Business REINVENTION: Recent Episodes
Nancy Lin
“Business Reinvention with Nancy Lin” keeps you up to date on emerging trends and business innovations that could transform your industry. The show helps you make sense of new technologies and business models to understand their implications. Nancy Lin is a thoughtful and engaging host with a knack for asking questions that draw out unexpected insights. Her in-depth interviews with experts empower you to think innovatively and offer you inspiration and business lessons.
The medium salary for U.S. Taxi drivers is only $33,034, according to salary.com. Under threat from Uber and driverless cars, the traditional taxi industry is facing a bleak future.
In this episode, I will speak with Dr. Sheng-Tsung Hou, the Director at the Center for Service Innovation and Mobility Design (SIMD), who has spent years studying the taxi industry in Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. We will discuss the innovative system in Singapore which Uber emulated as well as the turnaround story of a Taiwanese taxi company that became the first ride-hailing firm in the world to go IPO. He will share his thoughts on Uber's next move and what taxi companies can do to compete in a world of increasing digitalization and monopolies.
U.S. students are improving in math and science, but are still lagging behind their counterparts in many other countries. One of the reasons for the poor performance is funding inequality. About half of our education funding for public schools comes from local property taxes, resulting in large disparities in funding between wealthy and impoverished communities. This is a sharp contrast to the situations in other developed countries where school districts typically receive equal funding on the basis of the number of students enrolled, regardless of local wealth.
Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) is pioneering new solutions to help students and teachers meet these challenges. The foundation has helped students achieve dramatic improvement in math and science. In this episode, Muhammed Chaudhry, President and CEO for SVEF, will discuss their approach to help students achieve their full potential in the critical areas.
The travel industry is the world’s largest employer. Several trends are reshaping the industry. The sharing economy for example, is blurring the line between hotels and short term rentals. As hotels and airlines take control of their own inventory, and turn away from third-party sites such as Expedia, will more travel search engines and other players look toward the home sharing market for growth? Please join me and Jen O’Neal, CEO and Founder of Tripping.com, to explore the changing face of the hospitality industry.
With the business environment becoming more competitive than ever, many companies are wrapped-up in the notion that if they don’t grow rapidly, they will not survive. Magazines are full of top 10 lists that measure success by size and wealth. In this episode, Inc’s editor at large, Bo Burlingham, will talk about his book, Small Giants, in which he discusses companies that strive to be great instead of big and define their own success. We will gain insight into how these companies thrive by creating a positive impact on the businesses and the lives of the people that they come in contact with.
Many technologies are designed to conquer nature or natural events. But now we’re seeing businesses in wide range of industries look to nature for innovative ideas. Biomimicry takes inspiration from nature to solve human problems, and has attracted the attention of companies such as Apple and IDEO. The number of innovations based on biomimicry design is on the rise. Chris Allen, CEO of Biomimicry 3.8, and Anthony Brennan, CTO of Sharklet, will provide insight into this emerging sector, its impact on innovation and its future.
Insurance has become a commodity for many people but that’s about to change with innovative startups entering the market. Executives in the industry are expecting digital technology to transform the marketplace within the next few years, according to a study by Accenture.
This week, we will take a look at Metromile to get a glimpse of the innovations that are happening in the insurance business. Tina Wong, Director of Marketing at Metromile, will join me to discuss their business strategy and the future of the insurance industry.
Thanks to the growing Hispanic population, soccer’s popularity continues to climb in the US. In addition, it now ranks as the second favorite sport among Americans age 12-24, according to the new ESPN/Luker poll. David Kaval, President of San Jose Earthquakes, will join me to discuss the business strategies that have helped boost season ticket sales by 42%. We will also explore the new technologies that are helping to reinvent the in-stadium experience and innovate the business of sports entertainment.
How do the world’s savviest talent judges find superior talent? In this fast-changing global market, great talent is the key for companies maintaining competitiveness. George Anders, the Pulitzer Prize winner and top writer for The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, will share with us insight from his new book, “The Rare Find. We'll also hear from Joy McGovern, Head of Client Services of Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management. She'll discuss what some companies are doing to address the increasingly urgent need for global leaders who can manage the challenges in the new world environment.
How do you take a growing business serving a few markets, and scale it up to meet the increasing demand for you products while motivating your team to cope with change and limited resources? This is one of the biggest challenges for successful and fast-growing companies. In this episode, Nanette Miller, Partner at Marcum LLP, and Juli Betwee, Managing Partner of Pivot Point Partners, will offer their advice on how to overcome growing pains and take your business to the next level.
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, recently said that while mobile is the key platform of today, virtual reality will be one of the major platforms of tomorrow. He predicts that virtual reality technology can change the way we work, play and communicate. The technology had been associated mostly with gaming but new applications are being developed rapidly. Business Insider estimates shipments of VR headsets will grow at a 99% compound annual growth rate between 2015 and 2020, and the market could be as big as $2.8 billion by 2020.
This week, Beck Besecker, CEO of MarxentLabs, and Aaron Hilton, Executive Chairman of Conquer Mobile, join me to discuss the reasons behind the new interest in VR technology and the key players’ race to build a dominating ecosystem.
Innovation can often be counter-intuitive, or it can simply embody the repurposing of ideas from other industries. The Space Monkey device moves the cloud into your home, using a peer-to-peer local storage network and making it easy to store and share your digital content without dealing with your Internet connection.
The market for public cloud services is expected to exceed $200 billion by 2016, according to Forbes. Clint Gordon-Carroll, co-founder of Space Monkey, will talk about the trends in the cloud computing industry and how he plans to succeed in the category.
More than 10 years after social media and mobile phones went mainstream, marketers are still trying to make sense of the fast-changing media landscape and consumer behaviors. The change has compelled companies to rethink their organizational structure and alignment in addition to their capability to harness big data and respond to market intelligence.
In this episode, I will talk with David F. Giannetto, the author of “Big Social Mobile – How Digital Initiatives Can Reshape the Enterprise and Drive Business Results”. We will discuss the impact of social and mobile marketing on organizational structure, business planning, and marketing leadership. David will share best practices for closing the gap between today’s trendiest digital initiatives—big data, social media, and mobile technology designed to generate friends, data and downloads—and traditional organizational goals focused on creating customers, revenue and profit.
By 2050, the world’s population will reach 9.2 billion, 34 percent higher than today. With companies like Google racing to extend our lives, are we going to have enough food to feed an increasing population who are living longer than any time in history?
Over $2.3 billion in venture money was invested in agtech in 2014. In this episode, we will explore how precision agriculture is transforming one of the world’s oldest industries. The advanced technologies are helping farmers collect real-time data and predict a variety of variables, such as plant stress level and water usage, to optimize decisions concerning planting, fertilizing and harvesting. I will discuss the implications for large and small farms as well as for consumers with Dr. Alex Thomasson, Professor of Biological & Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University, and Dr. Jim Ostrowski, VP of Engineering at Blue River Technology.
We first featured 3D printing technology on the show in 2012. How has it evolved and what has the industry learned about market needs? In this episode, I will speak with guests from Autodesk, Shapeways and Wohlers Associates about the progress and impact the sector has made in the last 3 years. We discuss new implications for other industries and re-examine the future of the 3D printing market. Panelists – James Page, Senior Product Manager of Spark at Autodesk Tim Caffrey, Senior Consultant at Wohlers Associates Michael Weinberg, IP and General Counsel at Shapeways
Delancey Street is the leading residential self-help organization for substance abusers, ex-convicts, homeless and others who have hit bottom. For 40 years, the ground-breaking social enterprise provides an environment where the “untouchable” learn to develop their strengths, hold each other accountable, and run successful restaurants, moving companies, landscaping businesses and bookstores without any professional help. In this episode, we will speak with the founder and CEO of Delancey Street, Mimi Halper Silbert, to learn about the keys to influence behavior and inspire reinvention. Businesses can learn from Delancey Street about how to create an organization that inspires and enables change.
Since the Slow Movement stared in 1986, the business environment has become even more complex and fast-paced. Has the movement failed or is the explosive pace of change finally driving businesses and consumers to embrace the movement and deal with our addiction to speed?
This show is for trend watchers who are looking for new opportunities as well as busy professionals who want to take control of their lives and reboot business results. I will speak with Carl Honoré, author of In Praises of Slowness and The Slow Fix, about organizations that are adopting the philosophy of the Slow Movement and companies that are taking advantage of the trend to grow their businesses.
There are many articles and experts that are predicting the end of brick-and-mortar stores. Is it possible to reverse this downward slide? Will implementing disruptive technologies alone save the traditional retailers? Are online retailers really invincible?
Doug Stephens will join me to examine the future of the retail industry. He'll provide a thought-provoking perspective about the root causes of the demise of traditional retailers. We’ll also discuss critical strategies retailers should be considering in order to revitalize their businesses, and energize their customers. Doug is the founder of Retail Prophet and one of the world’s leading retail industry futurists. His work and thinking have influenced agencies and brands including Target, Home Depot, Disney, Crayola, WestJet, Citibank, and Razorfish. He's the author of the groundbreaking book: The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism.
As competition intensifies, businesses are going beyond online tracking to find better data for their marketing strategies. Hugo Boss now uses body heat to track shoppers and identify areas in the stores that are most visited. Other advertisers use facial recognition technology in their digital advertising display to tailor personalized message to the shopper.
Miinome, a start-up in Minneapolis, is betting that genetics-based advertising is the next big thing. Paul Saarinen, CEO of Miinome, will shed light on the company’s vision and innovative business model that will change the relationship between the marketers and the consumers. What new advertising models will emerge from this? Should we be concerned or intrigued? Please join us for a discussion to learn more about the new trend.
Juniper Research warns that annual cost of cyber security breaches could reach $2.1 trillion by 2019 as mobile devices and the Internet of Things networks proliferate. Cyber attacks are now the most lucrative crime - something that no CEO can ignore.
In this episode, Mike Kirwan will deconstruct cyber threats - to help many of us who don’t have a technical background understand the key issues and learn how to strategize a better cyber security plan to reduce business risk. The program also highlights innovative approaches that may change the way the cyber security industry thinks about crime-fighting solutions in the future.
Mike currently serves as CTO at HITCare. He was an IT executive at VeriSign, Bank of America, PayPal and Kaiser previously.
For over a decade, technologists have been predicting the down fall of traditional retail stores. eCommerce has been taking market share from the physical channel as the use of Internet increases. The problem worsened when smartphones became ubiquitous and turned stores into showrooms for eCommerce sites. But the advancement of technology is now helping brick and mortar stores to turn the tide and reinvent the way they operate.
This week, Shelley E. Kohan, VP of Retail Consulting at RetailNext, joins me to discuss the transformation of physical retailers and how they are using new insights of customer behaviors to optimize performance across the organization
Financial crises, disruptive technologies and intensifying competition have brought on radical change and volatility for companies. Scientists and technologists are now learning to uncover innovative ideas and borrow efficient designs from nature. But does nature also offer leadership lessons that can help us manage the increasing level of uncertainty, speed of change and limited resources to achieve business transformation? Please join me for a thought-provoking conversation with the Denise DeLuca, co-founder and director of BCI, Biomimicry for Creative Innovation.
Drought and flooding are raising real business stakes for companies in many industries ranging from beverage, food, apparel, retail, and energy to the semiconductor sector. The 2030 Water Resources Group predicts that the demand for water will exceed supply by 40% by 2030 and that closing this gap could cost as much as $50–60 billion a year for the next 20 years.
Increasing water-related risks are pushing businesses to rethink their water strategy to ensure that they can continue to grow amid sustainability challenges. In this episode, Will Sarni, Director and Practice Leader of Enterprise Water Strategy at Deloitte Consulting, joins me to discuss the trend and best practices. We also explore business opportunities created by the current water crisis.
How do you know if your company is innovative enough, before you start losing market share? What are companies today doing to stay competitive? We'll hear from a world-renowned innovation expert, Doug Solomon, who was the senior vice president for corporate development and strategic planning at Apple, and Chief Technology Officer of IDEO. We'll get a glimpse of Apple’s creative process and collaboration lessons from IDEO.
Will new technologies save the US oil industry from a crash? The crude oil price has collapsed from $100 to below or around $50, driven by over supply and geopolitics. Many believe that the US oil boom is coming to the end. To the doomsayers’ surprise, the price squeeze is creating a new incentive for US oil companies to implement innovative technology to boost cost efficiency.
This week, we will explore the dramatic advancement that’s taking place in the industry and helping US companies to develop new competitive advantages against Saudi Arabia. I will explore new techniques and emerging technology, such as nanotechnology, with Robert Bryce, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and Jay Kipper, Program Director, Bureau of Economic Geology at University of Texas, Austin.
What separates successful entrepreneurs from less successful ones? What’s the unconventional thinking that drives their actions? In this episode, Daniel Isenberg shares with us his unique perspective on entrepreneurship. Daniel is an adjunct professor at Columbia School of Business and the founding executive director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project. Daniel is also the author of Worthless Impossible and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value. Previously, he was a professor at the Harvard Business School, a venture capitalist and an entrepreneur.
Banks have tightened their underwriting standards after the financial crisis, making It difficult for many small businesses to get loans. This episode explores how Lighter Capital and Solar Mosaic are developing innovative ways to finance businesses and projects. Nanette Miller, West Coast Partner-in-Charge at Marcum LLP, will provide advice on how to evaluate the new funding options to determine the best financing strategy for your company. We will also discuss the implications for the power players in the financial industry.
Does innovation have to be unaffordable? There is probably nothing that affects more Americans than the increasing healthcare cost in this country. While there were more new drugs approved in 2014 by the FDA than the previous 18 years, many of the new drugs’ prices were staggering. As the baby boomers age, the need for medical breakthroughs to fight disease as well as cost control intensifies. How can we continue to innovate without bankrupting our healthcare system?
This week, we take a look at the lengthy process of developing a new medicine and explore new ideas that could drastically change the way clinical trials are conducted. The program will feature John Reites, Head of Product and Strategy for Quintiles Health Engagement & Communications, and the team from the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), including Pamela Tenaerts, Executive Director and Bray Patrick-Lake, Director of Stakeholder Engagement.
Many industries have integrated the crowdsourcing model into their businesses, but few envisioned the possibility of community-created vehicles. Not only is car design complex, but manufacturing is another matter. Few new companies have succeeded in making automobiles in the U.S. Local Motors wants to change the way cars are designed, built, purchased and owned. More than five years after it was created, the company launched the first car in the world co-designed by a virtual community of engineers and designers. In this episode, I'll interview the president and CEO, John Rogers, about his vision to transform the auto industry. We'll discuss interesting projects in the pipeline, as well as his views on the keys to marketing innovation and the future of the auto industry.
How do you take a growing business serving a few markets, and scale it up to meet the increasing demand for you products while motivating your team to cope with change and limited resources? This is one of the biggest challenges for successful and fast-growing companies. In this episode, Nanette Miller, Partner at Marcum LLP, and Juli Betwee, Managing Partner of Pivot Point Partners, will offer their advice on how to overcome growing pains and take your business to the next level.
The growing need for on-demand services has spurred new business models and intense competition, especially in the food and grocery delivery category. It's estimated that the market for take-out food is approximately $70 billion. Last month, GrubHub reported 50% increase in its fourth-quarter revenues. In addition to Google, Amazon, Yelp and Uber, many startups are also developing hybrid business models to compete with the giants.
This week, Nilam Ganenthiran, Head of Business Development and Strategy at Instacart, and Anson Tsui, CTO and Co-founder of SpoonRocket, join me to discuss their business models, the market potential, and the challenges posed by the growing competition.
Marketers have known for a long time that consumers don’t always know why they buy the things they buy. A study published in Germany indicates that the brain unconsciously prepares our decisions several seconds before we consciously decide what we’re going to do. Now neuromarketing is shedding new light on the unconscious thinking processes that underlie consumer behavior. It’s a new field of marketing research and helps marketers understand consumers' brain responses to brands, products and shopping. In this episode, Steve Genco and Andrew Pohlmann, authors of Neuromarketing for Dummies, will discuss what motivates consumer behavior and how the new insights are influencing marketing decisions.
The historic rollout of Obamacare sends the healthcare industry into uncharted territory. Will the industry be ready for the customized and outcomes-based operating model? The challenge is complicated by large volume of context-sensitive data, data quality and data fragmentation issues.
In this episode, we’ll explore Apixio’s technology and how it incorporates natural language processing and machine learning to unlock medical intelligence for better risk assessment and care delivery. Darren Schulte, President and Chief Medical Officer of Apixio, will join me for the discussion.
Deserts make up one third of the earth’s land surface. What if we could produce food, water and clean energy in the Sahara Desert, the world’s hottest desert which covers 9 million square kilometers? Would this help relieve the looming crisis for food shortage without contributing more to energy consumption and CO2 emissions, or to water scarcity? The ambitious Sahara Forest Project aims to take on this challenge. I will explore this with Joakim Hauge, the CEO of The Sahara Forest Project. Please join us to learn more about the vision and strategy for the project.
Thanks to the growing Hispanic population, soccer’s popularity continues to climb in the US. In addition, it now ranks as the second favorite sport among Americans age 12-24, according to the new ESPN/Luker poll. David Kaval, President of San Jose Earthquakes, will join me to discuss the business strategies that have helped boost season ticket sales by 42%. We will also explore the new technologies that are helping to reinvent the in-stadium experience and innovate the business of sports entertainment.
Although most marketers are increasing their online marketing spend, a new report by Adobe shows that only 48% of them feel proficient in digital marketing and only 40% are confident about the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. This may explain why some companies are beginning to embrace online eye tracking technology to better understand ad consumption behavior.
Marketers are now under more pressure than ever to show return on marketing investment, How will this new technology change the way marketers measure their ads and their agencies? Will it reinvent the revenue models for some publishers? Jeff Bander, President of Sticky which provides a unique online eye tracking platform, will share insights about the new technology and discuss its impact on advertising and media strategies.
The robotics market has been on a growth trend since 2009, thanks to the turnaround of the automotive industry. New technologies are helping to create many new applications and improve versatility. It has played a key role in the current wave of re-shoring manufacturing to North America.
What’s the outlook for the robotics industry? What will be the long-term ramifications for the economy and the job market? In this episode, Richard Mahoney, the director of the robotics program at SRI International, and Charles Duncheon, the CEO and co-founder of Grabit, Inc., will join me to discuss the innovation in robotics and the impact on different sectors.
As companies face an increased velocity of change and level of complexity, the biggest challenge for most organizations is finding and developing top talent. Companies and media often point to a growing skills gap as the main reason, but are we looking for the right qualities in our employees and potential candidates? What attributes and mindsets will help companies thrive in the new competitive environment?
John Hagel, co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, will join me to discuss why boosting employee engagement is no longer sufficient for sustaining company performance. Before joining Deloitte, John was a principal at McKinsey & Co. from 1984 to 2000, where he was a leader of the Strategy Practice. He founded and led McKinsey’s Electronic Commerce Practice from 1993 to 2000. In this episode, he will share insights on how to identify important attributes and nurture employee passion.
The global big data market is expected to reach $48.3 billion by 2018, at a CAGR of 40.5%, according to a new report by Transparency Market Research, The new technologies and tools are empowering companies to have better access to business intelligence and to make more timely decisions. In this episode, I will be speaking with Sarah Gates, VP of Research at the International Institute for Analytics. We will review the evolution of the big data industry, examine how it is changing the way companies run their businesses, and discuss the future of the data economy.
Jeffrey Travis is an award-winning film director, writer, producer, and speaker. His debut short film, What’s Wrong with This Picture?, went on to play at over 40 film festivals, and caught the attention of 20th Century FOX, who hired him to write and direct a television pilot presentation. In this episode, he will give us a glimpse into the new business models for movies and the factors that are transforming the film industry.
With increasing digitalization, more and more information from our Internet searches, cell phones, posts on social media sites, and credit card transactions is being captured. According to IBM, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, and 90% of the data in the world has been created in the last 2 years alone. In this episode, David Feinleib, an authority on Big Data and entrepreneurship, will join me to discuss the implications of big data on the job market, innovation, productivity and privacy.
For the last 30 years, The Connecticut Invention Convention (CIC) has been helping to develop more than 300,000 children inventors. The program helps students strengthen their creative problem-solving techniques by providing innovating and entrepreneurial activities that lead to greater consideration of STEM careers in high school and college. About 54% of student inventors are girls and 25% are minority students from under-served schools.
Danny Briere, a CIC board member, and Helen Charov, Executive Director, will share insights on the success drivers of their program. I will also speak with Hannah Pucci, who created a patent-pending invention at age 11, about how the program has transformed her life. She has received recognition from Whole Foods and Baskin Robbins Corporation for her invention.
Digital health solutions are on the rise. Now X PRIZE Foundation is challenging innovators to create a wireless device that monitors and diagnoses health conditions, and is able to make reliable health diagnoses available directly to consumers in their homes. It also aims to change the way healthcare solutions are developed, by involving consumers in the process. Can this become a powerful tool to help alleviate our healthcare crisis by empowering consumers? Are the technologies and medical communities today ready for a radical change?
Mark Winter, Senior Director at X Prize Foundation, will join me to discuss the potential impact and vision for the $10 million global competition to stimulate innovation and integration of precision diagnostic technologies.