How to innovate processes with Nelson Inno from weSpark
#028 Let’s dive into the huge topic of innovation together with Nelson Inno.
Who would be better suited for getting a closer look into this episode on process innovation than Nelson Inno himself. We speak about how to innovate business processes and how to find innovative solutions to problems. In the end, he shares his three top recommendations to rethink processes. I’ve learned a lot in his episode, so I hope you do as well..
Today’s Guest
Nelson Inno
Nelson Inno is CEO of weSpark which he founded in 2019 in Frankfurt, Germany. WeSpark is Frankfurt’s first dedicated innovation agency. They use unique, engaging, and extraordinary innovation methods to empower a Culture of Innovation.
Before founding weSpark, Nelson worked as Senior Innovation Manager for Lufthansa Cargo. Nelson holds an MBA and a degree in Industrial Engineering from Furtwangen University.
You’ll learn
- What the core philosophy of weSpark’s approach is
- How to develop innovations in general
- What important aspects to be considered for successfully developing innovations
- What advice Nelson would give to a Process Owner on how to innovate a process
- How to proceed in detail to innovate a process
- Which trends Nelson sees in the field of innovations with regards to methods, tools, and techniques
- What Nelson’s top 3 recommendations to rethink processes are
- Which topics and experts Nelson recommends having a closer look at to get ideas to rethink processes
Resources
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Transcript
Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Mirko
Yeah. Welcome to episode 28 of the New Process podcast. Today we’re going to explore how innovate processes. And to explore this, who would be a better guest than Mr. Inno himself? So today I’m talking to Nelson Inno. Nelson is CEO of We Spark. He founded We Spark in 2019 in Frankfurt, Germany. We Spark is Frankfurt’s first dedicated innovation agency. They use unique, engaging, and extraordinary innovation methods to empower a culture of innovation. Before founding we, spark Nelson worked as Senior Innovation Manager for Lufthansa Cargo. Nelson holds an MBA and a degree in industrial engineering from Footvangen University. Even more interesting, and this is also going to play a role in this episode. Nelson was born and raised in El Salvador. As I already said, he also worked for Lufthansa in the past, and actually we discussed that afterwards. We are not sure if we ever met in person, but we somehow get in contact during our Lufthansa time since that we’re connected on LinkedIn. And I’m following closely what he is doing, and it’s super inspiring to see and to follow. So when thinking about how to learn more about innovation, I simply had to invite him to the New Process Podcast. So in today’s episode, you’re going to learn a lot about how an innovative mindset looks like. We’ll talk about how to develop innovations in general. And Nelson will also tell you more about the important aspects for successfully developing innovations. He is also providing his advice to process owners on how to innovate processes and how to proceed in detail to do this. So I’m also asking him for his top three recommendations on how to rethink processes, as well as which topics and experts he recommends us as the New Process community to have a closer look at. So enjoy the interview with Nelson Inno.
Intro Speaker
And now let’s start to rethink process.
Mirko
Yeah.Welcome to New process, Podcast. Nelson. It’s great to have you here on this flight today talking about innovation. I don’t know where the flight will lead us to, but just welcome.
Nelson
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I guess this is the kind of flight that, you know, you just get on board and and it’s going to take you somewhere. Surprise flight.
Mirko
Yeah, exactly. But before we board, where would you like to sit? Aisle or window seat?
Nelson
I don’t know. Usually if it’s a long flight, I would like to sit on the window. If it’s a short flight on the aisle, I don’t know. It’s kind of like a thing. There’s no real reason for it. I don’t care about being bothered, but I care about bothering other people more. So in this flight where I don’t know where it’s going to go, yeah, maybe I picked a window.
Mirko
Yeah, that’s good.
Nelson
Okay.
Mirko
And which is your favorite airport?
Nelson
My favorite airport? Well, at first I thought, yeah, maybe like when I arrive home in El Salvador. That’s one of my favorites. But it’s actually a terrible airport. It’s been upgraded, to be honest. Actual favorite airport before, for a long time was Roatan Airport, which this little Caribbean island actually in Honduras.
Mirko
Okay.
Nelson
But nowadays I really believe it’s the Sadar airport because right outside of it there’s like this little park and every time I flew from there, I would just have some beers, relax under the sun in the park. So it’s the most chillax airport ever. It’s not the airport itself and infrastructure, it takes five minutes to just go to your gate. Like going through security and everything. Like checking passport security is so easy, so fast. So that makes it my favorite airport by far. Yeah.
Mirko
And that’s where?
Nelson
Where is it? In Croatia. Sorry?
Mirko
Croatia. Okay. Croatia. Never been there, but maybe sometime every summer. Okay. We thought about going to Croatia by bus. By car? Like a Volkswagen bus? Yeah.
Nelson
With some stops. Why not?
Mirko
But now we decided for this summer to go to Italy again.
Nelson
But maybe next was a good option.
Mirko
Yeah, definitely.
Cool.
So let’s continue with the check in. What was the best process you have ever experienced?
Nelson
The best process? Yeah, to be honest, creating a bitcoin lightning wallet.
Mirko
Okay.
Nelson
Because at the end it’s a process. It’s an onboarding process, but you download the app, press create account and you’re done. And then you can start making transactions. Receiving transactions. I had to think now, but it was so easy.
Mirko
I think there was an identification or by video or something like that or where you had to show your passport and no, nothing.
Nelson
No name, no username, no address, no social insurance number. Just like connect and then it’s gone. I mean, it’s really nice. Some people think that it’s bad because a lot of people can use it for buying stuff in the black market and so on. But on the other hand, once you imagine I go to a big supermarket chain and I use the same account that I use for anything illegal. I don’t know, like, let’s say that selling rabbits without a license is illegal. Then they could track and see absolutely all my transactions ever. So, yeah, that would make no sense. But that’s the nicest process ever because it’s just so short and it achieved what I wanted without anything else.
Mirko
Yeah, that’s good. Cool. Perfect. How would you describe your relationship to Process overall with processes?
Nelson
Well, I don’t know if this is the case with most people that you have talked in this podcast, but I used to market myself as a process reengineer or process engineer for maybe like around one third now of my entire career. In fact, what I was doing is I was going from corporate to corporate. I would check the processes and eventually I kind of like saw this big pattern and I noticed that everything works the same. Every industry, from repairing aircraft to, I don’t know, like selling software. Everyone was following kind of like the same patterns in a way. So there are some things that you need to adapt, things that you need to tweak that are just important in your industry or in your specific company. But yeah, so I was doing that and eventually I decided to kind of move away from just designing processes. But I had a good four years of just doing that and I was really good at it. I mean, at least other people said that. I don’t know.
Mirko
Okay, cool. So I already introduced you as Nelson Inno I think the name says it all. You are living for innovations, but I think that’s not really your real name. So who gave you the name?
Nelson
My real name is for long Spanish names, but the Nelson Inno came from Morris noyhouse, he’s an entrepreneur and helps people grow their LinkedIn careers or LinkedIn profiles.
Mirko
Okay.
Nelson
And I don’t know, there was like a friend of a friend who once was interviewed by him and they asked if they could do it in my office. The one that I had back in Frankfurt before. Now we’re all decentralized at whispering, but yeah, I met him and then we decided to record some podcasts and he just said in one sentence that I have even recorded, like, Nelson, Mr. Eno in my eyes, he said. And then afterwards he kind of suggested me like, look, maybe you can consider creating a brand out of your name. And since I changed it, it really boosted what it sells. I mean, it’s just more people were coming and they wanted to have more interviews or podcasts with Nelson or more conferences when Elsa, everyone wanted to work with Nelson. The other names were very long. Sometimes it’s this like unconscious things that you see a name and you just don’t know how to talk with this person because you don’t know how to pronounce the last name. So maybe for a microsecond you’re a little bit too shy. So like, okay, I’m going to check maybe how it is spelled later on Google Translate or something. But then you forget and then that’s one person that is not contacting you for some support anymore. I believe that it’s sticking, but I still have like half of my life with my old name, like two Forbes interviews with my old name and like five, six, seven newspapers that are still writing my Nelson Spanish name and so on. But now I try to stick with Nelson.
Mirko
Yeah, that’s good. Is it printed in your passport as.
Nelson
Well as not yet. So I am in the process of accumulating from standard media lots of moments where people call me Nelson INO, and then I have to go. Basically, I forgot the name of this in English, but I have to go to these buildings from the government. Then I will ask for in German, they call it the Kunstaram in English means like an artist’s name. But I have to present evidence. So, yeah, most of the evidence or half of the evidence is in my own name. So I’m trying to get more, but I was just now, like, in an RDE documentary called Bitcoin eros. Yeah. So that’s going to help. Yeah, definitely. German TV. This must be real. But you have to start somewhere.
Mirko
Yeah, that’s cool. That’s really innovative. That’s perfectly fit. So you founded the company? We spark.Can you tell us a little bit more about what’s the core philosophy of your approach?
Nelson
Yeah, so you have to understand why I started We Spark. I don’t know if I ever said this anywhere online, this might be the first time, but the honest truth is, while I was working for a big cool airline, I heard about that.
Mirko
Yeah.
Nelson
And once I quit, I wanted to just discover more the innovation stage, like in the region and in Germany and eventually in Europe and just contribute. But for real, what I was thinking is, okay, I want a company because of three reasons. One is, yeah, I want to be like my own boss and free from nine to five, corporate job and so on. I thought to myself, number two was very easy. I wanted to be able to buy and afford all the tech stuff, all the tech gadgets that let me play around, like, sometimes a little bit more. So I wanted to get the expensive tech stuff and play around with it. This is very difficult to do when you don’t have your own projects. And number three. And that’s the interest part. I wanted to create a company that will allow me to get multiple perspectives from multiple companies, industries, people, ideas, so that eventually, one day, with all the input together and through the process of synthesis of combining A and B into C, that I could come up with my own digital scalable idea, which will become, eventually, a project to retire. And I believe now it has finally happened. I mean, this is a fifth company that I’m starting. The second attorney, the fourth, they all disappeared. When I say that they failed, I killed them eventually because they were not getting there where I wanted or as fast as I wanted. So I just moved to the next idea. But nowadays, all of these turn into the philosophy, and I’m sorry if this answer is too long, but it turned into the philosophy that we want to help other people innovate, as simple as that. But very important for the approaches that we don’t go out there and it’s like, oh, do you want to innovate or do you want an innovation worship or do you want to create a new product. We believe that that doesn’t work. So everything for us is just about creating content and educating other people. In short birds. For example. When you ask me now for a podcast, I’m like yeah, super awesome. I mean, everyone who’s watching has maybe like opportunity to learn something. I’m also a little bit there and eventually when people have a problem and they have been exposed to Whispers content and so on, they just think like okay, maybe now is the time. Like I have been seeing this post, maybe they can help us. And usually when customers come, they always have the same this is a pattern that I just know. Is this a guaranteed customer? They always say look, we have a problem and they describe the problem. Then they talk a little bit about the budget that they might have or the timing. And there when they are the first ones to say a call to action of hey, let’s meet and talk with this to see whether you can support us. And that I know that’s going to work. But at the same time, so that this happens in our buffer time, sustain our free time, we do a lot of provono. So we have been educating, particularly one NGO around education in El Salvador called the Gloria Creek Foundation. We have helped educate over 2000 kids in innovation methods and so on. So when we are creating our content, we actually create it for kids and then it’s the same content that we show to the adults. You have no idea. This is so effective. It’s just like we try to go to the essence and let everyone be able to explore further material by themselves. But we only concentrate on what matters. And at the same time we are also creating our own methodologies and documenting them. And from time to time we share them. Sometimes with official institutions, sometimes just online and social media. And those are the three aspects we have like customers that pay us to solve their problems through innovation methodologies. With this money we take the time to create new innovation methods and new content and material and processes and so on. And then this one goes to the provono when we’re doing charity and educating others and then these people start applying everything, what they learn and they basically give us feedback. We tell us like look this 80% here, what you’re watching, this is proof. Like all the big companies are using it. This is from us. We have invented it. Let us know what you think about it so that they know what is tested and not tested. And through your feedback we have this. Like we are just sure that we can utilize these new methodologies for the corporates and for the businesses that are paying for all of it. So that’s how it works. I don’t know if I extended a little bit more like the question of whether it’s a philosophy or not, but I just wanted to kind of show how it all works. I hope that’s kind of like the answer.
Mirko
That’s super interesting. I love this pro bono approach and we did something similar for processes in the past to collect best practices, for example, and share that with the community. That’s always good to do something pro bono. Super cool. So what was your favorite project you’ve ever been working on?
Nelson
Yeah, to be honest, it must be now. The one that I’m working in, the fifth company. It’s so crazy because it’s a big question, right? But if you ask me, I never been so excited about working on something like we are doing now. And it’s kind of like a company that is decentralizing marketing approach. And why I like the process in particular is, well, we were the ones leading it, so we can define and we try to create our own approach based a little bit on the design sprint from Jake Knapp, like the one from Google Ventures, mixing with other things from design thinking and also on, but always giving our own approach to things. When we don’t need something, we get rid of it. When we need something new else, or something in parallel because it’s like a double sided platform where there’s both customers and users and so on. It can get very complex. We just will take the process as, okay, these are kind of like the big milestones. This is what we’re going to get. But having the flexibility to change it within like five or ten minutes, just say, everyone address the deciders. Hey, look, I believe maybe we can steer somewhere else here. Let’s not continue going this way. Let’s steer a little bit. It’s not going to be big change, but let’s do something. Everyone gets five minute break and then those five minutes, like with my team, we will be like, okay, we come back and it’s like everything feels very smooth, like it was all part of the process. And that’s what I like because when I think about processes and why they exist, as you scale any organization, any operations in any type of institution, from NGO to Pay to whatever, you create processes to scale and to be able to control the behavior from people, that your behavior still gets you to the goal. I mean, this is my personal opinion, right? We might differ, but yeah, but the thing is that the processes don’t adapt back to you. They don’t adapt back to your emotions, to the atmosphere in the room, or the weather outside, or whether there’s someone missing or someone not, or how the team synergies are, or if there’s someone new at once, or someone or one person goes out and another one comes in. All of these things are usually not addressed in processes to the point that when I was still doing this, I want to pursue at least for like two, three months I want to pursue a PhD and write about flexible processes or processes that adapt to everything else. But yeah, I kind of figure out that I’m not the sort of person that should be looking these and yeah, I mean, maybe one day I pursue it, but for now I prefer to just be building things instead of just researching things.
Mirko
Yeah, I know that academic process because I started mine as well and I decided to postpone it a little bit and do something cool. So let’s dive a little bit deeper into how you create innovations. Is there a specific procedure? So how do you proceed to develop innovations?
Nelson
Yeah, like from the process perspective, I imagine, right?
Mirko
Yeah, for sure.
Nelson
Yeah. The first thing that I believe makes everything easier. So if you create any process or something smaller, like a methodology or task, we always check that there is some sort of problem or challenge, something that disturbs the surroundings and that you think is okay, this is more time to invest, to changes, so that is better. That’s kind of the first thing. And basically I’m saying like, we always start with the problem and understanding what’s the problem is, it worth it and so on. Because sometimes the problems are so small. There is one metaphor or kind of like short story that I remember that will totally just like nail and describe what I mean with this. They said in this super important industry, they have like a production line and there is one problem that in between, some parts will be missing and at the end they needed to check whether the parts are complete or not because like, correcting the mistake will cost millions and so on. So they made that very elaborate, like for hundreds of thousands of euros. Very elaborate, kind of like scanner looking at the things. But at the end, the solution that took is that one of the people who work in the floor, he just put a really big fan that would just fly away the parts that are smaller, that are missing something. €10 is just solving it, right? So at first it’s always about concentrating in this problem and kind of see whether we can solve the problem. Not 200%, but just partially or in a very cheap manner. And if that’s possible, we just do and then there’s no need to continue with the process. But right after that is when we say like, okay, this is a problem that really, really bothers us, that is worth taking the time. Then we always go on the side of, okay, so why does it bother us? And so on. Because sometimes you think this is the problem, but there’s something else that will be like the next step. And eventually let’s assume that we said, okay, this is a problem, we understand the why. So we’re going to work on this root cause from this moment on. It’s just depending on what type of problem, the industry, the people, it just goes like this is kind of set and then it’s like everything is possible, but usually in the most generic way. I will say that right after we understand the problems very well, what we try to do is to segment the problem in certain categories. Whether it’s like something around technologies, about process nature or if it’s something around communications and so on. And then we try to create at first segment little easy solutions to it. And once we have them, we see whether we combine it in one more or where we can leave some parts unaddressed because they are not so important. So that if you solve 80% of the problem with 5% of the effort then this is awesome. You don’t have to go to 99 or 100% with weeks and months. So like in the process that we were talking before, we went from just the idea of what we want to do to analyze the problem and go through everything, create all the screens and now we have like a clickable prototype from our decentralized advertising or decentralized marketing platform. We went through all of it in two and a half weeks. So process that anywhere in any corporate will have takes six months to twelve months. So I’m very happy with it. But that’s the approach. I will start with a problem and then just kind of like solving it step by step. And if I will say only one thing why all of these really work? Possibly I’ve been skipping it, but this is possibly the key is that we visualize as much as possible. Make everything visual. However, take a Lego, take some pieces of paper and put them together or origami take some colors and paint or use your digital tablet or put some shapes in PowerPoint and put them together. Visualize it with stickman, drawings, sketches, however, but visualize things because when you’re doing it, it just reduces these communication gaps in the process between everyone. And everyone very quickly gets into the idea and all is really good with words. It’s all so easy to get lost. Lost in translation, so to say. So yeah, I believe that visualizing is the one key that from the problem to the absolute complete idea or concept, visualization was key. Yeah, that’s our secret.
Mirko
Don’t tell anybody. Okay. And what else are there? More secret ingredients than just visualizations. So what do you need to successfully create innovations?
Nelson
Yeah, the other thing is you really need to have people that want to solve the problem. If there’s someone who’s not really interested in solving or anything, this person is going to slow down. So whenever we create workshops, we even design them in a way that we see how much energy we are consuming from the people. We understand some parts are very demanding and afterwards we just plan with a little break and then maybe a little exercise to get people already on board but we check that we are moving it kind of in a natural way. But with that said, you really want to have people that are motivated to do this because if not, maybe someone, let’s say someone has a really critical thinking but more like on the negative side, don’t bring this person through the entire workshop. There’s some moments where you want to accelerate. You don’t need to have them but bring them. Maybe with some little milestones in between. Maybe you don’t even have to bring this person and confront the others in the moment. Maybe you can just address this person separately and get the points because everything is going to see like okay, this doesn’t work, this doesn’t work, this doesn’t work. Right? But it’s more like you just come back with a summary. Okay, look, we talked with some potential stakeholders and these are not new challenges to solve and then it’s different, right? It’s not someone just like making you feel like you didn’t do it correctly. I was about to say describe another world but I tried to make it family friendly.
Mirko
Great, okay, cool. That’s super interesting. So basically you are finding solutions to problems. How do you find these solutions? How do you get to innovative results there from which I don’t know, portfolio of possible solutions? Are you drawing the solutions or what?
Nelson
Is there the way that is difficult? I have some theories. I believe that most of the solutions that we ever come out with, they are due through synthesis process. So we are just seeing hundreds and thousands of different ideas being applied. Maybe some of these ideas being applied in like five or seven or ten different industries. And I believe that at least like for me talking very personally, I don’t know if this is something that works for everyone else but I have led the last decade of my life just trying to try everything miracle. When I say everything is I like to know and be able to do everything. Programming, 3d modeling, building crafting stuff in real life electronics, creating music digitally, bow playing, also instruments, skateboard. I just want to try everything because I know that every time that I acquire a new skill or new knowledge, then I’m more likely to be able to put up stuff together and yeah, just, like, come out easily with potential solutions for a single problem. Important thing as I said before, is that it’s important. Who’s on the other side? Who’s also going to be doing this with you? Like in terms of now I’m whispered right and I have a conversation with the customer. I always want to know that it’s important, whatever they are doing, that it’s important that they do this because if not we are not going to help them. So if the problem is not big enough then they might see that we are too expensive and so on. And these kind of things. But when the problem is big, when the problem is there, when they really think this is imminent, it’s essentially important to solve it. Then they are first of all for us, which is good, they are likely to have more budget allocated for it, which also gives us more flexibility to put more time into the solution making and so on. But it is just more likely that the person is going to accept, let’s say non orthodoxical or non orthodox solutions. Like the fan is non orthodox solutions like, okay, corporate will never approve that. Maybe it can be because of ego because we’re a multinational company. We cannot just have a fan, we need the entire machine. What if our customers see that? I don’t know. I’m the kind of person that thinks like look, if this fan is going to make this thing fly away from the production line and problem solve and €10, then let’s do it. So yeah, this is how it goes.
Mirko
Okay. Yeah, that’s super interesting. I’m always trying to innovate processes, to rethink process and find new ideas and that’s why I’m so interested in that. So let’s get closer to the topic of processes here. As you might know, in process management it’s often about continuous improvement of processes. Or as I just learned, there’s a difference between continuous and continual improvement.
Nelson
If I didn’t even know.
Mirko
Basically it’s about improving processes from time to time. And this is often about small, very small steps to get a little bit better, but then stepping back and having a look onto the process and really create innovations, do it in completely new innovative way, whatever. That’s often the big topic because the people are just in the normal environment.
Nelson
They do it as they always do.
Mirko
It and they just get a little bit better. What would you recommend to a person being accountable for a process, like a process owner on how to innovate a specific business process can take anyone.
Nelson
From time to time. I mean, this is not something that you do every week nor every month, maybe even year, but every day, three, four years. So once maximum twice in your lifetime as a process owner in average, so to say, making assumptions here, yeah, I will kind of really go through it and ask do we need this? And just try to draw the entire thing and maybe with the least sensible process in the company and so on. Just try to apply it for one week and see how it goes. Usually most companies have some metrics and so on that will help them very quickly quantitize and decide whether this was an improvement or not. But at the very end, it’s also all about the people that follow this process, right? Like if you’re having someone taking the exact same time, basically no results are changing in the company. But this person is definitely way more comfortable and happier than do it then. Change it. But that’s the thing. It’s just kind of take everything what you have at once and then just try to draw it from the beginning. You can do like a workshop and kind of simulate where people make like if it’s theater in a scenario that people simulate, okay, now I’m going to take this document and bring it here and then kind of say, okay, what happens if this person doesn’t sign this document? Now let’s try to reposition back again. So there are many ways to do it, but if you really want to innovate, you have to take the risk of at least thinking about how it could look in a different way. Because the hard way and believe me, this is the way that for most people and this is again, an assumption at a glance, feels like this is way, okay, we take what it is and we try to see how to make it better. And then you see people around the circles like, okay, so this is our process, how can we make it better? So that people to raise their hands, right? And then, yeah, you can only get like this minimum incremental. I guess there’s even a high chance that your process might be even more complex than before because you’re asking people to add things. It’s way easier to add things than to reduce things when you’re making videos to say we were talking right before we started about because that’s why I mentioned it. But yeah, so, yeah, that would be kind of like the approach. But yeah, you have to know what kind of cultures you have in the company, what kind of people, so you have to kind of get the right mix. But I have one just to concretize and in a very practical way, one way. And this is one of the methods that I invented. So I will come and just sketch the different parts of the processes. If there’s like a database, then I will draw a cylinder with some lines below and it looks like the icon of a database. If there’s some manager, I will just going to draw a little person with a tie and so on. And then I have lots of lines and connectors. And then I will do is I will put all the process, just all these little pieces of paper with the different sketches. I cut them right so I can move them around. And I just put them in a plan on top of a table.
Mirko
Okay.
Nelson
And then I ask the people, okay, let’s move them around. And people are allowed to kind of move them with the hands and so on. You can print it, I don’t know, like six times, have six groups, three, four people each. And they all of them try to kind of modify the process. And then you have them all present and so on. And you can include some challenges, maybe let the different teams or maybe half of the teams work or maybe on a particular dimension. One is about reducing time, the other one is, I don’t know, like maximize revenues or whatever. But let them play around and then compare these scenarios because you see, I’m coming back to what I started with. When you’re doing this, everyone has different ideas and when they are presenting all these different ideas, what you are allowing is more synthesis to happen, more combinations of ideas and things. So it’s all about that. You can tell some groups is like okay, you are the ones who have to try to reduce some things, other ones you have to try to add some things. I don’t know, this is up to you. But I’m just trying to bring everything what I was telling before a little bit more into practice. But why? Because when everyone has this copy of the process in paper and it’s easy to move a paper, you just slide it around. Yeah, then people will slide them around and move them. If you have imagine how people have it. Usually they will print or someone puts in a PowerPoint something. For most of them look, it’s like it’s written in stone. It’s like oh no, management approach. I’m not going to be the one trying to change it but yeah, that’s the only thing that I can imagine.
Mirko
Now, what would you recommend to get ideas from the outside so people could do some scouting? I would say, or hire you as a consultant to bring in ideas. But how do I get new ideas into what I’m doing?
Nelson
Watch this podcast and the others? Yeah, exactly. No, but at the end I believe it’s like watching podcasts videos. Look, I will say how I do it. I believe that’s easier. It doesn’t apply to everyone because everyone has different lifestyles and everything I spend between half an hour to 1 hour, absolutely every single day looking at all new technology updates. Like since one year I’ve been just learning about macroeconomics and finance and so on because I want to also understand this part. But I’m dedicating each day, half an hour to 1 hour just to understanding what is out there and the new updates and maybe try to learn something new. And for that I use YouTube. I follow one channel called Tech Quickie and it’s from company called Linos Tech Tips. And this one I have not skipped an episode, I don’t know how long it exists, three, four years, but I haven’t skipped it a single time. Like three, three episodes a week, six, seven minutes in average. So in 2021 minutes you know everything what’s going on. Like when it comes to technology chat GPT four is out and the first reviews are out, then you have an idea of what is happening and so on. So I do that every time that I want to learn something new, I try to make a little project out of it, whether it’s I don’t know. What did I show me at the beginning of the COVID crisis, corona crisis. I remember I started teaching me how to make cartoons. So I made like 2D animated cartoons and so on. And as part of the cartoon, I needed a jingle. So I need to learn now how to teach me how to do music to create the characters. I need to start using Illustrator, so I need to show me how to illustrate things very quickly. It’s like just with a single project, you have to teach yourself so many different skills. So even if it takes a long time, it’s going to be funny so you can do something. It’s going to be at the end. I did this for my friends just as a joke. And the thing is, people were like, well, you should continue to do this. But with Weed Spark and everything else going on, I couldn’t help myself to convince myself to do more cartoons. But yes, you have to expose yourself to many different things. There’s like, ready, there’s pages like skillshare to learn and so on. Udemy everyone can go out, and it’s like, oh, I need a new iPhone. $1,000 now, $1,500. Okay, you buy it. But the moment that it’s like, okay, this platform costs €70 or $70 a month to learn something, most people like, oh, this is very expensive. It costs so and so much. But the value of just learning something else can even make you the money in a single day back. You pay, I don’t know, like €840 for €70 a month kind of thing. Like €840 in one year for learning. Even if it’s 1520 minutes a day, it’s incredible. It’s going to change your life. And you could possibly I don’t know, you taught yourself for one year how to do videos in a single day. You can make the rest of it and multiply it by five or eight or ten so that’s it just make something. And if you don’t know how to start, if you’re thinking is, one day, I would like to be like this, or this person that I know, try to have people in your network that have these skills or that talk about the topics that you would like to learn more. In Spanish, you say like, aka, entremere and alco. It usually means that if you’re walking through honey, something’s going to stick to you. But what I’m saying is that at the end, like, the five people that are closest to you, they influenced your life the most. So you want to get more humor, maybe try to go out more with the friends that are always telling jokes or the ones that like to go to comedy shows and so on. You want to learn how to start your own company. Maybe there’s someone that you know that knows someone who’s an entrepreneur. Maybe ask them, hey, maybe we can go for a coffee or beer sometimes. So that’s it. Just give the exposed however you can to anything. Maybe the last thing. I hope that I’m not doing this too long, but I really, truly want to share this with everyone to get used to seeing new things, learning new things just from time to time. Just say yes to yourself, to things that you wouldn’t usually do. I remember one of the times that was very hard, but I just came into bed, I had brushed my teeth and put my piano go into this. And then I hear my phone and it’s like, okay, a friend of mine is calling like Nelson, come to this really cool party, there’s some entrepreneurs and so on. It was like eleven. I said like I’m on my way. And then I just took out, put some clothes. I mean I had already brushed my teeth so I missed this perfume. I go out and then in this party I will stay like two. But I met some really cool people that just gave me lots of perspectives and ideas about things. That was when I was starting my entrepreneurial journey. So it was way easier to just stay in bed and sleep well and not be hangover on the next day. But I will have missed a couple of, let’s say like critical conversations that at the end influence my life and kind of like expand my horizons of what I understand and what I don’t know and therefore don’t understand. But yeah, I hope that is enough to answer that question.
Mirko
Yeah, I love that. That’s super interesting. And which trends do you see right now coming up there people should have a closer look onto? I know you already mentioned Chat GPT, but what else?
Nelson
Yeah, okay, so obviously AI, but I guess you already had people talking about it. So in a single sentence, don’t be scared of AI, use it. That’s what you need to do. If you’re using AI, then you can multiply yourself. You’re just better. If you’re not using AI, then okay, then it’s going to substitute you. But something cannot substitute yourself. If you’re adding your human nature and complex thinking and everything and the entire knowledge of what you know about the personal things to eye, then good. But apart from my eye, the one where gave me, and I’m not kidding, at least five moments where I had like an epiphany. Just like these moments it hits you like, jeez, this is crazy. And you feel like the entire world is going to change. That was mostly with decentralized technologies, with blockchain and so on. The first time when I hear about it, I was working for Cargo airline, so I was basically in the logistics industry and I hear about blockchain and so on and I’m just trying to learn about it. And I have heard about Bitcoin and eventually heard about ethereum and so on. But just like two years ago I really went deep into the industry. It really changed everything. Like my entire company is focusing on different things and when I’m thinking about innovation for everything forward, I’m just thinking in the new ways of how businesses will work. And this has something very cool to do with processes. Like it has extremely big changes in how processes work. Basically what I’m convinced not by belief but by understanding and more than 2000 hours learning this in the last two years which is extremely lot as you can see, I really got crazy with this is eventually we will have companies that are more decentralized. And that means that there’s not, like a CEO or something. It’s just there’s like a common goal to achieve. There’s some service or product and anyone in any moment can just kind of participate in this company and get paid in the tokens of the company that are basically like shares of the company. So when the company is doing good, it’s paying dividends to the people. And these dividends you can use to live, you change them to Euros, to US dollars, you change them to Bitcoin like Salvador, you can pay with Bitcoin but that’s the idea. But what that means is that processes and so on will become maybe even more robust, less flexible than what they are because they will be hard coded program. Like if you go and do this and that the code is going to read this is done, then this is the next possible step. So yeah, that is one of the things that I’m most extremely excited about. It’s both scary and super cool at the same time. So I decided that because it’s scary and cool at the same time I should go into this industry and try to influence as many people as I can and try to influence the trend in a direction where it’s less scary and more like on the exciting side. Everything has pros and cons. But the fun thing and the last thing that I mentioned about it is I’m not kidding. Two years ago, two and a half years ago, someone who will be like, talking to me about beacon and the stuff I would think is like it’s very weird to say maybe some people that know me, when they hear this, they will be like, wow, this is arrogant. But I would think these people were kind of like crazy and maybe uneducated and so on but I have been 100% totally proven wrong in every way. I mean yeah, there’s a lot of crazy people and so on but some of the greatest minds that I know today I met only through this industry. It’s like I’m always recognizing that the people that are just creating the future right now, well everyone thinks that oh this is crazy and so on. They are in these kind of things. You could say that the same applies to AI. I’m not in this industry. But the next very next thing that I want to do is I want to take maybe one weekend alone, kind of like put some data sets together and teach myself how to train my own AI, install it in my computer and have my own personal AI assistant just working and living inside of my PC store there and functioning. I hope that’s not too much.
Mirko
No, definitely not. That’s super inspiring. And I see some similarities because I also tried out some of these things. But yeah, that’s super good. Thanks so much for that. But just transferring your overall expertise on innovation onto processes, what would be your three top recommendations to our listeners to rethink processes?
Nelson
Okay, I have mentioned a couple of them. So this is more like a summary. First of all, visualize them. Put them in a really visual way. And I mean, yeah, if it’s already text with arrows, compare these text into little images, drawings because then you make it accessible, understandable for everyone. Maybe someone cannot participate as well. But when you visualize it, it’s way easier. The second one is once you have these visualizations, put them in any type of platform or software or thing where you can move things around or just print them, cut them and make people understand by consciously as well as unconsciously that they can change it. That is changeable. Right? So be visualized now we make it changeable. And number three is just give people little tasks like try to ask people to reduce things or to add things other ones to kind of like achieve the same result from weight. Other ones is just like give them all the pieces separate. But don’t put the process together. Let them know. Tell them to put it back together again. Maybe they find like trying to put it back, they come out to something similar and so on. But as you see, I said make it visual, separate it, put back together again. Then you’re probably going to innovate and have lots of findings on the way. I know here is very simple, but in real life it just works and it works really well.
Mirko
Cool. Very good. So where can our listeners learn more about what you’re doing? Where can they find you?
Nelson
Yeah, so LinkedIn is what I always say. I haven’t been to be honest, I haven’t been posting enough lately. 90% of all my posts have been more like repost from other people and so on that have been mentioning me or something. But I am definitely there and I hope to kind of get quick started. But I hope that after LinkedIn in the next month, as soon as this other project is finished that I’m going to start live streaming again. And I guess I will always come back to LinkedIn. But if someone wants to learn more about me or find or find me everywhere on Wispark, if you go to Wispark IO for innovation on innovation on then Nelson, then you will find all the information about me and there you will find everywhere where I am. I believe I’m quite active on Twitter and LinkedIn at the end, but it depends, like, more business on the LinkedIn side, more on the philosophy and talking about decentralization on the Twitter side. But yeah, okay, you can find me as Nelson with N basically everywhere.
Mirko
Yeah, that’s good. And I’ll put the links into the show notes so it’s easy to find you for awesome listeners. Perfect. So what would be your recommendation on which topic, method, tool or expert I should or we as the community should have a closer look on to get new ideas on rethinking processes?
Nelson
Okay, yeah, that will be definitely my only real LinkedIn friend. He’s called Benjamin Dehant with an H. And Benjamin, he’s possibly one of the most creative persons that I know. I believe I see him as he sees me, but something that he’s doing good. And right now he’s very active on LinkedIn is he’s been learning everything around AI, but he’s testing every single thing. Like, believe me, he tests everything. He just created a video game, that’s his last post from two days ago using Chat, GPT Four and so on. The thing is that he just goes into every new exciting technology and creates a post, a video and article around it. So it’s 100% he’s the sort of person that has the potential to inspire you to just try out things. So, yeah, I’m going to send you the link so that maybe you’ll share it with others. I follow him as one of the few people that I’m actually when I see his name and there’s a post, it’s like, I’m excited, I want to see he knows it, he comments on everything, what I post, I comment on everything what I post, but it’s just because it’s by nature something cool.
Mirko
That’s cool, yeah. Maybe you can do an intro and I can interview him here as well to try to find out how to apply his expertise onto processes, especially in the AI area. That’s cool.
Nelson
Great.
Mirko
I love that.
So, before we leave the aircraft, is.There anything else you would like to.
Nelson
Share with our listeners before we leave the aircraft? Yeah, sure. I will say just don’t be too quick to judge people and I will explain why I mean this and why I’m saying this. A lot of people come to me and they like what I do because I’m always kind of like bridging between everything, where it’s like corporate businessy and kind of like more on the startup side and so on. But how other people see me, there’s other people that I see, they just go from this startup to the absolute creative chaos. And I feel that a lot of people will be very harsh and judge the sort of people that I follow that inspire me because they think it’s like, okay. They are not what society expects from a person. They are not the sort of person that builds a career, in a way. But on the other hand, I’m the person that I think is like, wow, they are following their passion for real. Yeah. So just don’t be too quick to judge. Like, this applies to crazy people doing AI things. This applies to and I say crazy, I should have said crazy ideas. This applies to crazy people doing Bitcoin stuff and cryptocurrency stuff. It just feels wrong when you really have the perspective. Basically, before I said that I was judging some people in cryptocurrencies, I thought, these people are crazy and educated. I was wrong. I was 100% wrong. And now I’m very inspired. These people work harder and have more knowledge than everyone else because the topic is the sort of topics that just needs you to explore things from 100 different perspectives because that’s what you will get once you decentralize anything. So, yeah, to be quick to judge, try to find what is valuable in everyone else’s opinions. And yeah, if you do, you will be assimilating this and eventually you will have more ideas, more perspectives, and just more I’m going to call it now as it is, things that you can paste together and innovate.
Mirko
Yeah, great. Cool.
Nelson
Love it.
Mirko
Perfect.
So how would you describe your flight experience with just three words?
Nelson
Well, definitely I don’t know where I landed. Maybe it’s more of this, like, rice that you land back where you were, but you had a really nice experience in the meantime. Like an air show. Yeah.
Mirko
With some loopings.
Nelson
Yeah, some loopings.
Mirko
Cool. Nelson, thank you so much for being my guest on New Process podcast. It was super inspiring, innovative, and I’m really looking forward to opportunities in the future to collaborate with you in some ways. Whatever. We’ll see.
Nelson
Yeah, sure. Just follow follow me on LinkedIn. I will soon, soon publish if everything goes along plan. And I need to hit wood. Yeah, if everything goes all right, I will have lots to share and lots of value to add to everyone who’s following me very soon. But, yeah, thanks again for the invite and for allowing me to hear, to share some of my thoughts and yeah, thank you for everything. It’s been a really cool moment since we started talking to today. Sorry that it took a little bit longer, but I’m happy that we finally did it.
Mirko
Yeah, me too. So great. So, Nelson, thank you very much. Have a great day.
Nelson
Bye.
Mirko
Bye.
Intro Speaker
Let’s recap today’s new process. Inspiration.
Mirko
Wow, that was inspiring. And Nelson and I continued the conversation after the recording for just some minutes, and he quickly introduced me into the world of Bitcoin. So he asked me to download an application from the App Store, which is called Wallet of Satoshi. And I just opened the app and said, receive money and held my phone into the camera and there wasn’t QR code which he scanned and then he sent me money. So crypto money, bitcoin in that case, or Satoshi, which is part of Bitcoin. And wow, that was impressive. So just downloading the app, opening it and receiving and sending money within seconds without identification. I thought about an identification process which would be necessary there, but it is not. So that was eye opening for me, I would say yeah, and just try it out. I’ll put the link into the show notes as well. So what else did I keep in mind? So, I think Nelson’s approach is very much about finding innovative solutions to problems. And yeah, I love his mindset. Therefore he recommends to try out as much as possible, to learn, build, to play around, to craft, just to acquire new skills and also to read or watch tech news like the Tech wiki on YouTube. I’ll put that show into the show notes as well. Yes. He recommends to surround yourself with the right people. So with innovative people, have a network of people which are supporting you. So maybe it’s good to have Nelson in your network as well. Lastly, he also said say yes to something you would normally not do. Like the example with the call at night to go to a party where his original plan was just to go to bed. He also gave an advice to process owners, or maybe also process architects to innovate processes. This is not these incremental improvement steps, step by step. It’s more or less once in a lifetime innovation of a process. For process owner there so nothing on a regular basis. And there his recommendations were to first visualize the process. So to sketch a paint, use Lego or origami, or maybe that’s what I would add. Just use a process model to visualize the process and then print it out and cut it into pieces to make it on the one hand side, tangible and changeable. So that’s really important to make it possible to move it around. And then in the next step, give tasks to the team, to your process architects, people working in the process, process managers, and ask them to add things or to remove things, to change the process, to make it better, to integrate innovative ideas. And then finally let the people present their ideas and then look what ideas are coming up there. How to improve the process or how to innovate the process. Yeah, for me, as a process guy, I was hoping for a little bit more structured approach, but I really love this mindset, so I’ll try to integrate that into the new process lifecycle, which is part of the toolbox on newprocesslab.com. And I already started conversation, got in contact with Benjamin Dhont, which was one of the expert recommendations by Nelson. Hopefully I’ll make it to get him onto new process podcast in the future. As well. So there are some really cool topics on the list. I’m still producing just in time, and I’m not 100% sure which interview will be next and which then will be the next episode. But let’s see. Definitely it will be entertaining and innovative and inspiring. I hope so. So for now, thank you very much for listening.
Bye bye.
Mirko
Thank you for listening before you leave. If this episode was inspiring for you too, then just share it with the people in your network. Remember what Nelson said about having always inspiring network of people around you? So now it’s time to give back. Just click onto the Share button in your application and send this podcast episode to the people you really like. So have a great day. Bye.
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