Thanks again to all 90 participants, members and guests, who joined us to welcome and be inspired by Mrs. Nancy McKinstry, CEO of Wolters Kluwer.

Mrs. McKinstry shared how Wolters Kluwer, as a global, market-leading information services company is implementing innovation in its portfolio of products and services. We were honored to listen to Mrs. McKinstry, who has continuously been ranked among the most important woman in business, and her view on innovation at Wolters Kluwer as well as on innovative leadership.

A remarkable point of her speech, which definitely marks a highlight in our 2010 theme, was that an important aspect of innovation was to share it. Thanks to all of you for joining our event and for sharing your thoughts, experiences, and questions on innovative leadership. You can find the presentation under http://www.wolterskluwer.com/wk/Press/Presentations/2010

Our fellow member Cristina Stoian (www.crisspix.com) did an amazing job at capturing the evening on film. Please take two minutes (and 28 seconds) to enjoy the video presentation below.

Join us again next time!

This is a report on a recent brainstorming session that took place on 28 April 2010 at the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam. The Board would like to thank Mary Jane Roy for her generous contribution to making this event report possible.

Entrepreneurs Community Corner, a key initiative

One of the key initiatives for the EuropeanPWN (EPWN) Federation in 2010 is the Entrepreneurs  Community Corner (ECC), which is intended to grow into a great support community for our entrepreneurial members across City Networks, to facilitate their sharing, connecting and leveraging one another’s knowledge, contacts and talents as they build their business.

There are good ideas coming from all of our City Networks on resources, links, experts and tools to add to the ECC.

To support this ECC initiative, the EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam Board invited our entrepreneurial spirits to a brainstorming session on the 28th of April, that was generously facilitated by Ursula Brinkmann (see the information below).

The objective of the session was to gather and collate all ideas, needs, interests, concerns our self-employed EPWN members, and to communicate the outcome of the session to the Federation Board.

‘What support do the entrepreneurial women of our network need?’ was the question that was posed by facilitator Ursula Brinkmann, following an efficient and eye-opening session of introductions. The “silent brainstorm” session proved to be a very effective manner to get ideas on the table in a surprisingly short period of time. Within 10 minutes, an extensive list of areas that need focus had been proposed and the participants began the process of categorising, sorting and voting. We thank Ursula Brinkmann for leading this productive session.

These are the results of the session

Within EPWN we have a wealth of knowledge and professional experience that we know can be of benefit for all of our entrepreneurs. The following image highlights the key areas of interest that our participating entrepreneurs put forward that evening (the percentage reflects the number of votes from our participants – a high percentage therefore means that the topic is high on the list of their needs).

The participants further discussed ways to make these results possible. One of the ideas was to organize a series of workshops for and by our entrepreneurial spirits, as a means to connect and offer relevant training.

Thank you too!

Our thanks also go out to Petra Rona, a guest of the evening (who has since become a member), who captured all ideas in a power point presentation (the above image is one of the slides). The Amsterdam Board looks forward to sharing this PPT with the other City Networks when we discuss ways to engage and facilitate exchange among entrepreneurs across the networks.

You can contribute too. How?

If you are passionate about what you do and wish to profile yourself and share your expertise with your fellow entrepreneurial members in Amsterdam and throughout Europe, please contact any of the Amsterdam Board Members. Include in your email what you would like to contribute, whether in terms of workshop topics, mentoring skills, business connections and otherwise.

Background information on Ursula Brinkmann

Ursula Brinkmann is co-founder and director of Intercultural Business Improvement Ltd, a consultancy and training firm specialized in intercultural management development.

Ursula has been delivering courses and presentations for a number of public and private organizations. One of her recent assignments consisted of workshops on Managing Dutch-German cultural differences for the integration teams involved in a major cross-border acquisition. In 2007/2008 she was responsible for an integration program for a European corporation; the program combined training, individual assessment, coaching as well as networking events for 180 managers.

Together with Oscar van Weerdenburg, Ursula developed the Intercultural Readiness Check (IRC), a questionnaire assessing four key intercultural competences. The IRC has been widely recognized in the academic and business communities, and its database by now is one of the largest sources of information on intercultural competences world-wide.

Turn your delays into an interesting and positive experience!
Bonding, uncertainty and external control

Despite the fact that this situation is an economic nightmare and chaos for millions of people and organizations it was a positive and extremely interesting experience.
Read below my observations on organic groups, Uncertainty and External Control

The following is a report on the occasion of the third main event of 2010 held by EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam at the Amsterdam Renaissance Hotel on 15 March 2010. We thank Margareta Jonker-Dorila for submitting this report.

Innovation also means “do your core business right”

One of the most striking statements of Shannon Jones, Director Marketing and Category for Starbucks Coffee Company EMEA, was that most of the time innovation means to “do your core business right”.
Listening to the captivating presentation of our guest speaker who brought 70 members and guests of EPWN Amsterdam together on Monday evening this statement seems to have been one of the conclusions of the re-examination of the company’s strategy in the beginning of 2008.

The following is a report on the occasion of the second main event held by EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam at Amsterdam Renaissance Hotel on 4 February 2010. We thank Mary Jane Roy for her generous contribution towards this report.

The second main event of EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam for 2010 was held on 4 February 2010. The topic of the evening was: “Are you communicating what you want, secrets to interacting effectively in male-dominated environments.” We were privileged to welcome Richard Kwakernaak, founder of the Institute for Communication Psychology and Transformation (ICPT). As many as 70 members and guests met in Amsterdam for drinks, followed by Richard’s key-note address.

Richard explained that in business, on the domestic front and in our social lives, we all stand to benefit from more effective communication skills. He added that the greater your awareness is of how it all works, the more effective your communication can be.

In our training sessions, we regularly receive this type of question from participants: “Why is my Russian colleague always so negative? Is it something I did wrong?” asks Tom from London. Our answer is: “On the contrary Tom, your Russian colleague trusts you enough to share his concerns with you. Actually he is trying to be friends and bond with you.”

Bonding by complaining

In Western Russia, many Eastern European cultures and various cultures in Southern Europe and Latin America, people try to bond with others by complaining. Complaints about the boss or about tasks to be performed or simply about the food, places people ‘together’ in a common situation in which they can relate to each other - bonding with the suffering majority. These complaints are usually expressed with emotion. However, it is passive and is not followed by an action to change the situation that is complained about. An outsider will get the impression that something terrible has happened and that the complainer is deeply unhappy. This however is not the case. There are many reasons for such behavior depending on the context. Some of the underlying reasons may be uncertainty, risk avoidance, xenophobia, fatalism and the feeling of not being in charge as well as being unable to create or accept change.

Misunderstandings, irritations, feelings of exclusion and a sense of inferiority, are daily challenges for non-native English speakers trying to communicate in the language of global business. What exactly happens and how can global organizations help employees become more effective in this intercultural language and its various communication styles?

Vast amounts of skill, expertise and knowledge remains hidden in organizations because of language and cultural barriers. Native Spanish, German, Dutch, Turkish, Chinese or Bahasa Indonesia speakers all make a daily effort to understand, speak and write English. Native English speakers try to understand the many variants of non-native speakers.

Together we try to get used to each other’s accents and accept the language mistakes inevitably made. We try to figure out what a good translation would be for a particular expression and how the words are to be interpreted and valued in our own language. We get lost in translation.

On many occasions the native English speakers form the majority at international meetings. They patiently watch how non-native speakers demolish their native language and still praise them on their command of English. Are native English speakers aware of the difficulties non-native speakers face and how this affects their feelings and the dynamics of a discussion or debate?

An exciting and successful 2009 comes to an end and we want to use the holidays to thank you for your participation, support and dedication for EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam. Only with active members like you, were we able to host 12 main events, 6 workshops and many borrels in Amsterdam & The Hague.

EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam: a Diverse and Industrious Community

Speed Networking with Stephanie Ward

When our organization in Amsterdam was originally founded in 1986 as “the Women’s International Network (W.I.N.)”, there were about two dozen (predominantly English speaking) members.  One third of the participants were “Dutch”, one third Americans and one third “other English Speakers”.  In anticipation of our 25^th anniversary in 2011 it has been interesting to look at the history of the organization locally and to look at membership trends and changes.

On 10 September 2009 Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) hosted the event: “Female Entrepreneurs – The Saviours Of Our Economy?” in which three very experienced Dutch women shared their experiences on managing their business.

This event was the second organised by the female members of the RSM OneMBA Class of 2010 and on this occasion in cooperation with the European Professional Women’s Network (EPWN) and the School itself, hosted on the RSM campus.