Intrapreneurship Conference #Stockholm
After Vienna in February, I decided to attend again the Intrapreneurship Conference, this time in Stockholm. And oh my, it was good. Let me tell you why.
#0: Intrapreneurship… What?
Some people say intrapreneurship is an attitude rather than a skill, others are creating intensive intrapreneurship programmes for their employees to foster innovation. But what is it really?
“Intrapreneurship is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization.”*
“Intrapreneurship helps big organizations to innovate faster, better and continuously, by adapting innovation methods successfully used by startups. Intrapreneurship is a driver for accelerating culture change and organizational transformation, developing the capability to capitalize on opportunities for growth. Embedding intrapreneurship also helps to attract, retain and develop the best and brightest talent.”**
Right, now you know what intrapreneurship means and why it is now looked by companies as the new way to innovate, engage employees and perform better in an ever-moving and changing environment. Let’s now have a look at what we have learnt at the last Intrapreneurship conference where 170 innovators / disruptors / intrapreneurs met during 3 days in Stockholm.
#1: The importance of the environment
The first thing that surprised me when I joined #IntraCnf is the environment we were in. We started the conference at the Epicenter, a campus for successful start-ups, and I must say it is one of the most inspiring workplaces I have ever been to. As soon as I entered the place, I instantaneously felt inspired, creative and wanted to work there myself.
It seems crazy but the space has been extremely well-thought for every need an entrepreneur may have: a quiet room to focus, a beautiful and colourful area to get creative, meeting rooms, cantine, etc. There even was a cuddling room, full of teddy bears and couches! But the best things were on the walls: inspiring quotes, inviting thoughts, whiteboards with personal notes and achievements, etc. The elevator for people with disability was even called the “elevator pitch”. Love it. And it’s in this environment that we were invited to listen to inspiring people, exciting stories and to engage in networking exercices.
#2: Discovering Stockholm’s ecosystem
Another wonderful thing about this conference has been to be immersed into Stockholm’s ecosystem: whether it was through local speakers, attending the Intrapreneurship Awards ceremony or by visiting innovative hubs and companies and understanding what makes them successful.
I had the chance to go to Google’s head office and attend a training workshop on design thinking. There again the environment was perfectly thought for creativity and it was fascinating to explore more on how Google embraces intrapreneurship as part of their ways of working.
#3: Participating in excellent workshops
My two highlights during this conference were workshops, one on prototyping by Fredrik Heghammar and one on “Reframing your thinking” by Patrick Leenheers and Rod Ben Zeev from THNK.
In the first workshop, we looked at how companies could attract and retain more diverse talents. Split into teams, we had to come up with many ideas, select one, prototype it and test it to see if it could work. And we only had an hour! The idea is to test quickly and fail fast before putting any idea into implementation. My team chose to look at an app like Tinder to match companies’ vacancies and available talents. I’ll let you have look at our prototyped idea as shown on this video and make your own judgement:
Click HERE to see the video.
The second workshop focused on how to reframe negative core beliefs into something positive and value-creating. In an hour my team managed to transform our core belief “The C-level is hindering innovation” into “The C-Heroes of innovation are leading our future”. Great tools to see someone’s else perspective, create positive core beliefs and see the glass half full!
#4: Meeting inspiring people
Like in Vienna, I haven’t been disappointed by the people I have met during the 3 days of the conference. What an inspiring bunch! The level of expertise, experience and openness in the room was outstanding. And it’s the people who make the whole event worthwhile. Whether it was the speakers, the organisers, the participants or the hosts: everyone was cheerful, happy to share their stories and willing to participate and learn from each other. I guess this is why we all love going to these types of events: meeting like-minded people who are trying to make a change in their teams, companies or even sometimes in the world and who can inspire us to be a better version of ourselves at the end of the 3 days.
What next?
If you think you are an intrapreneur or would like to know more about what it is and how you can help your company to embrace it, well it’s simple: get in touch with the IntraConf team, with myself or come to the next Intrapreneurship Conference!
- October 2017: Cape Town
- November 2017: Toronto
And more to come after that… I hope to see you there!
