The truth is that innovation is really hard. And, by "innovation" I mean real innovation. Not a better mousetrap, but something that the market did not know that it needed, that then becomes adopted (and paid for) in a way in which we could have never imagined our lives without it. So, when it comes to innovation, the thought should be less about what companies are producing innovative products and services, but who - really - is doing the next generation of ideation and exploration. The founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, co-founder, CEO and product architect of Tesla, co-founder and chairman of SolarCity, co-chairman of OpenAI and - what many may not even remember - the co-founder of PayPal, is thinking on a whole other level.

Recently I heard two quote about the future that really put things into perspective. This week, Startup Festival was taking place in Montreal. I had the pleasure of interviewing Tobi Lutke (Founder and CEO of the 3 billion company, Shopify), and I was also able to spend a lot of time listening to those who are inventing the future, thinking about the future and investing in those who are building the future. It's been a fascinating three day experience. One of the main stage presentation was Tim O'Reilly (CEO of O'Reilly Media). Tim coined the phrase Web 2.0, is helping to push the maker movement and has spent decades being at the bleeding edge of technology.

Episode #506 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. What will near-to-future technologies do to change business as we know it? Better question: how are these technologies already being used in business? These are the questions that journalist, strategist, consultant and author, John C. Havens has been investigating. His latest business book is called, Heartificial Intelligence, and it looks at what our world could look like, if we don't begin figuring out what robots and machine learning-based business landscapes could look like.