About Me

My Story

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Jolanda. I head up Innovation Smile,  the movement for innovation inspiration, connection and action. With a passion for innovation and collaboration I help organizations to drive customer-centric digital innovation transformations and enable teams to successfully  execute innovation within  consulting, training, delivery management & coaching.  

Are you a committed and blooming innovation professional?  I  understand implementing innovation from the ground up in your company can sometimes be a challenge. No matter what type of organization you work for, chances are you’ll have to swim against the current and convince others of your ideas and initiatives.

The ones you have to convince usually fall into three categories: black bears, brown bears and white bears. The black bears do not want to change at all. The brown bears are the ones who want to change and need a push from others. Lastly, the white bears are the real innovators who are not afraid to try out something new. Dealing with these forces daily is a challenge.

Innovation requires a shift in your mindset. Innovation demands more risk-seeking behavior from you and the people you work with. Demonstrating more risk-seeking behavior can be  difficult especially when innovation metrics are not in place and you and/or your innovation department get evaluated on KPIs such as delivering projects on time and in budget. What about the challenge of not having a large enough budget or experiencing a lack of support from higher management to start innovation at all?

As a business designer and consultant in Digital Experience & Innovation, with a background in Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurial Leadership, I have gone through many of these challenges myself.  That is why I want to help you as a budding innovation professional overcome these hurdles.  How you may ask? By supplying you with the right tools, a healthy dose of inspiration and connections to get you into the driver’s seat for innovation!   

The mindset

What is it about innovation? Why does this concept draw so much attention? Approaching and doing things differently is a welcomed challenge for me. Driving change with a can-do attitude is my passion and pushes me to become more of an unconventional thinker.  Innovation Smile assists you to challenge the status quo, seize innovation opportunities and drive change.

Driving innovation requires a positive mindset. Innovation Smile will show you the main takeaways from my Executive Masters program at ESCP business school. One of the main principles is by dr S. Sarasvathy who speaks of  effectuation which states that: expert entrepreneurs invite the surprise factor. Instead of ‘’what-if’’ scenarios to deal with worst-case situations in your innovation process, experts interpret ‘’bad’’ news and surprises as potential clues to create new markets or solutions to their problems.  With my Innovation Smile – mindset I will teach you how to embrace contingencies and make delicious lemonade out of sour lemons.

Cheers!

Jolanda Burgers

Innovator

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