Together with professors Diego Pons and Rodrigo Podestá, the EPC developed the workshop "Innovation and Communication: a model to build", an activity designed to explore the main challenges that organizations face when innovating, and to discover how communication is a key management tool to create, enhance and manage successful innovation processes that transcend and involve the entire organization.
Watch the full talk:
On Thursday, October 29, Diego Pons and Rodrigo Podestá, professors at the School of Postgraduate Studies in Communication (EPC), facilitated a workshop to explore what organizations talk about when they talk about innovation, their challenges and opportunities.
Innovating, progressing, improving, and adapting to a changing and increasingly complex world is imperative for contemporary organizations. The question we pose at EPC is: what role does communication play in innovation processes? Is it necessary to consider communication when innovating? Can communication enhance innovation?
Communication is presented as a strategic tool that enables the successful management of innovation processes within a company or work team. It is also a key element, essential to innovation itself, giving rise to it, expanding it, and consolidating it as a fundamental part of the culture of an efficient organization.
The objective of this first workshop was to exchange ideas, deconstruct preconceptions and build together different innovation models, valid and applicable to the reality and needs of each project, each environment, each need.
“There is no single definition of innovation, nor should there be, but we must agree on what it is before we start working, and communication plays a fundamental role in this agreement.”
The first section involved a participatory activity that highlighted the semantic diversity of the concept of innovation: each person associates it with different meanings. The second stage was exploratory and invited participants to reflect on why innovation is important to them individually.
“Communication must prepare messages not only for innovators and visionaries, but also for skeptics and traditionalists. The message must provide support, be focused, and be collective.”
The workshop was attended by project leaders, middle managers, managers or directors from public, private and third sector organizations.
Diego Pons
He is the Founder of CIQ, a methodology designed for personal development, team development, and innovation in organizations, and a professor at the School of Postgraduate Studies in Communication of the Universidad Austral.
It facilitates spaces for the development of areas of organizational innovation and continuous improvement.
He is the President of Grupo Yanapay SRL, a company dedicated to innovation in management systems for process optimization. He has a PhD in Systemic Innovation (in progress, ITBA).
He is a Mindfulness Instructor (Visión Clara, 2016–2019), an organizational coach (Universidad de San Andrés – Axialent, 2013), and a coach in interpersonal relationships (Dale Carnegie, 2009). He holds a specialization in Agricultural Management (UB, 2000) and is a Veterinarian (Universidad del Nordeste, 1993).
He is a columnist for La Nación on innovation, a mountain marathon runner and mountaineer, a children's rugby coach, and a TEDx Club facilitator.
Rodrigo Podestá
He is a facilitator of learning and collaboration spaces for organizations and individuals and a Professor at the Graduate School of Communication of the Universidad AustralCoordinates dynamic, participatory workshops, both remotely and in person, to promote their capabilities and generate value in their communities through agility, spaces for dialogue and co-creation. Experience with companies, universities and teachers, NGOs, SMEs and entrepreneurs.
She holds a degree in Social Communication from Universidad Austral and professor at the Graduate School of Communication of the Universidad AustralHe completed postgraduate studies in Nonprofit Organizations at the University of San Andrés and the Di Tella University. He is currently studying to become a certified ontological coach. He is a trainer at the Argentina Emprende Academy of the Ministry of Production. He is a member and practitioner of "Art of Hosting" and Agile Argentina. He has also worked as a journalist for various media outlets, including La Nación, Cinemanía, Convivimos, and Almagro magazines, as well as in radio and television. He is a writer and editor of children's stories. He won the "Gota en el mar" (Drop in the Sea) award from the Germán Sopeña Foundation for socially conscious journalism in 2004.
