Week 3:5
I listened to a politician talk today. And I wonder when it is that I start talking with so much jargon that the uninitiated simply zone out? The topic was technology and innovation and the event was hosted by the YMCA. The result was that from one end the politician spoke about policy (changing), productivity (going up) and the squeezed middle. And from the other end the YMCA was talking about particular cases; speaking with startling granularity about getting the children of families which are the fourth generation unemployed into work. Technology happens in the middle, between these extremes.
With some practise the squeezed middle should be able to become the toned middle.
Quotes from speakers:
(retired engineer, serial industrialist) There has been a linear decline in manufacturing since 1997 and, unlike Northern Europe; the UK has a negative balance of payments. The UK should be making its own clothes, cups and saucers… pacemakers! We can now change to a 4 day working week.
(strategist at IPPR North) We must use what we have around us. She has evidence of the benefits that accrue to companies who work with universities. This should be made easier to do. Example of Finland.
(catapult centre) We make progress by converting inventions into things that we use. Practical things. Opportunities exist in optimising processes for cost of energy / raw materials conversion to recycle or re-use waste / convert from fossil fuel sources to natural sources. Where are the national labs that fuel innovation? “I need people who can do things and universities do not provide people who can do things.”
Medium sized (family) businesses need to be able to access innovation.
Local systems create local social capital.
And in other news.
If I have a business idea, what then? The sorts of ideas that I have always have to do with problems that I encounter or particular needs that I have. On the Magic Whiteboard above my desk I am collating information about a possible bit of technology that I call the bicycle friendly car. That leads from my cycling (and driving) experiences. But today’s problem… or rather yesterday’s problem that I was solving on my way in today… is: cycling to school yesterday I dropped my youngest son’s lunch bag and school bag (they had been strapped to the bike carrier but came loose behind me and leaped off. I realised this when we reached school and I went back along our path where I found the lunch neatly put aside
Working with a team member. How fabulous is that? I forget and then remember because really I can’t know that I forgot something until I remember it. Right? There is a luxurious aspect to working in a team, at an office. The desk is set up; the laundry does not need doing, and all that but the best bit, the bit that makes working good, is people. There is a team and I don’t have to do all the bits. She is doing the data mining and I am doing the crafting of the information. And she says, this is good and we need a bit more there. We create something bigger. We create a piece of the universe that did not exist before.
Don’t Follow Me I am Breaking the Rules