Week 2:1
KTP meeting:
How many KTP’s have been awarded by Business School (or is that to NUBS) recently? One. And that is to an academic who has now relocated. Fiona’s mention of this specific point means that maybe specific champions are needed in areas of expertise for KTP’s to start and then grow. Did Chris Hicks have a bad experience with KTP’s a long time ago (before Fiona)? Management of KTP’s seems very well known – the project management of everything from the project proposal to the funders and advertising for researcher and all of that is all done by the KTP unit.
Joanna says that Teesside Business School manages to achieve 20 KTP’s a year. Clearly some learning needs to be done on how they achieve this.
Fiona will send me case studies of past KTP’s in the biosciences / medical and business.
Changing a mindset is changing the status quo, changing the way that things are done. If one wants more people being entrepreneurial then at what point do we confront them with that change; where have the choice architects set up shop?
Where should messages be directed? What information is currently being shared and is the default setting good?
Can you tell that I am reading the book Nudge ? Marvellous. And the word always makes me think of Sylvia Plath’s poem Mushrooms.
“Mushrooms
Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly
Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.
Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.
Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,
Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,
Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We
Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking
Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!
We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,
Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:
We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.
Sylvia Plath
“
Which really sums up the background nature of the means of communication that is missed out on. Communication is happening anyhow.
And whether we plan the order in which information is made available or how the choices are presented… there is a default. And the default has power.
Leadership training takes place for the MBA students later this week. I may be able to attend some sessions. But first… tomorrow I start writing case studies and while that may not sound like fun – I will add marshmallows – and do some writing – and get to know new nodes on the branching tree which is my new business home.