Posted
on May 15, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Innovation.
To ignite you innovation, seek people different from you.
© by Connecting Forward
Frans Johansson writes in “The Medici Effect” (
page 82):
“… if you wish to generate intersectional ideas, you should seek environments where you will work with people who are different from you. Put another way: A sure path to inhibit your own creativity is to seek out environments where people are just like you”.
This is very true about corporate organisations (or, in fact, any enterprise). However, this is very true also to You Inc. Your own innovation capabilities. Your own career. Your own career progression. Or even, your own start-up.
In a sense, you will never come up with new ideas (and even less, breakthrough ideas) if your life environment is filled with people that think just like you, that like what you like, that… and the list goes on.
During the last 4 weeks, how many people did you meet:
- From a different professional background?
- From a different cultural background?
- From a different country?
- With a different religious belief?
- With different passions?
We like being with people just like us. It’s our comfort zone.
Get out, gain diversity of contacts to propel the innovation that will enable your life-long progress.
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on May 8, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Innovation.
Being the bridge for your contacts in two different industries is very valuable.
You nurture the links in your network, providing value to them. Can you offer any benefit when you are just starting in a new industry? Of course! Even more so, the fact that you come from another industry puts you in a unique position to add value.
There is a large amount of academic research in that area (academics call it ‘structural holes’). One of the findings regarding networking between two industries is this: ‘The more different the two industries, the more valuable a person who is connected to both industries becomes.’
If you make a move from the public to the private sector, or vice versa, you will also have many opportunities to build bridges between them. You will be in an excellent position to demystify half-truths from one side to the other.
After your industry change, most probably for some time you will keep receiving trade magazines from your previous industry. Do not discard them. Read them from your new perspective. Look out for articles or ideas that can be of use to someone in your new industry.
Excerpt from the book Connecting Forward.
You can buy the book or take complementary tests.
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on May 1, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General.
Last week I participated in a workshop to identify and foster certain clusters in a particular country. During the day it became even clearer to me that clusters need people more than companies.
Of course, clusters are about companies being part of a chain of suppliers and collaborators. However, people are an indispensable ingredient to develop the cluster and make it thrive.
In fact, it’s not the people per se, but the networks created by those people. The networks are what will make the difference between an average cluster and a top innovative cluster.
Oftentimes it is hard for the cluster’s stakeholders to spark such personal networks. And this is despite the fact that most studies point out to the need for this connections. For instance, Christian Ketels (Harvard Business School) wrote: “being close and working on related issues is not enough – for positive cluster effects to occur some level of active interaction has to be present”.
Or even a study by the US National Governors Association included: “The single most important operating principle of competitive clusters is the ability to network extensively and form networks selectively”.
Connections between people, the necessary ingredient for clusters.
References:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on April 24, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General.
Your suit must fit your body.
Your self-introduction must fit your person.
A self-introduction is a striking single sentence that you can say to people when meeting for the first time.
You have read previously in this blog about its preparation, practice, adaptation and fine-tuning.
Yesterday was the World Book Day, which is a big day in Catalonia. Gild International kindly invited me to present the book “Connecting Forward“. The presentations (there were two, one for the English edition and another for the Spanish one) dealt with the importance of preparing your self-introduction and making it memorable. You want people to remember YOU among the hundreds of other people they have met.
Humour is a trick that can make your self-introduction memorable. However, not everyone feels comfortable with it. If you don’t feel at ease putting a dose of humour in your self-introduction, find something else that can make it unforgetable. For sure you have something that makes you unique:
- Where you born in a special place (small country, well known small town, etc)?
- Have you worked for a well-known person or celebrity?
- Are you a record-holder or have you performed some notable exploit?
- Is your name peculiar in a way that you can leverage?
Make your self-introduction memorable in a way that fits your person.
Then you will deliver it naturally and people will remember YOU.
Related links and references:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on April 17, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General.
In our Internet age we do not need meetings any more. Or do we? Yes, of course we do!
Our professional network is based on mutual trust. Trust is controlled by parts of the brain that were hard-wired when we lived in caves. We were close to each other. We looked each other in the eye. We even smelled each other…
When you organise a meeting, ensure you enable your participants to crystallise potential professional connections.
How will you help them make the right connections? Should you plan for more coffee breaks? Or should you throw more technological gadgets in the participants’ bags?
Most of the conference organisers whom I help to create an environment to facilitate networking understand that having more coffee breaks or technological gadgets will not ensure success. To have participants successfully connect to each other needs much more than that.
You need to:
- facilitate the “discovery” of people with similar interests,
- design the program appropriately,
- encourage serendipitous encounters,
- remind them all along of some “networking tips”, and
- stimulate them to follow-up.
The return-on-networking (R.O.N.) is not measured by the number of business cards exchanged by participants. It is measured by the mutual benefit achieved via the connections activated at the meeting.
Of course, the necessary nurturing of those connections post-meeting is out of your control. However, you can give provide them with tools and tactics that can help the participants themselves do the nurturing.
If the participants increase their R.O.N., you will increase your R.O.I.
Note: This article was originally published in the EIBTM blog.
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on April 10, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Innovation.
Can your accountant spark innovation?
I am not thinking about “innovative accounting” which can lead to problems with the Revenue and Tax Office. I am thinking of getting innovative ideas to be used in other domains.
You read in an earlier post how Elmer Sperry innovated in the 19th Century by building bridges across sectors. Accountants are perceived to be boring. Elmer Sperry’s accountant sparked at least one of his innovations.
In the 1920s, Sperry was working on a process to make white lead from waster products of copper refining. One day Colburn Pinkham, the accountant of Sperry’s company, showed a new shirt he was wearing. It was “brightly white” and made from a new material that had been recently commercialised.
Elmer didn’t wait a second to grab a pair of scissors. He cut a piece from the Colburn brand new shirt! After analysing the piece, he studied the process used to make that material. He was able to use it to make white lead. “The process was sold to the Anaconda Copper Company and a large plant was set up at South Chicago”.
Next time you meet your accountant, look beyond the numbers: explore the person.
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on April 3, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Tools.
You’re at a coffee break.
How do you start a conversation with someone?
The most important thing you need is Preparation (with a capital P). We’ve seen in other posts about the importance of preparing your self-introduction. You also need to bring some prepared conversation starters with you. Otherwise, you might spend too long trying to find a way to start a conversation with that person. By the time you think of something, the person might have gone or might be talking to someone else.
But, what do you prepare? Well, you prepare sentences and rehearse them so that they come out automatically and you don’t really need to concentrate or think about it.
The following are ideas to keep you going (they come from the references at the bottom):
- What in the program appealed to you?
- What do you like best about what you do?
- What’s your opinion on [the latest technology breakthrough] in our industry?
- What’s your feeling about [the top news item of that day]?
It is better to use open questions than closed questions (which can be answered by yes/no). The former can start a conversation. The latter might well just end there…
Related books:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on March 27, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Innovation.
Building bridges across sectors can be a great source of innovation.
We tend to imply that this happens in the 21st century. We assume that we need the Internet to connect with people so that such bridges can be built. However, in the late 19th Century we had a great example: Elmer Sperry.
He was working on dynamos and electricity generation.
He once said:
“If I spend a lifetime on a dynamo I can probably make my little contribution toward increasing the efficiency of that machine 6 or 7%. Now then, there are a whole lot of industries that need electricity, about 400 or 500. Let me tackle one of those.”
So what did he do? He applied dynamos into very different industries.
He was doing consulting work, which made him to get to know very different people in very different industries. This enabled him to know where the “bridges” could be built.
The lesson: Have your eyes wide open to new contacts who can know of opportunities in other sectors.
Such contacts do not only appear via Twitter…!
Related links:
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on March 20, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
General.
Remember their name or send them valuable information?
In the previous post you could read tips and
tricks to remember names.
That post reflected only the first part of my answer to a question asked at several of my recent keynotes in London this month.
The second part of my answer can be summarised as: “Remembering names is superficial matter. The important matter is the value you bring to the other person.”
What I’ve realised after so many years of having an awful memory for names and faces, is that it is best to state upfront that you cannot remember the name.
What becomes important is that you make it clear upfront. You get this issue out of the way and then you can move on with your discussion. You ascertain ways to give something of value to the other person.
If you introduce the other person to someone (or send them an article) who might help them solve a challenge, they will be happier than if you just remembered their names but didn’t bring any value to them.
Remember their names? If you can.
Bring value to them? Always.
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
Posted
on March 13, 2012, 01:00,
by Jordi Robert-Ribes,
under
Tools.
What should I do to remember the names of people you meet at conferences and events?
This question was asked at several of my keynotes and seminars last week in London. So it might be worth pointing to some ideas, which come from Will Kintish and Jan Vermeiren (references at the bottom):
- Make sure you hear the person’s name.
- If the other person is wearing a nametag, look at it and read the name.
- Repeat their name on hearing it.
- Associate their name with another person you know or some object.
- If you realise it is a difficult name ask the other person to spell it.
- Comment (gracefully!) on the name.
- Use the name during the conversation saying it several times in a natural way.
- Use the name once again when you and the person you just met part company.
What if the above fails, you meet again someone and you cannot remember the name at all?
Susan RoAne gives the following advice:
- Say so – with humour.
- Always state your name when greeting someone (they might have forgotten your name as well). Most people reply in kind.
In any case, Susan writes: Never, ever ask, “Do you remember me?” It puts people on the spot and can make for an uncomfortable scene…
References:
- The vital importance of remembering names. Will Kintish, Speakeasy Magazine, March/April 2010, pages 10-11. (Available here)
- Let’s Connect, Chapter 5 (pages 176-182). Jan Vermeiren (2007).
- “The forgotten name game”, on page 105 of “How to Work a Room“, Susan RoAne, (Harper Paperbacks, 2007).
Connecting Forward: Buy yours at Amazon.co.uk
