Innovating Humanity

Josh Winfield is Head of Talent Visa for Tech Nation. Josh works closely with the government and tech businesses to support the immigration of tech talent to drive growth in UK tech businesses.  

I know Josh from a few years ago when he coached me on the Natwest Entrepreneur Accelerator programme. Josh is smart, forward-thinking and innovative and he understands startups having run his own business in his early twenties and coached hundreds of entrepreneurs and startups too. Josh is a challenger so it’s good for me to be challenging him with the questions for a change! 

The growth of tech businesses continues to astonish me and it’s exciting to consider where it might go next. Tech is at the heart of every business and if we want to grow businesses, we need to consider how we use tech to create innovative solutions to human problems. Tech can be used as a force for good or we can allow it to control our lives.  

What problem are you currently experiencing and what innovative solution might tech provide? 

Other free resources:

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Join our monthly Team Performance webinars
• Download White papers
• Sign up to our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips

www.judejennison.com in partnership with Birmingham Tech 

Jane Fallon is Head of Digital for the Midlands for a consultancy firm called Methods that creates human-centred design for the public and private sectors. She talks about the need to start with understanding the needs of the user in order to create digital services that work for humans. Our use of digital is growing exponentially so it’s great to hear how leaders like Jane influence the future of our humanity and ensure it is not overlooked in digital design.

The role of technology is changing. As digital is a fundamental part of everything we do in life and work, I love Jane’s idea that bringing together technology, anthropology and sociology enables us to understand what it is to be a human being in a digital world and what the tech needs to do to enhance our humanity. Jane also recognises the critical need to treat employees with the same importance as the customers and use emotions to engage and inspire those employees to do their best work.

Who in your team needs re-engaging and re-inspiring? 

Topics covered:

• Birmingham Tech
• Human-centred design
• Digital and technology
• Humility, creativity, collaboration, teamwork
• Combining research, design, technology and humanity

Other free resources:

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Join our monthly Team Performance webinars
• Download White papers
• Sign up to our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips

www.judejennison.com in partnership with Birmingham Tech

Roland Emmans is the UK Tech Sector Head for HSBC. Roland talks about the uncertainty of disruptive change. He explains that humans are evolving and developing new skills to lead in a digital age, without being technologists themselves. Roland shares his three key skills for the future of leadership and explains the importance of being able to collaborate in a more distributed way of working where people are no longer in the office or at home but can work from anywhere.

I’m sometimes guilty of believing we need to slow down because the pace of change is not sustainable. I love Roland’s idea that we can adapt to a fast pace of change as the norm, and that it will require us to operate at the higher level of our capabilities. For me, that sounds exciting. I’d be happy to do away with the distractions that I don’t want to get caught up in.

What excites you about the future and how do you and your team need to evolve to lead the change?

Topics covered:

• Birmingham Tech
• Skills for the future
• Leading disruptive change in a world of technology
• Pace of change
• The evolution of leadership

Other free resources:

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Join our monthly Team Performance webinars
• Download White papers
• Sign up to our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips

www.judejennison.com in partnership with Birmingham Tech

Chris Blackwell is the Founder and CEO of Purpose Led Performance, a consultancy business that works with medium-sized businesses on leadership, growth, performance and sustainability. He is also the co-lead for a tech accelerator, helping technology startups scale and grow as part of Birmingham Tech. Chris is honest about not being a tech native but he recognises that technology underpins everything we do in business. We discuss technology for non-techies, the pace of change, leadership, culture and much more.

It's fascinating that every business used to be run by people. Now it’s run by both people and technology. If we want to survive and thrive in business, whether as a small, medium or large business or a rapidly growing one, we need to develop both people and technology and we need to enhance the link between the two. I’m totally on board with Chris’ view that we need to develop the skills to lead distributed networks of people with different skills in order to innovate and lead change.

Where do you need to adapt and flex? How can you develop people better to adapt to the rapidly changing tech world we live in with the humanity and leadership skills to remain human in a world of tech? 

Topics covered:

• Birmingham Tech
• Technology business growth
• Tech for no techies
• Leadership culture
• The pace of change
• The importance of people in a technology business

Other free resources:

• Take the Team Performance Scorecard and discover the 12 hidden dynamics of your team’s performance
• Join our monthly Team Performance webinars
• Download White papers
• Sign up for our Weekly Leadership Hints and Tips

www.judejennison.com in partnership with Birmingham Tech

Mike Bristow is CEO of Crowdproperty, a company using technology to disrupt the property investment market. Mike and his two co-founders were frustrated with how long it took to get investment for property development projects so they created a technology solution to resolve the problem. He explains how they are using technology to drive disruptive change in a market that was causing them considerable pain and he explains how and why they did it.

At the heart of everything Mike said, he is finding innovative solutions to problems, whether that is using technology, or building the business in Birmingham because there is more available and diverse talent than in London. He’s yet another great example of a non-tech founder running a tech business that resolves business problems. It’s not the tech that solves the problem though, it’s Mike and his co-founders whose whole approach is to not be defeated by the challenges they faced. There’s always a solution if we look hard enough!

What problems are you experiencing and how might you solve them in an innovative way that you’ve not previously considered?

www.judejennison.com in partnership with birmingham.tech

Mansata Kurang is the founder of VR Revival, a company helping underrepresented Adults, particularly from the black and Caribbean communities, in mental health using Self-Compassion Virtual Reality technology, as well as Psychology and Story Telling. We discuss the stigma of mental health in black communities and how using technology can make it easier to start the conversation and educate people in self-compassion. Once again, I found myself drawn into the bigger purpose and mission behind what Mansata is doing. Her business uses technology to reach the black communities that might not otherwise engage in mental health but ultimately her business is about quality healthcare for underrepresented adults and her idea that we can be “good humans” as she puts it by developing self-compassion first, is both compelling, needed and grounded in academic rigour.  The more I interview people on the intersection between technology and humanity, the more I realise that it’s down to us as human beings to consider how we use tech to solve the problems in the world. I think that’s exciting. What’s the problem you are solving in the world? How do you make your work purposeful and meaningful? http://www.judejennison.com/ (www.judejennison.com) in partnership with https://birmingham.tech/ (https://birmingham.tech)

Paul McGillivray runs http://remote.online (remote.online), an automation software business. I’m excited to bring this interview to you because Paul is an advocate of using technology as a means to enhance the human experience. We discuss how software can increase productivity, the difference between being efficient and effective and the importance of having purpose in work so we make a difference in the world.  Paul’s vision for the future is an exciting one – the rapid advancement of technology means we need to think differently about how we interact with it and use it to serve society. The more technology expands, the more I think we need to be purposeful in our use of it and purposeful in everything we do – in our personal and professional lives, as well as considering the legacy we want to leave in the world. Technology can help us enormously if we stop getting distracted by meaningless activities.  How can you use technology as a force for good in your own life, and create a sense of purpose in the wider world? http://www.judejennison.com/ (www.judejennison.com) in partnership with https://birmingham.tech/ (birmingham.tech)

Dr Wei Wu and his team Harriet and Lottie run Weipoint, a technology business based in Birmingham providing cultural heritage information for people interested in the city of Birmingham. The team recognise the importance of using technology to preserve cultural stories as well as to reach a wider audience and have translated much of their information into several languages to make it more accessible. I was struck by the power of stories to delight and entertain us and how they bring culture and history alive and shape our future. I like the idea that technology can make history more interesting as well as accessible and that we are missing out when we don’t know about the rich cultural diversity of our local cities. How might you rethink the way you look at history and places based on a different cultural perspective? http://www.judejennison.com/ (www.judejennison.com) in partnership with www.birmingham.tech

Kim Leary is the owner of https://squibble.design (Squibble), a web design agency and Chair of https://birmingham.tech/ (Birmingham Tech week). We discuss the acceleration of technology to regenerate business growth after the pandemic, the way tech underpins every business, collaboration, the ecosystem needed to support tech businesses and maintain the presence in the West Midlands as well as the skills needed for the future as technology grows and the culture of businesses to ensure that we don’t lose sight of who we are as human beings in a virtual world.   I was surprised to think of Dominos as a tech company. It shows that technology is critical for all of us in how we live and work. I was also inspired by Kim being a fashion designer at heart and using those skills to set up a technology business. She is a great role model for other women and an inspiration to encourage us to see technology differently, at the heart and forefront of every business. Kim is clearly creating a legacy for women, for technology, for business and for Birmingham.  What’s the legacy you are creating in the world and how does technology support that legacy? http://www.judejennison.com/ (www.judejennison.com) in partnership with https://birmingham.tech/ (birmingham.tech)

David Glenwright is Head of Training and Special Projects at https://www.jcsocialmedia.com (JC Social Media), a social media and digital marketing agency. We discuss how history repeats itself on social media, and how social media magnifies how we show up as human beings offline. We discuss polarisation, the fundamentals of human behaviour, the importance of authenticity, the vulnerability of posting and the ability to use social media to form valuable connections with likeminded people. I’m struck by the balance that we need to have in how we use social media. At its core, it is about building personal relationships and provides an opportunity to create conversation with new and existing people. It can empower the consumer to make decisions, as long as we don’t use it in a manipulative way. It can inspire us as long as we don’t fall into the trap of trying to be “perfect”. I’m left wondering how we educate ourselves and younger people to use technology for the greater good. How do you use social media for greater good in the world? http://www.judejennison.com/ (www.judejennison.com) in partnership with https://birmingham.tech/ (birmingham.tech)