week 1:5
This is my First Friday and also the first Friday of the month so I attended First Friday at Central Bean – perfectly organised by Science City. Coffee of my choice (Ajay who arrived just after me has a soy latte with an extra shot) and Danishes. I was delighted by the variety of people who I met. Broadband Computer Co – Andy and company are developing or have developed a new operating system called Alex. Based on Ubuntu. Does that make it new? Anyhow it is meant to address issues of access to computers for the elderly or those among them who are daunted by complex computers. Andy is on the board of Codeworks. Peter Nelson of Nanosight http://www.nanosight.com/ develops and works on cameras that can see down to the nano level. There is obviously a lot of maths involved. Very clever stuff. Beautiful pictures. Useful in manufacturing and water quality control.
Paul Hemphill is a coach and active in the science of happiness. Is establishing a presence “Action for Happiness” at the institute for ageing and vitality.
I will be attending the Thinking Digital Conference on 29, 30 and 31 May. I will be the presence, tweeting and interacting. Best practise foot forward then. I must play around with the technology a bit more once I get a smart phone.
James Hayton led an all day workshop “Entrepreneurs’ Talks” next door. I could only attend for a few hours (sigh the problem with arriving at the last minute and slipping in during the coffee break).
Presentations were all on research findings that were maybe not quite publication ready but being shared and then discussed very generously. Attendees from Lancaster and Strathclyde and here, Newcastle Uni. I met James Hayton. Is it possible to take material from his group into the Biotech YES process? I will see.
Was too shy to ask my questions after the papers were delivered. They were:
On the paper where the researcher was interviewing participants in start-ups to track the changes that the business model underwent over time, mapping them to knowledge and other factors – Does the monthly interview, and forcing the participants to be reflective, change or speed up business change and improve the business outcome?
Can a business model be purpose focussed?
Metastable states
Complexity.
The goldilocks point.
Emotion and Effectuation.
Technology in search of markets.
Investigating networks and where they fit in with business – rather than using a questionnaire the investigator invited participants to a half day workshop and, using storytelling and the visual and big pages and thick and thin coloured pens and guided questioning delved more deeply into networks than usual. Some outcomes: People use few people (sparse networks) for new idea generation. Strong networks for developing an idea. Local networks for commercialisation.
{I was wondering how many student competitions exist for entrepreneurship?}
{How do MBA’s approach entrepreneurship competitions?}