• Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney

  • Auteur(s): Phil McKinney
  • Podcast

Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney

Auteur(s): Phil McKinney
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  • Résumé

  • Step into the world of relentless creativity with the Killer Innovations Podcast, hosted by Phil McKinney. Since 2005, it has carved its niche in history as the longest-running podcast. Join the community of innovators, designers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are constantly pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. Discover the power of thinking differently and taking risks to achieve success. The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including innovation, technology, business, leadership, creativity, design, and more. Every episode is not just talk; it's about taking action and implementing strategies that can help you become a successful innovator. Each episode provides practical tips, real-life examples, and thought-provoking insights that will challenge your thinking and inspire you to unleash your creativity. The podcast archive: KillerInnovations.com About Phil McKinney: Phil McKinney, CTO of HP (ret) and CEO of CableLabs, has been credited with forming and leading multiple teams that FastCompany and BusinessWeek list as one of the “50 Most Innovative”. His recognition includes Vanity Fair naming him “The Innovation Guru,” MSNBC and Fox Business calling him "The Gadget Guy," and the San Jose Mercury News dubbing him the "chief seer."
    See http://philmckinney.com
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Économie
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Épisodes
  • Your Brain on AI: The Shocking Decline in Creative Thinking (2025)

    Your Brain on AI: The Shocking Decline in Creative Thinking (2025)
    May 6 2025
    Our ability to solve complex problems without AI has plummeted 30% in just five years. That's not just a statistic – it's the sound of your brain cells surrendering. We are announcing a new series we are calling – Creative Thinking in the AI Age – on strengthening your uniquely human creativity while using AI as a partner, not a replacement. Today, we will explore how AI dependency is creating a pandemic of reduced creative thinking and why this matters more than you might realize. Look around. We've all seen it – colleagues endlessly prompting AI for answers, friends asking their devices the same questions with slight variations, and kids who reach for ChatGPT before trying to solve a problem themselves. It's happening everywhere. We're witnessing a slow, subtle decline in our collective ability to think deeply, creatively, and independently. This cognitive shift is measurable. Recent research from the University of Toronto found that college students today show a 42% decrease in divergent thinking scores – our ability to generate multiple solutions to problems – compared to students just five years ago. The difference? The widespread adoption of AI tools. This isn't just happening in schools. Creative professionals show similar patterns. Marketing agencies report that junior staff increasingly struggle to generate original campaign concepts without AI prompting. Engineering teams face growing difficulties when asked to ideate without computational assistance. But this isn't a rant against technology. AI is here to stay, and it offers tremendous benefits. The real issue is how our relationship with these tools is reshaping our cognitive capabilities. Remember when calculators became widespread? Many feared we'd lose our ability to do basic math. They weren't entirely wrong, but we adapted. The difference now is that AI doesn't just handle calculations – it's beginning to think for us. This surrender of our thinking faculties brings us to an uncomfortable but powerful concept from theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Writing from a Nazi prison in 1943, he described a phenomenon he called "stupidity" – not as a lack of intelligence, but as a social contagion where independent thinking is surrendered to external forces. Bonhoeffer wasn't talking about AI, obviously. But his insight that humans will easily surrender their thinking faculties to external authorities is profoundly relevant today. We're increasingly outsourcing our cognitive heavy lifting to algorithms, and our brains are adapting accordingly. Let me show you what I mean with a quick demonstration. Take 30 seconds right now to list five uncommon uses for a paperclip. No use of AI. I'll wait. How'd you do? If you struggled, you're not alone. In tests conducted before widespread AI adoption, the average person could generate 8-12 unique ideas. Today, that number has dropped to 3-5. This decline in creative thinking ability is not only disappointing – it has neurological implications. When we regularly outsource thinking, the neural pathways associated with creative problem-solving literally weaken. It's cognitive atrophy – it's like any other muscle, use it or lose it. And with AI, you aren’t using it. The consequences are more serious than you might think. Here's what's happening: AI is great at finding the optimal solution within defined boundaries using "convergent thinking." Give AI the parameters of a problem, and it'll efficiently identify the best answers within a set of constraints. But what humans uniquely excel at is "divergent thinking" – our ability to break through boundaries, reimagine the entire problem, and make unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. This is where breakthroughs happen. Recent research from the University of Bergen shows that while AI can generate more ideas than the average person, the most creative human solutions significantly outperform AI in originality and innovation. Here's the paradox: the more we rely on AI, the more we get trapped in what psychologists call "AI-reinforced conventional thinking." Let me demonstrate. In a creative thinking workshop I ran not long ago, I asked participants to design a new coffee cup. Most drew variants of the same cylindrical container with a handle. When asked why, they couldn't explain – they'd simply imposed an invisible constraint. But when one participant suggested a coffee cup that could be worn as a ring, the floodgates opened. Suddenly, people were designing coffee cups that doubled as plant holders, that changed color with temperature, and that folded flat for storage. This mental breakthrough reveals what neuroscientists call the "first insight phenomenon" – that moment when one disruptive idea shatters the invisible walls of conventional thinking and unleashes a cascade of creative possibilities. We're not just limited by what we know, but by what we don't realize we're assuming. When we look at history's greatest ...
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    12 min
  • 5 Questions that Unlock Breakthrough Innovation

    5 Questions that Unlock Breakthrough Innovation
    Apr 29 2025
    In 2007, two designers struggling to pay rent in San Francisco had a seemingly simple thought: "What if people could rent out their spare rooms to travelers?" This question—posed by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia—sparked what would become Airbnb, a company now valued at over $100 billion that has fundamentally reshaped how millions of people travel. The power of their question wasn't just in identifying a market gap. It challenged fundamental assumptions about hospitality, property use, and trust between strangers. It wasn't just incremental—it was transformative. And here lies the innovation paradox most organizations face today: Companies invest heavily in expertise, data, and answers, yet rarely invest in improving the quality of their questions. They hire specialists who know the current state of the art but don't necessarily know how to question it. They gather mountains of data but ask the same questions of it that competitors do. They reward employees who provide answers, not those who challenge assumptions with powerful questions. This explains why true breakthroughs remain rare. The uncomfortable truth is that the quality of your innovation is directly proportional to the quality of the questions you're asking. Transformative innovations don't come from having slightly better answers to the same questions everyone else is asking—they come from asking entirely different questions altogether. In this episode, you'll discover five specific questioning techniques that have demonstrably led to breakthrough innovations across industries. These aren't generic "think outside the box" prompts, but precise question formulations with clear applications and proven results. Master these, and you'll have the keys to unlock innovation possibilities others can't even see. The Science of Questioning Before diving into specific questioning techniques, it's worth understanding why questions—rather than answers—drive innovation so powerfully. Neurologically, questioning activates different brain pathways than analytical thinking. When we search for answers, we typically engage in convergent thinking, narrowing possibilities until we arrive at what seems optimal. This activates primarily the brain's prefrontal cortex, the region associated with logical reasoning and decision-making. But when we ask open questions, particularly those that challenge assumptions, we activate regions associated with divergent thinking and novel connections. According to research from the Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University, individuals who regularly engage in questioning and curiosity-driven thinking show greater activation in areas associated with insight and creative problem-solving. This neurological difference has led innovative organizations to replace traditional brainstorming—which often produces incremental ideas at best—with what innovation facilitators call "question-storming." In these sessions, participants generate only questions about a challenge, focusing on quantity and provocativeness rather than immediate answers. Data supports this approach: A McKinsey study of over 300 companies found that those with formalized questioning methodologies in their innovation processes outperformed industry peers by an average of 34% in innovation output as measured by successful new products and services. Even more compelling is research from Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, which demonstrates that teams that regularly engage in question-based inquiry rather than assertion-based advocacy show significantly higher rates of breakthrough thinking and successful innovation implementation. The science is clear: Better questions create better innovations. Now let's examine the five specific questions that have demonstrated the power to unlock breakthrough thinking. Question 1: The Constraint-Flipping Question Formula: "What if this limitation was actually an advantage?" Most innovators instinctively fight against constraints. Limited budget? Try to get more funding. Restrictive regulations? Look for loopholes. Legacy technology? Plan a complete overhaul. But true innovators know that constraints, reframed through the right question, can become catalysts for breakthrough thinking. Consider Southwest Airlines. When launching in the 1970s, the company faced severe financial constraints that limited them to purchasing only one type of aircraft—the Boeing 737. Rather than viewing this as a disadvantage, founder Herb Kelleher asked, "What if having only one type of aircraft is actually an advantage?" This question led to a cascade of innovations: The airline developed unparalleled expertise in maintaining and operating that specific aircraft. They simplified crew training since every pilot could fly any plane in the fleet. They streamlined parts inventory and maintenance processes. And they created a model for rapid turnaround at gates, since every plane had identical configurations. The ...
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    36 min
  • How to Improve Strategic Thinking Skills

    How to Improve Strategic Thinking Skills
    Apr 22 2025

    Most people react to change. They adapt, adjust, and scramble to keep up. But a small group sees change coming. They prepare for it, shape it, and position themselves to win. Their edge? Strategic thinking skills.

    In this article, you'll learn six powerful strategic thinking skills and five proven exercises to sharpen your thinking, decision, and act. You'll move from reacting to shaping. From being caught off guard to staying three moves ahead.

    Let's build the mental toolkit that visionary leaders use to navigate uncertainty—and turn disruption into opportunity.

    What Makes a Mindset Strategic?

    Strategic thinking isn't about obsessing over efficiency or micromanaging tactics. It's about seeing the big picture, anticipating what's next, and setting direction when others stall. Strategic thinkers operate with four key traits:

    - Long-term orientation – They think in years, not days.

    - Pattern recognition – They connect signals others miss.

    - Comfort with uncertainty – They decide with incomplete data.

    - Proactivity – They shape the game, not just play it.

    That mindset lays the foundation. Now, let's break down the six core strategic thinking skills.

    6 Essential Strategic Thinking Skills 1. Ask "And Then What?"

    Second-order thinking separates amateurs from pros. Don't just consider immediate consequences—look downstream. What happens next? What unintended effects might show up later?

    Netflix mastered this. Studios focused on short-term streaming revenue. Netflix saw user data as leverage for producing original content—and flipped the game.

    2. Think in Probabilities, Not Certainties

    Ask, "What's the chance this works?" instead of "Will this work?" Keep a decision journal. Estimate outcomes. Then, reflect and recalibrate. That's how you develop judgment.

    3. Weigh Opportunity Costs

    Every yes is a no to something else. Strategic thinkers force themselves to list three alternatives they're giving up before choosing a path. That habit exposes trade-offs others miss.

    4. Use Inversion

    Flip the question. Ask, "How might this fail?" Use pre-mortems before major projects. Thinking like this isn't pessimism—it's prevention.

    5. Envision Multiple Futures

    Don't chase predictions. Instead, map out a few plausible future scenarios. Prepare for each. That's how you build flexibility into your strategy.

    6. Strip Down to First Principles

    Start from what you know to be true. Then, build up. Forget how it's "always been done." That's how Elon Musk questioned the high cost of rockets—and built SpaceX.

    5 Exercises to Strengthen Your Strategic Thinking
    • Pre-Mortem – Identify failure scenarios before you start.
    • 10/10/10 Test – Ask how a decision will feel in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years.
    • Future-Back Planning – Start with your desired outcome and work backward.
    • Perspective Shifting – Analyze decisions from multiple points of view.
    • Strategic Questioning – Use prompts like "What would change my mind?" or "What's the non-obvious move?"

    These sharpen your thinking. Repetition turns them into instinct.

    Make Strategic Thinking a Daily Habit

    You don't need hours. One thoughtful decision a day is enough to start. Try this:

    • Create mental triggers. Pause when you feel rushed.
    • Partner with someone who thinks differently.
    • Schedule 15 minutes a week to think long-term.
    • Reflect after decisions. Note what worked—and what didn't.

    Over time, you'll default to asking better questions and spotting better options. That's the real power of strategic thinking skills.

    One Skill. One Decision. One Advantage.

    You don't need to master everything overnight. Just choose one skill. Apply it to one big decision this week. Watch what changes.

    Strategic thinking isn't just for CEOs—it's for anyone who wants to stop reacting and start shaping their future.

    Subscribe to the YouTube channel for more leadership, strategy, and creative decision-making episodes.
    Want to support this content and get exclusive perks? Join the community over on Patreon.
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    39 min

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