The Podcast

Most innovation content lives in a fantasy world where you can ship fast, test in public, and learn later. This episode sits in the real world, where the work ends up in courtrooms, insurance claims, and decisions that have to hold up under scrutiny. That constraint changes everything about how you pick tools, prove value, and roll out change.

Neil’s career path is the point, not a footnote. Private investigator to innovation leader inside a forensic engineering context gives him a rare view of how evidence, process, and credibility get built. If you’re building a new venture inside an incumbent, or selling into one, you’ll recognize the friction he describes. The timeline is slower, but the stakes are higher.

You’ll also hear what “innovation” looks like when it’s not a shiny demo. Think drones, 3D capture, and on-site tech, plus the unglamorous work of making outputs defensible and usable for the people who rely on them. It’s a clean example of why the best internal products win by reducing uncertainty, not by looking futuristic.

Here’s a teaser…

Find Neil on Linkedin

What You Missed on Sunday

Here’s what we covered in Sunday’s newsletter edition…

AI is upending…just about everything. Including innovation mandates. In 2026, we expect AI — truly applied, functional, useful AI — to be the focus for most orgs. And while AI sounds “cutting edge” and therefore aligned to innovation, the reality is that we’re still too early in the hype cycle for innovation and AI to be perfectly aligned.

Over this week and next, we’ll break down the Innovation Mandate in 2026 to help you align the practicalities of advancing AI within your org to the realities of focusing on innovation when the two aren’t entirely aligned.

Here’s what you’ll find: