December 9, 2019

It Gets Real!

Magnani Podcast

Justin is joined by Thaddeus Wong, Co-CEO of @Properties (atproperties.com). Justin and Thad talk about employee and customer experience as a competitive advantage, using conversation as a framework for crafting a digital experience, integrating downstream services into the sales transaction, the growth of iBuyer organizations, and the emerging use of blockchain, video and machine learning in the transaction experience. They also talk about the stark market realities surrounding the failed WeWork IPO and the future of the real estate industry. Finally, we announce the publication of Justin’s new book, “Innovate. Activate. Accelerate. A 30-day boot camp for your business brain.” Now available on Amazon.

December 5, 2019

Three reasons Uber should never have invested in self-driving technology.

Justin Daab Corporate Innovation, Innovation, Strategy

There’s a classic Venn diagram generally attributed to Ideo’s Tim Brown that points to the reality that for an idea to be considered an innovation, it needs to satisfy three criteria: desirability (people would want it), feasibility (it is something that can realistically be created) and viability (it can be made and offered in a way that makes financial sense for the business). Academics or inspired home tinkerers may be satisfied with any combination of one or two of these qualities, but a business, especially a publicly held business, needs to satisfy all three.

November 6, 2019

Looking for big corporate innovations? Think small.

Justin Daab Corporate Innovation, Innovation, Strategy

What most people forget about the most game-changing innovations is that, more often than not, they satisfied some unmet basic need in a simple way. The breadth and complexity of the effect of that innovation came later, as more and more people found more and more ways to utilize that innovation to address some variation of the original need. Keeping that in mind, if you’re charged with corporate innovation, there are a lot of reasons to focus on simple, small innovations. Let’s explore!

October 28, 2019

Corporate Innovation: Breaking Through Organizational Barriers

Justin Daab Customer Experience, Innovation, User Experience Design, UX

I’m not sure who first promoted the idea that the greatest determiner of whether a corporation could successfully innovate is an ill-defined, immeasurable quality named “agility.” I am sure that the individual in question had a penchant for oversimplification. Just do a search for “agile business” books on Amazon, and the results are well over the 2,000 result threshold where Amazon stops counting. It’s not that a company shouldn’t have the qualities linked to the idea of agility. It’s just that agility is an emergent condition resulting from a number of more easily quantified and measurable behaviors.

October 2, 2019

Three signs of success that should make you want to innovate.

Justin Daab Customer Experience, Innovation, User Experience Design, UX

In business, we should always celebrate our successes. We should all find happiness and take comfort in classic, somewhat irrefutable, business metrics, like returning a healthy net profit, growing sales and customer loyalty, to name a few. But there are anecdotal success measures most people repeat that, while they directionally point to good things, should also have you start asking whether they actually are signs of a problem. Let’s look at three of the most common.

September 23, 2019

Don’t Forget The Butterflies

Magnani Podcast

Justin is joined by Anju Ahuja, Vice President Market Development and Product Management at CableLabs—the media tech innovation lab for the global cable industry. Justin and Anju discuss running a dedicated innovation practice within a larger enterprise, compare product development and innovation, and chat about how storytelling is as important as the science and the math of innovation.

August 15, 2019

Magnani, Chicago-Based Experience Design & Strategy Firm, Makes 30 Most Innovative Companies of 2019

Magnani PRESS RELEASE

Chicago, IL – August 15, 2019 – Magnani, Chicago-based experience design and strategy firm, was ranked as one of the “30 Most Innovative Companies of 2019” by CIO Bulletin. Their client list includes brands such as Marriott, Wrigley, Navistar, Penn Mutual, Fresenius Kabi, Kemper and more, and their work is consistently recognized among the best agencies across the globe because of their unique approach to design called Narrative-Based Innovation.