This is the deck from a talk we gave on Bringing the Outside In: Collaborating with External Stakeholders to Discover Insights and Build Big Ideas at the 2013 Cincinnati Innovation Summit. Involving key stakeholders in innovation is a critical, but often overlooked criterion for success. Suppliers, influencers, third party buyers, customer gate keepers and other partners are not only critical to an initiative’s success, but they often have insight that can lead to bigger, better ideas. This breakout session will share the importance of involving external stakeholders in the process of generating insights that lead to ideas; and in the process of developing, piloting and launching new initiatives. We’ll share 2-3 case studies to inspire participants to build an action plan (template to be provided) to map key stakeholders and specific action steps to involve them in a current or future innovation initiative.