Episode 97 - Carla Johnson

Erik Martinez: Hello and welcome to the Digital Velocity Podcast. Today we're diving into innovation in the age of AI. For some, AI feels like a disruptor changing roles overnight. For others, it's a creative partner opening up new possibilities. Our guest today, Carla Johnson, has spent her career studying what makes innovation work, in real world teams and organizations. She's a globally recognized keynote speaker, author, and expert on how companies can build repeatable, sustainable systems for innovation. In this conversation, we're gonna unpack how AI is reshaping the innovation process, [00:01:00] what businesses can do to integrate it thoughtfully, and where the real opportunities and risks lie, when creativity meets machine intelligence. Carla, welcome back to the show.

Carla Johnson: Hey, thanks Erik. It is always fun to sit down and chat with you. I'm excited.

Erik Martinez: For those who don't know you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Carla Johnson: Absolutely, I'm an innovation architect. I help people put the human back into the loop in this age of AI. The future of work isn't really about human versus machine, but what we as people can do because of machines and how it can help us expand our imagination.

Erik Martinez: That's a really succinct way of saying you're very creative.

Erik Martinez: I've been blessed to have gone through one of your workshops and it's a phenomenal process. Carla can you briefly describe the innovation process that you discover and teach?

Carla Johnson: Yeah, and I really look at innovation and how we connect it to AI in terms of a curiosity about how we use a tool like [00:02:00] AI. this framework can be used in any situation. Analog or with a tech like AI, but I think about the kind of outputs that we get, how creative they are, how imaginative they are, how innovative they are. All depends on what kind of questions we put into the process to start with.

Carla Johnson: So I think about it in terms of a compass, and you've heard me talk about the curiosity compass. Just like a regular compass with a North, South, East, West point, the curiosity compass can take us in any direction that we wanna go. But we have to know where we wanna go. When we look at the structure of the curiosity compass the West position would be tactical. The opposite of tactical would be exploratory. So exploratory would be in the East position. We think about this in terms of the kinds of questions that we ask. Are they tactical, really detailed? Are they exploratory about possibilities? In the South position are logistical questions. That's more about resources, how do we get the work done? And [00:03:00] then opposite of that are strategic questions.

Carla Johnson: When we look at the kinds of questions that we ask, and the role of AI in our life from an innovation perspective. Most people are using AI as a tool, but they're only using it to be efficient. And those are the kind of questions that you would ask that are more tactical and logistical. Help me write an email, summarize this document, give me a list of 10 things I call that the efficiency zone, the real opportunity with AI, is to use it in the direct opposite position of the curiosity compass. To ask questions that are more strategic and exploratory. We have a real discomfort with questions that don't have a black and white answer. Whether we're talking to AI or each other about how work gets done, we're more comfortable asking questions about efficiency and getting work done, because they have concrete answers. It's harder to get a wrong answer. But when we start moving our questions into, what I call the imagination zone, more strategic, more [00:04:00] exploratory, it makes us a little uncomfortable because there are no boundaries. There are no parameters. We don't know what's right and what's wrong.

Carla Johnson: And I think that's the beautiful part about having AI help us reshape the innovation process, is that if innovation and creative thinking is all about connecting the dots, AI gives us the opportunity to collect an exponentially larger pool of dots to help us prompt that process. To get us thinking in ways we might never have considered.

Erik Martinez: I think that's right. I was at MAICON last week and one of the speakers, his name is Geoff Woods, had this concept of having the AI ask you questions. For those of us who are using the tools, we're the ones asking the questions. How do you do this? Can you summarize that? He had this framework called CRIT: Context, Role, Interview, and Task. And it was the interview piece that was the most interesting where he was [00:05:00] have the AI quiz you on the strategic questions, so you have to fill in the blanks. That's one of the ways to get more of those dots, in that strategic zone.

Carla Johnson: Yeah, exactly, because sometimes we're asking questions without having a sense of ultimately, what are we trying to accomplish here?

Erik Martinez: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the main benefits of being able to use that technology is that you can talk to it in voice mode and have an interactive conversation. I found that you get some really good questions from the AI, that you have to think about and answer. And that's where the creativity kind of sparks, at least for me.

Erik Martinez: I don't know if that's true for everybody.

Carla Johnson: I think it depends on how thoughtful we are about that conversation, it's easy for many people to just take the first response from AI and not actually dig deeper just like you and I might in a real live interaction I could say, what do you think about this? And you'd give me a first pass and [00:06:00] I'd go, all right, that's good enough. Instead of saying what if we looked at it this way? There's this huge opportunity for it to help us think deeper and broader. And also it gives us an environment that's not judgmental.

Carla Johnson: I'm not saying Erik, that you have ever judged any of my comments, my ideas when we've had conversations, but I think that's one of the beautiful things about AI. It doesn't tell you that was a stupid idea. It doesn't tell you that you were wrong or that you should already know that. Not that I haven't had my heated discussions with AI, but it's always polite and apologetic I think there's this opportunity for us to be more thoughtful and letting ourselves marinate in some of the things that we think and what the AI may ask us helps us do better work.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, I'm trying to remember the exact statistic from your book, Rethink Innovation. Wasn't it like, the best ideas come after [00:07:00] 250 ideas.

Carla Johnson: After 200, you don't get to really creative ideas until you've gone through the first 200. So don't take the first answer. Get to those 200 and AI can help you get there quicker and faster than you could in any other scenario or even with a team of people it's one way to spark that creativity.

Erik Martinez: Let's pivot into how you think AI is helping the innovation process. From the old way of doing things, who gets to do what? And again, I'm gonna pinpoint back to your book, there are some really good things, and one of the key things I remember from your book was talking about childhood curiosity and how we've quashed it. Can you tell me your perspective on how AI is gonna reshape innovation and who gets to be innovative in this new world?

Carla Johnson: Well, I think it's always a personal choice, to be honest. I say innovation is everybody's business and I think the opportunity that we have with AI, if we're hesitant to step into that role and [00:08:00] own some level of innovative thinking on our own, is that AI can help people who are hesitant to be part of the process. It can help them practice their ideas, trial their ideas, test some of their ideas, and do some role playing in a safer environment. Safer by their perception, as in they're not sharing it and, feeling judged they can do these little experiments with the AI move through some things and say, I'm so glad I didn't share it like that, because now it's so much better. I think it can give some people a real sense of confidence that maybe they didn't have before. For others, depending on how we use it, it can take a whole level of mental energy consuming thinking.

Carla Johnson: One of the biggest things you and I always hear Erik, is I just don't have time to think. I don't have any white space in my day. It really does take some white space to let your brain relax, to think, to connect those dots. AI [00:09:00] can help us connect those dots, but we absolutely cannot rely on AI to do the work for us. We can rely on it to do the work with us. Ultimately, beautiful ideas and imagination and creativity and curiosity are inherent human things that technology will never take away from us.

Carla Johnson: There's always so much emphasis on people, processes, and technology. Since we've been adding automation and digital transformation into this world, I think we've processed everything to death. You look at Scott Brinkers, technology chart, and it's how many thousands of technologies we have at our fingertips, but the true part of this equation that we never talk about, is the people part. And I really do believe that if we lean into the people part of the relationship with AI, that's where we're really gonna find our true potential, our true imagination, and true capabilities of what we can do.

Erik Martinez: I [00:10:00] know for me, I've been using it, tactically, logistically as well. But I do use it for some strategic pursuits and I'm getting better at my prompting. It takes a little while to learn how to engage with the AI in a way that makes sense to your way of thinking.

Carla Johnson: Yeah.

Erik Martinez: There is a process there about iteration and curiosity and just trying some things. And it's a relatively safe space. But I'm wondering, a lot of people are really concerned about AI stealing creativity. And, this was a hot topic at MAICON last year 'cause their whole vision is human in the loop as well. It's interesting when you start thinking like, what is open AI doing right now? And they just launched Sora two, which is incredible technology. And yet at the same time they released Sora two, they also released this [00:11:00] social media feed thing. I haven't played with it, but it's, for lack of a better term, AI slop. Just people doing weird things in a stream. And I think that is somewhat detracting away from our actual creativity. What can we actually do with this? So I think there's two sides of this equation, and I'm not sure how we thread the needle. What is that way forward?

Carla Johnson: Well, I think it's an interesting question and I tend to look at patterns over time, and so this is actually a conversation I believe we've had for decades, but the elements that are involved are a little different. Should we use computers? Because computers are actually gonna do the work for us, and that's gonna take away our ability to think. Look at all the great things we've been able to do because of computers. Go back to, calculators. We're not gonna do any math anymore because we have calculators. All it did is help us do more complex problems. I'm actually one of those people who still can do math in my head because I, geek out on [00:12:00] being able to do math in my head.

Carla Johnson: Think about marketing automation, if you had crappy content before, marketing automation just made a come at your audience at a faster pace and made them tune out. I think it's the exact same thing with AI. We get out what we put into it. If we don't put any thought into it and just say, Hey, do the thing for me it is gonna be slop and it is gonna be crap. More than ever it's not just the human in the loop, but the humanity and the personal feeling, that personal relationship is going to matter more now than ever. I don't believe you can hand that over to AI and have it feel like a real human person to person interaction.

Carla Johnson: I think that the people who believe that and are looking at it in that perspective, are still stuck in that efficiency quadrant they're still saying, how can I get more stuff done? And not going back to the question of what is the right stuff to do to start with? Because it's not about doing more, [00:13:00] it's about doing less better. AI can give us that space to think, but we also have to think about what's the right thing to do? What will build that true human relationship? With whoever we're trying to build that with, our employees, customers, prospective customers, it can help us get there faster, but it can't get there for us.

Erik Martinez: I think that's a really great way of putting it. I tend to think of this in terms of outcomes. I try not to use the word goals anymore. One of the reasons I don't use the word goals is because I feel like goals are something like a switch. You can turn 'em on, you can turn 'em off, but it doesn't tell you really about where you're going.

Erik Martinez: I think life is a journey. Businesses go through journeys. Look at some of these companies and what they've done and what they haven't done, and the highs and the lows. I was reading Good To Great a couple years ago by Jim Collins, and he had Walgreens as an example of a good to great company. And nobody would say Walgreens is a great [00:14:00] company today. But for years, Walgreens was the epitome of a fantastic organization. It was growing, it was profitable, it was ubiquitous. And now you're like, CVS? Life is an evolution and these tools and your spark about where you are going and what destination you're trying to reach is really important.

Erik Martinez: What do you think are the big pitfalls of using AI? Or what mistakes do you see business leaders or businesses making that are pinning themselves into this corner?

Carla Johnson: I think the biggest mistake that organizations make is that they put IT in charge of AI implementation. IT people tend to look at what's easiest for them. The important thing that businesses need to take into consideration is what's the business use case for AI. Rather than AI is a tool that's out there and holy smokes we, we better get ourselves some AI, because that's what everybody's doing. There has to be a business [00:15:00] use case for why an organization wants to use AI, how it will be used, and how it will be rolled out. Instead of having IT in charge of AI and what it can or should be used for, you need to have a business sponsor for it, so there's a clear business reason as to why this is being done, how it's being done; governance, access, and things like that. That to me is the biggest pitfall that I'm seeing.

Erik Martinez: It is interesting when you look at what jobs are being created because of AI and this notion of a director of AI or C AI O , the C-suite owner. It's really interesting 'cause I think we went through this with the whole e-commerce experience. Where does it live? I grew up in the e-commerce business and I can tell you, I've seen organizations put it in IT, merchandising. Marketing which is my default where it belongs. I've seen them try to put it under retail operations.

Carla Johnson: Yeah.[00:16:00]

Erik Martinez: And none of those makes a hundred percent sense because it really is the almagation of all of those things. And I think what you're saying is AI is also the almalgation of everything we do in a business. It can touch every single aspect of the business in some way, shape, or form. So there isn't one department that should have total ownership of it.

Carla Johnson: I think it depends on the culture of the organization. And how they see the roles playing out the responsibilities. You remember back in the day when the statistic came out that the CMO would have a larger IT budget than the CIO? I think that was supposed to happen by 2017. If we think about that, for some companies the rationalization was in IT should bubble up through the CMO, which put a lot of CIOs in a irritated position. But I think that the culture of the organization is, how truly customer oriented are they first. And many will say, course we're customer [00:17:00] oriented. But how do you structure the organization and organize the functions around that? Based on the culture, some organizations are extremely forward thinking in how they use IT.

Carla Johnson: Maybe an IT person could be the business champion. So I don't think there is an easy answer for where AI and that business champion live. But I think it needs to be very clear that this is a business situation, not in IT, definitely not a financial decision. I think that when decisions about forward thinking business opportunities roll up under a CFO, they don't always get the investment that may be helpful to an organization. So I don't think it's an easy answer for where this lies.

Erik Martinez: Do you think that there's a process or methodology for organizations to think about how to break that apart? And at least start honing in on here's [00:18:00] what we are really trying to do? Because in order to answer that question, you really have to still have that roadmap of where you're going.

Carla Johnson: Absolutely. You and I did this when you went through my innovation workshop. I always start with the objective statement. And in that workshop it's we need new ideas to. You could switch out ideas with AI, we need AI tools to be more efficient to fill in the blank. That's the hardest question for leaders in an organization to agree on. That has to be an aligned decision before you can start down the path of AI. Ultimately, what are we trying to accomplish as an organization? AI is one of the tools to help you get there. Unless you understand, that roadmap and where it is that you wanna go, you're just haphazardly throwing things, shiny objects, grabbing onto things that may or may not integrate, may or may not help you accomplish what you wanna accomplish and can actually create more [00:19:00] problems, roadblocks, you know, all of that bureaucracy internally. And make it harder to accomplish what it is you actually wanna accomplish. And that's why I go back to look at what's the business objective that we're trying to accomplish, and what types of AI tools can help us get there.

Erik Martinez: So, bringing this back to the innovation conversation, because this is your passion, what you do for a living. You're helping businesses because they have all of those struggles that you just identified. How do you get business leaders or organizations started on the path of innovation? Because it feels to me like what you do is so aligned with what we can do with AI .

Erik Martinez: I'll give you an example, I like Elon Musk as an innovator. Look at what he's doing in terms of his businesses and how they're aligned. Tesla, is the platform for the technology that will go into the rockets and get us out into space. [00:20:00] And starlink is the communications device, it's a network. The grouping of companies that he has created are all interconnected in a very interesting way with really one purpose. If you look at the brilliance of what they're doing, they're trying to get to Mars, and he's built a network of companies that have all the technology and the expertise to do it as an organization. As different entities all going in the same direction, and I find it absolutely brilliant. So how do you get companies that may be a little more grounded on Earth and not trying to land on Mars?

Erik Martinez: How do you get them started it's a process that takes them into the mindset of what you just described that Elon Musk is able to do. What are we ultimately trying to accomplish as an organization? It's about Simon Sinek's why, start with why. You think of Roy Spence, it's not what you sell, it's what you stand for. Unless you understand what you're [00:21:00] ultimately trying to accomplish and change in the lives of your customers. Everything else is just task oriented work. Ultimately what I do when I work with leaders is say, what's our North Star? I remember sitting down with a group of executives and talking about this new program we're looking to launch, and the CFO kept saying, we're not gonna do this. Like, I think this is ridiculous. What we need to do is, always something significantly more tactical. I stopped and said, the question is, what's the purpose of the company? Is it to execute on these tactics or is it to change the lives of your customers in this way? It was one of those pin drop moments where it's the realization of to ultimately be the kind of organization that we wanna be to go from good to great. We have to understand that there's a higher vision that we have to make decisions against. And that's what I consider the North Star. Simon Sinek calls start with why. Roy Spence talks about it's not what you sell, it's what you [00:22:00] stand for. Southwest Airlines, yes, they sell tickets to fly in an airplane, but they stand for the freedom to fly. Unless we have that with leadership at the highest level as an aligned agreement, there will always be hurdles and conflicts. The beautiful thing about having that when we start with an innovation program. Is that everybody says, okay, yes, this is what we agree on. Now when we get into these disagreements about how it gets done, it can become an easier decision if we say, okay, if we go to the left, will that help us get closer to that North star faster or to the right? It makes a lot of those little detailed decisions easier to make, including how and where do we use AI to make some of these things happen?

Erik Martinez: Do you think it always has to start with leadership?

Carla Johnson: No. I think there's often an opportunity from the ground up. Grassroots people, skunkwork projects, little experiments and pockets here and there. Lots of [00:23:00] opportunities for people at any level to bring change to an organization as long as the organization is willing and open to change. We all know and probably have worked for organizations that it doesn't matter how much you ask for. The opportunity to move a little bit more that the answer is always no. But those are not organizations that will continue to move forward in the kind of world that we're in now. But I think it can definitely start at the top and that helps with the vision and it makes it easier for everybody at every level to feel that they have permission to do some of these things. There's always pockets of people, inside the organization who can take these little proof points and experiments and bubble it up and bring it to the top, as long as the executive leaders are willing to say, let's try it at a bigger level and see what happens . But it's the organizations who say, this is the way we do it here, that status quo kind of [00:24:00] thinking, who are going to see the detriment of sticking with that legacy way of thinking.

Erik Martinez: Two more quick questions ' cause I wanna build on that and I want to get your reaction to this. I listened to the Artificial Intelligence Show, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput from the Marketing AI Institute. It seems to be Paul's deep and personal belief that as AI, is going to change a lot of roles it's his sincere belief that it's the greatest opportunity for entrepreneurism that the world has ever seen. We can use AI to democratize that entrepreneurial spirit, and I would love to get your thoughts.

Carla Johnson: I 100% agree with that because I think there's so many opportunities to use AI tools to expand what we're able to do. That doesn't mean we still don't need the human in the loop. I know a podcaster who says, now with AI, instead of doing one podcast, I can do six.

Carla Johnson: So yes, [00:25:00] especially if he's building the audience and has a bigger opportunity to bring sponsors in, advertising, revenue, huge opportunity as an entrepreneur. Many other ways you can use AI to build a business especially in the online world.

Carla Johnson: But I still believe that, at the end of the day, we have to look at what's being delivered that's of value because of the AI tools that we're using. I think it's one of the most incredible times to be an entrepreneur that we've ever seen. The amount of work that I've been able to scale to do in the last two years is something I never, ever imagined. And I look at my husband as an IT guy and he's talking about, writing code and he'll, start to type things in and the AI will put in 3, 4, 5 lines of code and he just has to look and go, yep, that's right, hit tab and it's in there. And I think that ability to scale our output. Is what is so incredible for people who want to be an entrepreneur now who never have the capacity to do it [00:26:00] before.

Erik Martinez: Yeah, and I think that's the juxtaposition between the corporate environment and the individual environment. Even if your corporation isn't necessarily forward thinking, ' there's some stats out there saying, well over 90% of American companies are not doing a whole lot with AI right now, you should be.

Carla Johnson: I was talking to a guy yesterday whose business is helping organizations implement AI and he said at best only about 30% of the people he works with are willing to learn and truly adopt AI tools. It's not that AI will replace your job, but somebody who knows AI absolutely will. And I think that's coming faster than people may want to admit. And when I asked him why is there this kind of reluctance? He said, it's a lot of reasons. It's not gonna affect me right now, or it's not gonna affect my job, or I'll get around to it. Or, I'm gonna retire in five years anyway, so I don't need to bother with all [00:27:00] this. These last years go really easy and not have to make everything such a headache. And it's change.

Carla Johnson: But it's also hard to deal with the impact when you refuse to change and the world moves on. We say, I'm fine, I got this figured out. But when you wake up one day and the world has moved on without you and you don't have a job anymore, and you can't find a job because you haven't kept current with some things. That's a really hard, lonely, scary place to be.

Erik Martinez: So to be respectful of your time, I got one more question.

Erik Martinez: Looking five years down the road, where will we be with this AI and innovation? What is your prognostication of what the future looks like?

Carla Johnson: I think one of the biggest things that I'm excited about with AI and its role in the process of innovation is how fast we're going to be able to prototype things. Whether it's mental ideas or actual product prototypes. Minimum products, minimum viable [00:28:00] ideas, I think that whole process will go so much faster. I think it will be so much richer.

Carla Johnson: Back to the idea of connecting the dots. We get a team of really diverse thinkers, and then you throw the diversity of what AI can bring to the table with it. I think that just gives us some incredible opportunities for what can be done, I can't imagine what kind of AI tools are coming down the road. You talked about SORA and just some things there. We look at what happened with ChatGPT 5 there's always something new coming out, and I think that's what I'm most excited about, is new toys in the playroom for us to figure out what to do with and how to use and think differently and help us be more creative and think of AI as, helping take off some of this work that's standardized and inefficient. But I think there's a lot about AI that can also help us break out of our standardized thinking, and that's what I get really excited about when I think about what's down the road for us.

Erik Martinez: I think that's a beautiful vision, and I totally agree. [00:29:00] If somebody wants to reach out, what's the best way to get ahold of you?

Carla Johnson: Best way is my website, Carla, with a C, Johnson.co. Go there, lots of resources, subscribe to my newsletter. It comes out every other Tuesday. There are all sorts of tools, case studies, stories about how to expand your human capacity for imagination and creativity and innovative thinking, and also how to do it with the help of AI.

Erik Martinez: Carla, thank you for coming on the show again. I think you're our first threepeat. I can't wait till we do this again in a year and see what kind of progress we have all made in the next 12 months. That's it for today's episode of the Digital Velocity Podcast. Thank you for taking the time to listen, have a fantastic day.

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