Idea Time Innovation with Dr. Jo North

Join me and my special guest Richard Hall, founder of Pd-m International Limited, an innovation, product design and manufacturing consultancy. We discuss the success factors of getting a product from concept to commercialisation or use in practice. Richard shares his definition of innovation and the different levels and types of innovation, from incremental to disruptive. Richard and I both use de...

Join me in this episode with my special guest Leila Ainge on Virtual Facilitation using Microsoft teams. We also discuss ambitious goals and goal-setting as well as Leila's 'Pavilion Ponders' and more!   Leila shares tips on how to use Microsoft Teams for facilitated sessions, including setting up breakout groups by setting up channels in advance, using other tools that integrate with Teams and ho...

I love that we can unexpectedly find light in unexpected places.   Through lockdown I sat here in North Yorkshire and made a new friend in Christine Francis in Beirut.  Christine is a highly qualified and accomplished change leadership expert and coach, and it was an absolute pleasure to spend time with her on the latest episode of my Idea Time podcast.   Christine and I found each other on Instag...

Sarah Price is Strategic Manager and Director of a Community Interest Company that delivers physical activities for schools. She is an Idea Time programme member, and has also joined the new Business Growth Club run by Mahmood Reza and me. Sarah shares her leadership story through recent months and how she has navigated the challenges of lockdown with her school customers and remote team engagemen...

In this podcast, which celebrates the upcoming launch of our new Business Growth Club with Mahmood and Jo  I share the key success factors for scaling up your business.  I cover: The importance of testing that the demand exists for your product or service Why it's important to have solid, streamlined and replicable business processes to support your scale up and some easy ways that you can get rea...

Join me and my special guest Mahmood Reza, The Numbers Rockstar , in this special edition podcast to launch our Business Growth Club for entrepreneurs and business owners who want to scale up successfully and sustainably. “Ideas are cheap. It is building them into profitable companies that is hard. Ideas are like insects. Many are born but few live to maturity.” William Hertling Imagine that busin...

In this podcast, I share some more tips on how to facilitate a virtual innovation or design sprint. I cover: What is an innovation or design sprint A typical format Different sprint methods - Google sprint, Design Thinking, Creative Problem Solving Toolkit and delegate resource examples How I use tools such as Mentimeter and Milanote to get delegate engagement To download the slides that accompany...

Ackoff statement   This episode focuses on how to create great challenge statements for innovation and growth. Whether you are an innovator, entrepreneur or facilitator, starting off with a challenge statement helps you to focus.   In this podcast I cover:  - What is a challenge statement, and how they can help with innovation and business growth.  - Why questions are great for problem-solving and...

Download the slide pack from this podcast from my free content studio at https://bigbangpartnership.co.uk/reso...   From March 2020, with the outbreak of Covid-19 and the changes it has brought, how to pivot seems to have been one of the most prominent business themes in the media, after of course the financial and operational impact of the pandemic. As a result of Covid-19, we have seen gin manuf...

Join me for my conversation with Sales Marvel , Keith Rozelle, on Selling in these Challenging Times. Keith mentors Business Owners, Sales Professionals and Entrepreneurial Students to win more customers. He creates highly effective sales strategies for his clients and is a globally experienced sales leader – both as a Director setting strategy and also as an individual contributor selling complex...

It’s wonderful that we can connect through a variety of brilliant, intuitive and affordable online meeting tools, especially during times such as these. These tools, such as Zoom, Teams and others, make it so easy that I’ve witnessed a lack in creativity and engagement in some online sessions I’ve attended as a delegate. To get the best results and deliver a great experience for our delegates, as...

With so many people in business experiencing slow down, cancellations and having to adapt to more remote working, plus others finding brand new business opportunities, I wanted to do something to help and support. These are unprecedented  times for many of us, I’m sure. But knowing that we have got a flexible plan to get through, make the most of opportunities and emerge stronger on the other side...

In this solo episode, I share some of the easy, proactive & free things I have been doing to both help me through this lockdown period as a facilitator, as well as to develop my facilitation skills and continue to strengthen my business. Activities include:  - Journaling my facilitation experiences, ideas, getting creative and emptying my head  - Asking for structured, specific feedback on percept...

In this episode I explain why and how using story-based techniques can increase the creativity and impact of your workshop facilitation. I share 10 story-based creative facilitation techniques that you can use in your workshops, too - and if you'd like to download the free resource pack that goes with this episode, please go to my Content Studio here , scroll down to the section called 'Facilitati...

Join me and Gareth Harrison, professional video and podcast editor, for his 10 top tips on how to create and level up your own videos and podcasts. Gareth is a freelance video editor based in Leeds, West Yorkshire – with over 15 years experience in post-production, editing content for tv and online commercials, corporate videos, internal communications, live events, charities and social media. Gar...

This episode is all about you and your ideas. An idea is when two thoughts connect. Having an idea is a physical activity. It is chemical and electrical. Sometimes we think we are having a moment of insight that comes from nowhere, but actually our mind and our creative subconscious have been working on it in the background. It is only when it becomes apparent that a connection is made, that the b...

Dr. Mo Khan is my guest on this special edition podcast on innovation culture and opportunities in challenging times. Mo is the founder of Enhance  Innovation and author of the e-book, The Innovator's Treasure Chest , which you can download for free here . Mo has had a fantastic career and worked internationally with world-class engineering businesses. We discuss how important innovation is in cha...

Listen in for my productivity hacks that I have put together specifically for workshop facilitators.  Save time and energy, so that you can spend the time doing what you do best. Being creative, engaging and facilitating your delegates and getting your target results and impacts from your workshops. If you'd like to go one step further, you'll also love my free playbook download, Productivity for...

Join me and Georgia Duffee from Benedetto in this special podcast episode to help with planning and strategising in these exceptionally challenging times.  The episode was recorded at lunchtime on Friday 20th March 2020. Georgia has participated as a delegate in both my paid and free programmes for business leaders, including one that I'm running right now - Creative Reset -  to support business o...

In this solo episode I share my thoughts, experiences and tips on how to maintain a resilient, focused and healthy mindset when navigating your business through what is a period of change and uncertainty. I explore the theme of resilience and why it's important, and show how we can use the change curve to manage our own wellbeing and business decision-making to get better outcomes. If you'd like t...

In this special edition podcast with Mahmood Reza , the Numbers Rockstar, Mahmood shares advice on what small businesses can do to navigate these exceptional, challenging times. He's an accounting and finance specialist and has also created a special blog focused on Covid-19 and cashflow here . Mahmood gives a step-by-step guide for entrepreneurs who want to do a cashflow forecast for the next 3-4...

Welcome to this episode on Appreciative Inquiry for Facilitators. In this podcast I explain what Appreciative Inquiry is, how it is a strengths-based approach, and how it can be useful for facilitators. I share an Appreciative Inquiry facilitation process and a variety of tools, techniques and activities that you can use in your own facilitation. If you'd like to download the free toolkit, go to t...

      In this podcast, How to Facilitate Workshops with Broken Teams, I explore dysfunction in teams and why teams might be broken, and move on to the theme of trust. I then share a suggested agenda with you that you can use and adapt and tweak if you are planning to facilitate a session with a team that is not connecting. For those of you who haven’t met me, I am Jo North and I love facilitating,...

The theme for this episode is How to Facilitate Business Growth Workshops. I take you through how you to design and facilitate a full business growth workshop that takes you from looking at changes and trends in the outside world through to looking internally at the business, and thinking about its strengths, the aspirations, the capabilities. These are my favourite business growth activities. I r...

The focus of my podcast here is on how to facilitate business improvement events. Business improvement is about efficiency, effectiveness, it is about the business operating as well as it possibly can. That means with no waste, no duplication, no quality issues. It is all running really smoothly. There are some deep techniques on business improvement, such as Lean and Six Sigma. I am not going to...