与LT Col Jennifer“JJ”雪的创新挑战讲故事

“任何人都可以成为一个创新者。我们最年轻的创新者中有一些还是青少年。一些年纪最大的已经80多岁了。他们有一个很棒的想法。他们想成为项目的一部分，改变世界。他们想要产生影响。他们带着伟大的想法进入了那里。这是出于这些举措的惊人。“- LT Col Jennifer“JJ”雪，美国空军AFWerx的首席技术官

为什么故事对创新过程很重要?哪些价值观可以灌输给分享故事的创新者?创新领袖如何激励创造者讲述和分享他们的成功和失败的故事?

我们采访了美国空军首席技术官，中校詹妮弗·“JJ”·斯诺AFWERX．AFWERX寻求与充满激情的创新者联系，他们将通过推进美国空军创造更美好的未来。JJ Snow知道任何人都可以成为创新者，无论他们的年龄和背景。最好的创新故事散发着激情、远见和横切的影响力。

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凯蒂:(00:00:04)欢迎来到“不为人知的创新故事”，在这里，我们会放大关于洞察力、影响力和创新的不为人知的故事。由未知的内容提供动力。乐动体育足球我是主持人，凯蒂·特劳斯·泰勒。我们今天的嘉宾是J.J. Snow。她是美国空军AFWERX的首席技术官。她还是导师项目(Mentor Project)的首席运营官，该项目旨在阐明指导的好处。她是威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的名誉研究员。她是乔治城大学的生物安全研究员。她发表了许多文章。她领导过很多创新项目，你们可能还记得，不久前我们在播客中提到过一个，就是M.V.M项目。 A team of physicists and engineers from around the world worked together to design a simplified ventilator system for COVID-19. And they did so in about a month and got it through FDA approval in that amount of time and part thanks to leadership and coordination from JJ. We are so grateful to have you on the podcast once again, JJ. Thanks for being here.

JJ:(00:01:13)凯蒂，非常感谢。我很高兴。我是《数不清的故事》的忠实粉丝，以及你们为强调创新所做的一切，不仅在美国，在全球都是如此。今天能和你们聊天真的很兴奋。

凯蒂:(00:01:27)谢谢你。那么你可以告诉我们一些关于空军内部的创新吗？

JJ:(00:01:33)当然，我很乐意。我们现在有很多有趣的倡议。事实上，如果你访问我们的AFWERX网站，你会看到所有即将到来的挑战，它涉及到各种各样的话题。事实上，每一周，每一天都不一样。实际上，我们一直在研究一些太空挑战。我们有未来的基地,这是关注我们如何创建现代,有弹性的基地,这是在我——我看发生了什么事在飓风和廷德尔空军基地找出我们如何创建一个可以生存的基础自然灾害。确保飓风期间在那里的人们的安全，然后允许基地实际做出反应，帮助当地地区和州周围地区的公众。看看这些新技术，我们已经接触了很多有趣的创新者。他们是黑客和制造者。这些是学者。 These are industry professionals, small businesses up on to the corporations. And it’s global. So we have really, really neat contacts coming in all the time, all kinds of interesting ideas that they’re bringing to bear so that we can figure out that next set of solutions, that next generation of innovation.

凯蒂:(00:02:53)是的。你有那么多合作伙伴。在j。j刚才提到的基础上，你可以去AFWERX。那是A F W E R x A F。M:哦，我明白了。这真是一个很棒的网站。但你能接触到飞行员，你能接触到工业，学术界，当然，你也有创新中心。对我来说，AFWERX激发的倡议和故事的数量是难以置信的。

JJ:(00:03:20)是的。是的。我们是充满激情的讲故事的人。如果你遇到我们的任何一个团队，在不同的活动中，挑战，拓展，任何我们的社交活动中，你会得到前排的座位，看到我们正在讲述的故事，这些故事激励人们成为创新者。任何人都可以成为创新者。没关系。我们最年轻的创新者中有一些还是青少年。一些年纪最大的已经80多岁了。他们有一个很棒的想法。他们想成为项目的一部分，改变世界。 They want to have an impact. And so they just join us in our innovation hubs, these public open spaces. They get in there with their great ideas. And it’s amazing what comes out of these initiatives. I am so inspired on a daily basis by all the amazing bright people that are coming in with these ideas that I would have never thought of.

凯蒂:(00:04:08)哦,我也一样。我认为你有时间作为一个组织,特别是公共实体来解释这些故事和分享它们,你甚至称之为创新故事在你的网站上,这对我们来说是令人兴奋的,当然,因为我们试图得到更多的了解故事在创新的力量。但我认为这是很重要的一课。那么多的地区和公共领导人，当我们花时间通过讲故事来为我们正在做的工作创造一种身份时，我认为这真的有助于加快创新的步伐。特别是，我认为，在与学术界，工业界和其他合作伙伴建立关系方面并且能够以一种对男女飞行员个人说话的方式讲述这些故事并能够激励他们把自己视为创新者，对吧?

JJ:(00:05:04)完全正确。完全正确。这个故事的价值在于:当你在讲一个故事时，你是在让它有形，让它与人相关。你允许人们把他们自己的故事带进来，并与你正在构建的东西相互联系。这是一幅令人惊叹的挂毯，它围绕着一个项目展开，从最初的故事开始，围绕着我们正在寻找的东西。事实上，我们和伊拉克人合作过一个很好的倡议。在这种特殊情况下，我们处理了一些关于重新安置的问题。叛乱分子一直在进入新建房屋，并将简易爆炸装置放置在房屋的墙壁上。当人们涌入时，他们受伤了。他们被杀了。 We didn’t have enough robots to go through or dogs to go through on a daily basis to make sure that these new homes were safe and secure. And so we immediately reached out to our network and said, look, we really want to get ideas around how to affordably detect if somebody has placed an improvised explosive device in a space. And so we had all of these people come out. And if this was actually a SOFWERX at the time, but it was a joint initiative because all of the services were involved and a lot of interagency partners and our allied partners definitely a big concern because we’re trying to help the Iraqis stand back up and take their country back and get a fresh start. And so I’ll never forget this. We’re all brainstorming and people were putting stickies up on the wall. And there’s a very quiet young man in the back simply says, “bubbles.” And we all kind of turn and look. And I’m thinking, is that his nickname or is that an idea or…? So we just pause. And he said, “Bubbles, we can do it with bubbles.” And his idea was to create a bubble gun that would blow bubbles around the room and trigger these passive infrared devices to go off. Very portable, very cheap. And we thought, well, maybe, I don’t know. So we bought a couple bubble party machines and we bought some remote control cars. And my gosh darn, if it didn’t work, you could do remote control cars for less than twenty dollars, rolling with a bubble machine on top of them. All these bubbles are swirling around and the motion would be picked up by the passive infrared. And if there was a device that was in that house, it would explode. Nobody was hurt. No animals were hurt. We were able to do it really quickly and easily. And this is the type of innovation I’m talking about. None of us would have thought of that. But he had that creative sense to come up with that idea and say, well, I’ve seen this happen in the past. What if and it’s the “what if” that really takes off from the initial story.

凯蒂:(00:07:56)这是惊人的。这个想法是由一位空军士兵提出的，是一位前线士兵吗?

JJ:(00:08:02)这是一个平民。这是一个平民进入我们的设施。所以我们所有的设施都是公共设施。任何有想法的人都可以来找我们。他们可以带来一个想法并展示出来，他们可以成为我们挑战的一部分。他们可以讲述自己的故事，告诉我们，嘿，这是一个你需要知道的故事。这就是我能帮上忙的地方。在某些情况下，他们发现了我们甚至还没有想到的问题。但他们从一个全新的角度来看待它，这个故事让所有人都觉得它是真实的。我们在它周围聚集。 But this was just a young man that decided, hey, I’m going to show up and help make a difference.

凯蒂:(00:08:40)这是一个创新挑战的一部分，还是有点开放，你知道，某种事件吗？

JJ:[00:08:46]这是。这是一个创新的挑战。这一次特别关注的是:我们如何帮助伊拉克人夺回他们的国家?我们如何帮助他们稳定下来?我们如何在很多事情上帮助他们?无论是重建基础设施还是安全行动，这都是其中的一部分，或者是重建一些战后受灾最严重的地区。它看起来像什么?我们如何帮助他们提高，这样你就能得到房间里最好的想法。它是负担得起的。这是太快了。 It’s smart. It’s creative. And it’s something that we can apply right then and there. And that’s what these events are designed to do.

凯蒂:(00:09:34)我听到的是，你组织这些挑战的方式，是有一个清晰的、全面的故事情节。你知道，这就是任务。这是我们需要实现的总体愿景，在这个世界上，伊拉克人拥有一个稳定和安全的社区。所以把它放在任何创新挑战的前沿然后把它分解成更具体的，你知道的，可以是技术领域，也可以是公共领域，会有很多不同的解决方案由此产生。你能告诉我们更多关于你讲述挑战的过程吗?

JJ:(00:10:09)确定。这也取决于你所面对的挑战，因为当你在创造一个故事时，你所创造的故事的意图便是揭示你的英雄的任务是什么，对吧?背后的“为什么”。我们为什么要这么做?这个“为什么”将会激励某些拥有特定技能的人加入进来。你必须把故事写对，因为他们想要写的故事有相似的价值观和道德感，而且是他们热衷的领域。另一个很好的例子是我们在联合军种所做的。乐动体育娱乐这被称为远程咨询协助。这种特殊能力是由海军研究生院开发的。这是一种远程通信能力，可以让我们的盟友伙伴或美国的特种部队或安全部队为在地面遭遇反叛武装或敌方部队的伊拉克部队提供建议。 And so at that point, their troops in conflict, you know, they contact and they’ve actually encountered that enemy force. And they’re calling back for help. The challenge with this, we knew that it was an open source architecture that had been built and sent downrange. But we didn’t know where all the vulnerabilities were. And so we had a few folks. Reach out to us and said, look, we know you have this amazing network of ethical hackers that you’re teaming with. Would you please ask them if they could take a look at this and help? And we did. And we told them the story and we told them how we were using this device to help and for training and for communications. And it was incredible. We had seven hackers come back. They came back in about 48 hours. They had identified all the vulnerabilities. They had identified all the ways to fix the vulnerabilities and harden the system. And they had done it for free because they wanted to make a difference, to save lives, to improve security and to help people. They saw what we were trying. The story we were trying to tell.

凯蒂:(00:12:18)是的。是的。

JJ:[00:12:20]那是，我们在讲述伊拉克的未来。这是一个安全的伊拉克。这是一个安全的伊拉克。这是一个有着积极未来的地方，我们正努力朝着这个方向努力。这就是他们的关键所在。我们如何帮助伊拉克人归还他们的国家?让它安全，让它安全，让他们开始朝着积极的未来建设。正是这个故事激励了他们去帮助别人。

凯蒂:(00:12:48)这是难以置信的。作为AFWERX.....的领导者很明显，你总是在倾听这些故事，收集它们，然后再分享它们。你能吗?我很想听听你对讲故事和分享故事如何帮助形成创新文化的看法。

JJ:(00:13:06)我的天啊。这是一个很大的问题。听到这么多不同的方式。如果你讲了合适的故事。你鼓励人们前进并参与其中。And so one of the things that I think we do really, really well in the Air Force and I’m seeing this in a lot of the works models and seeing this with naval acts is that we’re opening our doors and we’re showing everybody that they can be a part of this story. And that story is one that’s built around. Making a positive difference. So the story that I like to tell frequently is that if we’re smart about how we’re layering our technology, how we’re implementing our technology, then eventually we can push leadership and decision makers towards positive-decision making away from conflict-decision making towards diplomatic solutions and away from kinetic solutions that could result in a war. We have the ability, if we’re smart about it, to transform how we relate to each other and how to reduce conflict just by the stories that we tell. And that’s really, really inherent in a lot of the work we do. Because if you have tools that will prevent war or prevent conflict, you never have to get there and get such an important part of what we’re trying to do in the military. Many people don’t realize this. Nobody wants to deploy. Nobody wants to go to war. It’s a really horrible experience. And when you have been exposed to that, you understand that, hey, if we don’t have to do this in the future, let’s not. Let’s find technologies that will help to prevent that. And so that’s one of the stories we’ve been building around that a lot of innovators have been drawn to because they’re passionate about that, too. They want to prevent suffering. They want to build towards a positive future where we’re all coming together to make a difference. And everybody wants to see an end to warfare. Everybody wants to see an end to conflict and tools that will allow us to have positive discussions that help to mitigate any kind of conflict or warfare in the future. And so when and where we can we focus on that. Not all cases allow us to do that. We still are in the business of fighting wars and keeping national security. So there’s a second storyline there that really looks at technologies that then enable us to discreetly discriminately fight wars with as low a number of casualties as possible. We’re really trying to be thoughtful about limiting the effects on the societies and the populations that we’re teaming with or that we’re working in. And that’s another story that also inspires people. And then there’s the science. So many people that come to our events are huge science [unclear wording] or science fiction fans. And when they come into our spaces, you know, they grew up with this. They love to learn. They love to be challenged. They love those wicked problems. And they come into the space with ideas that they have a story that they want us to hear. And they’re telling those stories. And that’s also inspiring everybody in that space. So they’re coming in with their own hero’s quest, you know, why are they motivated around this specific problem? And then at the same time, they’re also telling us a story that’s relatable. They’re telling us a story that is, you know, this is their scene. This is their mantra. This is the narrative that’s making a solution or technology, tangible, familiar, accessible. It’s helping everybody in the room to understand the importance and how they believe it can help to solve a problem that they care about. And then who? Who are they? When someone steps into the room, whether they’re from the Air Force or the Navy or the Army or the Marine Corps or the Coast Guard or they’re inter-agency partners or allied partners or they’re ethical hackers, they’re makers, they’re academics. They’re the public that are coming in to make a difference. Who are they? Are they a team? What? Why are they passionate about this? Are they playing their roles well? Are they humble? Are they focused on doing their best to solve a problem that they care about? That passion translates over to the success of the story. And then the story is what gets you started and the story is what takes you all the way fully through to that successful ending. That’s what we’re trying to cultivate and build around each of these hubs.

凯蒂:(00:18:07)这绝对是令人难以置信的方式,你知道的,你说那么美丽故事的方式定义了背后的动机我们做什么,如何定义和帮助我们与他人联系,所以你提到的关联性,这是至关重要的能够说这是我是谁,这是我提出的背景以及我为什么关心这个问题。好的。既然我们联系上了，那就组队吧。让我们合作，让我们一起解决。我认为这是非常强大的。你在描述文化和如何建立文化时，提出了很多很好的观点。我对AFWERX也很尊敬的一点是，你们用实际的策略把故事变成生活，帮助把人们聚集在一起进行创新。你有火药箱。你有火花细胞。 You have the ideation platform. You have the Squadron Innovation Fund. There are obviously there are SBIRs and STTRs. If you’re unfamiliar with those, you should definitely – if you’re listening to this podcast, check them out. They are government grants to solve innovation challenges. And one of the things that just really stood out to me is Spark Tank. Could you tell me a little bit about that?

JJ:(00:19:21)所以这实际上是一个超酷的倡议。在这种情况下，它几乎就像《创智赢家》。但我们试图做的是激励人们拿出他们的解决方案，并将它们应用到我们在空军一直在努力解决的一个特别棘手的问题上。这可能是我们的飞行员，也可能是一个行业合作伙伴或初创企业，个人创新者，一群创新者。当他们进入那个空间时，我们就成了鲨鱼。我们，或者火花，在这种情况下。我们试图让他们清楚地表达和谈论他们想要提出的东西。如何去做。他们想要解决什么问题?在这种情况下，我们真正关注四个关键领域。 We’re really looking at, upfront, you know, why or how is your technology the hero that’s going to save my day from whatever wicked problem that I’m dealing with? How is it going to help my customers? Why is it better, smarter, faster, unique compared to other similar solutions out there? What makes it stand out? And so we’re trying to get to that piece of the story. And at the same time, we’re also trying to get them to make it a conversation. I did a lot of briefing. We want to hear the story that, you know, got them in front of us to begin with. What problem were they tackling as an airman? What problem were they tackling as an innovator or a private citizen that they saw it also applied to another problem or multiple problems? We want them to tell us, not brief us, but tell us tell us that story, that conversation that makes the solution, again, personal. It’s relatable. That passion shines through. And when you see that passion shining through, when you see people are really, really focused on making a difference and they really want to find out, can something… Can this be done or we’re already seeing that it can be done. And here’s what we think we can do with it next. That speaks volumes. That’s a really good foundation, like a cornerstone to a story that means you’re moving in the right direction towards a technology that could have some great success. And then we also encourage them to really keep it big-picture. Sometimes we have a lot of folks that come in and they really want to dive deep and get into the tech specs. That’s dangerous. It’s great if you want to try to do that in a spark tank. You only have so many minutes to do your talk. You can get lost in the detail. And that person, that storyteller is trying to throw in way too many details. And if they get bogged down, they can lose their audience. And if they lose their audience, they may miss out on being able to articulate a solution that could really solve a problem. So we’re really trying to get them to think about that even before they step onto the stage. And then the last part is make it visual. Whether that’s through words or develop oh, or images make that technology, that’s a solution accessible to everybody. You can tell me about technology all day long. I can read about it. But until I actually see it and I understand how it works and I understand how it’s solving a problem that I care about… I may not, you know, it may get lost in translation if so many times I see companies that come in that fail to do this. And this is usually one of the feedback pieces that I’ll give them. Make it a story. What’s your narrative coming in? How is it familiar and relatable to me? Do that demo, do that image, help me to get it. Help my audience to get it, because not everybody in the audience is going to be a technologist. In fact, a lot of them probably won’t be. They have a problem. They need a solution. They’re not sure about how to get there. And then the technology piece, if they get too many details, they’ll definitely get lost. So I’ll give you a great example that just happened this week, in fact, yesterday. We did a virtual tech trip that we reached out to the state of Washington. And a fantastic opportunity to virtually see a bunch of companies. Most people did a PowerPoint briefing, and that’s fine. It was great, there were some pictures. One company actually posed in front of their six degrees of freedom, multi material, 3-D printer, this giant robotic arm, and showed us videos of it in action. So they presented and they showed the videos. And wow, that was powerful. Immediately got it. Everybody online got excited about it because you see it in action. The story becomes tangible, relatable. And suddenly people were just across the board on the line. All of the tech scouts got excited because they could see how this could fit into different sectors and different problems that they were challenged with. So those are really key storytelling techniques that we’re appreciating, you know, that we’re looking at when people get in front of us at a Spark Tank. And once they do that, that’s what helps them get to the top of the Spark Tank and get pulled into the winner’s circle at the end because they’ve demonstrated those four different areas.

凯蒂:(00:24:55)你能告诉我在那之后会发生什么吗?在正在进行的与行业或企业之间的关系,如何讲故事变化关系的一部分,而不是试图得到关注和试图确保你的使命,你的故事是清楚的,你把它生活让人们理解不太的杂草。所以在关系开始的时候，真正获得关注并以正确的方式开始是非常关键的。但是在关系真正确定之后，你已经，你知道，一个初创公司直接与AFWERX或空军合作。

JJ:(00:25:37)所以这就是故事真的令人兴奋的地方，因为现在我们将它们与特定客户匹配。在这种情况下，通常是我们的空军基地之一。它可能是一个特定的团队或导演。它可能与空军研究实验室或空军材料指挥。在这种情况下，他们现在迭代他们的解决方案以及一个问题的客户。他们认为这个特殊的解决方案是答案。This is what gets really, really exciting, because you’re in the field, you’re testing this capability out and you’re showcasing that yes, in fact, it can do X, Y and Z over know it can do A, B, but not C or it does all of them. And now we think we can take it to the next level with a bit more funding. That piece is instrumental in taking the story, the initial story, that got them the attention and got them the partnership with the military or government partner and really catapulting it forward towards “OK, here are the different problems that this specific solution can now tackle.” And so instead of having one story that’s really focused on one topic or maybe three topics, when they come in the door, they’re now telling a story that has a crosscutting impact. This is a story about solving problems across spaces. This is a story about how they can move very quickly to provide impact today in a year, sometimes in 18 months, and how they intend to translate that story into action. That’s the next step. And once that happens, things really start to get exciting.

凯蒂:(00:27:23)是的，一点没错。我再次，我只是......此时，我的脸上有最大的笑容，所以我道歉。我几乎失去了我的想法，因为我很兴奋，你经营的方式以及Afwerx拉扯人们的方式以及你真正开放的方式，你真正开放地分享这项工作。我非常感谢你所做的所有工作，以领导它，以及那些是那些是涉及这些挑战并帮助解决解决方案的人的每个人和每个人的所有工作。我只是被它迷恋。

JJ:[00:27:55]谢谢你！

凯蒂:[00:27:55]很抱歉我现在有点抓狂了。

JJ:(00:28:00)这都是爱。你可以和任何一个团队成员交谈。绝对是了不起的人。我喜欢每一天，看到AFWERX团队正在做的工作，我感到很谦卑。他们只是，不管他们是否在合同中，是否在Spark tank中工作，是否在AFWERX挑战中工作。他们坐在哪里并不重要。我们有一个很棒的团队，我很高兴能成为其中的一员，能够做出贡献，所以我也每天都在工作。所以我理解你的热情。

凯蒂:(00:28:33)绝对的。你可以访问AFWERX网站。一定要在LinkedIn上关注JJ Snow。她经常分享创新的故事。很高兴看到你在这个领域发挥领导作用。JJ，对于那些致力于解决重大挑战并共同合作的创新者们，你还有什么其他的建议吗?

JJ:[00:28:56]是的是的。当然是。始终寻求激励创造力的方法。这是你真的的东西，真的很震惊我，因为我有多个人问这个。你如何保持创意？所以这是我真正热衷的事情。而我会做的一件事是我将不断挑战我正在使用的球队学习。保持学习。让自己揭示新的想法，新的思维方式，并真正推动他们在工作之外发展他们的激情。太多人关注工作区发生的事情。 No, no, no. Have those deep hobbies, you know, try new things out. You know, it could be art, it could be music, painting, poetry, science, game theory, different types of sports… You know, get out there and try something new that really pushes you. You push your comfort zone, helps you to see things in a new way. I try to bring in people that think very differently. We’ve had some amazing success with bringing in our ethical hackers. We’ve had some amazing success with various sci fi artists and authors and get them to understand, you know, the different challenges that exist out there around innovation, ethics, philosophy, cultural challenges, how to innovate in a resource-constrained environment. I learned that from Secretary Geurts when he was down at SOFWERX he limited how much money we had around a project because he did not want us to buy a solution. He wanted us to think about how to find a solution and get there smartly. I love that. I absolutely love that. So that would be… That would be the biggest piece of advice that I have if people are seeking to inspire creativity among their team. You know, reach out and challenge yourself in these areas. And also look for other storytellers, people that are mentors that are doing this well already and read about them. Watch videos. I know online. I think the Disney Gallery now has some really great video talks around tech and talent and the different types of creativity involved in bringing projects to life. I’m a huge fan for Dave Filoni. Also, you know, Rich Sheridan is a friend over at Menlo Innovations, I’m reading through one of his books right now, Joy, Inc.. If you have a chance to take a look. Because he is an amazing storyteller and you can learn so much about how to craft your stories to get other people excited and help them craft their story. So that’s – that would be my last piece of advice today.

凯蒂:[00:31:41]听了这个之后，我想不出还有什么更好的方式让我们走进这个世界。小洁，非常感谢你。我的灵感。希望在这次谈话之后，我们都能更有创造力，更积极主动。小洁，谢谢你能来。

JJ:(00:31:56)非常感谢今天邀请我。我是这个游戏的超级粉丝，所以我很期待在未来与Untold Story团队的合作中进行创新。

凯蒂:(00:32:05)非常感谢你，JJ。我也一样。

JJ:(00:32:07)谢谢。

凯蒂:(00:32:10)感谢收听本周的节目。一定要在社交媒体上关注我们，并在对话中加入你的声音。你可以在Untold Content找乐动体育足球到我们。

你可以多听几集ld体育下载 ．

*采访不是对个人或企业的认可。