Short Bio of Speaker

Richard Watson is a documenter and presenter of new ideas, innovations and trends from around the world. He is also creator of The Global Innovation Network (GIN), a think tank that helps organisations to think about the future using a brain bank of 'innocent experts'. He has worked on strategic planning and innovation projects with, amongst others, Virgin, St George Bank, Tesco, Toyota, McKinsey, The Department of Education, Anglian Water and Express Newspapers.

Richard is also a non-executive director of Elmwood design (UK) and is a columnist for a number of magazines including Fast Company (US), Inside (Australia) and Online Banking Review (Australia).

Topics

THE FUTURE

Topic Title: The Road Ahead

Target Audience: Marketing, strategy and planning, research and development

Level of Sophistication: General/Basic/Intermediate/Advanced/All levels

Duration of Talk (Excluding Breaks): 45 - 90 MINS

List of connected topics: Trends, innovation, new product development, R&D, strategy

Synopsis of Presentation: What are the key trends that will influence business and society over the next 2-10 years? What is happening around the world that you should know about but probably don't?

Who Should Attend: Anyone and everyone- but especialy those involved with strategic planning, research and development, new product development and innovation.

How you will benefit: Find out which trends and ideas are most likely to affect you over the next few years - what are key opportunities and threats?

Classification: Business, marketing, strategy, research and development, innovation, future, trends.

Innovation

Target Audience: Innovation, research and development, marketing.

Level of Sophistication: General/Basic/Intermediate/Advanced - All levels

Duration of Talk (Excluding Breaks): 45-90 minutes

List of connected topics: trends, innovation, new product development, strategy and creativity.

Synopsis of Presentation: What is the latest thinking on innovation around the world? Which strategies, processes and tools are working and which aren't? Who are the leading innovators around the world and what makes them successful?

Who Should Attend: Management, marketing, research and development.

How you will benefit: Learn about the latest innovation processes such as open source innovation and customer co-creation.

Classification: Business and marketing,

Creativity

Topic Title: Do physical environments influence thinking?

Target Audience: Management, marketing, general interest

Level of Sophistication: General/basic/intermediate/advanced - all

Duration of talk: 60-90 minutes

List of connected topics: Innovation, thinking, workplace (office design), and architecture, work, home working

Synopsis of Presentation: Are ideas influenced by physical surroundings? If so, can build a space
to create better ideas? To answer this question one can look at many things including art, architecture and literature. One can look at the history of scientific discovery to investigate where ideas have come from and under what circumstances breakthrough thinking occurs. How, for example, do accidents create new thinking and can you design environments to encourage serendity?

Who Should Attend:  Management, marketing, general

How you will Benefit: Find out how physical spaces influence your thinking

Classification: Business, creativity, thinking, ideas, architecture