Business Clinics with Stuart Smith, Visiting Mentor and Innovation Expert

JFDI presents business clinics with Stuart Smith during the month of January 2011! Stuart is a dynamic and insightful mentor who loves the opportunity to meet startups or SMEs to discuss new ideas. Find out more about clinics with Stuart here.

Why meet Stuart?

Stuart Smith is an expert in Smart Cities, Social Media and Innovation. His experience, spanning consultancy with major private and public-sector clients, allows him to identify opportunities for SMEs to collaborate and innovate new IDM products and services. As CEO of Wood Holmes, Stuart and his team work internationally with large corporate brands and governments in areas of strategy, digital innovation and sustainability consulting. Some clients include ACAS, O2, Bouygues, Deloittes, HSBC, SABIC, BT, Manchester Enterprise BERR and Design Council.

Stuart has recently developed and delivered programme for SME’s as part of the Sunderland Software City Project, called Stimulating Software Innovation. This introduces innovation and creative thinking techniques alongside trends in social media. The aim is to give participants practical tools and information that they can use in their day to day work.

Stuart brings experiences from working with enterprises and startups alike to the table, identifying the best of each world to help your business develop the best way to grow ideas.

What to expect from a business clinic?

Each business clinic, whether you come as an individual or company of 2-3 people, will run for 1 hour. During this session, feel free to discuss your business idea/plan/model, and you may also want to prepare some questions for Stuart. This is not meant to be a review session. Rather, this is a casual chat about your business–be open to what new ideas might come out from this!

As part of the programme, Stuart may continue to work with you or your company to develop your idea, or he may put you in touch with other folks he believes you will benefit from connecting with. We won’t promise the same result for every one who signs up for the clinics, but we can promise that the experience will be enriching for both you and Stuart.

How much do I pay?

With MDA’s support, this programme is absolutely free. To participate, tell us more about yourself, your ideas and your expectations here. Your form will be forwarded to Stuart, who will personally select the companies to meet. JFDI will be in touch to arrange the appointment with you.

For further enquiries on the programme, just drop us an email at [email protected]. See you soon!

Best regards

The JFDI Team

Profile of Stuart Smith

Stuart Smith is an expert in Smart Cities, Social Media and Innovation. His experience, spanning consultancy with major private and public-sector clients, allows him to identify opportunities for SMEs to collaborate and innovate new IDM products and services that will re-engineer the way our cities operate in the future

Stuart originally trained as an environmental technologist at Imperial College of Science Technology & Medicine, London. After graduation Stuart was employed as a consultant advising organisations on environmental monitoring and policy.

He built up an expertise in environmental informatics including GIS, environmental monitoring networks and computer models. During this time Stuart built up consulting teams at two different practices, always specialising on innovation and technology.

During the dot.com boom Stuart was headhunted to join a major global telecoms firm working in an “Internet Centric” strategy team. Reporting into the Board this team developed and delivered some of the most ambitious ICT transformation projects of the time primarily using internet based technologies. Stuarts primary role was to scout new technologies and provide change leadership in adopting these technologies.

Since returning to the consulting world Stuart has acted a CEO of Wood Holmes expanding the practice into strategy, digital innovation and sustainability consulting. In addition, he has expanded the practice internationally with interests in mainland Europe, India and Singapore

Clients include some of the biggest corporate brands and governments including ACAS, O2, Bouygues, Deloittes, HSBC, SABIC, BT, Manchester Enterprise BERR and Design Council.

Stuart has recently developed and delivered programme for SME’s as part of the Sunderland Software City Project, called Stimulating Software Innovation. This introduces innovation and creative thinking techniques alongside trends in social media. The aim is to give participants practical tools and information that they can use in their day to day work.

Stuart has extensive knowledge and a research interest in Complexity Theory and in particular the understanding of complex systems in innovation and change management. He was a member of The Complexity Research Group at London School of Economics and was also an advisor to the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) on Futures & Scenario Planning

Stuart has and has presented keynotes at several conferences as well as publishing a number of papers and articles.