Machines 1 Humans 1: Joining forces with The Innovation Scout

By way of context, if you don't know Sarah Fay, you should. I met her about 15 years ago back in the early days of digital. At the time she was running Carat Digital. Since then, she's run Isobar, Aegis Media North America until she left the agency world and now works in the VC business focusing on A.I. 

Sarah introduced my former co-founder, Gina Waldhorn, to me and together Gina and I ran Evol8tion for 5 of the last 6 years.

Earlier this year, she introduced Annette Tonti to me (she co-founded and ran Bluestreak, which would ring a bell for all you Digital "Old Timers") and her Natural Language Processing / AI platform called The Innovation Scout. 

On the surface, I guess I could have viewed them as a competitor, however I've always maintained that in small, nascent and/or emerging sectors, there is no such thing as competitors. The primary goal is to grow the pie and be the rising tide that floats all boats.

That said, the "startup matchmaking" space is pretty crowded with a bunch of players with "database envy" as in "my database is bigger than yours." This, combined with too much bottom of the barrel scrapping (speed dating or what I would call the Tinderfication of Innovation) created the need for a velvet glove, human-based, curated approach. That was Evol8tion and our strategic approach and proprietary process known as BrandMatch took care of the quality control issue, however what was truly needed was some kind of automated and intelligent approach that went way wider and deeper whilst maintaining the "currency" imperative i.e. recognizing the constant churn and revolving door associated with the startups (here today, gone tomorrow)

A while back, we began to develop what we call Pipeline to do just that. Pipeline become a white label version of our own proprietary database that our corporate clients could brand and essentially launch their own "Open Innovation" portal, combined with our existing startups, scoring methodology and brand-friendly classification or segmentation.

Our belief was that Innovation was too important to outsource to a third party and that brands needed to own and take control of their own destiny. The key difference was that too many corporates (you know who you are) have bet the farm by either trying to build it themselves or overpaying one of the 8oo-pound SaaS players to build what is essentially a White Elephant.

The Innovation Scout + Pipeline will offer corporates the best of both worlds and becomes a pretty balanced equilibrium between "man" and "machine".

It's why I have joined The Innovation Scout as a "Super Advisor' (Annette's words) and rolled up Pipeline into a better, cheaper and faster solution. Whereas the Evol8tion approach was a process, The Innovation Scout is a Platform and together 1 + 1 = 3.

The press release is below and you can get a free trial/demo of the platform as part of this launch announcement (just contact me.)

NEW YORK (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 29, 2017

The Innovation Scout announced today that innovation industry pioneer and well-known author Joseph Jaffe is joining their team. Joe joins as an advisor and will focus primarily on Innovation Scout’s Brand Innovation group to help major brands innovate faster and more effectively. Joe has been a pioneer in the art and science of digital innovation as a catalyst towards creating disruptive solutions that accelerate growth.

“More than ever, established companies need to connect with startups to keep them relevant. The Innovation Scout is doing this at scale by using Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data to match established companies, guiding them through the innovation process” said Jaffe. “There is too much noise and clutter out there right now to help corporations find relevant connections. A manual, curated approach can only get you so far, however using automation and Machine Learning in tandem, a whole new set of possibilities emerge. AI changes the playing field for innovation and brand executives.”

Through Evol8tion, Joe has provided innovation solutions to brands by connecting startups since 2011. He has worked with a world-class roster of blue chip brands including Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, DPSG, Steelcase, Nestle, Purina, Chobani and Time-Warner.

“We are thrilled to join forces with Joe”, said Annette Tonti, CEO, The Innovation Scout. “He brings extensive experience and new capabilities to our team as a world-class Subject Matter Expert and confidant to senior marketing executives. Joe understands issues of both corporations and startups. That expertise is both rare and necessary to make the Startup – Brand connections work”.

Evol8tion’s proprietary startup database and platform known as Pipeline will now operate under the Innovation Scout umbrella.

Around the globe, corporations are engaging with start-ups to spark innovation, The Innovation Scout is at the heart of this movement. Working to match start-ups with large, legacy corporations to develop incremental and disruptive innovation.

The Innovation Scout offers a SaaS platform and programs that help corporations to discover, assess, engage and run pilots with startups and open research. The platform uses artificial intelligence to match relevant startups with corporate business challenges and to give insight and support across the innovation process.

In celebration of this partnership, The Innovation Scout is offering a trial of their Innovation Scout platform.