Together, we’re strong; together we’re WIN-novators

Ruxandra Balboa-Pöysti

Recently my serial entrepreneur friend Magdalena Pawlowicz and I were discussing the obstacles we women were confronted with when sharing our business ideas with our communities or when bringing our “innovations” to the market. OK, it’s a big boys’ world out there – especially in the technology field, but how come men succeed so more brilliantly in this business game than we, little women, do? We figured out that when men want to make a difference, they support each other – even if they are not all from Mars, whereas we, so-called ladies, just prefer stabbing each other in the back before anything launches – even if we are all from Venus…!

If we believed women simply were women’s best enemies when it comes to business, we would probably not have started to think of a solution gathering most of them! It was quite obvious that curving this pattern passed by  all women sharing their knowledge and some mentoring the others so as to actively support their ideas and innovations. This mentoring process should know no borders but rather benefit from the differences inherent to our cultures, the differences related to our age and roles in our communities, in brief: all united by innovation and our willingness to support each other, THE recipe to become WIN-novators.

After we spent some time defining the objectives of such network (see in the “about” section of this blog) and its unique mentoring process, we realized we needed a technology partner. Both of us were familiar with TWID,  a Finnish social media software company which solutions are particularly adapted to associations. TWID immediately accepted to support our initiative and help us develop an interface that will enable the cross-border innovation mentoring project we thought through to support you, innovative women. It should be operational by the end of February/beginning of March.

In the meantime, your feedback on the following topics is very welcome:

1) what are your expectations in terms of support for helping you release your potential for innovation? Have a look at our “how does WIN-novators work” under the “about” section of this blog and let us know if this is something useful or what would be more useful (deadline: 21st February). Please note that this is only a proposal so far and it is not binding. PS: The conditions of accessing the WIN-novators network will be known by 28th February 2011 at once with the launch of the network supporting it. We however value your feedback and hope to implement those suggestions that will contribute to the success of this network.

2) tell us about who is embodying the innovative woman, who is a source of inspiration for you as a women in business as we are planning monthly portraits of WIN-novators. The first one will be on your table Friday, 24th February and yes it might come as a surprise but we are sure it will create some debate…

Ruxandra Balboa-Pöysti