In a world where technology is changing our lives daily, the need for diversity and inclusion becomes greater every day. This week I attended day two of the Karren Brady Women in Tech event at the Excel centre in London Docklands.
This event is an industry hiring event for women seeking to develop and progress professional careers and grow their businesses. The event is primarily aimed at women in Tech or wishing to enter the tech industry, job titles such as Analyst, Data Scientist, Developer, those in FinTech, Marketing, Sales and those with an entrepreneurial spirit, business owners, directors and founders.
I have a background in education and have diversified my career, into what I call a portfolio career as an edupreneur/solopreneur/business owner – who consults, coaches, speaks and authors. Thus as someone who works on their own quite a bit, this type of inspiration and networking event is essential for me to keep up to date with the tech sector.
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One of the big draws for me was to see and hear keynote speaker Steven Barlett, the youngest ever Dragon on TV show Dragons Den and a highly successful businessman. He is an inspiration to many including me! So I set my alarm early and setoff for the journey to London. His keynote was exceptional, he is an eloquent speaker and everything he said made sense!
Here are some of the highlights from his keynote
People
Steven identified that people are essential to making an organisation.
“Finding exceptional talent is difficult”
“Outcomes are determined by who you work with”
Failure
I particularly liked his thoughts around failure. They should serve as a boost to all of us, especially when we think things are not going well. If we embrace this, I think, within “failure” we find the answer that we are seeking.
Steven says the singular reason he sits where he is today, is because he has failed many times. He states the following:
- Failure is feedback
- Feedback is knowledge
- Knowledge is power
- Failure gives you evidence
He also spoke about:
- Failing your way to the right answer
- Conduct more experiments in a measured way than your competition
- The higher the mistake rate, the higher the innovation
About himself he said:
“I don’t know the answer, but I have a system to finding out”
Values
I also liked that he identifies values and places importance on values. This is something that I identified a while back as important in my personal and professional life. Working with people who share the same values is essential, so I was very pleased to hear Steven stating the same.
Mentality
As a former teacher, I was pleased to hear Steven talk about curiosity. This is something that I do believe needs to be fostered in our young people. I liked his thoughts around “Lean Out vs Lean In” behaviours. Particularly important in terms of the age in which we are living and seeing “stranger things” such as what is possible through generative AI” and other disruptive technology.
Audience Questions – Confidence and Luck
The audience questions, were also of good calibre. In his response to a question around confidence, he said “men are winging it with unbelievable confidence”. This made me chuckle, as it is something I observe on a daily basis. Steven also spoke about the labels we give ourselves. This is a great point to reflect upon as this in my opinion is one of the biggest ways in which we self-sabotage – through self-labelling!
One other question that stood out for me was around the question of luck, and I quote the response – “you can create luck with perseverance”.
As a solopreneur/edupreneur I also enjoyed his statements around Focus, namely:
- Focus is the single most important thing when you are starting out
- Focus when things are going well and also not going well
Steven Bartlett’s keynote was the boost and inspiration I needed. I also think it was third time lucky, as I had tried to see him previously at the CogX festival, but he had to cancel due to Covid, then I missed him at the Bett Show as I was hosting an event in another theatre. So this was my third time and I was very pleased.
Want to know more about the event, head on over to https://wibtexpolondon.co.uk/ I encourage you to put this into your diaries for next year.
Thanks for reading
(if you would like to work with me and hire me to write your next resource, speak at your event or be your education consultant, then reach out today!)
#wibtexpo2023 #wibte23 #womeninbusiness #womenentrepreneurs #techjobs #techevent