Marisa Boevers

• How is your presentation relevant to the theme of this year’s BBC conference: Innovation in the Fast Lane?

Most new ideas and innovation come from sharing and evolving ideas among colleagues. There may be companies where those ideas are exchanged via written memos, but in most companies that communication happens via meetings.

To accelerate innovation, you have to make your meetings the most productive, efficient tool that they can be. In our presentation, we’re going to share over a dozen tools that attendees can use in their meetings and work sessions to turn their meetings from talk-fests and to innovation accelerators.

• What are your top tips for companies or employees wishing to innovate?

Enterprise communication is crucial for successful innovation. It needs to functioning at all levels, from interpersonal one-one, between groups and teams, and between the enterprise and leadership. Having great communication where real understanding is happening is what makes innovation possible.

Relatedly, transparency is great innovation propellant. The greater awareness your organization has about your innovation goals, targets, focus areas, and efforts, the greater success you’ll have.

The corollary of the is that jargon and language complexity is the enemy of innovation. Since innovation is often tied to new technologies or ideas, it can be tempting for leaders and experts to throw around terms that others don’t know. But innovation is improved with greater engagement and transparency—so don’t let words be barriers to engagement.