Open Innovation Talks

The episode contains a few genuine operational frameworks - TRL-based tool selection, a three-question value-measurement method, and an internal-landscaping-first heuristic - but these are diluted by significant host monologuing, meandering background story, and vague meta-commentary about culture change that adds no actionable content.

“If we're talking about a trl, two is, okay. This is a research team. We're looking for fresh ideas. You know, we might go out there with something like a crowdsourcing approach. If they're looking for something a bit more developed, TRL5 plus something that they don't want to start from scratch.”

“roughly about half of the time, um, it's pretty consistent. I can connect that team to another team. They start a dialogue, and then they basically say, kyle, this was great. We'll let you know if we need some more help.”

Most of the framing - culture change journey, early adopters, shots on goal, not-invented-here - is well-worn innovation management boilerplate; the TRL-based tool-selection heuristic and the era-of-program-maturity model offer mild freshness but nothing contrarian or first-principles.

“I implemented uh, a uh, recognition program. These commendation coins, uh, that I handed out to teams. I try to get them in front of their senior management.”

“I realized I've actually been asked to lead a culture change journey and that really flipped my entire way of thinking about what I'm doing”

Kyle is a genuine practitioner who built ExxonMobil's open innovation program from scratch - interviewing 200+ people, engaging 110 teams company-wide - giving him real operational credibility; however he is not a senior executive and his role is only a few years old, limiting depth on scaled outcomes.

“I interviewed over 200 people, put all those learnings into a series of basically PowerPoint packs is how I got started. I had about 20 different PowerPoint packs.”

“I engaged with about 110 teams over the last year and a half across the company”

The episode offers a handful of concrete numbers (110 teams, 200 interviews, 20% early-stage drop-off, >50% pilot execution rate) but explicitly avoids giving ROI figures, timelines, dollar values, or named startups, and the most important metrics are acknowledged as still unknown.

“this is in the thousands as a company. There's thousands of opportunities that are coming”

“it's well over 50% of these opportunities that we chase. We actually do something with it”

The host asks a few structurally sound questions about deal flow, KPIs, and measurement, but repeatedly answers his own questions with lengthy monologues, fails to push back when Kyle gives explicitly vague metric answers, and closes with uncritical flattery rather than any productive challenge.

“Can you tell us a bit about the overall numbers, which is the deal flow or solution that you, you scout every year? Uh, how many ballpark number of pilot projects that typically, how long does it take from, from the first meeting to get to the pilot start”

“I honestly working with many corporate like you, uh, I know that you are producing value for the company. This is a given the problem is how to show the value”