In this segment of the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast, host Peter Winick asks Jeff DeGraff to concisely describe the business model that underpins his work as a professor, speaker, and innovation strategist. DeGraff explains that his journey began with a personal, almost narcissistic drive to build and engage with new projects and people. He recounts his arrival at the University of Michigan, facilitated by mentors Bob Quinn and Kim Cameron, and his intellectual lineage tracing back to C.K. Prahalad, a renowned innovation strategist. Supported by these figures, DeGraff positioned himself as the unconventional, “crazy” innovator, which attracted a dedicated, niche following. Winick highlights that this following is an “acquired taste,” acknowledging that DeGraff’s approach resonates strongly with a specific audience rather than the mainstream.
Let's move to sort of another area. So, you've got the lab, you speak, you teach, there's lots of things that you do. Yeah. Give me the shortened version of the underlying business model because one of the things that we focus on a lot is, okay, so I'm a positive deviant, I've got a bunch of great ideas, How do I scale, leverage, and monetize that? How, how, what are the ways that I can turn that into a business? Yeah, it started— And you've done it lots of ways.
It started in a really kind of narcissistic way. I just thought, I like to build things. And I like to be around new projects all the time. And I like to be around new people all the time. So when I came to the University of Michigan, I was brought there by Bob Quinn and Kim Cameron. And I was really in the shadow of CK Prahalad, maybe the most famous innovation strategist of the 20th century.
No pressure.
And I got to be, I got to be the crazy guy who did weird stuff. And I was supported by these people. Not by everyone else. And so what happened is you start to get kind of, I hate to put it this way, kind of a cult following. You know, we had, you know, we have a, we had a bunch of people who went on and did pretty well from—
But wait, but the flip side of that cult following, because I want to push on this, is you were at the time an acquired taste. And it's not for everyone. And that's okay. Because I think a lot of people try to placate or satisfy—
Absolutely. And it was early. And one of the things that I had to my advantage, you know, when I was really young, I got to be an advisor to something called AIS at Apple, Applied Integrated Systems. I was Steve Jobs' advisor. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that, that really I was able to do very early on was to make a couple demands. And the first demand was I didn't teach my business school courses in the School of Business. I taught them across the street in this, in the residence college. And the reason for that was I felt like if students were in the same environment, you know, they'd have the same problems. And in fact, when Bob Quinn asked me to come to Michigan, teach MBAs— remember, I don't have a business degree— I remember saying, MBAs are dull, drab, and awful. You can hear them think.
