Fast Company Innovation Festival | Paul Bernabe

I attended the Fast Company Innovation Festival, which took place from Monday, November 4 to Friday, November 8. I attended the Tuesday session, which featured some very interesting talks.
The first lecture I attended was titled How to Survive the Next Hundred Years, which featured Pam Fletcher, the head of global innovation at GM and Barbara Humpton, the CEO of Siemens USA. Their chemistry together led to a very interesting and lively discussion. The moderator framed the short discussion into the progress and goals their respective companies had towards innovation in the next hundred years. Pam Fletcher noted that one of GM’s core values was always putting the customer at the center and accelerating development of their electric cars. Barbara Humpton said,

looking at Los Angeles, there’s an objective for better air quality. What does that mean? We need to look at electric vehicles. And to have electric vehicles, we need electric charging stations, and to have electric charging stations, we would need to improve the electrical grid. We could put in 100 charging stations a week and it wouldn’t be enough to cover everyone.

This was something that really made me think — for us to grow as a society, our infrastructure needs just as much work! And for every big goal there’s several significant steps to get there.

This was a really interesting talk because it helped me put into perspective first, how long one hundred years truly is. They said the “person who will live to be 150 years old has already been born” — and the amount of progress that can happen in that lifetime is so huge. My takeaway from Barbara Humpton was her response to the interviewer about innovations that happened too early. She recalled Siemens technicians who tried to diagnose their systems remotely 10 years before connected technology. And that made me wonder exactly what has been made today that isn’t yet fully baked and, better yet, has the potential to shape the future.

The next talk I attended of note was called Designing a Successful Sequel: Conversations with Top Creators featuring Brian Leonard, from Lenovo, and Bill Johnson, an architect at HOK Architects. I thought this was an interesting combination since Brian Leonard talked about designing laptops and Bill Johnson spoke about his work designing Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. They touched on some interesting points about design: one of those was that sometimes iterations in design can originate from simple things. Brian Leonard talked about how in just observing, he saw people with tape on their laptop webcams. He said,

So after seeing that, we just added a plastic tab — sometimes people don’t want to be seen! It’s all about making iterations that have meaning. How do we elevate that experience while keeping the core functions of the ThinkPad intact. 

His words made me think about how important it was to really understand and keep the core elements of a brand and to not be too frivolous in stripping away things that we may deem unnecessary. What we may see as unimportant with fresh eyes may be seen as essential to someone who truly values the product.

The main talk that I was most excited for was titled Brands as Communities: How People are Finding Camaraderie in New Ways, which featured Brian Cornell and Ellen Latham, the CEOs of Target and Orangetheory Fitness, respectively. I was really excited to hear what they would talk about because I genuinely believe that people gravitate towards things they like and love. That’s most evident in online groups, forums, and communities, where people will just praise the companies and products they admire without any prompt from the company.

Target actually takes these communities and leverages their input. Brain Cornell talked about how there’s a Studio Connect app where Target gets input from superfans. It was fascinating to me to learn about a company that utilizes technology to get *free* input from its fans.

Ellen Latham talked about the devout nature of her gym-going clientele and the growth and spread of Orangetheory across the world. Her core insight was that

Even though we all speak different languages, our bodies are all the same in these 26 countries.

Even though she had to localize the verbal routine in different countries, the workouts are the same. Her company has one promise to its member and that is that they leave the gym feeling better than when they came in. This led to her own value of “staying in the lane” of Orangetheory — they don’t get involved in social issues — their only goal is to fulfill that core idea for their members.

My takeaway from all this was that companies can empower their customers by providing a great experience. I’ve known this firsthand — I have my own loyalties towards brands that have given me a great experience. They’ve also done a great job of knowing what their purpose is — and for Orangetheory it’s that mantra of taking care of their members by giving them an exceptional and empowering workout regimen that leaves them feeling better than before. When a company sticks to their core values, it’s easier for them to have a better understanding of how to move their business forward.

The last session I attended was Connecting with Your Dream Team: Track Your Inspiring Journey which featured Bob McKinnon, the director of the Moving Up Media Lab. His presentation was simple — he highlighted an online tool that helps the user track who their “dream team” was and how they got to where they are today. I thought his concept was really interesting; we rarely think of who we are supposed to “thank” and give gratitude to. But it is interesting to see who has helped form the core of who I am today — and also scary to think where I could be without those role models or motivators!

Overall, I had a long but very insightful day at the Innovation Festival. If I didn’t have work, I likely would have been able to go to all the sessions (and see Kanye for his surprise talk) but I felt like this was the best day to go as far as the available talks concerning brands and understanding goals and our own identity.