Idea Time Innovation with Dr. Jo North

In this week’s episode, I share some of my facilitation techniques, skills and tips to help you take your facilitation skills to the next level. Facilitating a workshop or meeting can be challenging at times, and that’s why I’m here to share my experience of facilitating thousands of people in different sectors in countries all over the world. For more free innovation and facilitation resources, g...

You’ve got a great business idea… How do you know if it stacks up financially? What about the other, non-financial risks and benefits? How do you decide if it’s a go-er or not, and how do you influence the people you need to support you and maybe even invest in your innovation? These are the questions that I’ll help you to answer in this week’s show. I’ll walk through how to create a realistic, cr...

Leading and managing change is one of the most essential skills leaders, managers, innovators and entrepreneurs need in business today.   Everything around us is always changing, and our businesses need to be able to respond dynamically to those changes.   Plus, resistance to change gets in the way of great ideas happening. Imagine if all the unused, uncommunicated great ideas that people in the b...

This week’s episode provides innovators, facilitators and change makers with the tools and confidence to engage, inspire and move others to make progress, take action and get on board with new initiatives through the power of stories. Business storytelling is a powerful communications tool for connecting with and moving people, and it’s a learnable skill. It includes: Why we are all wired to engag...

As the world is fortunately starting to open up once more, many workshop facilitators need to lead “mixed mode” meetings. These “mixed mode” meetings combine some delegates attending virtually, others in person. The advantages of combined virtual and in-person workshops are that people across large distances can connect. Mixed mode does need special consideration and planning, however, to make sur...

In this week’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Tim Whitworth and Paul Knight from the National Nuclear Laboratory in the UK. National Nuclear Laboratory works globally at the forefront of nuclear science, providing knowledge, technology, and access to cutting-edge facilities to partners and customers. Their innovative approach means their people embrace the opportunity to make new scientific discoverie...

Our ideas are our competitive currency. They are what differentiate us, our team and our organisation from everyone else. They’re at the heart of innovation because, of course, everything starts with an idea.   But getting your team to have great ideas in your online meetings and remote workshops can be a challenge. Especially these days, when we are still spending so much time on Zoom, MS Teams,...

Do you have great ideas for your business, but never seem to have the time to make them happen? Have you got so many plates spinning that innovation, initiatives that would grow your business and potential opportunities fall by the wayside? This episode of the Idea Time Show will help you with practical tactics that you can use, starting right now, to turn those great ideas from a “maybe one day”...

In this episode, I share 5 of my favourite quick, creative, fun and effective energizers for your online meetings and remote workshops. They are awesome to have in your virtual facilitation toolkit! And if you’d like even more where these came from, you’ll find 26 brilliant energizers for your online meetings here in my blog: https://www.bigbangpartnership.co.uk/26-online-energizers-for-virtual-te...

Join me and my special guest, Nick Bradley, founder of Mandala Leaders, for this week’s podcast on leading innovation and change. Don't forget to get a free copy of Nick’s book,   Zero to Authentic Hero . Zero to Authentic Hero is designed to help you be the best version of your authentic leadership self and achieve much more success with much less stress. Nick is a successful businessman having w...

An unfair disadvantage is behind every single business or career success story. In this episode, I’ll show you why it’s important to identify your own Unfair Advantages and how to apply them to your business or career. You’ll need more than hard work and determination, and I’ll explore the importance of money, intelligence, insight, location, education, expertise, status and luck in your success j...

The purpose of this episode is to create space and insight for you to think about some useful, pragmatic competitor analysis for your business, to support innovation and growth.   Competitor analysis evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of competitors’ current strategies to help identify opportunities and threats for your business to enhance your own strategy.   When seen through a customer-focu...

If your customers don’t care enough about your innovation, or if they simply don’t understand it, they won’t buy. How to Create Your Value Proposition focuses on how to make sure that your business ideas for new products or services, and product or service improvements, meet and exceed your target customers’ expectations. It’s the focus of one of the inhouse online live programmes that I run for m...

Leading Remote Collaboration focuses in creating an environment and culture for effective cross-functional team working. It’s the focus of one of the inhouse online live programmes that I run for my clients. The participant feedback from the programme has been fantastic, so I wanted to share some of the key principles from the content with you on my show. This episode takes a realistic, human view...

Innovation has never been more important for you and your business. It used to be that only fashion and technology companies had to reimagine themselves every year. Now everything, from accountants, estate agents, food brands and travel companies are under constant pressure to stay ahead of the curve and keep and attract customers with new, better and smarter products, services and business models...

Today I have a special guest on the show, Kathryn Creed. Kathryn is a clinical hypnotherapist who works with clients using the power of hypnosis to help them to connect with their unconscious minds, helping them to whatever outcome they would like to achieve. Her career in Education gave her the relevant experience, as for her, like therapy, teaching is all about helping a person to learn and grow...

Join me for this podcast episode which is all about daring to be different as virtual facilitators - what does that mean? how to do it?  - practical tips on how to be braver and stand out as a virtual facilitator for all the right reasons.   You might also enjoy my special blog and free resources on how to dare to be differen t which you can find here .    

In this solo episode I share my experience of facilitating online at Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival 2020. The sessions I led were on the value of water, and climate change with Kielder Forest and Water Park . You can find out more about the Innovation Festival 2020 here. For more free tips and advice on virtual facilitation, have a look at my blog here.

I loved learning more about visible thinking, thinking routines and virtual facilitation in this episode with my special guest, Claire Bown founder at Thinking Museum.   Claire is based in Amsterdam and works internationally. She has always been fascinated by developing methods that help people to engage with art and museums creatively and in a thought-provoking, inquiry-led way.  Claire does a gr...

Tune in for my mindfulness tools, tips and techniques for virtual facilitators. Learn how to slow down your digital facilitation in your online meetings to go faster and be more productive overall! In this episode I share practical things that you can do to increase your energy and support your wellbeing when you're going from online workshop to online workshop. Everything I share is scientificall...

In this solo episode I share why taking time to build trust between delegates and an environment that helps with psychological safety is essential for generating engagement in online meetings and workshops.   I share some of the latest science on trust and psychological safety, along with practical tips to support you with your virtual facilitation.   To join my free private Facebook group, Idea T...

Join me and innovators Mark Whittaker from Velresco and Chris Wilson from Adamo to hear the story of how Mark created a new virtual whiteboard for online meetings and workshops called VWall back in 2010, well ahead of the curve, and how VWall has developed to being an invaluable tool for many facilitators here and now. Mark and Chris share how VWal l is a great facilitation tool, and how easy it i...

In this solo podcast I share practical tips and advice for facilitators on how to get ideas flowing in your virtual workshops and online meetings. I also share information about my free online programme for facilitators, Supercharge Your Virtual Engagement on Zoom , which you can join for free HERE . In the podcast you'll learn: How ideas are formed and why that's important for your online session...

Join me and Mahmood Reza, the Numbers Rockstar , for this special edition episode to celebrate the first year of the official #lovemyaccountantday on 25th August. Mahmood has worked to officially get this day into the annual event calendar.   Listen in to find out:  - How Mahmood created an official day in the event calendar and why  - Why Mahmood is so passionate about helping business owners to...

In this solo episode I share my top Productivity Hacks for Virtual Facilitators. My FREE Supercharge Your Virtual Engagement on Zoom Challenge starts on 7th September - you can find out more and sign up here . Here are the links to the tools I mention: SessionLab for planning and designing sessions. Ecamm Live for video recording and live videos. Canva for designing great presentations and graphic...