#138—JoAnn Garbin: Decoding Innovation at Microsoft and Beyond

JoAnn Garbin is a sustainability and technology innovator with a 25-year track record of leading teams “from nothing to something to scale,” creating numerous innovative products and profitable businesses. Her career predates the concept of climate change, and her long career in sustainability combined with her tenure at Microsoft as Director of Innovation in Microsoft’s cloud business, have given her ample insight, into how innovation can and should be a repeatable scalable process. 

In this episode, we discuss highlights from The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft, a book co-written between Joann and Dean Carignan, who among his long and rich career has spent 20 years at Microsoft, guiding new businesses—including the early internet division, Xbox, and multiple AI efforts—through the critical growth phases to their first billion dollars in revenue. More than just insights and case studies into how Microsoft has woven innovation into the fabric of their ecosystem, Joann shares with us a proven framework to innovation.  

In this podcast, we discuss:

• How innovation cycles mirror nature’s adaptative processes—constantly regenerating from the ashes, much like companies must continually innovate to curtail disruption 
• A breakdown of the four innovation patterns that each provide specific tools and strategies for effective innovation 
• How innovation is—contrary to common belief—beyond technology, able to happen through business models, customer experience, and non-tech-oriented areas 
• Some fascinating insider examples of how Microsoft learned critical lessons through successes and failures in various products lines—like the Xbox, Bing, and more

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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Highlight from today's episode
01:28—Introducing JoAnn+ the topic of today’s episode
03:35—If you really know me, you know that...
05:12—What is your definition of strategy?
07:01—Why the book isn’t just about Microsoft 
09:10—The four patterns of innovation 
10:31—JoAnn's background in sustainability
13:01—The meaning of regenerative sustainability? 
13:50—Is having a bold goal necessary for innovation
16:13—Pattern I: Innovating every day means
17:52—How to innovate every day in practice
20:35—Pattern II: Innovating over the years 
23:55—Pattern III: Innovating with everyone
26:54—An example of innovating with everyone 
29:05—Enabling boundary crossers to connect 
32:04—Pattern IV: Innovating beyond technology 
33:38—Going against conventional wisdom 
36:22—Defining BXT (business experience technology)
37:50—How can people follow you and continue learning from you?__________________________________________________________________
Additional Resources:
Personal website: www.joanngarbin.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joanngarbin
Link to book: The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft

Thank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.

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