Women Leaders at Simmons Conference 2013
Edwina Mays, Jackie Glenn, Gail Degan, Sheryl Chamberlain and Stacy Schaeffer

Leaders aspire to build ever more nimble and responsive businesses while seeking a competitive advantage in a global economy. Today’s successful leaders must not only be strategic thinkers, but innovators as well. And the successful leaders of tomorrow must be able to drive organizational innovation by tapping into the knowledge and creativity of their teams. Innovation is often the key driver of an organization’s growth and performance. It can be the single best way for a company to differentiate itself from competitors. How can we help foster a culture of collaboration and creativity to help drive growth and success? Fostering connectivity, first and foremost amongst other things, promotes creativity and spurs innovation.

More than ever before, we have the ability to share our ideas and encourage a discussion around them, unconstrained by time, physical borders or distance. We live in a connected world. Connectivity is about having the practical means to connect with others; but it is also about having the connections we need to enable and encourage innovation. Connectivity increases exposure to new opportunities, new ideas, and to feedback. Communities of corporate innovation are connected to every facet of business from product development, customer engagement, marketing programs, to employee development. Empowered workers care more about developing high-performing cultures that drive customer value over time.

As the founder of EMC’s West Coast Women’s Leadership Forum (WCWLF), my vision was to make EMC the center of Leadership and Innovation through the eyes of women. Our programs follow this theme and are delivered to internal and external audiences of men and women often in partnership with nonprofits, universities and other corporations. In 2012, we delivered more than 50 programs, making EMC’s WCWLF one of the most diverse and interesting venues with a rich community of attendees. Looking to further our influence and reach, we developed a new Leadership and Innovation in the Executive Suite speaker series. The program brings leaders and innovators with different points of view to EMC and creates a community to inspire leadership through the voice of innovators, showcase thought leadership, and establish new partnerships while building connective behaviors that spur innovation. To increase our impact, we partnered with digital book publisher Vook to create an eBook commemorating the program while expanding our reach. “Connective Behaviors That Spur Innovation” was released in March and has since inspired a global community of thought leaders to share their perspectives. Jeremy Burton, Executive Vice President, Product Operations and Marketing was the program’s host and keynote speaker.

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At EMC World I will once again be working with Vook to commemorate EMC Women in Technology through the Women of the World program called “Boost Your Credibility – Hidden Behavioral Cues,” scheduled for May 8th, 2013. More than 50 largely hidden behavioral and contextual cues have been discovered that deeply affect how others respond to you. Cues cover situations as diverse as setting, female/male differences, sounds, and the sequence of “scenes” we experience. Keynote speaker Kare Anderson, a Forbes Columnist and expert on quoteability and connective behaviors will be joined by Helene Barnekow, EMC Senior Vice President, World Wide Field & Channel and Bill Teuber, EMC Vice Chairman. The eBook planned release date is scheduled for July 2013.