Velour Based Innovation... Cris Beswick

Welcome to the start of several blogs by myself Cris Beswick and Perry Timms on the lead up to this year’s CIPD conference. I’m a successful entrepreneur and now thought leader, speaker and author on strategy, culture and leadership for innovation. My partner in crime Mr Perry Timms is Head of Talent & Organisational Development at the Big Lottery and in my humble opinion, one of the most inspirational and passionate HR practitioners around.

So, as fellow speakers at last year’s conference what will we be doing for the CIPD this year. Well, several months ago and possibly after one too many vodka’s the idea of VBI was conceived. ‘Velour Based Innovation’, the crazy idea that we would lounge on a bright purple velvet sofa whilst engaging in a Baddiel & Skinner style discussion. The idea was to create a format to encourage dialogue as an alternative to the traditional monologue keynote speech.

As a speaker this would ordinarily be perceived as dangerous ground but I’ve never seen myself as a keynote speaker, I prefer to deliver what I call keynote conversations. I think of myself as a conduit that organisations use to help facilitate deep and meaningful conversations about what it takes to innovate and how to become exceptional. So, is this dangerous ground I ask? My answer, absolutely not! This is awesome ground. Ground where peers get to converse with and learn from fellow practitioners, where points of view, different perspectives and stories of successful initiatives will be shared creating far more value than any one speaker could deliver in an hour’s keynote.

So then, has the CIPD demonstrated it is changing and embracing a little risk, a different perspective and dare I say it trying to innovate? Did they embrace, wholeheartedly the idea of VBI a new twist on the traditional keynote address? Well, the answer is no I’m afraid. Whilst they have created an amazing mini arena for ACE Interactive and have VBI sessions on all three days they failed me on one thing! I didn’t get my purple sofa and instead have to put up with a red one!

All jokes aside Perry and I will pose and then facilitate some interesting questions and points of view but the beauty of VBI is that like anything in business you the audience will get out as much as you put in.

So check out VBI on Tuesday 9th from 13.00 – 14.00 where we’ll kick off with the question, ‘How do you get people to be extraordinary?’ On Wednesday we’ll be back at the same time with; ‘Are you celebrating averageness?’ and on Thursday between 12.15 -13.15 we’ll finish with ‘Are you on fire?’