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Good morning Grid Connections listeners.

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Welcome back to Grid Connections, the podcast where we explore all things transportation,
clean energy, and our power grid connecting all of these systems together.

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In this episode, we sit down with Kim Getgen co-founder and CEO of InnovationForce to
explore how innovation can be turned from a buzzword into a repeatable process, especially

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in legacy industries like energy.

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Kim shares the playbook for fostering a culture of innovation inside utilities, the
importance of creating space for creative thinking and how AI is reshaping collaboration

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across the grid.

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I really enjoyed this conversation for a lot of different reasons, but it was really
impressive to see what InnovationForce and InnovationWorks AI, allow

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more projects deploy faster and be even more successful in the field.

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This conversation is packed with practical insights for energy professionals, innovators,
and anyone curious about how bold ideas actually gain traction in complex industries.

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If this episode sparked something for you, share it with one colleague or friend who would
enjoy the conversation.

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The link is in the show notes.

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You can also find it at gridconnections.fm slash newsletter.

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With that, enjoy.

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I'm excited to be speaking with you today, Kim.

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Thanks for coming on.

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Thanks for having us.

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So Kim, just in case people aren't familiar with you and what your company does, can you
just give us a quick kind of background and overview of you and the company and then we'll

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start kind of getting more into the products and other service that your team's working
on.

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Yeah, no.

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So InnovationForce is a SaaS, AI-driven SaaS platform.

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We worked specifically in the energy industry to help utilities innovate faster.

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So one of the things you'll hear me talk about is how we remove barriers in the innovation
workflow, particularly piloting.

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So if you're in an energy space, whether you are a utility or a supplier selling to a
utility, there's no way around

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pilotitis.

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Everybody is stuck in some form of how do we pilot things for the first time inside of
utility service territory to not only prove the business value of what it is that new

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widget is going to do for the utility, but also make sure that's going to deliver safe,
affordable, and reliable.

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We cannot continue to take multi-year pilot cycles.

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is 2025.

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So much of this grid modernization and transformation that we predicted would that would
happen by 2030 is getting crammed in now into the last five years of this this decade.

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And we have a great opportunity, I think, in front of us as a result of some technology
and tools and best practice to actually deliver on the promise of grid modernization.

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pilot more effectively, more efficiently, just adopt more of this emerging technology
that's going to make the grid more modern, affordable, and clean for everybody.

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And so that's what InnovationForce is all about.

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That's why we got started.

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We got started in the early days when we got founded working with Portland General
Electric.

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So I'll talk a little bit more about that, Chase, in the interview, but just shout out to
Portland General Electric.

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A lot of your listeners will probably think of them as

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an innovator and all of the cool stuff that they're doing, but not just in the EV front,
like across their entire grid mod program, what they're doing for their rollout, their

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virtual power plant.

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And I think they're a great example of the art of possible for utilities driving
innovation, not only in an accelerated fashion, but affordably, like their program makes

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sense.

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And it's something we can all copy model our programs after.

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So that's how InnovationForce got started and yeah, we are 100 % in the energy industry
trying to this grid mod piece forward.

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Yeah.

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And I think, you meant you kind of mentioned a really good, great thing with a lot of
these new projects, which is the pilot phase, but you also kind of mentioned like so many

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pilots on a lot of really interesting and, fascinating technology get kicked off and then
they can either kind of go a lot slower than I think a lot of people are hoping for or

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kind of expecting to see.

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So I would kind of like, kind of love to learn a little bit more about some of those
challenges.

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And then just kind of more broader, for our listeners, just like, what are some of the
challenges and like for the industry that, innovation force really focuses on and helps

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with.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, that sounds great.

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And so the pilot process, why I do think it's important that we start here.

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Most of the time when utilities are thinking about adopting emerging technology, new
technology to do this cool grid mod stuff, they all know it's going to take a pilot cycle.

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And more and more today, these new technologies are coming from startups.

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They're coming from new companies that maybe the utility has never heard of.

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They may have never worked with them.

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They may be from a very reliable source like Energy Impact Partner Portfolio, a National
Grid Ventures Partner Portfolio.

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So we know that there's a utility standing behind it, but that

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initial utility has never tried out that idea yet.

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And so the pilot process is super important.

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Now, when we work with more startups and their emerging technology, the other thing to
consider is startups decision-making process and sense of urgency is much different than

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utilities.

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So while utilities may be thinking, hey, a two-year pilot would be okay for us, a startup
could run out of runway because their cycles, their funding cycles are gonna come in 12 to

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18 months.

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And so something that I just find personally fascinating about this whole industry, and
when I talk to a lot of

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my peers that are running corporate venture groups within utilities.

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The first thing that needs to happen is this understanding and alignment that if we're
going to adopt new more of this new technology from startups, we have to align to faster

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decision making processes.

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We have to help make sure this new emerging technology does not die on the runway.

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What we need to recognize is that utilities do not develop most utilities, especially
those that are in regulated parts of the country will

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not develop this technology at risk.

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We do not have capital I level innovation budgets at a utility.

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Our only option is to partner with our with a usually a startup.

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who has been able to get venture-backed funds to be able to build this new technology.

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But that venture-backed fund, even when you see these amazing press releases like,
companies so-and-so just got $3 million in funding and $5 million of funding, that funding

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will last them 12 months.

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Right.

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we have to figure out ways to accelerate the decision-making process, the scouting
process, how we're going to collaborate, do it in ways that allows us to reduce risk as an

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industry, and then pile it faster so that not only can we decide if we're gonna fund
production at scale, that would be helpful for the startup to close their deals and get

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access to more capital.

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But we just have to do this in a more efficient way, or what you're going to see is at the
heart of all of this, the most innovative companies die on the vine.

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And that's what I think has been the struggle that I've seen over the last decade.

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I think energy is one of the most difficult companies.

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I'm a two-time founder.

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I was in cybersecurity before energy.

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One of the things that I was drawn to this industry was because how challenging it was.

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If you are a founder creating a new thing in the energy industry that we so desperately
need to meet safe, affordable, reliable, and clean.

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your entrepreneur journey, can tell you will be the hardest entrepreneur journey of any of
your peers.

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So keep doing the hard work we need you and utilities please, you know, understand that
your startups that are getting the venture-backed dollars to do your R &D need your help.

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Yeah, I think that's a great call out because having worked in a lot of the startup space
and then when you talk to utility professionals two years ago in a utility world like

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that's that's moving quick.

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That's gonna be a short timeframe.

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And then in startups, we say, well, the company could have pivoted twice within those two
years and the pilot they started versus the services they may offer at the end of it could

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be completely different.

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And I think that's a really

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Good call out.

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mean, that that's why it's so important to have kind of like that very clear project scope
and what the pilot is trying to accomplish and make sure you have that alignment.

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But I think you're like spot on with how important that is to have those goals and kind of
the needs of both companies agreed upon and just having that transparency between the two.

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You know, what, one other thing, I guess, kind of with my previous background or kind of
some professional work in the star of space as well.

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You mentioned a background in cybersecurity and I am always surprised, maybe sometimes
horrified about the lack of some of those things that you see in this industry that really

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do need that help.

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And I would maybe love to hear just a little bit of like doing more in this space now.

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What are some of the things, especially companies that work with you or things that you
would love to see to kind of help make sure we have that kind of level of.

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cyber safety that may be needed in quite a few areas, honestly, in my opinion.

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yeah, no, and it goes hand in hand with pilotitis because one of the most common
objections you're going to hear as you start to move a new idea through the procurement

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process will be, well, timeout, we've got to get our cybersecurity team involved with is
absolutely the right thing to do.

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But cybersecurity teams I find in utilities are completely under resourced because this is
a very difficult, you know, this high talent, very difficult, you know, talent to drive

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and bring into utilities.

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cybersecurity.

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But if you look at what's happening to the grid, everything's becoming digitized.

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Standards are becoming, you know, all these proprietary ways of doing grid modernization
are becoming standardized.

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You know, we're layering OT and IT on top of everything that was SCADA.

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And so we are opening ourselves up for sure to, you know, a lot of cyber threats and
attacks.

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not just cyber wise, but also in our supply chains, right?

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So there's just a lot of focus right now on cybersecurity, which I completely agree with.

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So we've run, the way we figure out what the utility is focused on is we read and download
all the grid mod filings from utilities around the world, but particularly here in North

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America.

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we've been, our AI tool and our Innovation Works AI has been reading all of the grid mod
filings.

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and then it'll develop challenges that the industry is facing.

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This cyber challenge, we're seeing more cyber challenges as a result of those grid mod
reports than ever before.

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And so I would say to my friends in the cybersecurity space, which I have a lot of, I know
a lot of really great VCs in the cybersecurity space that have been afraid to put their

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toe in the utility industry or have said, we specifically went into cyber because we
didn't want to get into the utility space.

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This is the time that cyber and energy are coming together.

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We've been predicting this for decades and it is now here.

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So there are more opportunities in my opinion for cybersecurity startups in the energy and
utility industry than ever before.

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We absolutely need you.

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But then on the other hand, inside utilities, those of you who are wearing the risk hat,
please, please, please consider how do you want your pilots to roll?

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Because if you...

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prepare your procurement and cyber teams for this pipeline of new technology that will
need to be reviewed.

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Don't let it slow you down.

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That was one of, it was one of the running jokes when I started talking to utilities, you
know, a couple of years ago about innovation and everyone was like, well, it takes me

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three years just to get the idea through cyber.

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And then another five years to pilot it, right?

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But that's not the case anymore.

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Like I'm seeing so much more success now where

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Cyber teams are getting better staffed, but they're also, we're creating these
standardized process and forms and questionnaires so that startups are familiar with what

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they need to get through the review.

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And cybersecurity teams are really smart now about what needs to be flagged for higher
levels of risk.

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and there's a lot of these pilots that are going through that, you know, we say it's not
flagging any.

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real cyber risk.

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like, don't let that stand in the way of piloting faster.

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And I think the big wake up call for a lot of cyber cyber companies, a lot of maybe not
cyber companies, but a wake up call for a lot of startups that they haven't considered the

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just the level of cybersecurity insurance that you need to have to be able to do business
here.

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So just suck it up, get the cybersecurity insurance, get your, you know, socks compliance.

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Get that in check.

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On your side, hire a really good cyber person.

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Do your penetration task.

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Do everything that you need to do to make the cybersecurity procurement process go as
seamlessly as possible.

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Because there is no way around that bottleneck.

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You might have the best grid mod invention that we've ever seen, but if your cybersecurity
audit fails, your idea is dead.

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No, I appreciate it.

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I think that those are great call outs.

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and I really enjoy kind of how you're positioning it, that those are the things that I
think more proactively people in the space on both sides.

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But I think it has been really interesting to watch the evolution on the utility side too,
about being more, open to the speed and kind of working with that, but also just having

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that transparency of these are what the base needs are.

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And, it is in the consumer's best interest.

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So it's all things that it's pretty hard to push back on, but let's, guess, let's move
forward and then kind of talk about innovation force itself and kind of some of the

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specific things, not only is it addressing, but also kind of how your tools, especially on
the AI side is really making it easier for utilities and just kind of the whole scope of

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what your team's working on.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So InnovationForce, we got started because we put in place this process that I was
mentioning and we worked with Portland General Electric.

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They had created a pretty large 5G lab to run around 100 plus use cases through a 5G lab
to enable a virtual power plant.

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With that amount of pipeline coming through that lab, it became important for us to talk
to the rest of the business around how we were going to innovate.

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so putting together that corporate governance structure around procurement, when does
cyber get involved?

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What does a cybersecurity assessment checklist look like?

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What sort of transparent partnerships do we want to put together because we know we're
going to be working with more cutting edge startups.

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So we want to be able to get them through our procurement process, but be able to work
with them.

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These were all process decisions that needed to be made and standardized so that that
utility could drive volume, quantity and quality is really what they wanted to measure.

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And so the first thing we did was we said, look, innovation is not about the aha moment on
a whiteboard or brainstorming meeting or a post-it in a Miro whiteboard.

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It is the process of running a discipline, repeatable, standardized way of innovating so
that all of the innovators that are getting involved in this process, whether they're

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internal or external, know step by step what's the next step in the process, but what do
they need to do to complete each step in the process.

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So imagine that part of our platform is just a workflow automation tool.

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It's a SaaS-based tool.

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works very similar to CRM type technology, where we get pretty used to being able to run
flows and workflows.

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But it's 100 % purpose-built for innovation, and it incorporates 20 years of best practice
from the findings of my co-founder, Dr.

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Linda Hill, who is a Harvard Business School professor and wrote the book Collective
Genius and has assessed over 150 of the most innovative companies in the world.

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And when she wrote her book, Collective Genius, think one thing, like the title sounds
really great and it sounds really sexy.

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But one of her findings was, successful leaders of innovation do the boring stuff right.

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It's about a disciplined process that we can repeat that's standardized and able to scale.

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So that, number one, was what we wanted to build in our technology through SAS, make it
simple, make it easy.

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make it easy to scale so we could then reach all of these thousands and thousands of
innovators that you have to work with in the process of innovating or piloting.

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So that was step one, work full automation.

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We also built performance dashboards.

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These were really based on Portland's desire to be able to measure quantity, measure
quality, throughput of their pipeline.

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So they're measuring the number of ideas, how long each idea takes per each stage of the
workflow.

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And they're also looking at how many minutes to man hours, if you will, does each task in
the innovation flow take their employees.

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So we give them all this incredible data back in their recent innovation impact report
that they've published that summarizes this whole program.

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And I would encourage everybody to download it because it has the complete corporate
governance framework and

193
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how it works and whether you use our platform or not, it's a great tool.

194
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But we were able to estimate that we were saving them $562,000 per workflow because we
were measuring how long each person's task would take before and after.

195
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So imagine workflow automation, everything being standardized, corporate governance
standardized, risk is now being reduced.

196
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Innovators know what to do.

197
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So it's less meeting time, less, less time overall for them in the whole flow.

198
00:19:54,334 --> 00:20:03,710
And then the last piece that we just added on with distribute tech, and this was a long
time coming after about more than 12 months of getting feedback from the entire industry

199
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to say, how can we help you as an industry innovate faster was our innovation works AI
tool.

200
00:20:11,525 --> 00:20:16,961
And so the AI, it goes out and it reads all those grid mod reports.

201
00:20:16,961 --> 00:20:28,101
it generates challenges from the reports and in under 20 seconds can auto match a
challenge to a marketplace of solution ideas that we've put together.

202
00:20:28,101 --> 00:20:32,833
it's basically an open marketplace that anybody, can get a free account.

203
00:20:32,833 --> 00:20:40,358
let, know, everybody can come in to be able to look at the ideas, the challenges and the
solutions that we've gathered.

204
00:20:40,358 --> 00:20:45,001
But what's so cool is being able to watch utilities.

205
00:20:45,069 --> 00:20:53,115
take their grid mod report that could be 600 pages, run it through to say what innovation
challenges should we be working on?

206
00:20:53,115 --> 00:20:58,578
And in 20 seconds or less get matched to viable solutions that they may or may not have
heard of.

207
00:20:58,898 --> 00:21:06,544
So we've just taken all of that research time, scouting time out and it's real time.

208
00:21:06,544 --> 00:21:10,686
You can do it whenever you feel like you don't have to wait for a conference now to go.

209
00:21:10,686 --> 00:21:13,959
And by the way, who's gonna talk to 500 vendors at a conference?

210
00:21:13,959 --> 00:21:15,029
Like you're not.

211
00:21:15,065 --> 00:21:19,453
So imagine being able to run your grid mod report and see what it matched to.

212
00:21:19,453 --> 00:21:25,173
You're probably going to find a lot of providers that were at Distribute Tech that you
didn't get a chance to meet up with.

213
00:21:25,173 --> 00:21:26,975
And now you can through our platform.

214
00:21:27,890 --> 00:21:30,973
Well, I think that's a great, point actually.

215
00:21:30,973 --> 00:21:35,356
mean, before we went live, we were just talking about how exhausted and how much like we
were doing at our own.

216
00:21:35,356 --> 00:21:36,373
Like you were a distributor tech.

217
00:21:36,373 --> 00:21:40,630
was at EV charging summit and I was, I was speaking.

218
00:21:40,630 --> 00:21:42,092
I was going to some of these workshops.

219
00:21:42,092 --> 00:21:48,477
mean, and when I have like a few spare minutes, I would go to the expo and see like some
of the actual vendors there.

220
00:21:48,477 --> 00:21:57,300
And there were easily hundreds and I'd maybe met, I would say rounding up 20 and,

221
00:21:57,602 --> 00:21:58,332
Exactly.

222
00:21:58,332 --> 00:22:07,144
And so like having that kind of level to it is really impressive and really powerful just
to have that kind of as a consistent level versus like, you're saying, not only going to

223
00:22:07,144 --> 00:22:10,034
one of these events, but having to wait till the next one and being in all this.

224
00:22:10,034 --> 00:22:12,558
So that I think is a really cool level to this.

225
00:22:14,159 --> 00:22:23,503
kind of like maybe taking a step back for those listening, like whether they're in the
industry or not, can you kind of share from like what the utility side would be like, who

226
00:22:23,503 --> 00:22:24,533
is it at a project manager?

227
00:22:24,533 --> 00:22:26,224
Who is it on the utility side?

228
00:22:26,224 --> 00:22:26,955
That's like,

229
00:22:26,955 --> 00:22:31,265
this is the perfect light would be using this and kind of implementing this as I go
through that process.

230
00:22:31,265 --> 00:22:35,018
Yeah, no, I'll walk you through and really base a lot of what

231
00:22:35,297 --> 00:22:44,421
this example is really on Portland and they talk about it in their impact report like what
happened, why did they do it and all of this has been third party assessed by EPRI by the

232
00:22:44,421 --> 00:22:50,494
way so EPRI was there as well trying to help advise them on what they should do for their
innovation program.

233
00:22:50,494 --> 00:22:54,086
So at the very beginning it really takes C-level support.

234
00:22:54,086 --> 00:23:04,130
While we talk to a lot of innovators on the ground on both sides of the marketplace the
startups and the utilities the suppliers and the demand side this doesn't move forward

235
00:23:04,130 --> 00:23:05,261
very well if you don't

236
00:23:05,261 --> 00:23:07,212
have top level support.

237
00:23:07,312 --> 00:23:13,294
In the example of Portland, it came all the way from the board down due to a regulation
driver.

238
00:23:13,294 --> 00:23:18,916
So they were to deliver, I believe it was 80 percent clean electricity by 2030.

239
00:23:18,916 --> 00:23:23,038
And so because of that, they knew their grid was going to have to look dramatically
different.

240
00:23:23,038 --> 00:23:29,460
And so that they would have to encourage their frontline teams to start innovating,
piloting, looking for new ideas.

241
00:23:29,460 --> 00:23:32,419
But at the board level down, it received top

242
00:23:32,419 --> 00:23:36,210
down support and there was a very strong executive champion.

243
00:23:36,210 --> 00:23:46,903
Many of your listeners have probably heard of or know Larry Bekodal, the Senior Vice
President of Advanced Energy Delivery at Portland, but he was tapped to really drive the

244
00:23:46,903 --> 00:23:48,473
innovation program.

245
00:23:48,473 --> 00:23:52,835
And that's who we have been working with very closely as an executive champion.

246
00:23:52,835 --> 00:23:57,356
And so I would say, you know, it does take top down support.

247
00:23:57,356 --> 00:24:00,697
It does require a strong executive champion.

248
00:24:00,867 --> 00:24:13,764
the executive champion is going to provide air cover for the strategy, help remove
barriers when it comes to the bureaucracy, creating that corporate governance structure,

249
00:24:13,764 --> 00:24:24,510
making sure that that process is going to work for the company, the reporting metrics, how
do we want to report out success to the board, any incentives you might want to put in

250
00:24:24,510 --> 00:24:28,311
place, like that strong executive championship.

251
00:24:28,312 --> 00:24:31,033
Below that, then it gets tapped.

252
00:24:31,033 --> 00:24:32,354
to a driver.

253
00:24:32,354 --> 00:24:39,773
That driver could be the head of R &D, it could be the head of innovation management, it
could be the head of digital transformation.

254
00:24:39,773 --> 00:24:48,886
It really doesn't matter, but it does require someone that the entire organization can
kind of go to wearing that recognized hat.

255
00:24:48,886 --> 00:24:53,089
That if you have a question about the innovation program, I'm here to answer it for you.

256
00:24:53,329 --> 00:24:56,452
And I'm here to make sure that the process is working.

257
00:24:56,452 --> 00:24:58,477
Like I'm taking as much friction

258
00:24:58,477 --> 00:25:07,544
as I possibly can in a safe way out of that process and working with all lines of business
to make sure that risk is being managed appropriately.

259
00:25:07,765 --> 00:25:13,670
Below the Innovation Manager, what we have seen work really well is a decentralized model.

260
00:25:13,670 --> 00:25:25,280
This might be a little bit different from what a lot of folks have seen in the past
because I think what we've seen have been large organizations like utility outsource their

261
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innovation.

262
00:25:26,265 --> 00:25:32,188
They may outsource it to an incubator, an accelerator, a consulting group.

263
00:25:32,188 --> 00:25:42,184
Now, what I'm starting to see is more of this hands-on approach that you're going to
either do both or you're going to move to this decentralized model where your business

264
00:25:42,184 --> 00:25:49,318
unit leaders who are in charge of new ideas are going to spearhead what we've called
airports.

265
00:25:49,318 --> 00:25:54,360
These are strategic areas of the business that you're trying to drive innovation through.

266
00:25:55,055 --> 00:26:00,856
people inside of your business unit might be tapped as captains to pilot test flights.

267
00:26:00,856 --> 00:26:06,100
So we've kind of worked it around this air traffic control analogy, which has been great.

268
00:26:06,100 --> 00:26:06,860
as well.

269
00:26:06,860 --> 00:26:08,200
love I love that analogy.

270
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:09,840
Kind of the overlap between the two industries.

271
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:10,900
That's great.

272
00:26:10,925 --> 00:26:18,469
and it works really well because it takes some of the design thinking jargon away and it's
more accessible.

273
00:26:18,469 --> 00:26:21,027
You don't need a PhD in design thinking to be able to run this.

274
00:26:21,027 --> 00:26:25,552
We're going to help you run your, know, captain your best test flight ever.

275
00:26:25,712 --> 00:26:27,143
We can have a lot of fun with it too.

276
00:26:27,143 --> 00:26:33,546
We can gamify it as well, compare airports to each other, you know, are your flights
landing on time?

277
00:26:33,546 --> 00:26:34,826
Are they getting delayed?

278
00:26:34,826 --> 00:26:36,973
Like that whole analogy just...

279
00:26:36,973 --> 00:26:42,136
And it also helps to differentiate your innovation program from your other programs here.

280
00:26:42,136 --> 00:26:55,434
So you may have a very mature and formalized product development process or a very
formalized and mature project at scale, CAPEX project at scale process.

281
00:26:55,434 --> 00:26:59,686
And they're all using stage gates that are going to sound somewhat similar.

282
00:26:59,686 --> 00:27:05,185
But by calling your innovation program and using this air traffic control analogy a little
bit differently,

283
00:27:05,185 --> 00:27:12,871
as the phase zero and feeder system into these more mature processes, it allows us to not
step on each other's toes.

284
00:27:12,871 --> 00:27:25,442
We don't wanna take away 10 to 20 years of maturity in your product development process or
in your putting stuff in the ground to go to scale.

285
00:27:25,442 --> 00:27:29,945
We don't wanna take that away from the utility, but what we are standing up is a new
thing.

286
00:27:30,125 --> 00:27:35,788
And what Portland had a lot of fun and just kind of branded around this innovation air
traffic control analogy.

287
00:27:35,788 --> 00:27:39,460
And so people knew that it was like, yeah, we're talking about strategic innovation.

288
00:27:39,460 --> 00:27:42,298
And we're trying to alleviate fear.

289
00:27:42,298 --> 00:27:43,378
We're trying to make it more fun.

290
00:27:43,378 --> 00:27:44,663
We're trying to make it more accessible.

291
00:27:44,663 --> 00:27:50,586
yeah, so I would say, so all of those things got put into place.

292
00:27:50,586 --> 00:27:59,405
But when you really see the magic happen in this decentralized model, the frontline
innovators feel

293
00:27:59,405 --> 00:28:01,326
encouraged to participate.

294
00:28:01,586 --> 00:28:06,729
And this is really why we started InnovationForce, like to get back to your earlier
answer.

295
00:28:06,930 --> 00:28:18,096
For so many years, for 20 years of being in commercialization and innovation, I have seen
way too many times where innovation was given to the strategic thought leader or the high

296
00:28:18,096 --> 00:28:25,985
performers or we took a group of people out and siloed them away from the rest of the
business and put them in a

297
00:28:25,985 --> 00:28:34,021
fake garage and hope they would come up with some new idea and the rest of the workforce,
those of us on the front line seeing problems every day, like we were taken out of that

298
00:28:34,021 --> 00:28:35,111
process.

299
00:28:35,152 --> 00:28:46,249
And so no surprise when your high performers who've been working in a garage for eight
months come back with an idea and hand it over to the crew as this beautiful new idea on a

300
00:28:46,249 --> 00:28:50,663
tablet that they should be using and the crew goes, did anyone talk to us?

301
00:28:50,663 --> 00:28:53,595
Like my iPhone was working just fine for this.

302
00:28:53,595 --> 00:28:54,485
Like what?

303
00:28:54,637 --> 00:28:56,378
We didn't need all that.

304
00:28:56,378 --> 00:29:06,722
So that's why 80 % of digital transformation and higher fails today, because we silo it
off and we exclude the people closest to the problem.

305
00:29:06,722 --> 00:29:17,086
In our model, what you're able to do is have a very centralized hand on oversight,
corporate governance, risk managed approach, but empower your frontline to come into the

306
00:29:17,086 --> 00:29:23,349
process, know what steps they need to do to participate in the process, and completely

307
00:29:23,735 --> 00:29:26,487
expand this across your entire employee base.

308
00:29:26,628 --> 00:29:33,615
I saw people at Portland light up when they realized that they were included.

309
00:29:33,615 --> 00:29:42,523
I literally heard on a call one day with a person who was out in the field a lot who had
asked us to check out, actually it was a really cool EV company, can't remember the exact

310
00:29:42,523 --> 00:29:46,707
one at the time, but it was an EV fleet management fleet solution.

311
00:29:46,768 --> 00:29:48,643
And she had said, yeah, I...

312
00:29:48,643 --> 00:29:54,913
I didn't know if you wanted me to participate in this, but I'm happy to give you some
feedback because we invited her in for feedback call.

313
00:29:54,913 --> 00:29:57,476
She goes, has anybody checked this company out?

314
00:29:57,497 --> 00:29:59,737
And we were like, no, no.

315
00:30:00,778 --> 00:30:03,099
Like run, run, run with that.

316
00:30:03,099 --> 00:30:08,051
Not only run with that, like tap her to lead that project, right?

317
00:30:08,051 --> 00:30:15,384
So I have so many great heartwarming stories like that where then the innovation becomes
owned by the employees.

318
00:30:15,544 --> 00:30:17,665
Your success rate goes up.

319
00:30:17,675 --> 00:30:27,851
At Portland in their impact report, think they grew their portfolio by over 330 % and 50 %
of their ideas going through our process are now greenlit.

320
00:30:27,851 --> 00:30:32,393
That's a really high number for the adoption.

321
00:30:32,690 --> 00:30:40,713
Well, you know, there's a lot you just said that I really like and I have my own kind of
anecdote, but I think you brought up, you brought up two really great points about like

322
00:30:40,713 --> 00:30:45,267
when it comes to digital transformations, it's not having the right people involved,
especially those in the day.

323
00:30:45,267 --> 00:30:49,389
And then just making like the concept and what you're trying to achieve as approachable.

324
00:30:49,689 --> 00:30:57,404
And, recently I was talking to someone and they, the whole six Sigma, they were talking
about how they're a black belt in this.

325
00:30:57,404 --> 00:30:59,104
And I get it.

326
00:30:59,104 --> 00:31:01,798
And I think there's a lot of interesting business,

327
00:31:03,516 --> 00:31:15,780
Thoughts and stuff you can use with that but if you're being talked to about all of this
and all this transform Like it's the jargon of it is so off-putting Whereas just using

328
00:31:15,780 --> 00:31:24,772
using a simple and cap inviting thing instead of having to like learn someone else's
jargon Just using like the example of just like air traffic under like everyone does that

329
00:31:24,772 --> 00:31:31,996
really quick and that's not really the focus of it That's just to try and make it more
approachable understandable so people can communicate effectively

330
00:31:31,996 --> 00:31:36,384
and actually do the important stuff, is that transformation.

331
00:31:36,465 --> 00:31:38,488
So that's awesome.

332
00:31:38,593 --> 00:31:39,913
them to do that because it's hard.

333
00:31:39,913 --> 00:31:41,333
It's hard to lead innovation.

334
00:31:41,333 --> 00:31:43,193
A lot of people are fearful.

335
00:31:43,253 --> 00:31:51,873
But creating that safe place where innovation is about piloting and learning and learning
fast or failing fast, if you're comfortable saying fail fast, some aren't.

336
00:31:51,873 --> 00:31:53,593
Some want to say learn fast.

337
00:31:53,973 --> 00:32:01,493
But just know, just because we've simplified everything to this air traffic control
doesn't mean it is not based on 20 years of Harvard Business School-backed research.

338
00:32:01,493 --> 00:32:02,450
It is.

339
00:32:02,450 --> 00:32:03,050
and for sure.

340
00:32:03,050 --> 00:32:03,401
Right.

341
00:32:03,401 --> 00:32:03,681
Right.

342
00:32:03,681 --> 00:32:07,513
But I think that, yeah, no, exactly.

343
00:32:07,513 --> 00:32:16,947
And I, that's what I like about it is it, makes it really approachable and you can't have
kind of that data in those learnings, but it isn't just like, I was reminded once again,

344
00:32:16,947 --> 00:32:22,930
just talking to this person, like how you have to almost have like a thesaurus or
dictionary of what these terms mean and what they can actually translate to.

345
00:32:22,930 --> 00:32:28,732
I was like, other than for that, to be honest, that person's ego may be.

346
00:32:28,747 --> 00:32:29,342
Great.

347
00:32:29,342 --> 00:32:31,214
find that it was like, was like, okay, great.

348
00:32:31,214 --> 00:32:33,365
I'm happy for you that you've achieved that in your career.

349
00:32:33,365 --> 00:32:42,401
But like as an organization and like for that greater good that you're trying to achieve,
I mean, it's like dealing with acronyms or all these other things that like create

350
00:32:42,401 --> 00:32:46,640
barriers when at the end of the exactly, exactly.

351
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:52,568
yeah, and what we like to say, everybody can be a chief problem officer.

352
00:32:52,850 --> 00:32:57,701
Why wouldn't you want everyone to be empowered to be a chief problem officer?

353
00:32:57,701 --> 00:33:00,201
be closest to the problem, solve the problem.

354
00:33:00,201 --> 00:33:07,581
And then you start to build this amazing DNA in your culture for being able to be growth
mindset and innovative mindset.

355
00:33:07,581 --> 00:33:12,441
And so to turn some of it, like we haven't talked about this chase, but I'm sure this
one's coming too.

356
00:33:12,561 --> 00:33:21,961
Like everyone wants to talk about culture and utilities having a quote unquote bad culture
for innovating or, you know, all of those barriers we chatted about can kind of paint

357
00:33:21,961 --> 00:33:25,763
utilities as laggards or not wanting to create culture.

358
00:33:25,763 --> 00:33:37,316
The other huge finding that Linda Hill, my co-founder, had in Collective Genius, that
culture is not the determining factor for your innovation program.

359
00:33:37,316 --> 00:33:45,709
There are capabilities that you can learn and do in the process of innovating that is
going to make your culture better.

360
00:33:45,709 --> 00:33:48,839
And I cannot stress this enough.

361
00:33:48,839 --> 00:33:55,045
So if you are able to get more people involved in the program,

362
00:33:55,045 --> 00:34:05,465
show them the capabilities that they need to have to be able to drive an idea through, the
culture overall will start to organically improve.

363
00:34:05,465 --> 00:34:16,425
And when you start to build that organic change in your culture, you attract better
talent, you're going to attract more growth, you're going to find more savings, you're

364
00:34:16,425 --> 00:34:19,005
going to be able to deliver faster.

365
00:34:19,085 --> 00:34:22,097
And so you get better.

366
00:34:22,097 --> 00:34:27,071
have those, you get those people on the field, like they're already really busy trying to
do all these other things.

367
00:34:27,071 --> 00:34:31,575
And then you're asking them to be a big part of this change, which you do need them to be.

368
00:34:31,575 --> 00:34:40,704
But you also need to kind of remove those barriers and that friction for them to really be
able to voice that, get that feedback and then iterate.

369
00:34:40,704 --> 00:34:45,638
And so I just, I think this is all really interesting and I like how there is the.

370
00:34:45,916 --> 00:34:53,222
different levels of engagement, the simplicity and the openness to like how people at all
the different levels can engage.

371
00:34:53,463 --> 00:34:55,024
And that's on the culture side.

372
00:34:55,024 --> 00:35:01,979
And like you're saying, it can actually grow and kind of facilitate its own culture for
that organization and make it even better.

373
00:35:02,270 --> 00:35:05,713
but then that pairs to the software and the pilot that you're doing.

374
00:35:05,713 --> 00:35:09,349
That is just really the main part of the change.

375
00:35:09,349 --> 00:35:12,709
because Larry told me early on, he's like, don't give engineers another tool.

376
00:35:12,709 --> 00:35:15,909
Like don't just build software and give them another tool.

377
00:35:16,069 --> 00:35:19,629
Here's something special that happens when humans collaborate.

378
00:35:19,629 --> 00:35:23,249
that's so innovation works is a platform.

379
00:35:23,249 --> 00:35:33,269
It's just a tool, but we are putting in the teachings, the training, the wisdom, the
knowledge to be able to upskill employees to become chief problem officers as well.

380
00:35:33,269 --> 00:35:34,789
Your culture will improve.

381
00:35:34,789 --> 00:35:36,429
All this great stuff will improve.

382
00:35:36,429 --> 00:35:38,449
But I did want to give my dad a little bit of a shout out.

383
00:35:38,449 --> 00:35:39,313
So I don't know those of you

384
00:35:39,313 --> 00:35:48,395
were at Distribute Tech, I a lot of people saw, I put a little post up that my dad and I,
for the first time, my dad came with me to Distribute Tech and he spent his career in

385
00:35:48,395 --> 00:35:50,406
building automations and controls.

386
00:35:50,406 --> 00:35:53,166
And so he was in the field, he was in the field crew.

387
00:35:53,166 --> 00:35:59,128
So he wore one of those blue shirts, sometimes I call it blue shirt syndrome when we
stopped listening to the people closest to the problem.

388
00:35:59,128 --> 00:36:05,729
And this was the story of him, his long career as an HVAC controls guy where...

389
00:36:05,817 --> 00:36:11,619
you know, he was closest to the customer and he had a ton of great ideas on how to deliver
better to the customer.

390
00:36:11,619 --> 00:36:14,921
No one in corporate wanted to hear that, right?

391
00:36:14,921 --> 00:36:21,973
And so I was like, it's ingrained in me pretty early that that was something that I just
saw it over and over myself.

392
00:36:21,973 --> 00:36:32,568
And I thought, wow, if we could build this platform and make sure everybody that field
knowledge is included in participating in the innovation process, you overcome the number

393
00:36:32,568 --> 00:36:35,043
one barrier that all the CEOs say to me, which is like,

394
00:36:35,043 --> 00:36:39,453
I'll do this when you tell me how I can get my field to say no, stop saying no to
innovation.

395
00:36:39,453 --> 00:36:40,889
It's it's real simple.

396
00:36:40,889 --> 00:36:42,291
Invite them in.

397
00:36:43,035 --> 00:36:43,844
Invite them in.

398
00:36:43,844 --> 00:36:44,244
Yeah.

399
00:36:44,244 --> 00:36:46,024
No, this, this has been great.

400
00:36:46,024 --> 00:36:50,504
And I, think it, it is just a lot of different levels of having that.

401
00:36:50,504 --> 00:37:00,284
I just think it's so, in some ways, part of the reason I even started my own consulting is
kind of being that this exact reason is like that jadedness where it's like, okay, the

402
00:37:00,284 --> 00:37:02,224
answers are very clear.

403
00:37:02,264 --> 00:37:07,964
You just, if you spend a couple of days usually in the field or on the front lines, you
can see where that friction is.

404
00:37:07,964 --> 00:37:09,184
And this needs to get up.

405
00:37:09,184 --> 00:37:11,430
And I think if you look at a lot of the

406
00:37:11,430 --> 00:37:17,922
more effective startups kind in the space that have been able to scale, it is having that
quick iteration.

407
00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:25,234
And, and I really enjoy the kind of the anecdote and the connection to all of this that
you shared there, but we've kind of talked about a few of these already.

408
00:37:25,234 --> 00:37:35,387
And I'm just curious if there are any other barriers to grid modernization and
specifically how your platform kind of helps overcome the budgets.

409
00:37:35,387 --> 00:37:40,043
If there's any others in general that you're seeing that maybe we haven't hit on yet.

410
00:37:40,043 --> 00:37:43,294
Yeah, no, I think there's probably two.

411
00:37:44,195 --> 00:37:45,956
One is start with the challenge.

412
00:37:45,956 --> 00:37:50,058
And then the second is time is actually your biggest barrier.

413
00:37:50,058 --> 00:37:53,079
Like time is the silent killer of all innovation.

414
00:37:53,079 --> 00:38:02,684
So I'll talk about time first, because this might be a little controversial and, you know,
feel free to disagree with me, send us your comments or your, you know, push back.

415
00:38:02,684 --> 00:38:05,885
It'd be great to get a dialogue started here, but

416
00:38:06,018 --> 00:38:11,173
When I do talk to utilities, the first thing they'll say is we don't have the resources or
the budget.

417
00:38:13,609 --> 00:38:22,548
I like to say you always have a resource, because if you have somebody with a really good
idea that they care about most of the time, nine times out of 10, they're willing to be

418
00:38:22,548 --> 00:38:26,422
that resource to give it a trial, like to run the test.

419
00:38:26,422 --> 00:38:27,192
So there you go.

420
00:38:27,192 --> 00:38:30,386
You've got an active resource right there.

421
00:38:30,386 --> 00:38:32,308
It's already on your payroll.

422
00:38:32,308 --> 00:38:37,872
And that only needs to take a certain percentage of their current time to be able to go
and run that pilot.

423
00:38:38,221 --> 00:38:40,893
half of the time they want to do it because it's going to be a benefit to them.

424
00:38:40,893 --> 00:38:45,286
It's going to give them probably some benefit back, which is why they want to champion it.

425
00:38:45,286 --> 00:38:46,947
The second is budget.

426
00:38:46,947 --> 00:38:49,548
And I understand, know budgets are tight.

427
00:38:49,789 --> 00:38:52,031
R &D budgets are super tight these days.

428
00:38:52,031 --> 00:38:55,433
We don't have enough money to run all the pilots that we want to run.

429
00:38:55,769 --> 00:39:10,556
But again, these startups are usually willing to do a pilot free if you give them a 90 day
decision or you say to them, I can make a decision on this in 120 days or 180 days so that

430
00:39:10,556 --> 00:39:19,761
they can then make sure that they're able to fund and resource their own runway
appropriately.

431
00:39:19,841 --> 00:39:20,941
So there you go.

432
00:39:20,941 --> 00:39:23,702
You can pilot a lot of this for free.

433
00:39:23,702 --> 00:39:34,466
You can, think at Portland, they called it $1 hamburgers because we were doing a lot of $1
pilots because there was so much collaboration and willingness for these new startups to

434
00:39:34,466 --> 00:39:38,787
bring new ideas that they knew would be piloted fast and they would get a decision.

435
00:39:38,787 --> 00:39:45,579
By the way, utilities, when you tell a startup, no, but give them great feedback, that's
great product market fit.

436
00:39:45,785 --> 00:39:52,899
People will give away pilots free all day to get real feedback on their products so they
know if they're building something right.

437
00:39:52,899 --> 00:39:57,729
And if they're building something wrong and they're told why they can go and fix that,
that's a problem we can fix.

438
00:39:57,729 --> 00:40:04,454
What we can't fix is lack of transparency and no feedback and then waiting around forever
for people to make a decision.

439
00:40:04,454 --> 00:40:05,864
So there you go.

440
00:40:05,864 --> 00:40:13,017
So you have built in resources, you have built in budget by partnering in a smart way.

441
00:40:13,017 --> 00:40:16,899
So time, time turns out to be the silent killer.

442
00:40:16,899 --> 00:40:22,701
The longer an idea sits on a shelf without a decision, the more likely it is for people to
kill it.

443
00:40:22,925 --> 00:40:27,828
And sometimes bad, you know, not bad ideas, but you know, sometimes ideas do need to be
killed.

444
00:40:27,828 --> 00:40:29,769
There's nothing wrong with killing decisions.

445
00:40:29,769 --> 00:40:31,790
In fact, Linda worked with them.

446
00:40:32,350 --> 00:40:33,431
Do it fast.

447
00:40:33,431 --> 00:40:38,954
And yeah, like Linda, that's one thing she, so she tells a story about one of the, one of
the large corporations she worked with.

448
00:40:38,954 --> 00:40:47,819
They gave budgets to, they gave incentives back to the innovation person, like the person
who brought the idea and killed their own idea.

449
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:51,819
Got a bonus, you know, for being able to say, this

450
00:40:51,819 --> 00:40:53,370
killing my own idea.

451
00:40:53,370 --> 00:40:57,292
That positive good culture, good capabilities.

452
00:40:58,013 --> 00:41:15,143
So yeah, I think the real aha moment for me was just seeing when ideas, what happens when
the ideas have the long shelf life, you start getting misaligned with your strategic

453
00:41:15,143 --> 00:41:16,044
objective.

454
00:41:16,044 --> 00:41:18,552
You start getting misaligned with your North Star.

455
00:41:18,552 --> 00:41:20,393
because your North Star mission may change.

456
00:41:20,393 --> 00:41:27,917
And if that widget is sitting out there for three years and now the North Star mission has
changed, what's going on?

457
00:41:27,917 --> 00:41:29,918
Like that was a complete waste of time.

458
00:41:29,918 --> 00:41:41,263
So the sooner you can get ideas through a process with real learnings, which by the way,
are where the value is, real learning, real feedback, it's good for startups, it's good

459
00:41:41,263 --> 00:41:45,657
for the utility, and then it keeps you in alignment.

460
00:41:45,657 --> 00:41:55,681
with working on those strategic objectives that you have probably told your customers you
were going to meet in your grid mod plan, in your IRP, in your wildfire mitigation plan.

461
00:41:55,681 --> 00:42:07,116
And so with all of this innovation sitting in these plans and we filed them with our
commissions, you know, we, the onus is on us to be able to get these things piloted and

462
00:42:07,116 --> 00:42:09,497
decisions made faster.

463
00:42:09,497 --> 00:42:15,229
Even if we decide not to move through with it, you know, we deserve an answer back on why.

464
00:42:15,289 --> 00:42:22,302
So time is a silent killer, that are stale will not scale, I like to say.

465
00:42:22,302 --> 00:42:25,868
So yeah, I think I stole it too.

466
00:42:25,868 --> 00:42:29,013
So I shouldn't really get myself credit for it, but yeah.

467
00:42:30,204 --> 00:42:41,834
Well, I know we've kind of talked about a lot of this or kind of some of the things that
have come out from using it, but I guess the term AI, it has been used a lot.

468
00:42:42,154 --> 00:42:43,876
but there, there are definitely wins with it.

469
00:42:43,876 --> 00:42:51,862
And I, I'd be kind of curious just with your, technology specifically, like how does AI
and the tools play a role really?

470
00:42:52,403 --> 00:42:57,988
And like I said, we've kind of talked around this, but like specifically filter and maybe
prioritize technology.

471
00:42:57,988 --> 00:43:09,479
ideas within the utility industry and like with some of these wins I mean are if I was a
product manager at PG or any utility like what as I'm trying to implement this like how

472
00:43:09,479 --> 00:43:15,366
does the AI kind of maybe accelerate with this faster learning that maybe we haven't
covered yet specific

473
00:43:15,366 --> 00:43:18,842
this is great, because it gets me to the second point around start with the challenge.

474
00:43:19,949 --> 00:43:23,031
So the two key learnings was times really the silent killer.

475
00:43:23,031 --> 00:43:29,073
And when innovation goes wrong, a lot of times it's because we didn't really start with
the challenge because we're so busy.

476
00:43:29,073 --> 00:43:29,854
We're so busy.

477
00:43:29,854 --> 00:43:30,704
We get so excited.

478
00:43:30,704 --> 00:43:33,575
We come back from a show, we get shiny object syndrome.

479
00:43:33,575 --> 00:43:34,666
go to a pitch competition.

480
00:43:34,666 --> 00:43:37,787
We hear about a startup, you know, and then we want to come back.

481
00:43:37,787 --> 00:43:41,339
And it was like, well, where is that problem inside of our organization?

482
00:43:41,339 --> 00:43:48,282
So this is where the AI came in handy for us, because after talking to utilities, 12
months last year, we wanted them to start with the challenge.

483
00:43:48,282 --> 00:43:49,873
gave them a great formula to be able to

484
00:43:49,873 --> 00:43:51,424
generate challenge statements.

485
00:43:51,424 --> 00:43:55,646
And then many of them just kind of took me aside and they're like, Kim, know, like I'm
too, I'm too busy.

486
00:43:55,646 --> 00:43:56,863
My team's too busy.

487
00:43:56,863 --> 00:43:59,817
I don't even know where to get a good challenge statement from.

488
00:43:59,817 --> 00:44:03,509
Like this was actually the Achilles heel was a challenge statement.

489
00:44:03,509 --> 00:44:12,193
But then they would all also tell me I've noticed that when we don't use your process and
start with the challenge, that idea fails.

490
00:44:12,971 --> 00:44:19,061
And when I haven't, done nothing different to the idea, but I've moved it through your
process for whatever reason it works.

491
00:44:19,061 --> 00:44:21,305
I'm like, cause you started with the problem.

492
00:44:21,366 --> 00:44:30,481
So then, you know, after hearing this for many months and talking to a lot of people, I
started to think about like, do we really have to write the challenges for this industry

493
00:44:30,481 --> 00:44:31,101
on gridmod?

494
00:44:31,101 --> 00:44:33,953
Like surely we know them, that they exist somewhere.

495
00:44:34,093 --> 00:44:39,055
And my sinking suspicion, my hunch was, yeah, they exist in the filings.

496
00:44:39,436 --> 00:44:44,318
We are a regulated industry that we have a lot of paperwork we file.

497
00:44:44,318 --> 00:44:54,283
And my suspicion was, I bet a lot of these innovation challenges are in the filings, the
filings that we've spent so much time and energy and money building.

498
00:44:54,283 --> 00:44:56,223
So what if we just started with the filing?

499
00:44:56,223 --> 00:44:57,904
Let's start with the grid mod filing.

500
00:44:57,904 --> 00:45:02,987
So I started running grid mod reports, integrated resource plans.

501
00:45:02,987 --> 00:45:04,007
I looked at welfare

502
00:45:04,007 --> 00:45:07,910
communication plans, just general rate cases.

503
00:45:07,910 --> 00:45:12,332
There's just a lot of really good sources of publicly available data.

504
00:45:12,493 --> 00:45:21,239
I got our AI tool to start to learn through an innovator's lens, how would you create a
really good challenge from a 600 page document?

505
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:24,500
By the way, because I was doing this manually and that was another thing.

506
00:45:24,641 --> 00:45:28,223
If my utility customer is not going to do it, they're asking me to do it.

507
00:45:28,323 --> 00:45:33,947
Reading one of those filings and then trying to figure out the challenge statement and
then getting it through.

508
00:45:33,947 --> 00:45:36,008
coming up with the original.

509
00:45:36,530 --> 00:45:44,197
That, yeah, that would take me, I want to say 40 man hours of time at a minimum.

510
00:45:44,197 --> 00:45:55,888
But if I was even using my co-pilot, like let's say I was just using co-pilot myself, or I
was badged in as an employee at a utility and I use their co-pilot, it was still a good 20

511
00:45:55,888 --> 00:45:57,719
man hours of work.

512
00:45:57,901 --> 00:46:02,684
per document, even teaching that AI how to go grab the challenges.

513
00:46:02,984 --> 00:46:05,185
So then we were like, okay, well, that's still a lot of time.

514
00:46:05,185 --> 00:46:14,090
So what if, what if we could build this InnovationWorks AI tool that would be really,
really smart and fast at reading all these filings?

515
00:46:14,090 --> 00:46:15,252
And that's what we did.

516
00:46:15,252 --> 00:46:22,756
And so there were a lot of technical hurdles we ran into, but finally, what we launched at
Distribute Tech was the ability to upload any file.

517
00:46:22,756 --> 00:46:24,567
It just has to be a PDF.

518
00:46:24,601 --> 00:46:28,864
We don't even care if it's your filing, it be a strategy document, whatever.

519
00:46:28,864 --> 00:46:30,415
It's in your own private workspace.

520
00:46:30,415 --> 00:46:31,886
You can upload that document.

521
00:46:31,886 --> 00:46:34,747
We'll tell you what challenges we find.

522
00:46:35,068 --> 00:46:39,070
And then you click a button that says match me to solutions.

523
00:46:39,070 --> 00:46:49,656
And then it crawls our database and then it returns the matches of the solutions that we
have found that we've found like cataloged in our, in our marketplace.

524
00:46:49,657 --> 00:46:50,967
So that

525
00:46:51,129 --> 00:47:01,187
The initial reading of the PDF can take anywhere between a minute to two minutes,
crunching through that couple hundred pages, transparency.

526
00:47:01,187 --> 00:47:10,215
And there was some interesting technology hurdles we ran into just there, trying to get it
to read the full document or not time out or, know, there's just a variety of technical

527
00:47:10,215 --> 00:47:15,389
things and then be able to find a match in seconds.

528
00:47:15,389 --> 00:47:20,151
And so what will return are the top five matches that we find.

529
00:47:20,151 --> 00:47:24,965
in under 20 seconds and you can click the button again and again and it can keep matching
you.

530
00:47:24,965 --> 00:47:36,993
But when it returns the result, it will tell you what the challenge statement is, what the
solution overview to that challenge is and why we think it's a match, speaking in energy

531
00:47:36,993 --> 00:47:38,354
vernacular.

532
00:47:38,414 --> 00:47:47,917
So this AI has almost become a really smart energy agent that speaks like it'll

533
00:47:47,917 --> 00:47:52,581
It'll say BTM, it'll, you this is a great BTM solution.

534
00:47:52,581 --> 00:47:58,446
If you're trying to do a VPP, it's just been so much fun to watch it get smarter.

535
00:47:58,446 --> 00:48:08,534
The more grid mod reports it's reading, the more solutions it's evaluating, the more data
it's analyzing and synthesizing, and the better we're able to make it with our algorithm

536
00:48:08,534 --> 00:48:12,037
and telling it why something's a good match or an okay match.

537
00:48:12,037 --> 00:48:16,697
We'll try to return the top five matches that we have in our database.

538
00:48:16,697 --> 00:48:22,081
we'll tell you if it's a great match, if it's an okay match, or if it's a partial match.

539
00:48:22,782 --> 00:48:25,214
And so we're still in the process of getting feedback.

540
00:48:25,214 --> 00:48:37,454
We just launched it at Distribute Tech, but to be able to go from like months of man hour
time down to three minutes or less, and then imagine being able to do that across.

541
00:48:37,454 --> 00:48:41,577
So we put all Distribute Tech exhibitors in the platform.

542
00:48:41,698 --> 00:48:45,749
So if you didn't go to Distribute Tech, you didn't have time to hit those 500,

543
00:48:45,879 --> 00:48:52,693
upload your grid mod plan and we'll match you to the best solutions and I can guarantee
you a lot of them are probably at the show.

544
00:48:53,702 --> 00:49:02,308
Yeah, and I think that's super impressive and it really goes back to that kind of
conversation we've had about time and speed by being able to just cut out so much time and

545
00:49:02,308 --> 00:49:04,340
kind of get these things to move faster.

546
00:49:04,340 --> 00:49:12,165
We do obviously have a lot of listeners who are more on kind of the electric charging
electric kind of that automotive side versus maybe the grid side.

547
00:49:12,165 --> 00:49:14,797
So I would just like to unpack a little further.

548
00:49:14,797 --> 00:49:16,358
So in that example, I think that's really cool.

549
00:49:16,358 --> 00:49:22,059
But for those listening who may not be as familiar with that use case, like a match, what
does that mean?

550
00:49:22,059 --> 00:49:24,744
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, totally.

551
00:49:24,744 --> 00:49:31,193
So when we read the reports, and it could be an EV report, but we read the report.

552
00:49:31,193 --> 00:49:43,239
There are many challenges, a lot of fleet management challenges, fleet management charging
challenges that we're seeing, single residents, multi-residents, know, there seems to be a

553
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:52,863
bit buzzworthy these days, but we'll go through and we'll create the challenge and then
match it to an available supplier solution.

554
00:49:52,863 --> 00:49:59,426
Many of your listeners may not even know that we've already cataloged their solution in
our platform.

555
00:49:59,426 --> 00:50:01,487
So you may be getting an email from us

556
00:50:01,487 --> 00:50:09,333
It works a little bit like, you know, if you're familiar with Crunchbase or PitchBook, how
they create a profile in your company from publicly available information.

557
00:50:09,333 --> 00:50:16,597
We've crawled through different suppliers websites that we've identified as solving a
problem in the gridmod space.

558
00:50:16,597 --> 00:50:21,721
Our AI tool has synthesized an overview for that solution.

559
00:50:21,721 --> 00:50:24,162
And that's what's getting matched to the challenge.

560
00:50:24,162 --> 00:50:31,127
And so if it's an EV fleet management charging for single residents, single home
residences, we'll try

561
00:50:31,127 --> 00:50:34,069
to match you to those solutions that we've seen.

562
00:50:34,069 --> 00:50:46,798
We have already ingested portfolios, so Energy Impact Partners portfolio, National Grid
Ventures portfolio, Incubate Energy Labs has this incredible database.

563
00:50:46,798 --> 00:50:49,599
If you guys haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it.

564
00:50:49,599 --> 00:50:55,163
But of all the years of that program, they have hundreds and hundreds of startups that
have gone through it.

565
00:50:55,163 --> 00:51:01,029
All of these companies, we crawl their original publicly available website to synthesize

566
00:51:01,029 --> 00:51:11,647
size of their solution, match it to challenges, and we're now in the process of alerting
all of those solvers that they have a match pending in our platform.

567
00:51:11,647 --> 00:51:13,478
And they can take control of their profile.

568
00:51:13,478 --> 00:51:15,880
They can create their own, what we call test flights.

569
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:17,951
You can create your own test flights.

570
00:51:17,951 --> 00:51:19,832
You can edit your own.

571
00:51:21,037 --> 00:51:27,923
profile that we've created on your behalf, or you can use our AI tool and upload your data
sheet, for example, or your brochure.

572
00:51:27,923 --> 00:51:36,210
the AI will then, the output of the AI will say, here's the solution overview, here's your
competitive advantage.

573
00:51:36,210 --> 00:51:39,772
This is why you're unique versus what we've seen in the market.

574
00:51:41,330 --> 00:51:51,253
That no that that's super helpful and I appreciate kind of sharing that context with it I
know we've talked a lot about grid modernization specifically, but when you go to your

575
00:51:51,253 --> 00:52:00,445
guys website you show a lot more other things kind of like electric distribution power
generation and power transmission I mean if you can't look at the Venn diagram all of

576
00:52:00,445 --> 00:52:05,667
those have a little bit to be with grid modernization, but Looking at those other ones.

577
00:52:05,667 --> 00:52:07,387
I realize we're getting close to time.

578
00:52:07,387 --> 00:52:09,728
But how do those?

579
00:52:09,888 --> 00:52:11,238
differ maybe

580
00:52:11,301 --> 00:52:16,068
And how can you help with those areas, especially with like power generation and
transmission?

581
00:52:16,511 --> 00:52:21,023
Yeah, so for us, we're just trying to categorize what we've seen in the grid.

582
00:52:21,023 --> 00:52:23,844
I keep saying grid mod reports, but it's really filings.

583
00:52:24,145 --> 00:52:30,027
we're so, you know, we've taken everything from like decarbonization plan, sustainability
plan, infrastructure.

584
00:52:30,027 --> 00:52:33,429
There's a lot of infrastructure modernization plans.

585
00:52:33,429 --> 00:52:36,390
Some of them may have been published by a utility.

586
00:52:36,390 --> 00:52:38,911
Others may have been published by a government.

587
00:52:39,452 --> 00:52:46,447
So really what we're trying to do is categorize all of the challenges that we've seen.

588
00:52:46,447 --> 00:52:50,807
that now fall into transmission, distribution, mobility.

589
00:52:50,807 --> 00:52:53,142
So we have a whole EV section, smart cities.

590
00:52:53,142 --> 00:52:54,954
We're starting to build up smart cities.

591
00:52:54,954 --> 00:52:58,576
So we'll start seeing some smart street lighting, smart traffic.

592
00:52:59,037 --> 00:53:06,793
So yeah, we're just categorizing everything we've seen and then building matchmaking
algorithms to be able to connect the best challenges to solutions.

593
00:53:06,793 --> 00:53:10,576
And then pretty soon we'll be ingesting completed pilots.

594
00:53:10,576 --> 00:53:16,331
There's a lot of open source material on pilots that have been completed.

595
00:53:16,331 --> 00:53:20,930
So we'll be able to match those and we'll also be able to match innovators to each other.

596
00:53:20,930 --> 00:53:27,571
So if you identify yourself as an innovator in EV charging, you could be matched to other
innovators in that category.

597
00:53:28,725 --> 00:53:31,829
That's super helpful and I really appreciate that.

598
00:53:31,829 --> 00:53:36,701
Yeah, no, no, that, cause it, if they all connect together and you kind of need them
together.

599
00:53:36,701 --> 00:53:38,001
need them all together.

600
00:53:38,001 --> 00:53:47,081
yeah, people laugh because they're like, you're going to know, you know, and about,
they're like, this time next year, you're probably going to have the entire ecosystem

601
00:53:47,081 --> 00:53:50,281
mapped for, for, for electricity.

602
00:53:50,281 --> 00:53:52,801
You're going to know every single innovation challenge.

603
00:53:52,801 --> 00:53:53,561
You're going to know.

604
00:53:53,561 --> 00:53:57,773
And I'm like, yeah, like we're going to be, we want to be the one stop easy shop.

605
00:53:57,773 --> 00:54:09,022
for people to come and find a challenge, see who's working on that challenge, find
solutions, who landed those test flights, and cut out all of that indecision time.

606
00:54:09,022 --> 00:54:11,795
That's why we've seen so many good ideas fail.

607
00:54:12,648 --> 00:54:13,668
That's great.

608
00:54:14,090 --> 00:54:23,610
as we're kind of wrapping up here, I, I know we've kind of talked to a lot about, how your
platform works on it, but specifically like what are some of the long-term impacts you're

609
00:54:23,610 --> 00:54:34,992
seeing of like adopt adopting AI driven innovation, in the energy sector, and then maybe
any advice you'd give to any utility companies or others who have been hesitant to adopt

610
00:54:34,992 --> 00:54:35,816
as well.

611
00:54:35,816 --> 00:54:46,053
Yeah, no, I based on, you I had to start by using the tool by doing it manually and then
now being able to develop this in a commercial grade product.

612
00:54:46,053 --> 00:54:47,833
I would say run, don't walk.

613
00:54:47,833 --> 00:54:56,533
If you're a utility and you're using Co-Pilot today, there's absolutely no reason why you
can't train Co-Pilot to be able to read your filings and come up with these challenges the

614
00:54:56,533 --> 00:54:58,173
same way we've done them.

615
00:54:58,273 --> 00:55:01,713
You're also more than welcome to use ours, right?

616
00:55:01,713 --> 00:55:07,617
Or Innovation Force is more than happy to partner with utilities to put our wrapper around
your

617
00:55:07,617 --> 00:55:09,819
your long language model of choice.

618
00:55:09,819 --> 00:55:12,391
So it does not have to be necessarily ours.

619
00:55:12,391 --> 00:55:17,495
We can use yours and train it how to be able to deliver the same amazing.

620
00:55:17,549 --> 00:55:21,331
results we're seeing in like the next five to 10 years.

621
00:55:21,331 --> 00:55:31,207
In the field of innovation, think AI has delivered like this really great capability
that's helping us save so much time on the research, the scouting, the challenge statement

622
00:55:31,207 --> 00:55:37,815
generation, being able to match challenges to viable solutions and being able to complete
workflow.

623
00:55:37,815 --> 00:55:48,135
So as you start to build your argument around why you should be piloting something and
answering those questions in the workflow, AI can easily answer those for you.

624
00:55:48,135 --> 00:55:54,019
But it doesn't take away the human component and innovation still remains a team sport,
you know.

625
00:55:54,019 --> 00:55:55,740
willingness to collaborate is key.

626
00:55:55,740 --> 00:55:59,212
What I like to say is we're the AI assist for the human loop.

627
00:55:59,212 --> 00:56:06,695
The human loop of piloting and innovating will never go away, but you can use AI as a very
powerful assist.

628
00:56:06,695 --> 00:56:15,859
We'll also be bringing into our platform the 20 years of research that our co-founder
Linda Hill has done in a chat bot so that she's the innovation guide.

629
00:56:15,859 --> 00:56:19,523
So instead of having to pick up the phone and calling an expensive consultant.

630
00:56:19,523 --> 00:56:24,855
you could get really great advice just coming right from a chat bot or an AI tool.

631
00:56:24,855 --> 00:56:33,539
My inspiration for that was very similar to the mental health awareness apps out there,
where it's like, who knew you could chat with AI on the other end of a mental health

632
00:56:33,539 --> 00:56:35,460
awareness app and get some really great advice?

633
00:56:35,460 --> 00:56:38,313
I was like, why couldn't we do that for innovation?

634
00:56:38,313 --> 00:56:46,024
And so five years from now, 2030, it's estimated that there'll be a billion knowledge
workers in the world.

635
00:56:46,024 --> 00:56:48,385
And my mission is to get

636
00:56:48,459 --> 00:56:55,514
our platform so easily accessible to those billion knowledge workers, it's as easy as
using LinkedIn.

637
00:56:55,694 --> 00:57:06,652
And we can scale up now everyone to be an innovator because I truly do everyone, but I
truly do believe everyone innovates and that our tool could just be a great innovation

638
00:57:06,652 --> 00:57:09,444
tool for the billion knowledge workers.

639
00:57:09,444 --> 00:57:16,845
I think it'll be like akin to what going out and getting your PMP certification back in
the day when project management professionals became.

640
00:57:16,845 --> 00:57:25,590
Innovation management professionals becoming a really exciting career path and they're
going to need a tool and they're going to need an assist because this is a very intensive

641
00:57:25,590 --> 00:57:36,407
human driven team sport and it would be helpful to give them as much help as possible to
be able to build scale and save time.

642
00:57:37,756 --> 00:57:39,007
No, I really appreciate that.

643
00:57:39,007 --> 00:57:40,577
That's super helpful on it.

644
00:57:40,577 --> 00:57:48,081
I think those analogies really align well with what you're seeing in the industry and
makes a lot of sense for trying to kind of bring all these different topics together and

645
00:57:48,081 --> 00:57:52,272
really not just streamlined then, but just make everyone work more efficiently on it.

646
00:57:52,272 --> 00:57:54,604
So, Kim, I want to say thank you.

647
00:57:54,604 --> 00:57:55,684
This was super fascinating.

648
00:57:55,684 --> 00:58:04,924
I really enjoyed this conversation and we'll have to have you on again soon, but just for
those listening, I know we'll have some links in the show notes for today's episode, but

649
00:58:04,924 --> 00:58:13,772
What are other ways people can either engage with you or learn more about innovation works
or innovation force and the work that your team's doing?

650
00:58:13,849 --> 00:58:15,890
Yeah, no, so you can connect with me on LinkedIn.

651
00:58:15,890 --> 00:58:17,190
That would be great.

652
00:58:17,671 --> 00:58:22,393
You can learn more about InnovationForce at innovationforce.io.

653
00:58:22,593 --> 00:58:27,545
And as Chase was mentioning, you can click down on our drop down that says innovate with
us.

654
00:58:27,545 --> 00:58:35,299
And we're starting to catalog the challenges that we're seeing from transmission to
distribution to behind the meter to mobility.

655
00:58:35,459 --> 00:58:36,159
All of those.

656
00:58:36,159 --> 00:58:43,543
We're building unique web pages around so that you can start to get a sense for like, what
are the challenges that are really in the platform before I sign up?

657
00:58:43,783 --> 00:58:45,324
encourage everyone to sign up.

658
00:58:45,324 --> 00:58:53,031
So if you go to innovationforce.io, click the sign up button, you can create a free test
pilot account for free.

659
00:58:53,031 --> 00:59:03,680
But feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, we'll be happy to upgrade you to a full
fledged captain or solver account and give it a shot for 30 days to see if you know if

660
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:04,771
this helps you.

661
00:59:04,771 --> 00:59:13,952
And that would give you access to Innovation Works AI so that you can run your own grid
mod plans and see the challenges and find your unique matches around solutions.

662
00:59:14,642 --> 00:59:15,065
Well, great.

663
00:59:15,065 --> 00:59:16,503
Thank you so much, Kim.

664
00:59:16,943 --> 00:59:17,881
Good, thanks, Chase.

665
00:59:23,006 --> 00:59:25,117
That's a wrap on this episode of Grid Connections.

666
00:59:25,117 --> 00:59:33,380
A big thank you to Kim Getgen for joining us and sharing how InnovationForce is empowering
utilities to scale innovation from the inside out.

667
00:59:33,380 --> 00:59:42,374
If you found value in today's conversation, whether it was the breakdown of innovation
workflows, how AI is enabling collaboration, or the step utilities can take to unlock

668
00:59:42,374 --> 00:59:45,506
their creative potential, don't keep it to yourself.

669
00:59:45,506 --> 00:59:51,796
Share this episode with at least one person who's passionate about the future of energy or
innovation in complex industries.

670
00:59:51,796 --> 00:59:54,869
Plus leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

671
00:59:54,869 --> 00:59:58,822
helps us grow and keeps great conversations like this coming your way.

672
00:59:58,822 --> 01:00:01,624
And don't forget Grid Connections Consulting is now live.

673
01:00:01,624 --> 01:00:09,298
If you're looking for strategic guidance in the electric vehicle energy or infrastructure
space, head to gridconnections.co to learn more.

674
01:00:09,298 --> 01:00:13,521
Lastly, get the latest insights delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing to our
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675
01:00:13,521 --> 01:00:15,482
The link is in today's show notes.

676
01:00:15,482 --> 01:00:18,326
Until next week, this is the Grid Connections Podcast signing off.