‘How We Innovate’ podcast – with Bonnie D. Graham

This time, we’ll be talking with Bonnie D. Graham, the Radio & Podcast Creator-Producer-Host-Moderator since 1998. She’s been a host of 40+ virtual roundtable thought leadership live podcast series that bring savvy experts’ business and technology insights to attentive global audiences. She’s also an artist, drummer, and photographer. Read more👇

About Bonnie

Bonnie D. Graham is a creator, producer, and host of radio series for SAP, other organizations, and two of her own, broadcasting on the Business Channel and live streaming Zoom video on LinkedIn and Facebook. Her annual global audience reaches ~1.5+ million people. She’s been a host of 40+ virtual roundtable thought leadership live podcast series that bring savvy experts’ business and technology insights to attentive global audiences. She was recently dubbed “Radio Royalty” for her high-energy hosting of roundtable conversations about technology and business strategies!

She runs her own podcast called Technology Revolution: The Future of Now, where she meets with forward-thinking pioneers and discusses life-changing technologies and topics like privacy, drones, social media noise, and wine technology live each week.

What struck us is the high merit of the informative speakers who address topics that deal with new technologies and their impact on business and everyday life. A great way to stay informed, motivated, and explore ideas you thought you already knew. A must for entrepreneurs and people with interest in business and science.

Her wishes for today’s Women in Big Data: Open your heart and mind to opportunities. If they don’t appear, create them. Explore and nurture your strengths. Stay real. Speak up. Work hard. Laugh. Cry. Dream. Love. I’m cheering for you!

Few Questions to Bonnie:

1. What was your first job, and what was the most important thing you learned from it?  

Mainframe computer programmer/analyst working for the state of Oregon, immediately after graduating with twin degrees in Computer Programming and Computer Operations with a 4.0 GPA!
Most important learnings – first, that I had to stay until 5 PM [this was my first real job EVER], and second, programming was thrilling for me, and writing thousands of lines of code to create a report made my brain happy!

2. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you have a beer with? 

Steve Jobs for two reasons:
His Apple personal computer confounded me when my marketing job required me to transition from a mainframe to a little box on my desk with a weird push-toy called “a mouse” – duh?
Years later, Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011 – the same day as the debut of my first enterprise thought leadership radio show, Coffee Break with Game-Changers Radio, presented by SAP.

3. How do you start your day / What does a typical day look like for you? 

I prefer to tell you how I end my day – I stay up til midnight to play the new Wordle and send the score share chart to my friend Pat via text.
Then in bed, I play Words With Friends on my big Ipad with the handy magnetic pencil – I currently have 50 games going with 8 people around the world, half of whom I have never met… on a typical night, 18-25 games are ready for me. WWF “uses up” the rest of the energy in my head and relaxes me to fall asleep.

4. What are three apps you can’t live without? 

• Does Word With Friends count?

• Wikipedia [considered an app or a site?] for researching the fictional movie and TV character quotes I require from my radio guests. The quotes cannot be literally about the show topic. I ask guests to relate quote-to-topic in their own words in my fun ‘Pop Culture Meets Business’ segment. 

• Online banking for check deposits – when an occasional paper check arrives by mail, online deposit saves having to mail a check or drive to a bank [so “yesterday!”]

• In case WWF doesn’t count, iMovie is the app I use to create my art-and-music videos [a new passion project] that adds Ken Burns effect motion to still photos of my paintings, plus cool “effects” over a digitally created music track composed by my friend in France.

5. Most influential book or a movie? 

Most influential movie quotes [from my radio guests]:
“You can’t handle the truth!” – Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, USMC [played by Jack Nicholson], A Few Good Men, 1992 legal drama/trial drama
“Ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strange.” – David Bowie’s song lyrics
“Do or do not. There is no ‘try’.” – Yoda, Star Wars
“All you need is love.” – The Beatles
“Pivot. Pivot. Piiivvvvottte.” – Ross Geller [played by David Schwimmer], Friends, Season 5, Episode 16 “The One with the Cop”, February 25, 1999
“So you’re telling me there’s a chance…” – Lloyd Christmas [played by Jim Carrey] to Mary [played by Lauren Holly], Dumb and Dumber, 1994 buddy comedy film

6. What is your favorite cocktail?

Non-alcoholic – my morning shake: banana – cocoa – 2% milk – agave [organic light blue agave nectar] – frozen strawberries
Alcohol – a small glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur or its less-expensive cousin, Carolan’s Irish Cream [delicious, half the price!]

When can you expect the episode?

The episode will be published on the 21st of July 2022. Don’t miss it – follow us on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, where you can also check our previous episodes!

🎧 Listen to the episode here 🎧