Entrepreneurial employees to boost innovation

A growing number of companies are putting strategies in place to let their employees express their entrepreneurial spirit. Intrapreneurship is gaining ground among companies facing constant innovation challenges  as well as constantly exploring ways to improve the motivation of their personnel.

Intrapreneurship bypasses the constant financial problems entrepreneurs face. It gives individuals the opportunity to initiate entrepreneurial and innovative projects in a secure environment provided by the company for which they work.  It creates  new  professional development and personal achievement  opportunities that  boost employee  motivation  and  increase retention. Intrapreneurship brings  undeniable  value  to  Human  Resource strategies, in addition to growth potential to the company; a win win situation for employers and employees

Experienced innovators and some of the most inspiring speakers in the areas of intrapreneurship and innovation will share their views and experience during Intrapreneurship Conference 2011, the first international conference on Intrapreneurship.  Major entrepreneurs from Alcatel-Lucent,  Google, Rabobank & Exki will address the positive impact of intrapreneurship in their organizations, how it unleashed creativity and empowered employees to better achieve personal objectives as well as  getting higher recognition for what they are doing. They will also address challenges that may be faced when developing Intrapreneurship strategies.

Intrapreneurship Conference 2011 will take place on December 2nd, 2011 in Brussels.

For more information and registrations: www.intrapreneurshipconference.com

Source: Press Release from organizers

Personal note: I was honored to be invited to this conference, as I am organizing International Conference on Intrapreneurship next year (19-22 July, Mamaia, Romania). I am a huge fan of people joining forces in promoting good concepts, so I hope that our two events will have a great impact on future workforce and employers in order to bring more innovation in our economies.

Networking without a purpose

You probably got used to be advised to have very clear objectives when you go to a conference, to have a clear purpose for networking. Yeah sure, if only we will work all our life in the same field/ company.

 What most people tend to forget is that we build a personal network of contacts that we should be able to use no matter the changes in our career, or the career changes of our contacts. We should connect to people, not with their current positions or companies. These can change even in a few months (which actually happens more and more in our endless opportunities and dynamic world). And another thing we tend to forget is that nobody likes at a conference to feel hunted for his/ her position. A great person is great in any professional position, so your interest should not change if he/she works somewhere else.

 I do network without a clear purpose at the time of the conference. I just like to meet new interesting people. And I like to connect with them, make them remember me, without wanting something from them. Sometimes I just give first, without asking for something. Of course, sooner or later I have ideas on how to benefit from the contacts I have - but that becomes just a way to maintain the relation over time. Is just like connecting the dots later on.

 So my advice:
- You are not just X Manager at Y company. You are more complex. And you might have different needs in the future than the needs you have now. So don't waste opportunities for the future just because you think they are not useful for now.
- He/ she is not just Z Manager at W company. He/ she is more complex. They might change their field/ company anytime. They might have parallel cool projects, or hobbies...
- Keep yourself curious. Explore. Get inspired.
- Make yourself pleasant, human. Don't make them feel as if you hunt them for their positions.
- Be yourself. You are a person, not a business card.