Dr. Penny Pullan

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

My session ‘Moving Your Virtual Teams and Projects Into The Fast Lane’ is super relevant to this year’s conference! Nowadays, it’s the norm for key people in our organisations not to be located in the same building, city, country or even continent. When you’re innovating, and speed is of the essence, you can’t wait weeks to get authorisation for people to travel to one place to be together. And you don’t want to leave out the best people just because they are scattered around the world. Luckily we have technology now that allows us to connect up without travel. The trouble is that most organisations don’t make the most of their virtual collaboration. It’s far more than just the technology, which I consider only 10% of what’s needed to to be effective. The missing piece is virtual leadership, where everyone involved steps up to be the best they can be virtually. Can you imagine the difference this could make to your organisation? Imagine higher levels of trust , great collaboration across cultures, distance and time zones and of course better outcomes for your innovation!

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

If you wish to innovate virtually then build a shared vision, connect deeply across your innovation team, work both synchronously and asynchronously and, well I would say it wouldn’t it, come to the workshop in San Antonio!