When the rain came down, came down yesterday I was en route from the Faculty of Medical Sciences buildings\u00a0to the Business\u00a0School and I was drenched down to the skin inside my soggy socks inside my squelching shoes.\u00a0 My jacket\u2019s arms, my trouser legs, my knees were wet but my hair was dry because I had been wearing a hat.\u00a0 I left a trail of wet footprints across the foyer on the shiny floor downstairs and,\u00a0though\u00a0I felt uncomfortable,\u00a0I was warm enough because I had been on the move. \u00a0Half an hour later, writing up my meeting with Martin Cox, I felt the cold start to creep up my legs.<\/p>\n
Martin is the Head of Enterprise for the FMS.\u00a0 I had met the business development managers who work with him last week.\u00a0 They have each and every one of them deep and intense experience in industry, patent writing and filing, and IP development into products.\u00a0 They are based in the Medical Sciences building and are, like Richy Hetherington and his team, in the right place.<\/p>\n
I gave him the results of my interviews thus far.\u00a0 These are that Postdocs are time poor and they they feel it would disadvantage them to be too interested in business studies, or to do\u00a0this at the expense of research time, or to seem to want to leave the fold and not pursue the golden high road or defect to the dark side.\u00a0 It was when I mentioned that I want to get non-traditional business in to talk, that Martin got excited.\u00a0 He says that if there is a talk on patents or business skills that it seems like just more work.\u00a0 If the talk were more unexpected or wacky he said\u00a0that\u00a0researchers are more likely to come and listen.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t call it that, i.e wacky, because… because I not sure why not.\u00a0 I call them crossover people, like people who study economics and then start-up a beer brewing company (I am trying to contact James Watt of brewdog).\u00a0\u00a0And I like the plan that says that, even when I get an absolutely core bio-tech person in to talk, the focus can be on the less traditional part of the person\u2019s life.\u00a0 That these are then memorable bits of narrative that make me remember the rest of the business story.<\/p>\n
For instance, at a talk the other morning \u2013 very very early \u2013 it was Women on Board \u2013 Jane Atkinson of Sembcorp spoke about her experience starting in and progressing through the male dominated steel business.\u00a0 She told a story about being stalked quite soon after starting work in a steel plant when she was 22 years old.\u00a0 Because of this, very unexpected, story I remember every other related detail of her business history.\u00a0 She packed a lot of story into the time that she had available, but she could have given me a lot more detail \u2013 I would have remembered it all.\u00a0 All the other speakers have faded from my mind.\u00a0 If I went online and checked a bit of their histories it would all come flooding back, but none are as fresh as this.<\/p>\n
I waited for the sheeting driving crowds of raindrops whipping past my office window to slacken.\u00a0And stop.Then it was time to get home get all my wet things off and get dry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the rain came down, came down yesterday I was en route from the Faculty of Medical Sciences buildings\u00a0to the Business\u00a0School and I was drenched down to the skin inside my soggy socks inside my squelching shoes.\u00a0 My jacket\u2019s arms, my trouser legs, my knees were wet but my hair was dry because I had … Continue reading it all comes flooding back<\/span>