] Brian Ardinger: We are in a brand-new year 2026. Who would've thought? Exciting to start the year with you. Appreciate you coming on board. [00:00:58] Robyn Bolton: Yep. High point of the year so far. [00:01:00] Brian Ardinger: We've got a lot of things going on on the plate. Anything you want to talk about? [00:01:04] Robyn Bolton: Couple of new things I mentioned earlier, one of our stories from last year is back in the news, the Samsung AI fridge just voted worst in show at CES this year. People finally caught on to the fact that we may be overcomplicating the refrigerator.Thought that was a funny callback, and I got to admit, I feel like you called it Brian and I echoed it of like we've gone too far. So, personally, professionally in my space, starting to do a lot more work in uncertainty and helping people figure out how to make decisions without the data they want or need, and how to help teams move through a world that is getting only more and more uncertain every day. So, it's exciting. [00:01:51] Brian Ardinger: Saw your newsletter this last week, and yeah, the new positioning, or you're talking about how it's not just about innovation, it's more about how do you deal with the fact that nothing that you expected to happen is going to happen, and how do you deal in probability and uncertainty. [00:02:06] Robyn Bolton: Great for innovators, because that's one thing that as the innovators, whether you're a startup founder, a consultant, a corporate innovator, every day you're dealing with uncertainty and trying to figure out how to move forward. Even though we've always called this innovation, it has much broader application these days. [00:02:23] Brian Ardinger: Absolutely. Let's get right into it.We've got a couple of different articles we've been reading over the holiday season. The first article we want to talk about is called Six Mental Models for Working With AI. It's from Azeem Azhar. He's got a great Substack newsletter out there that publishes pretty much almost daily, I think it comes out. But he was talking about the way he's been looking at AI over the past year and trying to come up with different models that are making it more effective. All these AI tools are brand new and that, and people are trying to figure out what works, what doesn't work, how to use them better, and I think it's sometimes interesting to take other people's perspectives and what has worked for them and discuss that.So, in his article, he goes over a couple of different frameworks that he uses when he is either trying to understand better how to use a tool. One of the ones I was going to talk about is, he calls it the 50 x reframe, and he says, when he is dealing with a particular problem and trying to understand like, how can I automate it, how can I make it better, how can I make it faster and that he asked the question, what would I do if I had 50 people working on this problem. And asked the AI basically to help him think through the framework. Or if you know 50 people were working on this particular project, how could you automate it or what would change if you had 50 people to be able to dig into a particular area.So, I thought that was a very interesting framework to think about it. And we oftentimes get constrained in like it's just me or just my team. But what if you just flipped the framework and said, what if I had 50 people on my team to work on it? How would that change what I'm doing? [00:03:46] Robyn Bolton: I loved that one. I mean that one, it's the first one listed in the article. And I'll admit, I started reading the article. It's a big skeptical when I started reading it because you know, his first sentence is the question of whether AI is good enough for serious knowledge work has been answered. And I was like. Yes, it's been answered. It's not. And then I kept reading. I'm like, oh, he has a different answer.The 50 x reframe just stopped me in my tracks, was like, that's genius of shifting from how do I as one person do this better with AI's help to completely ...
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    15 分
  • Radical Reinvention, IKEA effect, and AI Innovation with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2025/12/30
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about how change is changing, the IKEA effect on MVPs, and how AI is making companies more ambidextrous. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger, and Miles Zero’s, Robyn Bolton as we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton[00:00:30] Brian Ardinger: Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and my co-host Robyn Bolton is with me. Hello Robin. How are you?[00:00:45] Robyn Bolton: Hello, Brian. I'm great. How are you?[00:00:50] Brian Ardinger: I am doing well. We are in the middle of December.[00:00:54] Robyn Bolton: And hard to believe that the year is, it's almost over.[00:00:58] Brian Ardinger: Well, I'm ramping up for 2026. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about for the conference that we're going to be planning. Yes. We'll talk to you a little bit more about that, but let's just jump in. We've got some articles to discuss, some things that we've been seeing out there in the ether when it comes to innovation.Innovation and AI in 2026. Setting the Stage for ChangeThe first article is Change is Changing How to Meet the Challenge of Radical Reinvention, published by McKinsey. There's a lot of things I want to dive into this. Obviously, McKinsey's probably in the wheelhouse of disruption, as their game is going to be changed. So, I read this article with two lenses.One, the lens of what they are telling their clients, and then two, are they eating their own dog food when it comes to this? So, for reference, the McKinsey article talks about, you know, when change becomes everywhere, every, everything everywhere, all at once. How are companies dealing with this? And it's no wonder that the average employee experiences all these particular changes and is worn out.And I think one of the things they quoted was the number of new experiences that the average employee faces is fivefold increase than a decade ago. The fact that organizations and leaders have all new types of tools and skills and methods to navigate this changing, complex state, and those old tools don't necessarily apply today. So I love your first insight, and we'll go from there. Radical Reinvention and Innovation Strategy. Rethinking Change at Scale[00:02:13] Robyn Bolton: McKinsey turns out great stuff and great frameworks and all that stuff. And also, as someone who's been a consultant for entirely too long, they also make me laugh. Like in a super nerdy consultant way. Because one of the things that's laid out this article is the four Cs of change.You know, it starts with C1 execute, C2 mobilize, and then we get to C3 transform, which was the buzzword of, I feel like the last five years. You know, we're transforming everything. But now we have a new one. It is level four change, and it is reinvention. And I just loved when we rebrand things that are the same thing we've always talked about, but we've rebranded it, and now there's a different diagram, so it's completely new, and you need to buy from us.But there is good content in here. And you know this idea of creating value with the new identity. Talk about way easier said than done. Like every organization has an identity. When you ask someone like, what do we do here? The answer is the organization's identity and to change that is about as easy as changing an individual's identity, which is to say not at all.Organizational Identity, Leadership, and Innovation Fatigue in the Age of AI[00:03:30] Brian Ardinger: Well, and I found that part of the article actually the most intriguing because I think when you think of McKinsey, again, a lot of stuff they've focused on is how do you optimize and execute on your model? They're not very focused on reinvention. And kind of blowing it up and starting over from that perspective.So, I thought that was an interesting take, that either they have to recognize the fact that the companies that they're working with and the companies out there in general are going to have to reinvent themselves. It's no longer table stakes just to, you know, do what you've been doing and make it better, faster, stronger, cheaper.It's how do we navigate and potentially reinvent what we've done in the past. And then the other key aspect of it that really resonated with me was the fact that how do you create a culture such that change is not a drain to the organization? But as a source of energy, again, coming from a consulting background, that's often not the things you talk about.Like how do you actually create change that energizes and excites people, and provides a source of energy around what you're doing? So those are the ...
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  • Portfolio entrepreneurship, AI research, and brain development with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    2025/12/16
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about portfolio entrepreneurship, how AI tools are transforming market research and new brain research that indicates adulthood starts later than you think. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help innovation leaders navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to grow and thrive in a world of hyper uncertainty and accelerating change. Join me, Brian Ardinger, and Miles Zero's Robyn Bolton. As we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact. Let's get started.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn BoltonAI Driven Innovation Trends and Founder Mindset Shifts[00:00:30] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and with me, I have Robyn Bolton from Mile Zero. Welcome, Robyn.[00:00:34] Robyn Bolton: Thank you. Great to be here.Great to have you, again. This is episode 3 43 ish. We're excited to continue to talk about innovation. There's always something new and exciting to talk about.[00:00:45] Brian Ardinger: Anything going on in your world this week?[00:01:04] Robyn Bolton: I feel like this week I'm going to be spending at grading finals papers wrapped up my corporate innovation course at Boston College, and everyone submitted their finals and that's all great and they're done. And I'm now just looking at a stack of virtual digital stack of papers.[00:01:21] Brian Ardinger: At Nelnet this week we've got our Spark, which is our monthly gathering of folks. We find some interesting project and give them opportunities to sit on stage and talk about what some of the new things that are building out there. That's an opportunity to get our movers and shakers in the same room and share what's going across the different business units. So we're always excited for our Spark this week. Those are some of the things that are happening in my world. [00:01:44] Robyn Bolton: I'll happily come out and go to your Spark event, and you can grade papers. [00:01:46] Brian Ardinger: You're welcome anytime. We've got a lot of things to cover today. We've got three articles that we've curated over the last week or so. The first one we want to talk about is everyone's a founder now and it's from every, and it's a YouTube channel, and it's an interview with Henrik WerdelinPortfolio Entrepreneurship and AI Agents Reshaping StartupsAnd Henrik is a person who started Pre-Hype, started BarkBox, and he has got a new company called Audos. It's a platform that helps people use AI agents to turn ideas into profitable companies. This particular YouTube video in this interview was talking a lot about some of these new tools and how it's really changing the landscape of startups and can apply to corporate innovation as well. With these new tools, Henrick was talking about this idea of portfolio entrepreneurship, so the idea of a new breed of entrepreneurship that's shepherded in by AI.Where founders build family of products or services around the same customer instead of like one moonshot idea. So rather than coming up with Facebook and building that out, there's an opportunity now for entrepreneurs to create maybe more single, double, triple types of companies around a core set of customers that they know and can work with.And it's a variety of different projects and services that can serve that particular marketplace versus the traditional model of venture capital that we've seen out there kind of shooting for the moon. [00:03:02] Robyn Bolton: It's a really interesting video and I encourage people to go watch it. They talk about a lot in this video and you know, some of the ones that I wanna highlight, and you've already touched on this is one, what he's building with Audos. Going back to our last episode where we talked about the Mad Lib. I actually went over to Audos and you can fill in a Mad Lib for your business idea and I think in 10 minutes it built a fully functioning website, videos, everything. It was amazing. I have no idea how to edit any of it or do anything but like just the speed at which you could take a mad lib and create something that looked like a viable business was astounding.Deep Customer Focus and the Rise of Multi Product FoundersHe also talked about, as you mentioned, the importance of picking a target customer and one that you want to serve for 10 years. And he talked about with BarkBox, it was all about serving the dog owner, and most people would talk about, oh, well, you did BarkBox. Now do Meow Box, now do whatever box. And he's like, that wasn't going to work. They went from BarkBox to basically like airplanes for dogs to other things. And it was always the people who are gonna win in this new kind of world are the ones who go really deep on a very specific customer.Then kind of where this all started of the portfolio entrepreneur. He did a great job calling out VCs. Mm-hmm...
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