"Real life innovation" is the title of the speech, but the subtitle is better: Find Money, Co-opt Naysayers, and Bring Good Ideas into Imperfect Organizations.

If you're anywhere close to product management, we hope you're coming to the Product Development and Management Association's 2016 annual conference. The topic of real life innovation is dear to my heart because I spent years on the inside: working first as a technology product manager then in market research with large, imperfect organizations, trying to do real customer-focused innovation.

It's not always easy. Samantha Bailey, head of user experience at Merrill, is going to talk about that part. Sometimes -- lots of times! -- the money isn't there. You've got plans for a grand development road trip, but there's no gas in the tank to get out of the driveway.

The right advocating, though, can change that. And suddenly: there's money! Samantha will talk about the advocating and networking, and how to prepare so that you're ready to go when the money does appear -- before it disappears again.

I'll talk about how the right research approaches can turn naysayers into advocates because <shameless plug>we're really good at this at Phase 5. It's not just about executing world class research; it's about helping clients integrate that research into their organizations, to make them more customer-focused </shameless plug>. Samantha's going to riff on this as well.

Can't make the talk? Sign up here for our newsletter + the presentation PDF after the event.