102: How Jacobs and Cosmos Collective Leverage Employees to Test & Disqualify New Ideas Fast

In today's special double-header episode, I sit down with Carrie Chambliss, former VP of Innovation at Jacobs, and Valerie Van den Keybus, Managing Partner at Cosmos Collective, to explore the power of collaboration in driving innovation. Carrie and Valerie share their experiences working together in a 14-week intensive program that combined design thinking, lean experimentation, and agile methodologies to uncover new growth opportunities. They discuss the importance of making assumptions, creating experiments, and iterating based on learnings—all while staying agile and adaptive. Listen in as they delve into the significance of validating and invalidating ideas and how this can lead to expedited decision-making and better results. Learn how teamwork, storytelling, and a strong focus on customer feedback can shape the success of innovative projects. Take advantage of this engaging conversation about the ins and outs of corporate innovation, collaboration, and the pursuit of new opportunities.  

Om Podcasten

Did you ever wonder how an innovation got to its finish line? How innovators saw the future, made a product, and created change – in our world and in their companies? I did. Innovation Storytellers invites changemakers to describe how they created their innovation and just as important – THE STORIES – that made us fall in love with them. Come learn how great innovations need great stories to make them move around the world and how to become a better storyteller in the process. I’m Susan Lindner, the Innovation Storyteller. But I wasn’t always. I’ve been a wannabe revolutionary, an epidemiologist at the CDC and an AIDS educator in the brothels of Thailand helping to turn former sex workers into entrepreneurs. Trained as an anthropologist and the Founder of Emerging Media, I’ve spent the last twenty years working with innovators from 60+ countries. Ranging from cutting edge startups to Fortune 100 companies like GE, Corning, Citi, Olayan, and nine foreign governments, helping their leaders to tell their stories and teaching them how to become incredible advocates for their innovations. Great innovation stories make change possible. They let us step into a future we can’t see yet. I started this podcast to shine a light on our generation of great innovators, to learn how they brought their innovation to life and the stories they told to bring them to the world.