I love the smell of Sunk Capital in the morning!
19 February 2021 by David Bott
Given that I was still feeling miserable about the germ sharing programme instituted by FL I got up a bit later than usual and therefore hit unexpected traffic and, as a result, got to Swindon too late to take part in the “start the week” meeting but instead sat in the Library with Strategy Man ♯1 and talked about stuff. After the travel download from Jools, I spent some time with Healthcare Man on how things were doing before the Not Lunch But Learn about the Aerospace industry. Whoever organised it had done very well to get a bunch of important people from the aerospace industry into the same room as many of the Technologists, but the Aero-dudes mostly failed to rise to the occasion. The first 2 presentations were strictly internally focussed and made no attempt to meet us halfway. They seemed to drive off the “we make lots of money, you’ve given lots in the past, so why not give us more” mantra. The “systems” one did a bit better, but I could not escape the feeling that we had all missed an opportunity, so the opportunity to bail out and talk to FL seemed a godsend. We ran into the apparently now standard “double booked meeting rooms on Monday” phenomenon, so went down to the canteen for our discussion. Having missed a full week’s interactions, then had a week where my brain was full of mucus and I coughed a lot, we had not had a real catch-up for some time, so lots got talked about. After that I had a bizarre meeting about Grant for R&D Communications where no-one who was responsible for GR&D was there, so I am not sure what was accomplished other than more proof that we need to be better organised about what we do. The final task of the day was a Genomes Funders Panel, where Cyrus had gone to London but joined by telephone. Not full uptake of the available funding, so we could all feel him purring down the line but lots of co-funding from BBSRC so good alignment of scientific excellence and commercial potential! There was an awkward moment, where the BBSRC person thought that the money we hadn’t committed would automatically be re-allocated to a biological competition – it’s amazing how people with no cuts assume things about how people who got cut will behave!
Tuesday I timed my waking up and driving better and so – although I still spent enough time near the Air Balloon to bother to check in on 4square – got into work before 9 o’clock. After a notional PRP with Will, which included lots of TIC talk, it was on to a Heads of meeting. Suzy had sent me the current Grant Master Spreadsheet.xls, so we went through it one last time and agreed that everyone (except Will and Paul) needed to check in with Suzy one last time to clear up all the little differences that persisted. It would then be possible to sign off all the PAFs that had been sitting around without a formal budget status to back them. Peter also joined us to make sure we stayed aligned on TICs.
It was then time to make my way to London for the launch of the WebMission 2011. Media Girl and I chatted on the train about various media relations issues and we turned up at the swanky offices of Orrick in time for the meeting. It was truly great to hear the pitches of the 18 companies left on the Mission. Some we know because we support them, some we know because they don’t need our support but help give it to others and some we know from drinking with them! In the discussion afterwards, Media Girl introduced me to Richard Tyler of the Telegraph. After some banal exchanges on the Mission (he has been on one before and knows their value, so there was nothing I could add) he started in on TICs and how they were a stitch-up, it wasn’t new money and it was going to bail out the RDAs programmes. Since he was on his third beer and I wasn’t drinking, I decided to debate these assertions! I started with the “reset button” speech from Innovate 10, moved onto our realisation that centres were only part of the landscape, but a new one for the UK – if implemented at the national level – and then challenged him to meet our Board and/or Chief Executive. Since shortly after that I think I discussed whether the other Telegraph reporter could have my Jerry Garcia neckwear to tie up his partner during social activities, I feel I may have made my mark on the Torygraph!
The next morning was originally intended to be a lazy one, but Jools had inserted an apparently urgent phone call with John Higgins of Intellect so I was up in time to get a text from FL inviting me to join him for breakfast. I declined and waited for the phone call – which didn’t actually come! Then it was down to Tracy Island for a meeting with Gus Desbarats (see – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/motoring/ford-future-sessions/Future-of-technology/8176800/Meet-the-Prime-Ministers-IT-guru.html which he may live down!) and Luke Rashino and Roger Leech from Unilever. I think it must be my age, but I am feeling more and more sympathy for Lord Sugar’s dismissive assertion that “anyone who says they are an entrepreneur is actually a tosser”. I love that born again Christian zeal that those who have just discovered open innovation try to use to convince those they think don’t share their religion. It was fascinating to realise that neither of them knew anything about our KTN network, it’s goals or achievements, so my first task was to get them to understand. Gus, who works with the Creative Industries KTN, turns out to be a real asset in such discussions and I got as much as I could from the meeting before trundling back to Swindon on the blue snail.
The reason for spending even more time in Swindon was the interim review of the Low Carbon Vehicles Innovation Platform. The logic is simple. The Innovation Platforms are initially set up for 5 years with a notional £10m a year budget. LCV has been going over 3 years but has invested almost £60m of “our” money (which includes SIF so that metric may not count). It was thus the obvious choice to develop a process for checking that we have done good things and setting out a path forward. Sustainability Man and Digital Man joined me – although others ducked out. Without any guidance, the team had plumped for a “we’ve spent lots of money, done well, so give us more” approach. As we got into it, I think the 3 “judges” all decided this was a poor approach and wouldn’t convince anyone. There was no real attempt to tie up the excellent technology road-mapping and capability mapping with the achievements, thus missing a trick, and very little strategic thought about what would happen next, other than more money would go into the automotive industry. This got us into an interesting conversation about our responsibility to start change but the other relevant bits of government (in this case OLEV and the BIS Automotive Unit) to keep it going. This is sort of a “we do acceleration, they do speed” version of the “we do innovation policy, they do industrial policy” maxim developed by David Way.
Thursday started with an operational Executioners meeting, but got side-lined by our new found attention to details on actions and so the operations morning and the strategic afternoon got smeared into one another. There was a great presentation on how _connect will evolve, which has led me to the realisation that I now need to add another line of bloggage for my _connect identity. Part of this is the _connectMe functionality, which used to be called MatchMe when it was an offshoot of computer dating. In the overlap, we also discussed our links with UKTI.
In the afternoon, we discussed Grant for R&D again, and I realised that Strategy Man ♯1 had sent me a note whilst I was experimenting with FL’s new strain of evil which I had missed – and so the team developing the ideas had no-one from Innovation Programmes and thus was liable to invent a whole new stream of activities rather than converging them. Transport Man has since volunteered – methinks partly because every time he asks for guidance on feasibility studies he gets different answers!
By way of contrast, a brief conversation with Strategy Man ♯1 a few days ago got me into a meeting with the Home Office Counter Terrorist man on the next SBRI. My point had been that many of the “pullovers” I know from the data mash-up world would not see working with the Home Office to catch terrorists as a good commercial move (slow uptake, low prices, limitations on their IP, engagement with the military-industrial complex, etc.) but that the underlying problem had wider uses and we ought to find a way to re-calibrate the challenge wider to help both sides. I ended up with some actions, but we made the point about our wider vision and its usefulness!
Next up was a telephone call about Ideaspace Global – see http://www.ideaspaceglobal.org/ . This is a spin-off from Global Entrepreneurship Week and looks to provide a suite of support mechanism including educational videos, social media interaction and mentoring (although seemingly by channelling Horsesmouth – see http://www.horsesmouth.co.uk/ ). I pointed out that there were lots of these already available and the value of another portal went right by me, and since they hadn’t looked to see what we were doing with _connect, I didn’t think much of their market knowledge (all in a positive and life-affirming manner, I promise)
Finally, I took a call from Grayling Counterpoint, the US agency supporting the Missions appointed by Media Girl. They did a stonkingly good job on Future Health and were now winding up for WebMission. I did my usual stream of conscious why we’re doing it rant, that she and they boil down to some interesting sound-bites in the way that media types do!
Friday saw the arrival of the John Higgins telephone call. It was allegedly occasioned by a meeting Intellect had had with Vince Cable and Ed Vaizey –some large Intellectuals (IBM, HP, etc.) and some small ones – where they had laid out their needs for broader and more consistent Government support and Vince had asked them – “isn’t what the TSB are doing with TICs the answer?” When the answer had been confused, he had asked them what they thought of us. Since they had stared at their feet and felt awkward, John took it upon himself to call me to discuss the event. We agreed that he needed to know more about us – it is obvious that although we have tactical links on KTNs, that knowledge doesn’t percolate up inside Intellect. We agreed to set something up but John then had a half-memory that it might already be on the cards. After a bit of checking it turns out that a request for information about GfR&D had morphed into a meeting between FL and John in early April but there was no connection with our conversation. We connected them, but realised that we need better internal co-ordination that is provided by the “start the week” meeting because it’s timescale is too short.
Next up was a discussion with Transport Man that included the autopsy on the LCV mid-term review (which is not the first of a series of meetings with this title!) and discussion about other options for the Transport area going forward.
Then it was a composite meeting on Missions, the first part more planning for the WebMission and then a reflection on what we had learned from the Future Health Mission. We have ended up with a draft overall programme that looks like another Clean and Cool in 2011 4Q (to China), WebMission 2012 in 2012 1Q, a Future Health Mission on Stratified and Regenerative Medicines in 2012 2Q (to Boston) and a Future Health Mission on Assisted Living in 2012 3Q (to Japan). No mojitos this time, so the plan may change!
Then Transport Man and I joined FL to host Barry Shrier from Liberty Electric Cars. FL had been their guest at the Brighton-London Eco-Rally late last year and Barry was being a diligent seeker out of funds! After a wide-ranging description of his business, he homed in on exceptional projects and obviously wanted one. We explained that times were now harder and the word exceptional was important! I had to leave the meeting early to take part on a telephone conference with the American SINners to discuss our increasing interactions. I was joined by the ubiquitous David Golding (in the room with me) and Peter Dirken (who admitted to being at home in his bedroom!). We used the possibly standard introduction to the Technology Strategy Board presentation now adopted by the Communications group but focused on the “content” section so that they knew what we were interested in. There was discussion about enhanced use of _connect and some questions but the truth is we need to do more to take value from this group in a co-ordinated manner.