I had the pleasure to interview Larry Poon, whom I met at IoT-Week Aarhus (DK) this summer. Now I had the chance to interview him in a quiet environment and find out more about him and his work.
Who is Larry?
Larry lived most of his early life in Vancouver and considered himself a Vancouver Canadian. About 10 years ago he then moved to the UK and currently lives in London.
Not many know that Larry has an identical twin brother that works as a lawyer in Canada.
Larry is best known for his 30+ years of experience in the IT world and Telecommunication, where he worked for some of the giants like Nortel, ABB and RBS. He also had work experience as an employee in a start-up before co-founding Imont.
F
or him working in his own company is very rewarding and gives him a feeling of accomplishment.
He has the time of his life working as COO an Co-Founder at Imont.
So there is no surprise that he wants to be known for his work at Imont in a few years from now.
His part in Imont is to ensure all the non technical things such as marketing, finances and so forth are done.
How does Larry bring in new ideas and innovation?
As he is talking to potential customers, partners or colleagues he gets lot of feedback he can then bring back to the team. As a small company (<10 employee) things are easy discussed, agreed upon and executed. Which is an advantage compared to the big companies where you need approval from above and besides you.
Barriers for innovation and development come mostly from technicians and developers that are precious about their ideas and creations. He sees that it is much easier to talk to business development, sales and C-level people about change, ideas and improvements as they are less attached to their ideas and welcome new insights. So his task is to facilitate the right match, to open the technical people to see the bigger picture and let their creation be changed.
Larry thinks that if someone is thinking too hard on the “Why did I not come up with that idea!?”, “I can copy that too…” etc they have a harder time to accept ideas from others. Whereabout he himself goes out and looks for getting new insights he didn’t think of.
Larry’s definition of Innovation:
It has to be something new, a sort of creating something unique, helpful in solving a need or a problem. Creativity comes hand in hand with innovation.
Creativity is hard to define:
Larry believes that creativity is not something one learns easy. It’s a part of a persons makeup. Those persons tend to think of the new, of creating something different and grow. It can be enhanced but he believes it’s more a characteristic of a person, and therefore hard to teach.
We get to talk about how to motivate and enable employee’s to be more creative, effective, social and so on. The basics are to be kind. Even if someone delivers bad work for 2-3 times give honest feedback and respect the other person. Try to use
- “The outcome does not fit with what we had in mind”
- “ Would it help if you would do the … this or that way?”
- “ Would it help if we offered you training on XY?”
- “ Would it help if you’d work in another team? Or department?”
Of course that only works if you see that the employee is really trying but doesn’t get anywhere. If he is lazy and does not do anything then let them go but with respect.
The future looks like to keep on being a competitive ground for businesses where the innovation and creativity mostly is coming from start-ups rather than the big players. But innovation will be important to stay on the market. We can’t afford to stay still as others will overtake us.
Larry’s biggest accomplishment was when he was able to get a sales booth in an oversold Trade Show while he worked for a small start-up. He was number 100 on the waiting list when he left home with all the booth material. He wanted to be a the show anyway so why not take all with him. As it turns out his charm opened the door to check the Trade Show before they opened and therefore he was able to spot a place that has not been offered to anyone. A spot with a pole in the center. But that was ok for him and so he got in even though being at that time number 50 or so on the waiting list.
Larry’s advice and homework for start-up’s:
As a start-up you need to be patient. Many start a company in the hope to earn fast money and sell their idea from Week 1. But the trough is, you need patience as things don’t come fast. You need to accept to learn a lot and do uncomfortable things as many tasks are unknown when you start your company. Have patience and wait.
Connect:
Larry is open to network and open to chat with you. You can reach Larry Poon under larry@imont.io or here on LinkedIN
You can learn more about Imont at www.imont.io
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