Week 3:3

I was in the BBTC (biopharmaceutical bioprocessing technology centre) of Newcastle University and was wondering the corridors peering into labs.  Labs with benches, test tubes, separating flasks and acids and chemicals… I felt deeply nostalgic for when I worked in that sort of lab.  When I would have to pay attention to the sign at the office that reads “lab coats may not be worn in the office”.  Labs are simple because the results are simple no matter how complex the preparation; once one does a test then things either work or they don’t.  Ah.

BBTC is part of and situated in the Chemical Engineers building and the corridor where the labs are contain what may or may not be a test.  The innocent looking radiator on the wall – the Chemical Engineer would call this a heat exchanger – is not connected.  The pipes that run to it, both inlet and outlet are blocked by end-caps… leaving the radiator isolated.  The unit might leak and had to isolated for its own good, and so that the floor does not become slippery.  With engineers there is always a chance that there was a leak and one of them capped the pipes {rubs hands} and that is the problem is dealt with.

But is the problem solved?  That depends on the definition of the problem.  It no longer leaks.  It also cannot do the job that is it’s only natural function.  If this heat exchanger were working and not blocked off from the network of pipes that run through the building – it would have hot fluid passing through the inside releasing heat into cold air through heat fins that increase the surface area from which the heat can be released.  The capped blocked sidelined radiator cannot call itself a radiator while it is in this state.  It is merely a wall ornament.

I will be working with Gavin and Lucy (they will be teaching me how to get this done because they have done this before) to set up talks, mini workshops.  It will be my particular job I think to involve/invite Business School facilitators or “questioners” in Conversaziones style talks and provide cross faculty exchange. I will also get to do the less important nitty gritties, the rooms and nibbles. An action exchanger.

Where do I find Natural Networks and can they be created?  Where they don’t exist, can people find collaborators both inside and outside the university and develop partnerships that feed knowledge, generate research ideas and lead to new, useful work for all concerned.  Can one arrange marriages or must academics and other practitioners find one another and fall in love?  All the pipes need to be joined up for the heat exchanger to work.

Clear vision. One of the RA’s in the office is doing research with a supervisor who has now relocated to London and the supervisor has offered the RA though option of also moving down south.  But the RA says that he now gets better supervision than he did when his supervisor was in the same building.  Also he would be moving at the same salary and of course London is more expensive to live in and travel in and eat in.  So he has made the counter intuitive decision (for now) to say in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne.  One might say that he lacks ambition but I prefer to see it as a case of the RA having clear and present logical reasoning.

Week 3:2

Words matter and therefore our names matter.

Week 3:1

I don’t know who the audience is for the case studies that I am helping write – all that I have are examples – they are called good examples.  So I let myself soak in that imaginary reader.  I imagine their needs.  Then I proceed with that feeling in me, of someone who is not looking for the research to fail; the reader is my friend but is an intelligent friend and wants the whole story. With that feeling I start to re-story the case study and it is a weird feeling, because the words don’t change much but they get moved around.

A pan dimensional Rubik’s cube.  I rearrange it until the picture is right but I don’t know what the picture is until that point.

Week 2:4

A rule is something that is imposed, a moral form of best practise.

My mother said that, when I was little and she wanted me to do something that she would instruct me to do the opposite.  ‘Lucille, the sun is shining.  Don’t go outside.’ And I would be out the door like a shot.  So I don’t like being told what to do but slowly over the years I have accepted rules that make sense.  Drive on the same side of the road as all the other cars that are going your way, i.e. drive on the left.  Keep to the speed limit.

Today I will be attending a meeting that is being held under The Chatham House Rule and it has inspired me to apply a modifier to my journal.

The Chatham House Rule reads as follows:

“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed”.

I don’t want to be forced into a situation where What Happens on the Dance Floor Stays on the Dance Floor.  If my journal is to be a blog, available to more than just my line manager and myself, I – as the participant in my own life – feel free to use the information that I receive.  But I will invoke that other rule, The Golden Rule { The maxim ‘Treat others how you wish to be treated’ } &, where it seems that I am saying something awkward, I will preserve the dignity of people who I interact with.

Some thoughts on Ethics inspired by the talk that I have attended.  A talk that was carried out under the above rule.

Is there such a thing as a theoretical side to ethics? I suppose that is when you read what other people have said about it.  Doctors cannot be theoretical though, no matter how much they may be tempted to refer to matters as such.  If the system is at odds with common sense then doing the right thing will seem like bucking the trend.  There were several references to this.  To be brave, to be strong enough to do the right thing.  The system has a resistance to new ideas or to innovation.  Sometimes this means doing the obvious things, doing what people are surprised has not been done before.

The problem is that feeling that you are the lone agent of success or failure leads to bad decisions being defended as well as good ones, to preserve the illusion of rightness.  These are the people who will criticise the change agent, who needs to cultivate an ability to listen to criticism without being crushed by it.

A personal, paid coach is easily in the camp of someone who does not want to change the status quo (by much) and can fall into the trap of telling people what they want to hear.  Such a person wants to stay in work and may be convinced that only other coaches pander to their clients.  One must encourage disagreement i.e. the challenge of ideas and ways of doing things.

{If I offered to pay someone to tell me one truth every day that I would find uncomfortable, would there be many takers for such a job?}

Guilty knowledge.  You know something.  There is a damaging practice, a dangerously deficient practitioner and you discover this or realise it.  From the moment that you obtain this guilty knowledge the clock starts ticking and it will not stop until you have taken action about it.

Week 2:3 Measuring Social Impact in the Third Sector

I cycled to work across the Town Moor this morning – going from Jesmond, across Claremont Rd and then into Leazes Park.  All the public flat spaces have cows on them, or rather bullocks, the kind of young bovine that is destined for slaughter I would guess since I did not see udders.  Who may graze cattle on the Moor and in Leazes Park?  I am told that if one has freedom of the city, if you are one of the freemen (male of female) that one is allowed to graze your cattle there.  My older son’s teacher of a few years ago is a freeman.  I don’t know if she owns any cattle.  However it seems that, as well as having grazing rights, freemen play a strong role, a largely invisible role, in maintaining the moor and city green spaces.

As I cycled through the gates that serve to slow me down and keep the cattle in where they need to be kept in, I thought about the utter uninterrupted beauty of the far green hill and trees, softly padded with mist and dusted with rain.  I cannot see the efforts put in to keep the space as it is.  For me, that would be a measure of the effectiveness of those efforts.  All I can see are cowpats and pathways and green.  Joy in the heart of a modern city.

If I was to try and put a value on this for myself I would not be able to.  The lift that my heart felt, the speed of my bicycle, the wind at my back.  The gates, the cows that are not cows but bullocks.  And yet organisations that take public money are expected to quantify this.  Or are they?

In their paper “Developments in Social Impact Measurement in the Third Sector: Scaling Up or Dumbing Down?” Jane Gibbon and Colin Dey say “The objective of social valuation and impact measurement in the third sector is to understand (in social, environmental and economic terms) what difference an organisation’s activities make to the world and to communicate that value to the organisation itself and to its stakeholders (new economics foundation, 2009)”

I am simply glad.  I am glad that somewhere the freemen exist and, as their website http://www.freemenofnewcastle.org/ states “The Freemen of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne can trace their origins back to Anglo-Saxon times where the free men were a middle class, comprised of those who were permitted to carry arms for the defence of the city.

The organisation survives into modern times as a conservation body, primarily aimed at protecting the many of the parks, Town Moors and green spaces for the benefit of the City’s residents.”

week 2:2

WHAT PROBLEM DOES THIS APP/SOFTWARE SOLVE?

handihealth http://handihealth.wordpress.com/free-launch-workshops/newcastle-workshop-wednesday-9-may/ was incredibly well run and the quality of speakers was solid; with consistent, well thought through presentations of in-depth knowledge.

Dunmail Hodkinson of Black Pear Software.  The idea for an app does not have to come from the developer.

He gave an in-depth overview of the software development process of an app that they have (are still) developed for Novartis (for the NHS) called iRIS.  Interesting for me because – of course – it shows me that when app development gets big then it is just another software development with the same problems as any of the software projects that I worked on.  They have scope change rather than scope creep though, which may be a by-product of Agile and therefore a challenge and a “should be expected” and of benefit.  Of course the people working there are developing skills that have to do with interacting with the medical field and that becomes the main benefit, the biggest single activity that differentiates them from any software companies that are not already engaged with, and getting to know, these customers; this sector and its needs.  They also happen to be very good software people.

They use Agile methodologies which start with the simplest viable product.  Their first prototypes are paper based.  They use as many pre-existing modules as possible and as much open source as they can:

Agile methodology; git software repository; Jenkins manages revisions; N unit for testing; dropbox for sharing; Zendesk for support; pivotal tracker; goto meeting

Venture Capital or financing contacts were present and one of them made the fantastic comment:

When asking for funding – in addition to the fact that there must be a way for the product to make money and this usually means b2b – it is crucial to explain

WHAT PROBLEM DOES THIS APP/SOFTWARE SOLVE?

Sunderland Software City – David Dunn – is keen to work with people to connect ideas people with finance people, people looking for work with those offering work and all the practical linking stuff that makes starting a business in software awkward because one only starts a business a few times in your life.

Semantic Interoperability is hard, but like deep mud it will be thick and sticky before it is hard.

Ian McNicholl, talking about interoperability and data standard quoted this.  “Complexity is to IT what gravity is to space rockets.” As a doctor and software professional he is deeply knowledgeable about the existing, conflicting data standards in the NHS – all of the UK.  Attempts at standardisation will always be difficult because.  Different parts of medicine place different needs on their data, and data interactions.  But there are standards and developers should not ignore them.

Neill Jones on Medical devices approval (EC directive), which is required of some apps that are used in the medical field where the app can be defined as a medical device.  At an early stage of app development – write down what the intended purpose of the app is – is it diagnostic or therapeutic and is it used on people?  This will guide one in deciding whether MDA is needed.

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.

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?}

week 1:4

                  Entre – between

                  Preneur – one who takes

Added together = one who moves things / ideas / money between.

Jean-Baptiste Say, a French economist, is believed to have coined the word “entrepreneur” in the 19th century – he defined an entrepreneur as “one who undertakes an enterprise, especially a contractor, acting as intermediatory between capital and labour”

Is that like a special case of a problem solver?  And the fast flowing flaming flowering high achieving driven entrepreneurs are people who want this change –  this adaptation – to happen quickly?

In my new office (large and open plan on the 8^th floor with a view over the city of Newcastle’s hills, construction and I can see the bridges over the Tyne and the Sage too) there are twelve or so RA’s in an open plan office.  The printer is located near me.  The staff were abandoning the empty printer paper wrappers on the small cupboard by the side of the floor standing printer.  I put the wrappers inside the paper recycling bin.  Next day more wrappers.  Then I realised that the paper bin was on the opposite side of the printer to where the cupboard with the paper was.  I moved the bin to be next to the cupboard.  And now no more wrappers being abandoned.  Fabulous.

Met with Richy Hetherington, Postgraduate Skills Development Co-ordinator at Biomedicine.  He works with 600 students at the MRes and PhD level and has a book full of both compulsory and optional skills for the Biomedicine students to take up.  Understanding IP, Writing skills…. anything that they are thought to need in conjunction to their research.  The Roberts Report indentified a lack of appreciation for this level of students among employers.  Many of the skills offered in these short courses are mean to address this, getting students to develop confidence and a conscious appreciation of their own capability.

{What kind of organisational structure works in the research teams?  Is it very different to most companies?}

e-portfolio is being used / piloted to get students to reflect on their experiences, trials and tribulations – this self awareness then leading to self confidence.  Medical students have long been encouraged to reflect on their experiences to improve their practice and do so more naturally.

Richy likes skills to be taught in context.  An alternative context that has developed is the student organised PG Conference for which the students do everything from reviewing papers, inviting speakers, venues, funding – everything.  This year the conference will start on 26 October.  The student organisers are always easily employed.

{I want to investigate making a contribution at the conference, if appropriate}

6 or 7 teams of 4 to 5 students each take part in Biotechnology YES every year and always highly recommend this.  It addresses the process of commercialisation fairly high up the food-chain i.e. student teams must make pitches and develop (mock) businesses in the bio arena.

There is no direct recruitment at the events or after however – when students put this on their CV’s, employers always want to talk about it.  Employers know about the contest.

{Is it possible to increase the number of teams who attend?}

Placements – internships of 3 months – to be done any time during the MRes or PhD years have become mandatory (by some funders?).  Finding and managing placements – which do not have to be in the field of study – are still being trialled.  The aspect that they are trying to get right is – when should these fit in?  Either just after the MRes and before PhD, or after submission of thesis and waiting for viva.

{What if it were in the field of study? Would these people be suitable for placement at one of the many pharma or bio companies in the region?}

Michael Whitaker worked on a very useful document – laying out, on one page, the entrepreneurial activity across the University.  He grants that it may be a tiny bit out of date since he did it 18 months ago, but it captures the activities and the purpose for them and the outcomes very neatly.  I have asked for a copy to include here.

Michael expects me to run around meeting as many people as possible – network and be visible – for my first month and come up with ideas of things to do.  To this end I have a few extra people to add to my list of people to meet. I will be meeting with him again at the end of the month.

The blog software platform was changed around on 1 May.  No wonder I did not hear back from the team on the day before.  Live now.

I attended the EAG meeting and got a very grounding introduction to the work of Engagement.  I am to be involved in writing up case studies – Impact Case Studies – as a writer helper for Lorraine Smith.  That will be nice and pressured I am sure, since the deadline is the end of May.  Can’t spend all my time on that but, it will be good to get to know what people are involved with.

Alliances or heterarchies? I had a discussion with Tyrone that went through philosophical territory.  Changing how companies are run – it is about being in touch with.

Pipelines or corridors.  To be heard in a particular culture or organisation or space one must know the power structure, the circuit diagram and use the technologies, the language and the tools of the organisation.  To change that organisation one must probably first be heard.  I am probably at the first stage of acquiring the knowledge about this organisation.  Not that I want to change it (though an organisation that does not change or innovate is probably dead and I am here therefore I will change it by being here, I may possibly not direct that change though).

Games developers working with medicine.  Tyrone mentioned collaboration between games developers using the wii to both run a remediation program as well as, by sensing the patient’s positions, allowing the physiotherapist at a remote location to check that the patient was doing the movements correctly.

Is anything like this being done at Newcastle?  Should I look into it i.e. it in medicine is not only apps.  Moments later.  And the answer is yes.  There is collaboration between the http://research.ncl.ac.uk/game/ the Computing Sciences and Limbs Alive as well as CCP games.  What about other games development companies – especially those in the North East?

Do the words strategy and strategic plan encourage fight or flight?  It has come to mean thorough and long ranging but does it still hold onto any of its martial origins?  I can’t currently imagine a better word.

                                                                                           Strategy vs. tactics

Or in the disease sphere the equivalent would be            Chronic vs. acute

                                                                                           Think global and act local

What does square the circle really mean?  I always have this picture of an elastic band being pulled outward to form the corner of the square or, as we determined this morning over breakfast, a four sided polygon.  But after squaring, and when I let go of the eastic band, does the square circle itself again.

James says that students are not coming forward for some sorts of placements and this seems like a blank space almost like where I have been employed.  Even though there are massive benefits for doing placements – double your chances of getting a first, the placements at BAE were to be practically guaranteed graduate level jobs when they graduated… students would rather have a summer holiday than spend 12 weeks working.  What can be done that is not already being done? After much discussion Tyrone said that, at a previous university they had solved the problem by selecting students, who they thought were suitable candidates, and sending them letters from the dean saying that they had been selected to apply for the placement.  Better than my compulsory placement at the railway workshops in the summer holidays after my first year of engineering.

Seeding information – I must read up on Nudge.  More and more it seems like common sense, not manipulation.  Maybe just reminders of good practice.

I would love to be able to remember better, type faster, and maybe facilitate meetings in a standard fashion if such a thing exists.