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In this episode of The Speaker Show, Sean Pillot de Chenecey interviews ‘Idea DJ’ Ramon Vullings. 

Ramon is an inspirational speaker, author and expert on cross-industry innovation.

He believes that complex challenges need elegant and combined solutions, so helps business leaders with strategies, tools & skills to look beyond the borders of their domain to transform their business in a smarter way; making ideas happen, doing experiments, working on leadership, organisational ambidexterity and increasing organisation’s innovative capacity.

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Episode #141

Not Invented Here’ book...Recovery, Reset or Remix?

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (00:11): Hello, this podcast is care of Speakers Associates, the global speaker bureau representing a select group of the business. World’s finest thinkers and thought leaders founded in 1999. Today Speakers Associates operate out of nine offices across seven countries covering the UK, Europe and Middle East. I’m Sean Pillot de Chenecey author of The Post-Truth Business and Influencers & Revolutionaries, which are being followed by The New Abnormal. In this series. I interview a range of fascinating individuals, proudly represented by the bureau. These change agents and industry experts give an update on their specialist areas of knowledge, and also on their motivations and viewpoints regarding the future of business.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (01:07): So today I’m really pleased to be joined by an incredibly interesting individual Ramon Vullings, who is an idea, DJ, an inspirational speaker author, an expert on cross industry innovation. He believes that complex challenges need elegant and combined solutions. So he helps business leaders with strategies, tools, and skills to look beyond the borders of their domain, to transform their business in a smarter way. Making ideas happen, doing experiments, working on leadership organizational and be dexterity and increasing organization’s innovative capacity site work as an international speaker, an innovation consultant. Ramon is also faculty at business engineering and OVN the circle radius and the an management school. He’s also chairman of the not-for-profit European association for clients of his who’s spoken for include illustrious names like Nike Audi TEDx VW Bravo bank, and indeed NASA. And we’ll talk more about that to turn that out in a while. He’s also written several books, including not invented here, a copy of which I have on my desk, creativity and business and creativity today, finally, as an action advisor with over 15 years of experience in the field of creativity and innovation consulting in nearly all industries and all five continents Ram is able to relate to the specifics and any given sector infusing people and audiences with tangible ideas spot on inspiration and actionable advice. So Ramon Hi and how are you?

Ramon Vullings (02:49): Thank you, Sean. Great to speak with you again,

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (02:52): We haven’t spoken for several months since when a vast amount have happened to put it very, very mildly. Now, just before we go into your background, which is incredibly interesting, perhaps you could talk listeners through what you were speaking about at the at the fairly epic recovery summit organized by speakers. Associates, I think certainly was the biggest event of its type this year. There was nearly 9,000 people viewing on that occasion, many thousands more have viewed the various speeches. Since I know you spoke about recovery reset or remix, so yeah. Perhaps take us through that. Cause it just sounded so interesting.

Ramon Vullings (03:34): All right. Thank you. Yeah, that was absolutely at the beginning of the COVID major change. The recovery summit, my talk was specifically about having different options as leaders, some were really hoping for recovery and now as we are after the summer, it’s really interesting to see that actually for me, in the speaking business, it got way more busier because of lot of organizations have held off of their investments and things many leaders really to be approached. Let’s see if maybe after the summer things have normalized again or something. So that was a recovery kind of mindset. We also have the thinking of the great reset things definitely totally different. And for me, my plea is somewhere in the middle. It’s a remix and that’s also during the recovery summit, I yeah. Made a plea for having people think about what good components can we take to this new yeah.

Ramon Vullings (04:37): New reality and what kind of C can we mix in from different areas? My specialty is cross industry innovation. What can we learn from other sectors? How can we use those approaches and how can business leaders really make their own specific mix that works both for their employees and at the end of course, also for their customers. So that was my main plea during the summit is to really learn from other areas and don’t copy paste, but copy adapt paste. That was one of the key strengths. I want to give business leaders to not literally do what other companies are doing, but to see how you can customize this mix to make this totally fit for you are surrounding.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (05:23): Mm. See fascinating. And, and in terms of practical examples of how businesses and organizations on a cross category basis, take your advice and, and put it into action. Now, I, I know that you, that in great detail in your books and as mentioned, I’ve got a copy of your of your book not invented here in front of me right now, but it’d be great for the listeners. Yeah. Perhaps you could just take us through some of the practical elements of advice that you give in terms of how they can actually implement what it is that you are suggesting they do.

Ramon Vullings (06:02): Yeah. there are many examples available. If you look at the, I get to work a lot with larger corporations, they all have a venturing arm, so startup kind of things. And that’s interesting to see how many startups position in themselves as we are the X for Y. So we are the Uber, but then for housing we are the Airbnb, but then for storage space. And that’s an interesting approach. That’s something that we see a lot of startups doing and also slowly this becomes more a project for many boards cuz they, they are all venturing into new horizons, new areas to see possible growth. Of course the COVID pandemic has forced many companies to really rethink their business, their business models and also their product markets combinations. And that’s something where I think we see a lot of possibilities for many business to see what are we good in good at and in which other area or sector could we also be successful with our IP, with our technology, maybe with our network, our delivery network.

Ramon Vullings (07:15): So that’s an interesting play and always an interesting question to ask that’s what I do during sessions. And now also virtually which sector are you really in? And that’s a question that’s for many boards hard to to answer or relatively easy to answer actually for everybody, but it’s hard to get an agreement on within, within the same board and then in the discussions become extra interesting because then you need to rethink, okay, where do we invest on in how do we train our people? What kind of technologies do we adapt or, or grow in this case? And that’s an interesting interesting discussion to have. So we see a lot more comp really strategically reorienting themselves.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (08:06): And in terms of companies that have been doing things this year in particular during a year, that naturally has been one of, I mean, extraordinary disruption on a sort of Herculean scale. Are there, are there any businesses that, or, or indeed, or organizations and other areas that you’ve looked at and thought, wow, I mean already there’s an example of say a company or an organization that is doing things in a really interesting way. Yeah. Has anyone already begun to adapt it in a way that the public can really, really relate to it?

Ramon Vullings (08:43): Yeah. I think we’ve seen quite a few. We’ve seen some temporary effects, people making respirators and mouth masks and, and these things, but these are normally from a production capacity, a temporary effect, I think more structurally and also based on data. Of course, I think Accenture is doing something really interesting is the people plus work connect initiative where they actually use their incredible knowledge of advanced data machine learning to make cross-industry matches for people looking for a job based on their skill sets to see in which other area or sector or which company, which is now looking for people, can these people be matched? So this is a yeah, let’s say one level deeper than an average yeah, let’s say staffing bureau is trying to do so this is of course a tool that staffing bureaus will directly adopt and probably also gear towards.

Ramon Vullings (09:43): So that’s an interesting move that we see. That’s a clear integration by all kinds of APIs, application programming interfaces, and the companies who are best at that can really open their data and also analyze data from somewhere else to make these new matches. I think that’s something we are really going to see that we have a way broader cross industry matching of talent than there’s also another beautiful website it’s called COVID innovations.com and it has over thousands of, of inspired changes business model changes, new product market combinations, and you can search on that by industry, by sector. So that’s a beautiful website that gives it a beautiful example, many examples that you see all these changes happening and that’s interesting to track.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (10:38): And then just to go back to where we were actually right at the beginning of this, because we did jump into your recent talks and thinking very quickly, which has been a great sort of energetic way of doing it, but just to broaden this out just take the listeners through your background then because it’s been a really, really fascinating one, a really interesting journey Ramon. So, yeah, comment then just tell us, explain the the, the interesting path that’s led you to where you are now.

Ramon Vullings (11:11): Right. I’m a Dutch guy living in Belgium currently, which is actually only about 120 kilometers away from where I used to live, but I’ve lived in Paris France in Munich and Germany, and also in ch Mai in Thailand. So I’ve, I’ve been around pretty much. My original education is industrial engineering and management. So that combines technology and soci. I did this in at the university of applied sciences, which was, it was great from there. I always wanted to be to try to be as generic as possible. And that’s when I decided to work in consulting. So I could see as many companies as possible. That’s what I thought at, at the time. And I went to work for Coopers and vibrant, which later became prize Waterhouse, Coopers management consulting. And then that, that got bought by IBM IBM business consulting services.

Ramon Vullings (12:09): So I have all these beautiful names on my resume, but I just kept on doing the same thing. I was a consultant in the CRM customer relationship management space. And then I got to, to be the European middle Eastern Africa lead for our CRM practice based in Paris, and then later, also in Munich. So it was great to live there internationally when IBM bought the PWC consulting part. I did that for one more year in the transition. And then I decided to start my own company because with classical innovation and also consulting companies, especially they have a, let’s say limited bandwidth of innovation tools and methodologies that they use. And at that point in time, I thought, no, this must be way or opener way Wilder. This was about 2005, I think now. And then 2003, 2005. And that’s when I really thought now this we can do stuff radically different.

Ramon Vullings (13:11): So I started my own comp that was called new shoes today. Cause new organizations need new ways or organizations need new roads to walk upon and to walk upon these roads, you need new shoes. So a nice metaphor. And that’s a really been an incredible beautiful experiment also in an open way of organizing ourselves testing things also with with clients that really also wanted to jump into the experiment at a certain point, we were with 22 partners and then it started to look like a consulting company again. And that’s, that’s when we, with eight, eight of the founding partners, we stepped out and made our own yeah, it’s, it’s more a mastermind kind of team that we help each other. It’s called 21 lobster streets and that’s actually the, the vehicle we still have, but it’s on the background, it’s a service.

Ramon Vullings (14:13): It became a service for us because we are the eight people have Flemish have Dutch are working on their own themes, but we help each other on the backend with some backend materials and also introducing ourselves yeah, the other colleagues to clients. Also if projects become a little bit bigger, we help each other there. And that’s a nice way to make sure that everybody, we flipped a model here in the old days, we all worked to make the one company great. Now we flip the model to have everybody’s dream as a leading factor and to see how we can support each other’s dreams. I would, I would say that would be the right way to describe it. And that’s where I’m, since the, let’s say last 10 years, I’ve been focusing primarily on writing and speaking there are still some, some part consulting and teaching in there of course, but I would say 60% of my time is speaking and then 30% is consulting and 10% is teaching at business schools and, and things. And that, that’s a really nice nice balance.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (15:18): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And in terms on that last point, you mentioned there about teaching business schools. What is the current mood in, you know, in like in business school land in terms of students who a year ago may well have been looking and I’m sure they were at a world that was even though things were as chaotic as they, as they always are, they were certainly far less chaotic than they are at the moment. So how, how is, how is the impact of the, you know, patterning disruption caused by COVID impacted business school thinking? Are they adapting adapting sort of, you know, what you’re teaching the, the students or, or, or what you are suggesting they do or talk us through that?

Ramon Vullings (16:05): Yeah, yeah, for sure. Both. Let’s say on a, on a more, on a personal level, I would say many students are a bit tired. They are physically tired and also mentally tired all besides zoom fatigue or what, what you would like to, to call it. Because yeah, many households have literally yeah, or directly converted into little schools, restaurants hair service all in one. So it’s every household became a cross industry mix a melting pot. And you also see that yeah, many many people also in, in the business schools are trying to figure out, okay, what is the, the use of what I’m doing currently in this environment? And that’s why it’s, it’s crucial that many business schools. And I must admit that that most business schools I track or have a relationship with are nicely all converting their content and their models and also the way of operating to this new reality.

Ramon Vullings (17:11): So I think that that’s all fine because also if you look at trends that were already ongoing software as a service more centralized systems that you link in with again with an API application programming interface to, to gain data, these were all things tracking sense, ring on a distance leading remote teams, because in many of these people that I have in the classes and now virtual classes in the business schools, they lead, they were already leading remote teams. They did have their in person moments or once a year, or once every two years, depending a little bit on the business that you’re in, you get an all hands meeting somewhere at a beautiful location. It was also a little bit of a yeah, of a of a tweet for people. That was also a place that I, I got flown in quite a few times.

Ramon Vullings (18:10): I was just in 10 AIF before COVID hit. So these are things that I’ve have now totally dissolved, of course. And it’s interesting to see how business leaders are trying to adapt to this new reality really totally remotely manage their people. And there you see that it actually comes down to just a few simple tips. The best tip that I can give to all business leaders actually is don’t look at the screen, look at the camera. And that is a crucial difference because we have a tendency to look at a are computers at our laptops at the screen. So you can see the other person, but that’s not the case because then on what the other person sees is actually that you are slightly looking away. So this is like media training one-on-one for business leaders.

Ramon Vullings (19:06): My absolute best tip for a remote manage in your teams is try trying to build this connection with your people to maintain this connection is look at a camera. I even have some clients who’ve, who’ve posted little notes near their webcam, say focus here with an exclamation mark, so that you really look into the camera, or if you have a separate setup that you look in this specific camera, and then just trust that you will that you will look good on camera. So you don’t, you don’t need to verify yourself anymore because then your people at the other side have the feeling that you are absolutely actually looking at them. So that is my one major tip there. And also keep on our asking how are you doing? And then for real, because the first time it’s not always clear that people will will, will directly answer because it’s also, especially in in English language.

Ramon Vullings (20:03): Yeah. How do you do is it has become a synonym for hello. So you need to dive a little bit deeper as as business leader. How are you doing really, of course, this works best in your one on one calls. Yeah, I’ve seen people who have their open zoom or open Ms. Teams hours every morning, or something here from nine to nine 30 or from nine to 10 that people can just jump in. These are really basic things that actually help to hate a little bit for the fact that we’re not able to bump into each other in the office anymore. That it’s tougher to just address someone as they’re walking by or jumping into someone’s office. So I think with these kind of basic rules, and especially this looking into the camera, this the yeah, we have, so so few elements left of yeah. Being able to read someone’s body language or things. So especially looking straight into the camera is a very powerful move that I really suggest all business leaders should do.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (21:06): Yeah. Very, very true. You say from an absolutely practical everyday limit of, of reality. Okay. What about issues or do you say some of the other areas that businesses need to be looking at that should concern them? Because again, I think one of the points you’re making at the recovery summit is that it’s not all COVID, as in COVID, isn’t the only game in town. There are lots of things that certainly you’ve written about in the past, and you’ve spoken about that haven’t gone away. There’s still here, so perhaps let’s talk about some of the other sort of issues that are impacting business and we’ll continue to do so for the, for the foreseeable feature that you talk to your audiences about.

Ramon Vullings (21:55): Yeah. What I see also it brings a little bit to the thinking of my my new upcoming upcoming book. It’s the, the thinking of silos, many business leaders in many larger core operations whether or not international have yeah, experienced tunnel vision, and many organizational silos. You have business units, you have physical locations. I personally see seven different types of silos that you can see within organizations. Hey, you have the physical one set locations, rooms, distance that, that we clearly experienced. Now you had the mental silos, Hey, the jargon bit of the team goals as well, the way people speak the invisible ones had nonverbal, informal org chart, access, access to knowledge and decision making. So in, in many meetings, just before you jump into the meeting during the coffee break, just before that, a lot of the stuff has already been discussed about, so these are, these are things that, yeah, some people are in or outside of the loop companies, subcultures, team dynamics, leadership, country, culture, your customers, your habits, but also your age and especially mental aging.

Ramon Vullings (23:05): So these are the seven kind of silos that were already there. And, and they’ve, they’ve they’ve yeah. Now with COVID, they’ve just been yeah. Fast forwarded into, into the future. But many business leaders were already challenging that that’s from an internal perspective and then from an external perspective yeah. New business model creation and new market combinations growth was, was on everybody’s strategic agenda. And that’s interesting to see that also, yeah, the, the new product market combinations are more crucial than ever. A lot of companies are looking for ways to stabilize or maintain their growth somehow. And that’s especially interesting now that because a lot of companies have pushed ahead with their digitalization agenda, new products and services especially in the digital are way easier to sell to customers right now, because in many cases suddenly everybody has the latest version of all kinds of software, of all kinds of tool sets of all kinds of backend systems, or they went totally into the cloud.

Ramon Vullings (24:22): You see even yeah, middle school that are totally running on office 3, 365, that before we’re using another solution, whether or not an open source thing or something else, but they’ve now really all went into, I think, yeah, especially Ms. Teams from a collaboration suite is, is very well positioned because many organizations are standardized, of course, with Microsoft office and teams was there has slowly picking up speed a little bit against slack and everything. Now slack is a good collaboration tool. Zoom is a very good video tool. And outside of the privacy concerns, let’s look at the technical aspect of things, the, the functional aspect. Yeah. Ms. Teams is best positioned to take the space and they they’ve clearly been investing in getting yeah, different views in getting more people in because the video calling was a subset of the collaboration suite. So it’s really interesting to see what kind of new products and services are, are available with these new yeah. Digital accessibilities because you, you, you’re now perfectly aligned to push your especially digital products or services into way more organizations, because they are all digitally ready, I would say.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (25:45): Yeah. Yeah. Mm, very interesting. Okay. What about, so you mentioned the new book, so out next year, great leaders mix and match. I know you mentioned obviously a few of the points in it already, but perhaps just take us through that in, in more detail about exactly. Perhaps some of the case histories you talk about in there, the approach you’ve taken, et cetera.

Ramon Vullings (26:07): Yeah. the title is great leaders mix and match, and it’s about that. Yeah, you need to strike the right balance. And this balance as, as business leader varies per situation that you’re in. So not every mix works in every situation. It has a little link to the DJ had a mixing, I call myself also an idea DJ. So that’s where, where it comes from cause the subtitles also get ready for the future, with the idea DJ strategy. And this actually comes down that I want to teach business leaders to make more yeah, beautiful mixes. And in the book I outline the three components that I think a perfect business mix or IDR DJ mix should consist of that has a part of beauty. It is elegance elegance in a, in a solution.

Ramon Vullings (27:07): So we often talk about operational excellence, but in the book I plea for operational elegance. And what I mean with operational elegance is yeah, both for your customers. Data gets entered one time. It’s, it’s easy to do business with with with companies, the convenience factor is all there. And also it has a inherent beauty in a solution. So if you sell physical products that the whole packaging is paper directly instead of a part plastic and a part paper, these, these things that you see directly after you have bought something, it’s very simple how to recycle something or you can reuse it. So it has a beauty to it. Not just aesthetically, but on multiple layers also process wise. Mm. So the perfect mix as it combines these three elements, the first one is beauty. The second one is value adding value and not just to yeah.

Ramon Vullings (28:12): To the shareholders, but to all stakeholders. And in the book, I describe a way to, to look at yeah, your wider surroundings, everybody who’s yeah. Who’s who stakeholder in your area. My father used to say really nicely, cuz he used to be an entrepreneur in, in a car business. And when the social enterprises came up, he, he was really like very skeptical on that he said, yeah, social enterprise, social enterprise, our enterprise was all always so social by design head. We never spoke about social, but if someone was in trouble, we would help one of the employees out they would alone or they, they also drove there in the middle of the night to help them out. If there was a discussion in the family or something all kinds of other things he says, yeah, you have, yeah, it should be.

Ramon Vullings (29:05): Yeah. And the other way around, Hey, you should say the defaults as entrepreneurship, you should, should be social. So you should not even be talking about that. You should now actually claim for companies who are anti-social. So that should be here. We should not have social enterprises. We should have normal enterprises, which are social and of course anti-social enterprises. So that’s an interesting, so that’s the second component in there. That’s the value in the mix and the third one is impact. So it’s beauty value impact. And then the impact is about going beyond ideas. Especially if you look on the web and on LinkedIn, social media, you have all these cool also in Corona times cool business I ideas. But if you do a little bit of research, they’re just ware or an ad campaign or something. So yeah. What we’re looking for as business leader is maybe sometimes solutions, which are yeah.

Ramon Vullings (30:02): You’re able to replicate them that you’re able to let them grow and that they are real. So they should have a real life impact and should be able to replicate them out because otherwise it’s interesting for just your little situation, but actually you want solutions that other people can also learn from so we can have a way larger hacked. So these are the three components that make up in my view than a perfect IDR DJ mix. And yeah, that’s the main premise of the book. And then I focus on the different subheadings there is to refuse to accept the current reality. Many people find themselves in a perceived reality. But you can decide for yourself whether you accept that reality or not. Cuz if you do not accept that reality, you can start to change it. Then also the power superpower of curiosity, and there are different ways to boost your curiosity, to learn from other areas, working smarter, not harder.

Ramon Vullings (31:06): And that’s a key thing that many business leaders now have come to their position normally by working very hard making long hours having a lot of experience, but it’s not about a experience itself. It’s about your reflection on your experience and probably also using technology to really make sure that you work smarter. And my last two items, there are everything is Lego that, that I really see that business leaders need to look at their business, their markets in a more component driven like Lego breaks way because they’re, you can yeah, really decompose your business, throw some breaks out and put some new bricks from somewhere else in place. So really play with these components. And if you talk about data, if we talk about technology in general also skills of people, it’s incredible to see the, the, the beauty of combinations that you can make.

Ramon Vullings (32:05): If you go to this more modular mindset. And then finally my end conclusion of the book is to go, not just from plus to X not just combinations, but you need to figure out where the real X factor is in your solutions, your IDs, and in many cases that comes down to yeah, figuring out what is this uniqueness that people feel like. Yeah, if you start to combine more than two things, many combinations start to to become really attractive for people saying that’s absolutely a cleverer way. It’s not just I don’t know, it’s not just a, a car and a a way to, to move something. If you, if you would put a I don’t know, a rack onto your car it’s car plus a rack, then you can move something. But a third component in there that you put, I don’t know an information on that, that you can also transport stuff for other people.

Ramon Vullings (33:01): Then people say, Hey, wow, that’s great. Hey, you take a car like an Uber one, but you put AAC on that, that you can actually transport stuff and then you can open it up with a data layer and then it becomes an utility for virtually everybody to rent or hire this car to do something with. Yeah. And that’s the X factor what’s in there. And the last part of the book are actual tools to allow business leaders themselves, but also to, to have teams yeah. Be able to collaborate with tools to figure out these new, beautiful combinations. So that’s what great leaders mix and match is all about.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (33:40): Fantastic. And in terms terms, the, of it, perhaps just take us through the the the level of that. So did you take a, a very, very European approach or was it a, a more global one? Yeah, just talk us through that.

Ramon Vullings (33:56): Yeah. In general, I’m, I’m, I’m European for myself. So I’m, I’m clearly aware that I perceive the world from my own in this case truly limited perspective. I’m trying to write the book more from a personal perspective, the book not invented here. Cross industry innovation is written more from a third person perspective, also analyzing examples that are out there. Great leaders mix and match will be more written from my personal experience. I will also write this in first person. I’m currently writing it in first person perspective, and that makes it easy for me to integrate examples of what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced. And I also invite the reader to reflect upon what they experience themselves and how they can also see these connections to make more beautiful combinations. And as I’m going through it’s always great.

Ramon Vullings (34:58): Once you have the main structure of your book that at certain points yeah, a lot of pieces of the puzzle just fall in place and say, ah, this is a brilliant example of, yes, I had an interview with this person, or yes, this is the, this is the way to, to look at things from that perspective. Also have my experience at NASA is, is great to mix in there. I’m also really happy with a quote already from my good friend, the chief innovation officer at NASA, Omar, who was nice enough to already look at a preview of the book and already giving me a quote for the cover. So his plea is the world needs more idea DJs which is, which is a great, great way of of positioning it. So I was amazed the first time I got into NAZA cuz I thought I’m an engineer.

Ramon Vullings (35:50): What am I going to tell the people at NASA? And that was absolutely brilliant to see how a friendly, nice everybody was there. And that NASA is truly a mission driven organization that they truly welcome different perspectives from a global global skill. Cause I, I, I spoke with an Indian girl who was in the robotics department I spoke with so many different people there. So it’s view to have these experiences and these examples in as a basis also for the book. So it’s yeah, it’s nice to do that. So it’s from my personal perspective.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (36:28): Okay, fantastic. And then moving on then what about the issue of inspiration? Because I mean youand as being a very, very inspiring speaker, but common then, so yeah. What, what are, what are the sort of places where you find inspiration yourself

Ramon Vullings (36:45): Now in the pre Corona things? The, the, the, the trick was always for me a speaker to make sure that I stayed at conferences already the whole day, if I’m the if I’m the first speaker or the last speaker, doesn’t matter. Cuz it’s really truly interesting to hear other people discuss what’s happening. In most cases, I get to go to conferences or businesses where we have the whole day, all kinds of specialists whether it’s sales or program development or whatever it is, these are all specialists. And then the more the generalist coming up with the story about combining I years and everything. So that’s interesting to stay at these conferences now also, if I’m invited to virtual conferences I try to be there already the hours before my talk is on or even after my, my talk is finished to learn from that.

Ramon Vullings (37:37): Cause I learned most from my clients. And the second part that I learned the second and third, I would say me reading books and listening to podcasts, I think podcasts like the one we are recording now is a fantastic way to, to learn from so many different different areas. And there are so many beautiful podcasts, whatever you are into technology leaderships strategy, yet there are a gazillion podcasts and I think the podcast directory it really works in terms of if you do research the number of people actually subscribe to this podcast helps to push the right podcast up and here these numbers truly work because actually if you type, I don’t know, artificial intelligence or you type robotics or you type strategy in general, the first three hits are really, really quality quality podcasts. So that’s yeah, it’s a Tru interestingly to do that.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (38:39): OK. Very interesting. Now I know by the way that time is against us cuz you are a busy chap. So just tell us in that case, perhaps just to absolutely clarify this for any of the listeners who perhaps need that. So key takeaway points or insights that you’d like to to leave.

Ramon Vullings (38:58): Yeah. The key takeaway points is that great leaders mix and match cuz that’s truly the, the theme that I’m currently working on. Ideas don’t need to be new. They just need to be new to you or to your audio. I think that’s a key thing to take away that now is, is a beautiful time to make new combinations, whether it’s technology with its service, whether it’s physical products with a a human touch to it. It’s never too late to enter a certain area or a market because their opportunities are everywhere. I think Richard Branson’s quote opportunities are like buses. There’s always a next one is absolutely true here as well. Because you can continue to make new combinations as new technologies arise. Yeah, you see apple now just releasing their phones. They fully jumped onto the 5g bandwagon, even though 5g is not really a thing yet.

Ramon Vullings (40:03): But anyway so that’s interesting to see that even, even such a major companies are applying the same combination strategy there. So my main thing is there’s always a new fitting connection and the personal touch because we are all on a distance I’ve, I’ve now spoken on many different virtual sessions. It’s always great. If these organizations take the effort to actually physically ship stuff to people I’m still selling books physically because in many of the places where I, the organizer first then or later on sends a package to these people sometimes with a drink in there. So we can do a virtual toast, but also with tool cars or a book or something. And people actually love to have this, this mix of offline and online thing. So besides of course, looking straight into the camera crucial skill for all business business leaders to make connection with their customers, with their employees, you name it yeah, mixing offline and and online components. So these, these three major things that there are enough business opportunities. If you keep on mixing, have this personal approach by looking straight into the camera and a mix online and offline cause zoom fatigue, and team tiredness. It’s a real thing.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (41:25): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Last question then Ramon, just so the listeners are all clear about where they can track you down. So in terms of your site and social media handles, et cetera.

Ramon Vullings (41:36): Yeah. It’s pretty simple. My name is Ramon Vullings, R A M O N V U L L I N G S. So ramonvullings.com and @ramonvulings at virtually all social media items. So should be pretty simple.

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (41:52): That fantastic. Well look, Ramon. I know you are now onto your next thing. So look, it’s been actually fantastic to talk with you again, really looking forward to the new book. So Ramon Vullings, the renowned ideaDJ, inspirational speaker, author, and expert on cross industry innovation. Thank you very much, indeed.

Ramon Vullings (42:12): Thanks a lot Sean

Sean Pillot de Chenecey (42:24): Thank you for listening to The Speakers Show podcast. Please leave a rating on iTunes. We’d really appreciate it. And also it’d be great. If you could subscribe to the podcast itself, you’ll find it also on Google podcasts, SoundCloud, or your favorite podcast app. Thank you.

Podcast host

Sean Pillot de Chenecey speaker

Sean Pillot de Chenecey

Foresight strategist, author and podcast host Sean Pillot de Chenecey is an inspirational speaker, who’s also consulted for some of the world’s biggest brands.

Sean has a very deep level of knowledge regarding the genuine issues impacting brands from a cultural, social and business perspective.

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