About

BACKGROUND

My name is Kevin Holt. I’m a strategic planning consultant, workshop facilitator, and twice-published author based in Phoenix, Arizona. I founded and am the sole employee of Co.Innovation Consulting.

I started the company in 2001 when I became fascinted by the idea of increasing a group’s IQ by combining people, processes, and platforms:

  • Assemble a cognitively-diverse group of people and guide them with . . .

  • A set of sophisticated meeting and problem-solving processes implemented on . . .

  • Advanced collaboration and (now) generative AI technology platforms.

Prior to forming the company, I held officer-level real estate (development & acquisition) and consulting positions in the hotel industry, including a seat on the executive committee of a national hotel chain.

I’m a voracious reader. (A bookaholic is another way to put it.) I’ve built a 2,000-book library that contains large collections on strategy, creativity, innovation, design thinking, customer research, meeting methods, group dynamics, groupware, collaboration, collective intelligence, and cognitive science.

I received a BS degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MBA from Arizona State University.

COMPANY

Co.Innovation is short for Collaborative Innovation.

Collaborative innovation is about working together to generate and implement creative ideas. When done right, a group is able to generate ideas that none of its group members previously possessed or could have come to on their own. (That's a sentence worth reading twice.)

Collaborative innovation is needed now more than ever because:

  • Global competition and rapid advances in technology require ever-more sophisticated strategies and solutions. 

  • Problems have become so complex that no one person has the skills to solve them.

The byline Collaborate > Innovate > Excel is an abbreviated way of saying that collaboration drives innovation and innovation is what enables your organization to excel.

The logo is an abstract depiction of two people thinking together by iteratively stimulating each other’s thoughts. As the old saying goes, “Two heads are better than one,” and as the newer version puts it, “Nobody is as smart as everybody.”

Perhaps it's time you get serious about putting collaborative innovation to work for you.

EXPERIENCE

I’ve done a multitude of meetings and workshops throughout the United State and in London, Geneva, Singapore, and Delhi as well as online. Clients include commercial, government, and nonprofit organizations. Representative clients are:

  • Avnet

  • Arizona Medical Association

  • Best Western International

  • Burba Hotel Network

  • CGG Geoscience

  • City of Williams

  • ComRent International

  • Cornell University

  • Derive Systems

  • Florida Solar Energy Center

  • KEO Marketing

  • MeetingNews Magazine

  • MONY Realty Capital

  • National Golf Course Owners Assn.

  • Pyramid Hotel Group

  • St. Vincent de Paul

  • Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE)

  • United States Forest Service