The Innovation Expedition, with Gijs van Wulfen

Top LinkedIn influencer, best-selling author, and innovation expert Gijs van Wulfen joins us on this week’s episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast. Gijs, whose latest book draws on wisdom learned by great explorers past and present, talks about the necessary components for any corporate innovation endeavor to be successful.

We talk about the different types of thinkers and personalities the Mayo Clinic recommends every innovation team have, why 12-14 is the perfect team size for conceptualizing innovative products and services, and what famous explorers throughout time can teach modern-day innovators.

Gijs van Wulfen is the author of the innovation best-seller “The Innovation Expedition: A Visual Toolkit to Start Innovation.” Gijs is the founder of the FORTH Innovation method, which is used to create new products, services and business models. He has led more than 35 successful implementations of FORTH in Europe. He was one of the first 150 influencers chosen by LinkedIn, where he currently has close to 200K followers and posts frequently on innovation-related topics. For the last 2 years he has been named one of the top 40 innovation bloggers in the world by Innovation Excellence.

Here are some of the key takeaways from this podcast discussion:

• Gijs talks about the importance of getting “customer friction” where you’re testing ideas to see if they resonate with people in real life
• He shares 5 ways we could all benefit by thinking like designers
• Gijs discusses some of Thomson Reuters’ 10 Predictions for 2025, including shedding light on when that elusive flying car will finally make it to market
• We talk about a famous anecdote of “chabudai gaeshi,” which roughly translates to “Stop! Start all over from zero” and is attributed to the famed Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto
• Discover a few of the innovations of the world, like Coca-Cola, Wheaties, and Corn Flakes, that came about as a result of blind luck.

Listen to the Episode

Interested in hearing more? Tune in to the full episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast below:

About The Innovation Engine

Since 2014, 3Pillar has published The Innovation Engine, a podcast that sees a wide range of innovation experts come on to discuss topics that include technology, leadership, and company culture. You can download and subscribe to The Innovation Engine on Apple Podcasts. You can also tune in via the podcast’s home on Spotify to listen online, via Android or iOS, or on any device supporting a mobile browser.