第29集 - 风险客户作为一门学科

是的。对我来说，关键有两点。第一是射门次数。有时候人们会问我，你是怎么接到这么多项目的？为什么能如此成功？

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's two things. One is shots on goal. So just peep people sometimes they'll ask me, you know, how how did you get so many projects? How are you so successful?

为什么我要主动出击？因为我曾与超过100个团队洽谈过，有些过程很艰难。但其中总会有项目落地——主动敲门拓展人脉是第一要务。我必须尽可能多接项目，因为其中总会有成果，这是我的经验。第二点是我会尽量在最初阶段就规避风险。

Why I knocked on doors? I I had I had meetings with over a 100 teams and some of those were tough. But some of them, a project or two came and and just knocking on those doors kinda getting out there, that was number one. I gotta do as many projects as possible So some of these are going to lead to something and that's what I've seen. Number two is I try to try to head that off at the very beginning.

当有人说需要引入某项新技术XYZ时，我会立即问：准备在哪里试点？谁来提供资金？而且我要求项目发起人必须全程参与。

Someone says, oh, hey, need this new technology x y z. Okay, great. Where are you going to pilot that? Who's going to who's going to fund that? And then I want that person to be there in the room when we get started.

我要法务在场，要让所有可能阻碍项目的利益相关方从第一天就参与会议，并确保所有人都点头认可。说实话，有时讨论中会发现新信息，导致我们决定终止项目——这种情况约占20%，但完全合理。

I want law in the room. I want everyone and all these stakeholders that can derail things. I want them in the room from day one and I want to make sure everyone is nodding their head. And I'll tell you what, sometimes in those discussions we find something, a new piece of information and we decide to not proceed and that's okay. That's about 20% of the time.

正如你所说，如果前期没做好这些准备，成功率就会很低。项目推进过程中可能有20种不同的意外导致失败。

But to your point, I find if you don't have that all lined up ahead of time, I don't think the chance of success can be very high. You can get derailed 20 different ways along the way.

科技领域最具影响力的创新高管独家访谈。全球主要及新兴生态系统的独家数据与洞察。全球最热门的科技与开放创新资讯。以上内容及更多精彩尽在每期节目。欢迎收听《开放创新对话》。

Interviews with the most influential innovation executives of the tech arena. Exclusive data and insights on major and emerging ecosystems all around the world. The hottest news on technology and open innovation at a global level. This and much more in every new episode. Welcome to Open Innovation Talks.

关注桥梁，与行业领袖对话。

Mind the bridge, chat with industry leaders.

今天，我们有幸与埃克森美孚的全球开放创新负责人凯尔·巴斯勒·里德进行讨论。凯尔，你好。

Today, we have the pleasure to discuss with Kyle Basler Reeder. Kyle is global open innovation lead at ExxonMobil. Hi, Kyle.

你好。

Hello.

凯尔，我认为深入探讨像埃克森美孚这样的大公司当前在创新方面的举措会非常有趣。今天的关键词依然是开放创新，但和大多数关键词一样，它有多重含义、多种实施方式和多样化的工具。据我所知，埃克森美孚主要聚焦于开放创新体系中的一项核心工具——bench client（注：此处保留专业术语），当然观众们也会想了解你本人。不如先简单介绍一下你的背景，或许还可以为不熟悉埃克森美孚的听众补充些公司背景信息。

So Kyle, I think it would be super interesting to deep dive in what a big company like ExxonMobil is currently innovating. Again, today, open innovation is the is the keyword, but as most of the keyword, there are multiple meanings, multiple ways of doing multiple different tools that might be used. As far as I know, ExxonMobil has been mostly focusing on one across the multiple tools that open innovation, the open innovation building is based upon, focused mostly on one tool that is bench client, but, of course, it will be interesting for our audience to know you. So it might be good to get a bit of your background and maybe just for the one that do not know, ExxonMobil provide a bit of context than ExxonMobil.

好的，非常荣幸能参与这次对话。我想我会先做个自我介绍，谈谈我的个人经历，然后自然过渡到埃克森美孚在2024年创新领域的具体举措。

Alright. Well, great. Well, hey. It's great to be here. And I think what I'll do is I'll I'll start with an introduction, a little bit about who I am and my journey, and I'll I'll blend that I'll blend that into what are we doing at ExxonMobil in 2024 in the innovation space.

我叫凯尔·博斯莱德。大约九年前，我以勘探地球物理学家的身份加入公司。我的职责是协助地质学家和工程师构建地下图像，确定钻井位置，从而勘探地下的碳氢化合物资源。我轮岗过多个岗位，包括机器学习、成像等各种不同领域。过去三四年间，我发现我开始真正将创新作为一门学科来学习，而不仅仅是把创新当作很酷的新事物。

So my name is Kyle Boslerider. I I joined the company about nine years ago as an exploration geophysicist. My role was to help, geologists and engineers build images of the earth and figure out where to drill our wells, so where we're exploring for for hydrocarbon resources in the subsurface. I did a number of rotational assignments, machine learning, imaging, all sorts of different things. And what I found over the last, three to four years, I started really learning innovation as a discipline and not just as innovation is is cool new stuff.

创新是一门科学。它是一个体系，包含流程、工作方法等等。大约三四年前，我开始真正深入研究这些方法论。

Innovation is a science. It's a system. It has processes, workflows, etcetera. And I really started to to delve into those flows. This was about three or four years ago.

我们在公司开展了一轮创新加速计划，就是那种经典的流程：你把想法投进创意箱，他们挑选最看好的几个，你进行路演。我其中一个项目确实取得了进展。项目结束时，得到的反馈是——引用原话——‘凯尔，你真正树立了黄金标准’。

We did an innovation accelerator round in the company, you know, the the classic, you kinda put an idea in the box. They pick their favorite ones. You do a pitch. I actually progressed with one of those projects. And at the end of that project, the the feedback was, Kyle, you really set the gold standard is the quote.

本质上，我采用的方法运用了设计思维模式，深入其中，考虑了决策科学、边界等因素。他们非常认可这项工作，于是让我以高级创新教练的身份回归。目前这还只是我的业余爱好，属于副业。

Essentially, the the way that I approached it, used the design thinking approach, really got in there, I thought about decision science, boundaries, etcetera. And and they really liked that work. So they brought me back as a senior sort of innovation coach. This is all just a hobby at this time. It's on the side.

你知道，我正在读一些书之类的。事情是这样的，公司现在让我思考这与埃克森美孚的业务如何契合。这大概是三四年前的事了。公司开始意识到需要更多外部资源整合，我们必须加强外部合作。

You know, I'm reading some books, things like that. What happened is is the company so now I'll kinda get into to where does this fit into what ExxonMobil is doing. Again, this is about three or four years ago. The company started to, see the need for more external leveraging. We needed to get more externally engaged.

你对此很熟悉，外部生态极为庞大——每年有超过10亿自由职业者、3亿家初创公司涌现、6亿创业者活跃其中。外部世界充满活力。尽管我们拥有大量人才、数据和成熟流程，但依然认识到外部存在巨大机遇，于是我开始参与这项工作。

You're very well familiar with this, but the external landscape is huge. We're talking like over a billion freelancers, 300,000,000 startup companies coming in every year, 600,000,000 entrepreneurs are out there. So there's a huge amount of activity outside. And there was a recognition that even though we have huge amounts of talent and information and data and really well established processes, etcetera, there was still a huge opportunity outside. And so I started to get involved in that effort.

后来我被安排到一个全职岗位上，最初的职位是外部资源协调员，负责统筹各类外部合作以最大化资源利用。说实话，三年前刚开始时我懂得并不多。

And what happened is I was essentially put into a full time position. My title when I started was actually external leveraging coordinator. So so literally coordinating different external efforts trying to get the maximum leverage. And you know back at that time about three years ago I I really didn't know a whole lot. I'll just put it that way.

我不断学习，在公司内部展开广泛访谈，采访了200多人后，将所得整理成一系列PPT资料包——包括开源、众包、风险客户合作、供应商协作等20个主题包，并开始运用这些工具。

I was learning and I was reading and I looked around in the company and what I did is I did this very broad interview campaign. So I interviewed over 200 people, put all those learnings into a series of basically PowerPoint packs is how I got started. I had about 20 different PowerPoint packs. I had one for open sourcing, one for crowd sourcing, one for venture clienting, working with vendors, etcetera. And and then, I started using those tools.

这些起初都集中在上游业务（我来自石油勘探开采部门）。几个月后他们建议：何不将范围扩大到整个公司？这又带来全新挑战——毕竟涉及化工、燃料、润滑油等庞大业务体系。

Now, this was all in the upstream. Remember, I come from where we're actually finding the oil drilling for oil. What happened a few months into that effort, basically, they said, hey, why don't you just broaden your scope to the whole company? Now that's a whole another series of learnings. This is a big company, chemicals, fuels and lubes.

从原油开采到消费者端要经历诸多环节。我花了不少时间熟悉这些部门，过去一年半与约110个团队合作。现在可以说，我已全面负责埃克森美孚开放式创新项目，处理从速战速决到长期攻坚的各种规模挑战。简而言之，埃克森美孚的创新浪潮正蓬勃兴起。

There's a lot, of parts after the oil is drilled before it gets to the consumer. So I had to it took me a while to kind of get to to know those different folks. I engaged with about a 110 teams over the last year and a half across the company. And, now I would say I am firmly a ExxonMobil wide open innovation program, you know, problems small to large, things that are fast, things that will take years. ExxonMobil, I'll just say it in short, innovation is booming at ExxonMobil.

我们正在启动许多新业务。您可以访问我们的网站亲自查看、了解更多。特别是在我们的低碳解决方案业务中，有许多新兴领域正在涌现，这些新领域需要新的解决方案和新的创意。我认为这是开放式创新的绝佳舞台。但别忘了埃克森美孚的其他部门，这些都是非常庞大的组织。

We have a lot of new businesses we're launching. You can go on our website and see for yourself, read more. But particularly in our low carbon solutions business, there's a lot of new segments that are coming and those new segments, they need new solutions and they need new ideas. I think that's a great place for open innovation. But don't forget these other parts of ExxonMobil, these are very large organizations.

即使是一个小小的胜利，如果能够规模化应用，也可能成为巨大的成功。因此即便是那些更核心的创新领域，我们也发现了大量活跃行动，并取得了许多成功。

Even a small win, if you scale that across it, it can be a huge success. So even some of those more core innovations, we're finding a lot of activity and we're finding a lot of success.

我认为你提到的几点都极具相关性。首先你说，当你开始这份工作时——顺便说下，我采访过很多从事你这岗位的人——我发现唯一不变的是每个人都有自己独特的职业路径和背景。我们有来自人文研究、工程研究、科学领域的人才，他们都拥有不同的经历。所以我们今天讨论的这种名为'开放式创新'的新实践，本质上仍处于试验阶段，每个人都在寻找适合自己的形式。

I think you say a couple of things that are super relevant. Number one is you say, oh, you know, when I started doing this job, and you can move from your own background, by the way, I'm interviewing most of people doing your job. And I think the only constant that I found is each of you has his own path and his own background. So we have people with humanistic studies, with engineering studies, with science, and that have done different experiences. So substantially what we are discussing here that this novel practice called open innovation substantially, we are still in an experimentation phase to see how it works and each of you is finding its own form.

所以我特别欣赏你说的：'当时不知道该怎么办，我就开始与人交流，试图找到自己的方法，然后测试并实现它。'这是我认为最有趣的第一点。你提到的第二点我也非常认同：创新听起来像创造力，但归根结底是纪律，是项目管理。

And so I think I like when you say, oh, I didn't know what to do. I just start talking to people trying to find my own way and then test it and make it work. This is number one that I think is interesting. The second part that you say that I liked a lot is innovation sounds like creativity, but at the end is discipline. At the end is project management.

最终是销售。能否请你详细阐述下最后这部分？因为我认为这很关键——特别是在更宏观的对话中，你可以顺势推进，但必须提前铺路、深入钻研、打开门户、穿行走廊。这就是开放式创新的日常工作。

At the end is sales. And so can you explore a bit more this this final part because I think it's relevant because again, particularly in a larger conversation, you can move with that, but again, you need to prepare the field, drill down, open the doors, walking the corridors. This is the daily job of open innovation. Yeah.

让我说说，当我刚开始接触开放式创新时，我认同我们都有不同的入门路径。顺便说下，地质物理学也是如此——我们通过完全不同的方式进入这个领域。我在思考所有这些不同的职业旅程时就在想，当我刚担任这个角色时，脑海中其实有个流程图式的构想。

Well, let let me just say, you know, when I got started in open innovation, I agree that, we all have different pathways on how we get here. They say the same thing about about geophysics, by the way. You know, we come in through very different ways. So I guess I'm just wondering through all these different journeys. But I would just say that when I came into the role, really had this vision of basically a flowchart.

那就是我的目标——我想要一个流程图。当有人走进办公室说'我需要帮助，我想拓展外部合作'时，我就能立即开始提问。我很自豪地说，经过两年多的实践，我认为自己确实已经构建出了这样的流程图。

That was my goal. I want a flowchart. Someone comes into my office, they say, I need some help, I want to be more external. And then boom, I start asking questions. I can actually proudly say after more than two years of doing this, I believe I do sort of have this flow chart.

那么我想说的是，埃克森美孚的开放式创新始于一系列问题，这些问题将帮助你规划如何推进。从高层次来看，其中最重要的问题是：你有多少时间？有人来找我时会说，是的，我需要获取一些外部意见等等。他们可能只有两天时间。好吧，如果你只有两天，我手头能匹配的工具其实非常有限。

So what I would say, open innovation at ExxonMobil, it starts with a series of questions that are going to help you frame how you proceed. Those questions at a high level, the most important one is how much time do you have? I've had people come and they say, yeah, you know, I need to get some external opinions, etcetera. Yeah, I have two days. Okay, if you have two days, there's only a few tools that I have that can actually fit that.

下一个问题：你有多少资金？有些人完全没有资金，有些人则会说‘把你所有的方案都告诉我，我会考虑任何可能性’。接下来是关于知识产权的问题。

Next question, how much funding do you have? Some folks, they don't have any funding at all. Some folks, they basically say, tell me everything you have because I'll consider whatever you got. Next up, what about IP? Okay.

有些团队在尝试开发专有的、新颖的东西，知识产权对他们至关重要。而另一些团队可能会说‘这对我的目标并不重要，我只想完成这件事，并不是要打造一个新工具’。

Some teams, they're trying to build something proprietary, novel. IP is very important. Another team, they may be saying, that's not really important for what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to get this done. I'm not trying to build a new hammer.

你明白的，只要给我找到最好的工具，我会直接购买。这类框架性问题还包括是否要求保密等等。可能还会涉及其他几个问题，但这些能帮助我确定适合这项工作的工具。如果我们有几个月的时间，我倾向于进行非常严格的内部资源梳理。

You know, just find me the best hammer and I'll buy it. So so sort of some of those framing questions, do you wanna remain confidential, etcetera. There's a few others in there that I might ask about. But that's gonna help me frame what's the right tool for the job. Now, if we have some time, if we have at least a few months, I like to do very rigorous internal landscaping.

这是个规模庞大、历史悠久的公司——我们谈论的是150年的历史，庞大的企业规模，多元化的技能组合。我喜欢开始把这些人与公司内部其他部门联系起来。我发现经常能在其他地方找到相关团队——比如如果有人像我曾经那样负责钻井，猜怎么着？

This is a really big place, a really rich history. I mean, we're talking about 150 of history, huge company, lots of diverse skill sets. I like to start connecting those people to other units inside the company. And what I have found is that there's often a there's often a unit over in some other place. Like if this is someone who's drilling the oil wells like I used to, guess what?

还有其他处理管道问题的团队，对吧？我们的炼油厂要处理管道，中游业务也要处理管道。所以如果你有管道方面的问题，让我们去找那些团队聊聊。

There's other people who deal with pipes, right? There's our refineries. They have to deal with pipes. There's our midstream with pipes. So if you have a question about a pipe problem, let's go talk to those other folks.

我发现大约有一半的情况都是这样：我能成功把团队联系起来，他们开始对话后通常会说‘凯尔，这太棒了，如果需要进一步帮助我们会通知你’——基本上都是这样的结果。这种情况相当常见。

I find that roughly about half of the time, it's pretty consistent. I can connect that team to another team. They start a dialogue and then they basically say, Kyle, this was great. We'll let you know if we need some more help, pretty much is what happens. So that's pretty common.

当你大致完成了内部梳理后，如果没有任何发现，但对参数、可用时间、预算等有了清晰概念，这时我才真正开始选择要动用的工具。对我而言，这本质上是个技术成熟度（TRL）问题。如果是TRL二级的项目——毕竟我们是研究团队——我们会寻求创新点子，可能会采用众包这类方式。如果他们需要更成熟的技术（TRL五级以上），不想从零开始，而我们又没有研究团队时，那就更适合采用提案邀标的方式。

Once you're sort of through internal landscaping, you haven't found anything, you have a good idea on the parameters, how much time you have, the budget, etcetera, then that's really where I start to choose what tool I'm going to bring into bear. That really to me, that really boils down to a TRL question. If we're talking about a TRL two is okay, this is a research team, we're looking for fresh ideas. You know, we might go out there with something like a crowdsourcing approach. If they're looking for something a bit more developed, TRL five plus, something that they don't want to start from scratch, we don't have a research team, That's really more like a request for proposals type approach.

这正是我们最希望扮演的'风险客户'角色——与他们深度合作。我们本质上就是客户，明确告知需求。作为大客户，我们拥有雄厚的技术积淀和丰富经验，能切实帮助初创企业成长。

That's where we really prefer to get into this kind of venture clienting role, working with them. We're basically a customer. We're telling them what we need. Now we're a big customer. We have a lot of technical expertise, a lot of history, so we can really help those startups grow.

第三种模式则是围绕人才库展开的，这是我常用的方式。有人称之为专家访谈，我们会以研讨会形式汇集各领域专家，这属于另一种工具类型。

Then the third one is really around these talent models. These are very common that I like to use. Some people call them expert interviews. We might bring in a group of different experts into a workshop format. Now those are a bit of a different tool.

这未必与技术成熟度相关，可能只是项目初期需要洞见，比如埃克森美孚尚未涉足的新领域，或是需要重大决策时寻求更多信心。通过专家研讨会查漏补缺，确保没有盲区——这是高层面的考量。

Now that's not necessarily a TRL thing. That might be you're just looking for some insights at the very beginning of a project, a new area, a new to ExxonMobil space that we're not familiar, or it could be a very developed space. It's just a big decision you're making and you're looking for increased confidence. And so let let's kind of have a workshop with some experts and get their opinions, make sure that we haven't had any blind spots. That's at a high level.

我手头还有约30种工具，但以上是核心框架。至于后端流程如采购、法务、IT等就不赘述了，虽然不精彩但我会将其纳入流程图——因为这些环节至关重要，忽略它们项目就会...

There's about 30 other tools that I use, but I think that was a decent take. Then on the back end, let's not talk about procurement and legal and IT and these other processes because that's not exciting. But I I do also I do include those in my sort of flow chart, right, because those things are important and you can't forget about those because otherwise your projects aren't gonna

在与外部机构合作时，你们是否建立了快速通道机制来加速初创企业入驻？还是说目前仍存在内部障碍？

Have you introduced while working with external entity? I think startups, have you able to implement a sort of fast track to onboard them a bit faster than usual, or you're still this is something where there is some internal barriers?

根据我与120多个团队的接触经验，经常有人私下对我说：'凯尔，理念很认同，但实在没精力应对那些流程障碍。'我的做法是：所有流程都已加速优化。无论是采购还是法务，我都制定了简明快速的执行指南——这些方案都经过相关部门访谈验证。

So when I'm talking to these teams, I'd put it at about 120 teams I've talked to so far. It's very, very common that somebody comes off the microphone and they say, Kyle, I like what you're saying, but I don't have time to go through all these process barriers, XYZ and ABC. I would tell you is I have basically fast tracked everything. If it's procurement, if it's legal, I've put together really simple to follow guidelines on how to do it, how to do it fast. I went and interviewed those people.

我问他们，我说，什么对你们重要？为什么这要花这么长时间？所以对于可以加速的地方，比如模板、技巧、指南，我把这些都集中在一个地方。我让大家更容易上手。

I asked them. I said, what's important to you? Why does this take so long? So the places where it can be sped up, templates, tricks, guidelines, I've put all that in one place. I've made it easy for folks.

对于无法加速的地方，我尝试做的是帮助人们建立同理心。比如为什么我要填这个表格？我们为什么要这么做？我试图去了解另一方的故事，因为我觉得如果能告诉人们原因，他们会更容易接受。所以我可以说我几乎加速了所有流程。

The places where it can't be sped up, what I tried to do there is help people have a sense of empathy. So why do I have to fill out this form? Why do we do this? I tried to go and get the other side and get the stories so that I think it makes it easier for people to do something if you can at least tell them why. So yeah, I would say I fast track pretty much everything.

公司内部一直在努力让事情更快更高效。埃克森美孚的所有流程都在改进。我常对大家说，如果这是你遇到的问题，我有对应的PPT。我会发给他们我的采购包、法律包、IT包——这些都包含了能帮助他们快速上手的技巧和指南。

Within the company, there's always efforts to make things faster and more streamlined. All of those processes at ExxonMobil are improving. Then again, I tell people, if that's the problem you have, I have a PowerPoint for that. I'll send them over my procurement pack, my legal pack, my IT pack. All of these have those tips, tricks, and guidelines to help them get through quicker.

说到风险客户，这仍然是你工作中最有趣的部分。能否谈谈整体数据？比如你们每年考察多少交易流或解决方案？试点项目的大致数量是多少？从首次会谈到启动试点平均需要多久？试点平均周期多长？以及从试点到大规模部署的转化率是多少？能否用数字说明当前流程？

Talking about venture clients, so still, this is the thing that the the the most interesting part of your job. Can you tell us a bit about the overall numbers, which is the deal flow or solution that you you scout every year? How many ballpark number of pilot projects that typically how long does it take from from the first meeting to get to the pilot start, which is the average length of a pilot, which is the ratio from turning those pilot into something that has actually has been deployed at scale? Can you give us some numbers just to understand which is the current flow?

我可以试着回答。说实话，公司规模很大，我可能只接触到实际工作的5%。但如果要说我们看到多少机会，我们尝试估算过——这个数字是以千计的。

I can take a shot. What I would tell you is it's a big place. I don't get to see I probably get to see 5% of what we're actually doing, just to be totally honest. However, what I could tell you is if I were to talk about how many opportunities are we seeing, we have tried to estimate that. This is in the thousands.

作为一家公司，我们接触到数以千计的机会——初创公司、新想法。说到执行，这个'风险客户'的概念，在美国其实没多少人熟悉这个词。当我第一次听说时还问：这是什么意思？

As a company, There are thousands of opportunities that are coming, startup companies, new ideas. It's in the thousands. In terms of execution, what I would tell you is, so this term venture clienting, right? In The States, I find not many people actually are familiar with this phrase. When I learned about venture clienting and I said, what is that?

具体是指什么？我说，哇，这正是我们喜欢做的事。我们的运作方式是喜欢以客户身份合作——作为大客户，我们拥有可以测试解决方案的全球设施。

What exactly are you saying? I said, wow, that's what we like to do. Okay. So the way that we like to operate is we like to operate as a customer. As a big customer, we global facilities that we can test your solutions in.

我们拥有深厚的专业知识可以运用。我参与过一些这类会议，认为这些公司从与我们技术团队的讨论中获益良多。如果初创企业遇到挑战，那么现在这也是我们的挑战。而我认为这正是我们擅长的——帮助你们找到问题和挑战的解决方案。

We have really deep expertise that we can bring to bear. And I've been on some of those calls and I think those companies are getting a lot of value from these discussions that they're having with some of our technical folks. If the startup runs into a challenge, well, guess what? That's our challenge now too. And that's something I think that we're really good at is helping you find solutions to problems and challenges.

这就是我们的运作模式。经我手参与的项目，成功率极高。我是说，从实际试点到落地执行再到获得资金支持，这类机会的成功率远超50%。我们确实能将这些机会转化为实际成果。

That's the mode we run-in. The ones that I've had my hands on, these have an extremely high chance of success. I mean, in terms of actually doing a pilot, getting it in, getting it done, getting it funded, this is a very high percent. It's well over 50% of these opportunities that we chase. We actually do something with it.

现在要真正验证这类项目的成效——就我个人负责的项目而言（因为我对整个集团情况不太了解），但根据我参与过的机会，可以说经常被问到这个问题。这是个合理的问题。我们确实有过成功的试点项目，已经创造了价值，可以说已经获得了良好回报。

Now the the real the real test of this type of thing for me in my I'll just speak to my program because I don't really have a good feeling for the entire corporation. But the opportunities that I've been involved in, I would just tell you that I get this question a lot. It's a fair question. We have had some pilots that were successful that already added value. You know, they're already, have a good return, if you will.

但我确实认为需要更多时间才能真正获取那些关于百分比等指标的数据。我想说的是这属于组合投资策略——有些赌注小，有些大；有些风险高，有些稳健。总体来看，这种策略极其成功。

But but I do believe that we're gonna need some more time in order to really get to some of those other metrics around percentages and things like that. And and what I would say is it's a portfolio approach. That's the way that I look at it. Some of these bets are small, some of them are big, some are risky, some are not. And in aggregate, it's extremely successful.

宏观上我只能说：这个模式行之有效，速度快，事实上非常轻量化，而且人们已经看到了显著成效。所以我正在努力推动公司内部对这种工作流程的认知——因为它实施起来其实相当简单快速，能为你节省大量时间，不必从零开始构建。

That's all that I could really say at a high level, is that this works. It's fast. It's pretty it's pretty lightweight in fact, and and people are seeing really good results. And so one of the big things I'm trying to do is raise awareness around the company of these types of workflows. Because it can be done actually pretty easily and pretty quick, and and it's gonna save you a ton of time instead of trying to build it from scratch.

确实如此。另一个重要话题是：我们与众多企业合作交流，这些企业多年来形成了这种与初创公司合作的方式，现在通常被称为'风险客户'模式。这不仅适用于风险客户，广义上说，任何与开放式创新相关的举措都需要衡量影响力，需要合适的关键绩效指标来展示进展和创造的价值。

Yeah. That that's for sure. Another big topic, again, we we work and and speak with many corporate that over the years developed this way of approaching start up this now is is commonly referred as venture client, venture clienting. It is not just actually for the venture client, but broadly speaking for anything that is attached to open innovation is to measure impact. Proper KPIs to show the progress and show the value has been created.

因为我们最常遇到的问题就是——老实说，在与许多像你们这样的企业合作时，我知道你们正在为公司创造价值，这是毋庸置疑的。问题在于如何向利益相关方展示产生的价值和影响，以及如何在尚未到达终点时就展示旅程中的进展。因为你们正在创造的事物将重塑公司、改变公司，但遗憾的是就像无法在孕期中途测量胎儿发育一样，要么等到最终结果，要么只能进行估算——而估算终究只是估算。

Because one of the problem that we most of the time we do have is that I honestly working with many corporate like you, I know that you are producing value for the company. This is a given. The problem is how to show the value produced, the impact produced to the constituency, a, and b, to show it while you are not at the destination by made up the journey, during the journey. Because, again, you are producing something that is going to reshape the company, to change the company. And then it's something unfortunately you cannot measure pregnancy halfway again, or you get to the point at the end or yes, you can estimate what is essentially a just estimate.

嗯。

Mhmm.

同样，当你部署试点项目时，就开始扩大规模。价值依然存在，因此你需要做一些假设。所以问题是，你如何主要管理内部沟通？因为你需要让你的支持者保持最新信息。

And still also when you deploy a pilot, you start scaling up. The value is still at. So you need to make some assumptions. So the question for you is how do you manage communication internal mostly? Because again, you need to keep your constituency up to date.

你需要持续获得支持。要知道，我们正处于各部门预算削减的时期，有时创新是最先被砍掉的，因为它可能被视为‘锦上添花’而非必需品。你如何沟通才能保持关注，并确保你的活动得到恰当重视？其次，你使用哪些关键绩效指标来衡量正在进行的活动？

You need to continue to get support. You know, we are in a period of time when there are budget cuts across departments and sometime innovation is one of the first to be heard because again, it's the one that's probably perceived as yes. It's nice to have, you know, something very, very critical in the time of need. How do you communicate in order to keep attention and proper that your activities properly valued? B, which KPIs are you using for for measuring the activity that you're running?

以及你如何衡量影响。这就是要问你的问题。

And see how do you measure impact. So this is the the question for you.

我很高兴你问这个问题，因为我想特别感谢Mind the Bridge——在我进行所有那些访谈时，我不仅限于内部。我大约还采访了50到100名外部人士，并与你们的组织建立了联系。你们教会我的一个让我深有共鸣的理念是，项目有不同的阶段。当我刚开始做这些访谈、与这些人交谈时，很多人用质疑的眼光看着我问：‘你在干什么？’

So I'm really glad you asked me that question because I'd like to give Mind the Bridge a shout out for when I was doing all those interviews, I didn't just stay internal. I also interviewed 50 to 100 people outside roughly. And I did connect with your organization. And what you all taught me, one idea that has really resonated with me is this idea that there are different eras of a program. When I got started doing these interviews, talking to these people, I had a lot of people looking at me saying, what are you doing?

你是认真的吗？连续几个月每天做五次访谈？当时确实有人质疑这种做法的价值：‘凯尔，你真的需要做超过20次吗？’所以我当时处于最早期阶段，那时确实没有任何衡量标准。

Are you serious? You're doing five interviews a day for months? There was a little bit of a question there of the value. Do you really need to do more than about 20, Kyle? So I was in that earliest phase where there really were no metrics.

当时的衡量标准只是‘我做了多少访谈？’进入早期执行阶段后，我认为投入指标非常重要：我和多少人交谈了？我界定了多少问题？我将多少问题与内部解决方案连接起来了？

The metric was how many interviews have I done? Getting into the early execution, I think the input metrics are really important. How many people am I talking to? How many problems am I scoping? How many am I connecting to internal solutions?

就像我说的，有多少被拒绝了，为什么等等？这需要多长时间？当我开始进入更高级的执行阶段，可以说这就是我现在的状态，显然跟踪我们做了多少项目，我们规划了多少团队很重要。这些都至关重要。我们开始关注价值指标。

Like I said, how many were rejected and why, etcetera? How long is it taking? As I started to get into the more advanced execution era, if you will, which is where I would say I am today, we obviously it's important to track how many projects are we doing, how many teams are we scoping. All of those are important. We're starting to get into value metrics.

所以我采取的方式是向团队提出三个问题，并不时跟进检查。第一个问题是，你们有任何实际实施的计划吗？如果答案是没有，那这就是一个指标。对吧？所以我们找到了想法。

So the way that I approach it is I ask the team three questions and I follow-up every now and then to check-in. The first question is, do you have any actual implementations planned? If the answer is no, that that's a metric. Right? So so we found ideas.

它们还没被使用。有些事我可能想跟进。它们需要资源吗等等？第二个问题，你们有实施计划。好的。

They're not being used yet. There's some things I might wanna do their follow-up. Do they need resourcing, etcetera? The second question, you have an implementation plan. Okay.

那很棒。如果实施成功，预计的价值是多少？你认为成功的概率有多大？现在成功概率很难估计。这不是件容易的事。

That's great. What's the projected value of that implementation if it works? And what what do you think the chance of success is? Now chance of success is tough. That's not an easy thing to to estimate.

这是另一个我花了相当多时间的领域，试图帮助团队弄清楚如何估算。但这是我喜欢首先探究的关于未来的事项。第二个问题是你们完成了哪些试点，它们产生了价值吗？所以如果有一个确实增加了价值的完成试点，那很棒。有计划中的试点，也很好。

That's another area that I I've spent considerable amount of time is trying to help teams figure out how to estimate that. But that that's the first thing that I I like to probe on and is things that are in the future. The second one is which pilots have you completed and did they did they produce any value? So if you have a completed pilot that actually added some value, that's great. You have a planned pilot, that's great.

最后一点是如果这件事成功，并且我们在公司其他实施中推广它，在我看来这是最重要的问题。你认为总预计价值会是多少？你认为成功的概率有多大？所以即使你的试点在一个地方成功，也不意味着100%能在其他地方推广。还有很多组织考虑因素，时间考虑等等。

The the last bit is if this thing is successful and we scale this across the other implementations across the company, which this is the most important question in my opinion. What do you think the total projected value would be? And what do you think the chance of success of that would be? So even if your pilot is successful in one place, it's not a 100% chance you're going to scale it everywhere else. There's a lot of other organizational considerations, etcetera, timing considerations.

这些就是我喜欢问的问题。然后基本上很简单。我用成功概率乘以那三个结果。然后做个总和。这就是我的方法。

So those are the questions that I like to ask. Then you basically just really simple. I'm multiplying that chance of success by those three outcomes. And then I'm doing a sum. That's kind of where I'm at.

这很基础。我开始关注一些事情，比如项目耗时多久？从第一次会议到实际执行再到试点用了多长时间？现在我正逐渐进入我所谓的——再次感谢贵组织——优化时代，我们将真正开始对这些指标进行微调。

It's pretty basic. I am starting to look at things like, you know, how long did the project take? How long did it go from the first meeting to the actual execution to the pilot? So now I'm kind of getting into what I call, again, this is credit to your organization. I call this the era of optimization, which is where we're really gonna start to fine tune on those metrics.

现在，谈到项目整体成功率、投资回报率这类优化参数时，我目前的沟通态度是：还不知道如何回答。给我些时间。但我可以告诉你，仅就那些已执行且创造价值的试点前端而言，仅这部分就支撑着整个项目的其余部分。我们正在做一些高风险的大胆尝试，不知道它们能否成功，但这没关系，因为我正同步推进那些能快速见效的部分。

Now, when it comes chance of success of a project in general, return on investment, those types of optimized parameters, am currently my communication is, don't know how to answer that yet. Give me some time. But I can tell you just that front end, that front piece of pilots that were executed that added value, that alone is powering the rest of this entire program. So we're doing some risky moonshot type stuff. I don't know if they'll go anywhere, but that's okay because I'm keeping along with those things that you plug in, you get a quick win.

这些案例足以让人们保持满意。

Those stories are sufficient to keep people happy.

不，说得非常好。再想想你说的话确实很有道理。显然细节决定成败，我认为像你们这样的开放创新部门日常面临的主要障碍之一，就是试点后的跟进能力。因为一旦移交，从技术上讲你们就失去了真正了解实际发生情况的机会。你们开始时抱着最佳预期，最后只能守着商业计划书，然后才能确切知道结果如何。

No, very, very well said. Think again what you say makes a lot of sense. Obviously, devil is in the details, meaning that I think one of the main hurdles that many open innovation units like yours are facing on a daily basis is the ability to follow-up after pilot. Because when you hand over, it's been handed over and technically speaking, you don't have the the right to the opportunity to really understand what is actually happening. So you start with a sort of best case you remain with a sort of business plan and then you know exactly what will be of it.

还因为如果你把某项技术嵌入其他系统，就很难从中提取价值。我们与许多面临同样问题的领导者讨论后认为，可能需要强制进行这类审计才能准确掌握情况。当然不可能对整个组织所有试点和实施方案都这样做，那会让人发疯。但真正可行的是精选最具潜力的项目，在现有条件下进行跟踪测量，通过审计来理解实质。否则最终你只会变成个看门人。

Also because if you are putting some technology inside something else, it's very difficult to enucleate the value out of that. And so what we have been discussing with many leaders that exactly facing the same issues is that probably we need to force this sort of audit to understand exactly what is happening. Obviously you cannot do across the entire organization, across all the pilots, across all the implementation because you get nuts. But what can really be done is to cherry pick the one that have the largest potential and to follow and measure properly enforcing the organization during the condition of the underwear that you have substantially the audit try to understand what is that. If not, at the end you're becoming just a sort of gatekeeper.

你在组织内部打开一扇门，又在业务部门打开一扇门，而门外的情形就不再受你掌控。甚至可能要为第二扇门后发生的事情承担责任——尽管技术上这已不是你的职责。我们都知道在组织里说'这不是我的责任，不是我的工作'会产生多糟糕的后果。这正是我们技术上试图应对的问题。

You open the door inside the organization, then you open the door inside the business unit and what happens outside of this door is no longer in your control. Or maybe you are penalized for something that happens after the second door. Technically, not your responsibility anymore. We know how bad in organization the sentence is not my responsibility, it's not my job, can produce results. So that is what we technically trying to facing.

我们正在尝试建立可复制的KPIs，寻找衡量成果的最佳实践。因为我始终认为，你们的工作本质上是桥梁——介于你之前描述的宏大世界，与另一端有着固定职责、对超出范围之事毫不关心（或极少关心）的大型组织之间。如果你们无法持续传递价值并获得关注，那么当遇到经济衰退、重组或内部困境时，你们就会被裁撤。然后所有好工作都付诸东流，就像倒洗澡水时连孩子一起倒掉。

Again, we are trying to find some KPIs and be replicated, so to find some best practice to measure the outcomes. Because at the end, what I really believe is that the job of you guys is sort of a because again, you are in between a world that is huge as you pictured before, and on the other end, huge organization that have a daily job as a forced line of duty and whatever is beyond that, they actually do not care. They care minimally. And and then if you are not able to continue to communicate the value and get some audience about that at the end of when there is some recession, reorganization, bad internal condition, whatever you got cut. And then here's a good job, trash away, so the dirty water and the kids.

这就是我们真正在努力寻找最佳方式来捍卫我们坚信具有巨大价值的工作。嗯。

So this is what we are really fighting to find best way to defend the job that we believe has a gigantic value. Mhmm.

是的，对我来说，关键在于两点。第一是不断尝试。有时人们会问我，你是怎么接手这么多项目的？为什么能如此成功？

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's two things. One is shots on goal. So just peep people sometimes they'll ask me, you know, how how did you get so many projects? How are you so successful?

为什么要主动出击？我曾与超过100个团队会面，其中一些很艰难。但有些会带来一两个项目——主动敲门、走出去，这是第一点。我必须尽可能多做项目，因为其中一些终会开花结果，这是我的经验。第二点是我会在一开始就尝试预防问题。

Why knocked on doors? I I had I had meetings with over a 100 teams and some of those were tough. But some of them, a project or two came and and just knocking on those doors kinda getting out there, that was number one. I gotta do as many projects as possible So some of these are gonna lead to something and that's what I've seen. Number two is I try to I try to head that off at the very beginning.

当有人说‘我需要这项新技术XYZ’时，我会问‘太好了，你打算在哪里试点？谁来资助？’然后我要求项目启动时这个人必须在场。

Someone says, oh, hey, I need this new technology x y z. Okay, great. Where are you gonna pilot that? Who's gonna who's gonna fund that? And then I I want that person to be there in the room when we get started.

我要让法律顾问在场，要让所有可能阻碍项目的利益相关者从第一天就参与。我要确保每个人都点头同意。有时在这些讨论中，我们会发现新信息并决定终止项目——这很正常。

I want I want law in the room. I want everyone and all these stakeholders that can derail things. I want them in the room from day one, and I and I wanna make sure everyone is nodding their head. And I'll tell you what, sometimes in those discussions we find something, a new piece of information and we decide to not proceed. And that's okay.

大约20%的情况下，在这个早期协调会议阶段我们会放弃推进。但正如你所说，如果前期没做好这些准备，成功率就会很低——项目中途可能以20种方式脱轨。

That's about 20% of the time, this early alignment meeting phase, we don't proceed. But but to your point, I find if you don't have that all lined up ahead of time, I don't think the chance of success can be very high. You you can get derailed 20 different ways along the way. So

不，我很喜欢‘不断尝试’这个比喻。确实需要主动出击。我们注意到早期阶段往往需要政治智慧地选择合作单元——这听起来奇怪，但组织内部确实存在认知差异。所以要先与最开放的单元合作，取得速赢和成果，再扩展到其他部门。

No, I like the metaphor of shots on goal. Yes, again, you need to try. And then one thing that we notice is that most of the time, in the early days, you need to be politically picking up the units to work with. That's my sounds strange, but at the end, there is not the same sensibility and the same mindset across the organization. So start working with the one that will be more open, get some quick wins, get some results, and then you you scale to other places.

尽管从潜在价值来看，这些可能不是最优先考虑的起点。同样，如果你从最复杂的挑战开始，很可能最终一事无成。这是我们最常见的情况。

Despite probably if you look at the potential value to be extracted are not probably the first places to start with. Again, if you start the most complicated challenges, probably it turns into nothing. This is the stuff that most of the time we see.

作为一个物理学家参加有机化学家们的会议，对他们所做的工作知之甚少，你根本不知道会面临什么。这些团队没有后续跟进，什么都没有，这也没关系。但你说得对，有些团队具备更高的组织准备度。对那些团队，你去执行项目后，第二年再回访那些当初没准备好的团队时，让相邻部门的人中途发言——比如让莎拉来介绍项目成果，他们会惊讶地发现：哇，我们居然做出了成果？

I'll just say this, coming into a meeting with a bunch of organic chemists as a physicist and not knowing a lot about what they do, you don't really know what you're walking into in that room. Of these teams, no follow ups, no nothing, and nothing came and that's okay. But you're right, there are certain teams that have higher organizational readiness as we describe it. Those teams, those are the ones that you go and you execute the project and then what you do is the next year you come back to that team that wasn't ready and you have that person who's in an adjacent unit, that person halfway through you say, okay, we're going to have Sarah come up now and she's going to talk about the project. And they look over and they say, woah, we did something here?

我亲眼见证过这种转变。人们的肢体语言从'这家伙是谁'变成了'天啊，我们真的做到了，这方法确实有效'。这就是我在组织内广泛推广策略的重要部分——就像你说的，必须找到那些早期采纳者。

And and I've seen it happen. I've seen the body language shift from who is this guy to, oh, wow, we actually did it. This actually works. So that that was a big part of my strategy with with with going broad in the organization. Just like you said, you gotta find those early adopters.

而这些早期采纳者，说实话，往往不是传统意义上的典型员工。我就这么直说吧。

And those early adopters, I gotta tell you, these sometimes are not the typical employee. I'll just put it that way. Yeah.

因为归根结底，创新是一种思维方式。你工作的另一个重要成果是文化塑造——你在传播新文化、新方法，向那些常患有'非我发明'综合征的组织注入开放性。他们本不热衷外部合作，所以你是在播撒种子，这份工作很有价值。

Because, again, at the end, innovation is a mindset. And, again, another important component, another important outcome of the work that you are doing is culture. Because you are spreading culture, spreading different ways of doing things, openness into organization that most of the time are based on the not invented here syndrome. They are not exactly super excited to work with for parties. So you are seeding and this job has a value.

问题在于如何量化这种改变，并让整个组织意识到：相比三五年前，现在你们具备了更好的创新文化基础。如果从宏观视角审视这三四年来的工作，你会看到完全不同的组织面貌——但这很难量化，日常中也难以察觉。

The problem, again, how to measure it and to make the rest of the organization know that you have done this and then then we have a better organizational culture. You have a better organizational readiness to do innovative things that probably was three, five years ago. So probably if you take 10,000 feet and then look at what you have done in the over three, four years of doing your job, you see totally different organization. But it's very difficult to measure. It's very difficult to perceive on a daily basis.

这就是你工作的重要成果总和——它们是无形的，而所有无形之物都难以衡量。

And so that's the sum of the big outcomes of the job that you're doing. And again, intangible and all the intangible things are difficult to be measured.

是的。简而言之，这是一段文化变革之旅，我花了将近一年时间才真正融入这个项目。我心想，这太酷了。我要去执行一些项目，解决有趣的技术问题，并与外部公司合作。听起来很有意思。

Yep. I mean, in in short, I'll just say, it is a culture change journey and it took me it took me almost a year, I would say, into this program. I thought to myself, oh, this is cool. I'm gonna go execute some projects and work on cool technical problems and work with outside companies. This sounds fun.

然后我意识到，实际上我被要求领导一场文化变革之旅。这彻底颠覆了我对自己工作的认知。你说得对，这确实是一场文化变革。而我认为文化无法通过人为强制改变。

And then I realized I I've actually been asked to lead a culture change journey. And that really flips my entire way of thinking about what I'm doing. You're spot on. It is a culture change journey. And I don't believe you can manually change a culture.

但我坚信通过执行这些项目、向人们展示其运作方式才能实现变革。我特别注重表彰机制，实施了一个表彰计划，向团队颁发嘉奖币，并安排他们在高层管理者面前亮相。我会给他们的管理层发信息，告知他们团队所做的卓越工作，以及他们如何引领公司创新等等。

But what I do believe is executing these projects, showing people how it works. I've really been focused on recognition. I implemented a recognition program, these commendation coins that I handed out to teams. I to get them in front of their senior management. I try to send messages to their management and inform them about this great work they're doing and how they're leading the company and innovation and all of this.

所以你说得很对。对于像我这样刚起步几年的项目来说，这正是核心所在。

So you're spot on that. That is the name of the game for a program like mine when you're just a couple years old.

是的，我同意。我认为这将成为定义你职位角色的很好方式。再次强调，这是项重大任务，不可能一蹴而就。通过不同工具传播文化，推动公司实现我认为的终极目标——持续生存发展，这绝非易事。

Yeah, I agree and I think that's gonna be a good definition to define your job profile. And again, it's a big task. It's not something that happens overnight. So it won't be too easy. So you're through different tools, you're actually spreading culture and making the company to what I believe is the ultimate goal that is survival.

因为组织会面临业务线老化淘汰的问题，而你正在帮助公司赢得更光明的未来。遗憾的是，长期工作的成效难以在短期内量化评估。这正是从事开放式创新工作的人们必须面对的精妙挑战。我认为你是这个大型组织前线的英雄之一。再次祝贺你取得的成就，让我们继续保持沟通并更新进展——我相信如果6到12个月后再次对话，我们将有大量新的经验教训可以与听众分享。

Because again, organization get obsolete business lines dried out, paid out, and you are actually helping the company to get a brighter future. And unfortunately, working long term is difficult to measure and assess in between, particularly short term. So this is all the beauty and fascinating challenges that people working in open innovation has to face. So I think you are one of the heroes that are on the front and in this large organization. And so again, congratulation for the jobs that you have been done and let's keep talking and updating about your progress because I believe probably if we talk again in six to twelve months, we have a lot of new things and experiences and learnings to be shared with our audience.

非常感谢各位。

Thank you so much, guys.

嗯，是你啊。非常感谢在我最初阶段时为我提供了许多优质资源。我认为你们的组织能为那些想了解更多开放式创新的人提供很多帮助。

Well, you. And thank you for for providing me some great resources when I was at that very beginning. I think your organization has a lot to offer folks that are are trying to learn more about open innovation.

感谢您今天与我们相聚，我们下期《开放式创新对话：Mind the Bridge与行业领袖访谈》再见。

Thank you for being with us today and see you in the next episode of Open Innovation Talks Mind the Bridge Chat with Industry Leaders.