Today I share my conversation with Ron J Williams. Fast Company rated him in the top 100 most creative people in business...back in 2012! He's started some serious ventures - SnapGoods was an early vanguard in the sharing economy - and he's also helped companies large and small get proof (rather than stay in conjecture) on their business ideas with his consultancy ProofLabs. 

 

He's currently working as SVP & Head of Program Strategy at Citi Ventures. We also went to High School together, which is why he still takes my calls!

 

I brought Ron onto the show because of a conversation we had months back about how businesses ARE conversations - that they can't just extract value from people without listening, adapting and relating to the people they serve. 

 

Ron offered the idea that each moment, each pixel, is an opportunity for a company to listen and to respond thoughtfully to their customers...this level of granularity and specificity in the opportunities for conversations between business and customers really lit me up.

 

Ron also happens to be a black man. This episode is coming months after we recorded it - I'm working through a backlog - and you'll hear, at the end, my gratitude to Ron for bringing up the topic of racial inequality in corporate innovation...and the costs it has for our society as a whole.

 

I did not want to commit the sin of making a person of color speak for "their people"...it's a burden that "non-minorities" don't have to endure. I am rarely, if ever, asked to speak for all white men, as if I could.

 

Diversity is so important. 

 

Innovation isn't just a conversation between a company and its customers...it's also an internal company conversation. And who is in that innovation conversation determines what problems get noticed, which ideas get funded and for how long. With a large majority of white male voices in corporate innovation and silicon valley, the problems that get addressed and resolved are the problems of a very small, very privileged group of people.

 

Ron says towards the end of our conversation, and I'm condensing a bit:

 

"it's amazing to see many more people popping on the scene, both as people of color, women, LGBT...we're capitalizing networks...and empower(ing) more folks...when there are more voices in the virtual conversation of innovation, more lived experiences means more problem sets that maybe you and I wouldn't think to tackle, come up with... if they were networked properly, resourced properly, supported properly, would build something huge"

 

I hope more diverse voices get included into the innovation conversation. What can you do at your organization to help make that happen?

 

Enjoy the episode. Ron is fun to talk to and really fun to listen to!

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Links and Resources

https://www.prooflabsgroup.com/

 

Jason Cyr on Designing the Organizational Conversation:

https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2019/11/15/designing-the-organizational-conversation

More About Ron

Proven innovation leader and entrepreneur building mission-driven teams focused on solving hard problems.

 

Bringing together 15+ years of entrepreneurship, corporate strategy, startup advisory and product leadership, I have a unique perspective and an awesome network filled with doers.

 

I center my teams on the principle of customer obsession. I believe that sustainable growth comes from better understanding of and partnership with the customer.

 

Quick background:

I've founded, built, invested in and advised on peer-to-peer, sharing economy, marketplace, machine learning and social commerce companies. In varied roles as a founder, intrapreneur, consultant, Entrepreneur in Residence and Program Lead, I've helped Fortune 500 companies re-engineer core business strategies and innovation programs across industries.

 

Passion:

Working with smart people to solve problems that matter (one reason I sit on the Board of organizations like BUILD.org)

 

General approach to creating impact:

- Long-term shareholder value follows customer obsession (not the other way around)

- Values and value creation go hand-in-hand

- Diverse perspective is an organizational super power. It is not a box to check

- Cultivating a culture of trust and willingness to take risks is a competitive advantage

- The "why" is almost always more important than the "what"

- Mission and culture beat innovation theater every time

 

Full Transcript on the Conversation Factory