Épisodes

  • Reinventing Retail with Ron Johnson, Co-Creator of Apple's Retail Experience

    Reinventing Retail with Ron Johnson, Co-Creator of Apple's Retail Experience
    Aug 4 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with the legendary co-creator of the Apple retail experience, Ron Johnson. He's the author of the new upcoming book called Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius. Let's get started. Podcast Interview with Brian Ardinger and Ron JohnsonRon Johnson’s Journey from Target to Apple[00:00:00] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Ron Johnson. Ron was the visionary co-creator of the Apple Store with Steve Jobs. He's former CEO of JCPenney, worked at Target, and he's author of a new upcoming book called Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius. Welcome to the show, Ron. [00:00:36] Ron Johnson: It's great to be here, Brian. Thank you for having me on. [00:00:39] Brian Ardinger: Hey, Ron. I am super excited to have you on the show. I've been a big fan of Apple and the whole retail experience. We were talking before I hit record about how my kids often joke that anytime we go anywhere in the world, we have to stop at the Apple Store.So I'm lucky enough to have been to a lot of them everywhere from Paris to Hong Kong to London, et cetera. So, love your work. Maybe to get started, for people who may be unfamiliar with your background and your work as being one of the retail leaders out there as far as innovation talk a little bit about your career in retail.How did you get started in it, and how did you get to the place where you created one of the biggest retail empires in Apple and then further from there? [00:01:17] Ron Johnson: Yeah. I'll just go quick. I grew up in the Midwest, like you, outside of Minneapolis. And coincidentally, I grew up two miles from the first enclosed shopping mall in the world that was invented, innovated, and opened the year before I was born.And I grew up loving stores. And I went to Stanford for undergrad as a soccer player. Went to Harvard Business School, got my degree, was going to go onto Wall Street, and I said, Ron, what do you want to do for a lifetime?" And I thought about all the people I admired. They were doing something they loved, whether it was an athlete, an artist, a musician, or a business leader.And I just decided that retail was something I was going to put my head down and learn how to do. And I went from Harvard Business School to unloading trucks in a store, and I worked my way up through a lot of things. Eventually, I got back to Minneapolis to Target and helped really Target during a a big decade.How Target’s Design Strategy Caught Steve Jobs’ AttentionThe '90s was when Target and Walmart were the big battle, and that was a big retail battle, and Target emerged the winner at that time. Stock went up 12 times. But I had done this big design initiative where we brought design to the masses with a partnership with a guy named Michael Graves. [00:02:32] Brian Ardinger: Yes. [00:02:33] Ron Johnson: That led Steve, who I learned, you were there. Steve had just returned to Apple, had launched the iMac. I know you were at the keynote at that time. Yeah. It was a huge moment that got a lot of attention, but it sold to the Mac faithful. It didn't really accomplish the goal of getting out to the PC owner to switch or a new person to get on the computer.And Steve believed that if he was going to win, he had to control the customer experience. And so, he called me to come out and meet him to talk about leading an effort to create the Apple Store. So that's enough on my background, but it gives you a flavor. I love retail, and I've been doing it my whole career.[00:03:12] Brian Ardinger: I got a chance to read a preview copy of the book that's coming out here in September and loved it. Quite frankly, the, the stories and the insights that you provide are well worth people picking up a copy.But one of the things that stood out is you spent two chapters, I think talking about how love is a strategy. The- book devotes, two chapters to that concept of love is a strategy. Can you break down what you mean by that, and how does that manifest itself?[00:03:34] Ron Johnson: Yeah. I had been at Harvard Business School, and they taught me to manage, and that's where you kind of, you set a goal, you hold people accountable, you have very disciplined processes, checkpoints, and things you do to make sure the business is on track. And that's how most businesses are run.I'm on boards, and it feels that way. But leadership's a very different thing. And when I got to, Target, I realized that I was not a great manager. But I was a great leader. I knew how to inspire people. I knew how to identify a North Star. I knew how to encourage people. And I read a book by Marianne Williamson called Return to Love, and it gave me this vision for how to lead with love.Why Love Became a Leadership StrategyAnd that's how I grew up in my personal life, my family, my neighbors, my ...
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    28 min
  • High-impact Individuals, Fewer Jobs, and AI Impact with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

    High-impact Individuals, Fewer Jobs, and AI Impact with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    Jun 23 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, Robyn and I talk about the rise of the high-impact individual contributor, more startups and fewer jobs, and how AI is going to destroy our lives or not. 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. [00:00:00] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and with me is Robyn Bolton. Hello, Robyn. How are you? [00:00:45] Robyn Bolton: I'm good. How are you, Brian? [00:00:47] Brian Ardinger: We're doing well this week. We're excited to talk about all the new things that are happening in the world of innovation. I'm going to just jump right into the articles. The Rise of the High-Impact Individual ContributorThe first article we want to talk about is from Alaina Verna. She has a blog post called IC Work Is the New Career Flex, with the subtitle of The Rise of High-Impact Individual Contributor.We're going to talk about the individual contributor and the fact that it is changing the way that careers are set. She talks a little bit about the fact that, you used to build a career on, how can I become a VP and move my way up the ladder?And now with the rise of AI and tools, et cetera, an individual contributor, maybe not managing a group of people can actually have a major impact in the world by, working with agents or building tools and having the tools to impact and build things themselves. So, it's a interesting talk about this new world and how maybe the rise of the individual contributor is going to change the way we do work.[00:01:44] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, so I love this idea. As soon as I saw this article from you, Brian, I saw Hi-C, like I flashed back to lunch in during my entire K through 12 and every day I had a Hi-C juice box, and I was like, "Yes, tell me more about Hi-C." But this article broke my brain in a way that was ... should've been expected because one of the early points she makes is that as a high-impact individual contributor, you probably are essentially running a team, but you've got a team of agents that are helping you.How AI Agents Are Changing Career PathsAnd so, you should actually be compensated and rewarded as someone who has a team, as a team leader, because you're doing the ... You're producing the value that a team is producing, and but you're still an individual contributor. And for some reason my brain went into HR mode and was like, "Gah, how is... that doesn't work."But I think that's going to be the reality. There are today billion-dollar companies that have 10 human employees and, armies of agents getting the work done. So I think this is yet another disruption that we're gonna be facing of now with agents, now with AI and LLMs and all those things that we can have one person producing the value and doing the work of a whole team, and how do we adjust companies, org charts, incentive systems- all of that to reflect that? [00:03:14] Brian Ardinger: And I think the other important part about this is the fact that, individual contributors, you have to start thinking about what is my actual contribution? Where, what am I good at, and what do I have to... What can I lean on the AI to be good at?And truly understanding what, where you can add impact is gonna be more important. It used to be where you're told, "Here's where your job is and this is where you're going to impact it." Now you have the opportunity to spread those wings, but you also have to be cognizant of where, what value you c- you can add and where you can leverage the tools and technologies that are out there to make you even better, and to maybe- Yeah add value that you hadn't been able to add before. [00:03:48] Robyn Bolton: Yeah. And I will say there was one little kind of red flag in the article about midway through, where she talks about when she had a team, she's part of a, growth team essentially at her company. And she wrote I've always loved what I do, but a big part of my job was draining me, building decks for cross-functional alignment.Why Cross-Functional Alignment Still MattersAnd I get it, building decks is draining. But that muscle around cross-functional alignment and the need to have conversations with your peers and build cross-functional alignment and get support from other humans is a really important skill. And there is a there is a risk that if you are an individual contributor and you love being an individual contributor and you love doing the work, that you go all in on just doing the work, and you don't seek that alignment. You don't seek that input.So there, there is that still little bit of you can't...
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    15 min
  • AI Risks and Opportunities for Creativity & Critical Thinking with Johann Roos, Author of Human Magic

    AI Risks and Opportunities for Creativity & Critical Thinking with Johann Roos, Author of Human Magic
    Jun 16 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Johann Roos, author of the new book, Human Magic. Johan and I talk about the risks and opportunities that AI brings to the world of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and much more. Let's get started. Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Johan RoosJohan Roos on Human-AI Leadership and Human Magic[00:00:00] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today, we have Johan Roos. He is the co-creator of the Lego Serious Play method, chief academic officer at Hult International Business School, and author of the new book, Human Magic: Leading With Wisdom in an Age of Algorithm. Welcome, Johan.[00:00:41] Johan Roos: Thank you, Brian. [00:00:43] Brian Ardinger: You've got an amazing career, worked with some amazing companies. Maybe to start the conversation, can you give a brief overview about your background and what led you to writing this book?[00:00:54] Johan Roos: So, I spent, about three decades in the, you can say, in the business of business schools and business education and business research and business consulting and business advising, all of that stuff that comes with it. So, I have an academic background with everything that goes with it, all of the publication, all that stuff.But also, became more and more interested the very notion of not just talking or studying leadership, but actually doing leadership. So, I've spent also quite a few years, decades now, as a leader or part of a leadership team of various organizations in sort of the field of, you can say, higher education, including think tank as well.So, I've been in smaller, larger, private, public, so I'm starting to get a feel for it. But as, of this stage, I'm phasing out of all operational roles getting more into the advisory work.How LEGO Serious Play Changed Strategy Conversations[00:01:43] Brian Ardinger: Like to hear a little bit about some of your background. When you started this Lego Serious Play, I think you're fairly well known for that particular methodology and how it changed the way businesses- could think about creativity in that.So, let's start there and tell me a little bit about how that came to be and what were some of the learnings and from that particular methodology? [00:02:01] Johan Roos: It's very interesting. This is right now almost three decades ago that we started to experiment with this. My good friend Bart Victor who is now an emeritus at Vanderbilt. But it was at a time when, a lot of companies used the same kind of frameworks, the same kind of models, the same kind of tools, same kind of consultant, or even the same consultants, the same professors, the same everything, to develop strategy. So I was a professor of strategy, and my buddy Bart was a professor of leadership at IMD in Switzerland.He's doing a lot of executive education. And we came to the realization after a while that it's pretty amazing. They're using the same kind of stuff all the time, but they expect a different outcome. And as we all know, that's almost the definition of insanity and all that. But this idea of couldn't there be anything else to do?Why Hands-On Creativity Unlocks Better ThinkingTo make a long story short, we started to experiment with basically what comes out of what's called creative art therapy, I learned later on. And it's the whole idea of using stuff, using color, size, shapes, forms rigidity, whatever, texture as a language, as a language. I've described this in an article. I'm actually working on a book on it right now.But this idea of using stuff as a language actually changes a lot. When we're kids in kindergarten we tend to be, or we tell our children or grandchildren or when we were children, to play with stuff. Use your hands, break stuff, mud, dirt, whatever.Do things because that's for good for you, we think, yeah? And then we put them in school and tell them to shut up and listen to a teacher and sit on their hands. So, it's this brutality of going from this kindergarten idea to then being very much like focused on the cognitive, and today just look at a screen, that is a brutal thing if you think of it.Bringing Play Back Into Serious Business WorkSo, the whole idea of the serious play approach, which we then developed with and for Lego was to let's go back to this early idea of using your hands even as adults, serious adults. And I was playing around with serious leadership teams at that time, vand I can tell you not everybody thought I was in- sane, if I put it this way.But it was pretty cool because we could see the effect was enormous. Like rather than having a more cognitive level conversation, suddenly people start to smile, they started to see new things, they shape with their hands again, they could take a 3D look at it, and they laughed and they pointed, and you can have a even a difficult conversations ...
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    22 min
  • Synthetic user research, AI fog future, and AI readiness with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

    Synthetic user research, AI fog future, and AI readiness with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    Jun 9 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about synthetic user research, the future of AI fog, and why most companies aren't anywhere near ready for AI. Let's get startedPodcast Interview 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. Robyn, how are you? [00:00:21] Robyn Bolton: I am doing great. How are you, Brian? [00:00:24] Brian Ardinger: We are doing well here in Nebraska. We're getting ready for summer, all the fun things that are happening. So it's always fun to start a new season with some new information about innovation, so I figured we'd have a podcast and talk about it. [00:00:36] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, let's definitely do it. [00:00:38] Brian Ardinger: All right. We've got a number of articles that we want to talk about today. The first one we're going to talk about is The Counterintuitive Case for Building in Markets VCs Don't Understand by Todd Gagni. He's from Wildfire Labs. He has a interesting blog post talking about how startups can actually get a pretty big advantage if they zig instead of zagging when it comes to VCs and focus it on how do you actually build in particular markets that are very specific and niche such that you can gain some flywheel effect of knowledge and create a moat that a lot of other companies that are out there trying to do it if they're trying to go too horizontal.One of the interesting things in the article, he talks about the, it's not the technology or first mover advantage, it's not funding, it's the learning that you have when you start working with specific customers in a specific market and it's over and over again, and that mode is that you understand the customer's world so well that it will help protect you against horizontal competitors that would need to catch up and they don't have the breadth and depth that you would have in that particular market.Thought it was a fascinating way to look at how do you actually break into a market as a startup. [00:01:44] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, I love this. And usually, the advice I think that all entrepreneurs in any industry get is, pick an industry, pick a niche, and go all in. And, usually I don't love that for myself because I love the randomness of consulting.But this I fully agree with because, success, in my opinion, is all about customer empathy and deeply understanding your customer and serving your customer. And especially if you're an entrepreneur who's building something, an app, a platform a whatever, a widget really deeply understanding your customer and their pain points and how they use things and what works and what doesn't. That will always get rewarded.One size fits all doesn't exist, and so when companies come out like, "Hey, we do everything," I'm reading more and more about the Everything app, it's ugh, you're not going to do anything well. But that's what VCs want to hear, right? That's what funders want to hear, because it's a big total addressable market.And so I was just, I thought it was great that this got called out as hey, you know what? Go really narrow, deeply understand your customers, and don't worry about VC, because the market will reward you. And that's ultimately what you want. [00:02:57] Brian Ardinger: And I think the other thing that often gets missed, and I think we talked about this in past episodes, is the fact that a lot of times it's very easy to say, "Go and find your particular niche and just nail that particular customer profile," and that.But a lot of times at the early stages, you have a hunch about a particular problem or s- solution out there, and y- you have to hunt and wander and explore sometimes to find that core niche... to find those early adopters that actually you know, match the problem and solution that you want to try to build with them.And so it's not, it's not to say that you have to have the niche from day one, but the closer you can find to finding that group of people that have that particular problem that you can solve, and you know inherently how to solve that for them you have a much better chance of creating those relationships, creating that moat versus trying to serve everybody at once. [00:03:43] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, it's a great point. You want to be flexible, and I think that's why so many of the entrepreneurs or the startups we look at now who've been wildly successful, a lot of times it's the founder who had that problem and was in that niche and- was that customer and, went from there to, to make sure it wasn't just a market of one.... But that there were other people, and so they were out there willing to learn. [00:04:05] Brian Ardinger: Absolutely. All right. The next article is from our friend Ben Yoskovitz. He has an article launching his new synthetic user research platform called Candor. And so, I've got a call with Ben next week. I think you met with him this...
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    16 min
  • AI Agents, Innovation Antibodies, and PB&J with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

    AI Agents, Innovation Antibodies, and PB&J with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    Jun 2 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about why AI agents should speak Latin, how to avoid the agentic convergence trap, and the power of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 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 startedPodcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton [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, hello, how are you today? [00:00:47] Robyn Bolton: I am great today. How are you? [00:00:49] Brian Ardinger: I am doing well. We are coming off our all directors meeting this week for Nelnet, where we brought in about 250 of our directors from all over the world to talk about AI and other things that are going on in the business, and it's been quite eye-opening. So that's where I've been. I hear you're out on a beach. [00:01:05] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, I'm kind of doing the opposite of your highly productive week. I'm being highly unproductive and am on vacation here in Turks and Caicos. So, I just dragged myself in from laying poolside so that we could talk about innovation, because there's some really, really cool stuff going on.Why AI Agents Speak Latin[00:01:21] Brian Ardinger: We'll get you back to the beach very shortly, but I always appreciate your insights. We will jump right in. The first article on the list is from Tristan Kromer. In his blog, he talks about why my agents speak Latin. I thought this was a very interesting take by Tristan. Tristan, if you've been following the podcast, he actually came and spoke at the IO Summit most recently.He was talking about, in this blog post, about how he is doing a lot more coding and creating AI agents, and he has kind of a unique way to see if the agent is going off the rails. So, what he's done is he creates these personas for his agents, and one of them he calls Cicero, and has it speak to him in Latin phrase to give it a personality.And what he's found, by giving his agents particular personalities and quirks, that they actually come back, and over time we do know that AIs tend to lose the context. You know, they tend to drift over multiple rounds of dialogue. He says by incorporating this little tick of a personality into his agent, he can tell when the agent is drifting to the normal way because it stops speaking in Latin to him, or it's, it drops phrases, or does a couple of other things that make it known that the context is getting too full and the agent's going off the rails.What I found so fascinating about that, not only the fact that it actually goes off the rails, but the fact that it was a way to give the layperson a way to understand if the AI was not doing what he had originally programmed it for. I just thought it was a great insight into it. Using AI Personas to Detect Context Drift[00:02:47] Robyn Bolton: Fascinating. It's funny, because Tristan and I were actually talking about this at the IO conference over breakfast the morning of the conference, and he mentioned that his chief of staff spoke Latin. And we didn't have a chance to get into why that was, so it was great to read this article, and it was also incredibly timely 'cause a couple of weeks ago I had decided to make the jump into using Claude Code and VS Studio and trying to get into the vibe coding.And I told Claude Chat, "Hey, you are an expert in blah, blah, blah," and pretty quickly I noticed the chat lost the thread. And was just being chat and not being the expert and the coach I had asked for, and which then led me to typing in all caps as I usually, is usually how our chats end up. And it was just interesting to read in this article the research about why that was happening, what it is kind of in the background that causes any of the chats to lose that thread and then this kind of little safety net, we put it in there. So great, super actionable article, and now I'm thinking of all the personas my little agents can have. [00:04:00] Brian Ardinger: He was saying that, you know, when the tick disappears from the output, you know, the persona has left the building as well. So you'd kind of treat your quirk as your instrumentation panel and your dashboard. Quite clever. [00:04:11] Robyn Bolton: Yes, very clever. Beware the Agentic Convergence Trap[00:04:13] Brian Ardinger: All right, the second article I want to talk about today is from HBR, and it's talking about beware the agentic convergence trap. And in this case, they talk about three case studies that have recently, in 2024, a federal class action named six major hotel chains, Hilton, and Hyatt, and Marriott,...
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    13 min
  • Building Companies That Last Without Selling Out with Brian Ardinger and Eric Ries, Author of Incorruptible

    Building Companies That Last Without Selling Out with Brian Ardinger and Eric Ries, Author of Incorruptible
    May 26 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Eric Ries, founder of the Lean Startup Movement, and author of the new book, incorruptible, why Good Companies Go Bad, and How Great Companies Stay Great. Eric and I talk about the challenges and opportunities of creating incorruptible company, the difference between value creation and value extraction, and how companies like Costco and Patagonia build value by violating conventional best practices. 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, as we discuss the latest tools, tactics, and trends for creating innovations with impact, let's get started.Podcast Transcript with Brian Ardinger and Eric RiseEric Ries on Incorruptible, The Lean Startup, and Building Companies That Last[00:01:00] Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Eric Ries. If you followed this podcast, if you followed the world of. Startups and innovation you know of Eric. He's the author of the Lean Startup, the Startup Way, and he is got a brand new book out called Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great. Welcome, Eric. [00:01:17] Eric Ries: Thanks so much. Appreciate it. [00:01:18] Brian Ardinger: Eric, I'm super excited to have you on this show. I'm surprised we haven't had a chance to have you on before to talk about some of the previous work with Lean Startup and Startup Way, but I'm excited to talk about this new book because it takes off where the previous books let go.If these books in the past show you how to build or scale new ventures, this book teaches you how to build companies to last without selling out. You know, you open the book talking about by saying you taught people how to build companies worth protecting, but not how to protect them. What did you miss about that first time around and how did this book come about based on what you've learned?[00:01:52] Eric Ries: Well, thank you first of all, thanks for the kind words. And thanks for seeing it as a continuity, because that's really how it's felt to me. I feel like I've been on this journey now, you know, over the course of my career, and when I look back on it, I think I keep discovering things that I'm sure is the most powerful force in the universe.So I feel like when I first learned to code program computers, I was like, this is the most powerful thing in the universe. And then I realized that in writing individual programs was nothing, if you could build, you know, technology platforms. And build whole scale, in large scale technology. I was in love with technology from an early age.And over time as I watched, you know, so many technology products fail, I started to realize that no management is the most powerful force in the universe, right? Human beings make technology, and if you can't manage human beings, you can't do it. And this book came out of my recognition that although over the past 20 years we have gotten so much better at the science of management, and especially thanks to Lean Startup and tools like that. We've been able to really build brand new companies and take them public. Been able to revitalize more abundant old companies and making them more modern.And yet I always felt like we were up against this other force that was even more powerful than management and what I didn't understand, what nobody ever told me I was, I was coming up as an entrepreneur, as an innovator, is that for mission-driven companies especially, success becomes a liability because the more golden the goose, the more temptation there is to butcher it.And I got sick and tired of it. I felt like I was feeding one company after another into a meat grinder. Help people create these really wonderful companies and then have them you know, turn into something almost unrecognizable. And I just felt like we need to stop doing that. And so, this book is the culmination of a many, many year journey to try to figure out like, what is this force that causes this and what can we do about it to stop it from turning?Why Eric Ries Uses the Word “Corruption” in Business[00:03:39] Brian Ardinger: You label the book about corruption, you know, incorruptible. Why is it more accurate word than like mission creep or bad leadership? What about the word corruption? [00:03:48] Eric Ries: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for asking that question because I do think it's something that a lot of people have struggled with, with the book, which is when we say the word corruption, people like think I'm talking about embezzlement or bribery, and of course those things are bad.But one of the really deep insights that I've had, banging my head against this, I...
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    28 min
  • Lean Analytics, Human in the Loop Lies & Moving Fast with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

    Lean Analytics, Human in the Loop Lies & Moving Fast with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    May 19 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about the changes in lean analytics, how the human in the loop is a lie we tell ourselves, and the first thing to break when moving fast. 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 Robyn BoltonAngel Investing, AI Travel, and What’s Ahead[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. Hello, Robyn. How are you? [00:00:46] Robyn Bolton: I am good. How are you, Brian? [00:00:47] Brian Ardinger: I'm doing well. I'm actually heading to Minneapolis tomorrow for the Angel Fest conference. Meeting with our former colleague, Emily Kist, who's with Groove Capital, Mickayla Russard, who spoke at the IO Summit in 2024.They host an annual event called Angel Fest, and we're excited to go up there and represent the Nebraska Angels and see what's going on north of what's going on in our world from angel investing. So that's what's going on in my world. [00:01:12] Robyn Bolton: Awesome. Well, probably by the time these airs, I will either be on or be back from my AI-planned summer vacation. So, long-time listeners of the podcast may remember where I talked about my husband and I's usual vacation to Key West was upended by the Key West regulation changes about short-term rentals, and so AI planned a trip to Turks and Caicos for us. [00:01:36] Brian Ardinger: Oh. [00:01:36] Robyn Bolton: So, the proof is about to be in the pudding. The next podcast, I will report back as to whether or not you should let AI be a travel agent.[00:01:46] Brian Ardinger: That's right. You'll probably end up in St. Barts, but who knows? [00:01:50] Robyn Bolton: You know, at some point it doesn't really matter as long as it's warm and sunny and there's a beach. [00:01:55] Brian Ardinger: That's right. Sand is sand. [00:01:57] Robyn Bolton: Sand is sand. Lean Analytics in the Age of AI[00:01:59] Brian Ardinger: Excellent. Well, let's get started with some interesting articles that we've come across over the last week or so. First one is from our friend Ben Yoskovitz, and it's an article that he wrote about lean analytics, and it's Lean Analytics Reconsidered.So, people familiar with the podcast know Ben and Alistair Croll. They wrote Lean Analytics back in the early days of the whole lean startup movement, and now it's become one of the, I think, one of the core Bibles out there when it comes to, you know, how do you measure and understand what you're building in the world of technology and that.Ben goes back and looks at; the book's probably a dozen years old now. How much does it hold up, the frameworks that they developed, and what's changed in the world of AI? And what I liked about the book is it really kind of walks you through the stages that a company can go through, and the stage gates that you have to go through to kind of create traction and create product market fit, et cetera.And, you know, everything from starting at empathy, stickiness, virality, revenue, and then finally scaling. And so the core portions of the book as far as the stages you go through and the, what you're trying to solve at each particular stage rings true. But he talks about some of the things that are different when it comes to AI and how that may be changing the game from that perspective. What were your thoughts? Rethinking Engagement Metrics for AI Products[00:03:07] Robyn Bolton: Yeah, this was really interesting. I mean, it was thrilled, not surprised, that the principles hold. I mean, if you have good, grounded principles, they should be able to survive a lot, and granted, AI is a lot, but it was great to see that the principles hold. What really struck me was one of the shifts, shift three, on engagement is directional, and basically this is talking about how traditionally you look at engagement, and the more time spent on site is good.You want people to spend a lot of time on a site. You wanted people to spend a lot of time in a session, and AI is essentially flipping that on its head, and it just made me think of like, yeah, the more time I have to spend on a site is actually more indicative of the more time I'm struggling to get done what I need to get done.So he breaks it down into there's time spent struggling, there's time spent with AI doing the work on user's behalf, time spent exploring or creating, and then zero user time tasks completed. And I just saw my AI usage, my site usage in all four of these categories, and realizing I go back to the tools, the sites, et cetera, ...
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    14 min
  • Building Momentum, Design's Value, and the Physical Store with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton

    Building Momentum, Design's Value, and the Physical Store with Brian Ardinger and Robyn Bolton
    May 12 2026
    On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we talk about how to stop forcing motion and start building momentum, the value of design in the AI era, and the comeback of the physical store. 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 Robyn Bolton Midwest Venture Capital Momentum and the Greater Plains Summit[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, how are you? [00:00:48] Robyn Bolton: I am doing great today. It is sunny and warm for once in Boston, so couldn't be better. How are you doing?[00:00:54] Brian Ardinger: I think it's maybe the first time that Boston is warmer than Lincoln at this point. I think you said it was 80, and it's 56 right here, so... [00:01:00] Robyn Bolton: I was going to say, we've got one day a year where I have better weather, so I will take it. [00:01:04] Brian Ardinger: Well, things are going well here in Nebraska. Last week was the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders weekend in Omaha, so if people are familiar with that, that's when all the Warren Buffett fans come into town to spend money at Borsheim's and Nebraska Furniture Mart and to learn what's going on.This year, there was a group, the gener8tor and NMotion Group, hosted a Greater Plains Summit where they brought in some investors and angel investors and want to be angel investors to tag along with what was going on at the Berkshire event. It was interesting because there were multiple different venture funds from around the Midwest that all came in.I think it was probably the first time I've seen all of us in the same room, which was quite good, and we had a number of different discussions about what was going on in the Midwest when it comes to venture capital, and it's nice to see more and more folks looking at the Heartland as a place that you can actually invest in new startups and new ideas and that.[00:01:57] Robyn Bolton: That sounds like an awesome week because there is so much potential in the Midwest and the Heartland and the Plains. It always warms my heart when I hear about the venture community and the startups, and that it's not all concentrated on the coasts.Innovation Lessons from Massive Events and the IO SummitSo this week, school is wrapping up. The end of the semester's coming, so I've been reading graduate theses. I read one, it was fascinating. It was a design solution to a crowd problem, but it's about a festival in India. It happens every 12 years, and it draws between 250 million and 300 million people. [00:02:39] Brian Ardinger: Wow.... [00:02:39] Robyn Bolton: To a single town over the course of several days. And I was like, that is bringing the population of America to a town in India and, like, having to create the city and the infrastructure and everything, a temporary city to house a country's worth of people, and it just blew my mind [00:03:02] Brian Ardinger: That puts Burning Man to shame, I think. And the 350 folks that we hosted in Lincoln the other week for the IO Summit, I guess we're going to have to up our game, so. [00:03:10] Robyn Bolton: I'm not sure you want to shoot for 350 million, and actually the festival that occurred last year was a big momentous one, only happens every 144 years, 600 million people. Yes, so I'm like, yay, 350 people for IO. That's my speed. That's my size crowd. [00:03:30] Brian Ardinger: At least you had a chance to meet all of them. [00:03:33] Robyn Bolton: Yes, yes, and have great conversations with them, and at no point did I feel like I was about to be crushed in a stampede, so ... kudos to you. Corporate Innovation: Stop Forcing Motion and Start Building Momentum[00:03:42] Brian Ardinger: Well, let's get into the meat of our podcast. As you know, each week we try to find three or four articles that we've come upon in the world of innovation to share with folks.First one is a short blog post by Tendayi Viki. Tendayi's with The Strategizer Group, and he's got a short little blog post called Stop Forcing Motion, Start Building Momentum. What I liked about this, it was a very just short reminder about what we're seeing in corporate innovation and a lot of places where all these transformation efforts, people spin them up, generate a lot of impressive movement you know, new structures are announced, new teams are announced, dashboards are filled up, and it's a lot of motion.And what Tendayi really talks about is the fact that motion is great, but what really, you're trying to build is momentum. You know, motion peters out as ...
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    16 min