What AI, Ecosystems and Product Stories Have in Common

After two inspiring days in beautiful Granada at the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) and the Innovation Conference Board, I headed home with a notebook full of ideas, new connections and, perhaps most importantly, a renewed confidence that innovation is moving in an exciting direction.

Across keynote presentations, panel discussions and workshops, one theme kept resurfacing: innovation isn’t simply about creating better technology, it’s about understanding people more deeply, anticipating change more intelligently and communicating innovation in ways that inspire people to act. Technology featured in almost every conversation, but it was rarely the starting point. The focus was consistently on people, behaviours, relationships and identifying the problems worth solving.

Innovation starts by staying close to your user

On the first day of the conference, I had the opportunity to speak about Being in Touch with Your User to Untap Innovation. For many organisations, there’s a temptation to begin with the technology, yet the most successful innovation starts with a deep understanding of the people you’re trying to help.

The Untapped Product Story™ framework we’ve developed was built around exactly this principle: the user is always the hero of the story and the product is the mentor, helping them overcome barriers to achieve a better future. Keeping that perspective changes not only how we communicate innovation, but how we develop it in the first place.

Teresa Martín-Retortillo: Rethinking Business Strategy

Three innovation leadership lessons from ISPIM

1. Strategy must look beyond today’s horizon

Teresa Martín-Retortillo‘s session on Rethinking Business Strategy offered a compelling framework around four “known knowns” and four “known unknowns” shaping the future of AI.

Innovation leaders increasingly need to distinguish between what they can confidently plan for and what they must remain adaptable to. We can be fairly certain that AI infrastructure, investment and government involvement will continue to accelerate. Much less certain are questions around trust, regulation, the balance between augmentation and automation, and whether Artificial General Intelligence will ever become reality.

Her message wasn’t to predict the future perfectly, but to build organisations that are prepared for multiple futures. As innovation leaders, we need to think further ahead, think differently and think more broadly about where value will be created.

2. Great innovators challenge assumptions

Frank Stephenson‘s storytelling around his remarkable design career was both inspiring and practical. His guiding philosophy, “Everything is possible,” was a powerful reminder that breakthrough innovation often begins by questioning assumptions rather than accepting constraints.

What particularly resonated was his belief that the best ideas often emerge when engineers challenge designers, and when ideas cross industry boundaries. One example was a child car seat inspired by military technology designed to absorb the enormous G-forces experienced by armoured vehicles. It’s a wonderful reminder that breakthrough innovation often comes from borrowing ideas rather than inventing everything from scratch.

3. Innovation ecosystems only work when trust comes first

One of the strongest themes across the ecosystem discussions was how consistently different speakers emphasised that ecosystems don’t begin with finding partners – they begin with defining a problem that everyone genuinely wants to solve.

Whether hearing from leaders in industry, academia or innovation consultancies, the same principles kept emerging. Successful ecosystems are built around a clearly defined opportunity, an understanding of what motivates each partner, and enough trust that collaboration becomes self-sustaining. The greatest measure of success is when partners begin creating value beyond the original collaboration. Technology may accelerate innovation, but trust is what allows it to scale.

Frank Stephenson: Everything is Possible

Product stories become even more important in uncertain times

On day two, it was a pleasure to join John Metselaar‘s Conference Board Innovation Leadership Council and facilitate a workshop on Developing an Untapped Product Story™. The day’s discussion naturally expanded into many of the macro forces affecting innovation leaders today: deglobalisation, translating strategic foresight into action, innovating at greater speed, and elevating customer experience while navigating increasing complexity. What’s interesting is that although these challenges seem very different, they all reinforce the same principle: the more uncertain the external environment becomes, the greater the need for internal clarity.

That’s exactly where Untapped Product Story™ becomes so valuable.

Rather than beginning with the technology, Untapped Product Story™ starts with the User Wish, uncovers the Root Cause preventing that wish from being fulfilled, introduces the product as the Breakthrough Innovation acting as the mentor, and finishes by painting the New User Experience the innovation enables. Throughout, the discipline of the 75/25 rule ensures that the focus remains firmly on the user’s world, rather than becoming a technology story.

In many organisations, innovation teams already have exceptional science and engineering. The bigger challenge is creating a shared understanding that connects R&D, marketing, commercial teams and leadership around why that innovation matters to people. A well-crafted Untapped Product Story™ provides that common language.

What AI, ecosystems and product stories have in common

Looking back over both days, what surprised me was how the different sessions, whether discussing AI, ecosystems, business strategy or product development, the message was remarkably consistent and arrived at the same conclusion: innovation needs to happen by design, not by accident. That means investing in strategic foresight rather than trying to predict a single future. It means defining the right opportunities before searching for solutions. It means building trusted collaborations that enable others to innovate alongside you. And above all, it means never losing sight of the people we’re innovating for.

After two days of insightful conversations in Granada, I came away even more convinced that the organisations that will thrive won’t necessarily be those with the most advanced technology. They’ll be the ones that combine deep user understanding, thoughtful collaboration and the ability to tell innovation stories that inspire people to believe, align and act.