It’s a good job we’d rather be effective than famous!

The frightening unpredictably of Birdlip Hill has now been completely replaced by the almost total certainty of the Fosse Way and so I once again found myself at a “start the week” meeting.  It passed without major upset and, after a short break to refresh our coffee cups, we ploughed into the TIC update meeting.  It also had a “same old, same old” feel, but since that means looking at a tsunami of work with insufficient resource, it’s not a pleasant feeling.  I was then “programmed for travel” by Jools and then went and worked with Cyrus to ensure the buckets we put spend into actually correspond with our management accountability lines.  Although you would think the problem was the past competitions and allocating them to our current groupings, it’s amazing how things I take for granted get put in odd places!!  I think we are there now though.

Then it was my monthly catch-up with David Way.  Bet you can’t guess what we talked about?  After a short space Jools had managed to squeeze into the day for reflection and my own work (I am still behind on several things but cannot seem to find any spare time), I got a briefing from the Media Dominatrix about an interview we were doing with Richard Tyler of the Telegraph the following day.  We trawled through what he has reported on recently, looked at her e-mail exchanges with him about the interview and ran off to get some more data on things we expected him to ask us about!!  Next was a slightly odd telephone call from JLR about the RGF bid that BIS Business guys seem to be orchestrating.  As opposed to the slightly arch conversations I seem to have with Jane and Ashley (but not the aerospace guys, who I am assured are in there pitching with the automotive group!), this was a series of direct questions and answers and the call was over quickly.  The final meeting of the day was with FL – although it was a meeting of two halves.  The first was our catch-up meeting that seems to have been cancelled or delayed a lot recently.  We talked about key programmes and how to co-ordinate better with what feels like an increasingly fragmented external world.  The MD joined us to make sure FL was up to speed with the preparation for the Tyler interview – the plan is for she and I to do the first half of the data transfer and then FL to join us (hot foot from the Science and Innovation conference in the QE11) and talk about the future.  

Tuesday saw the start of short London jaunt, so I caught the early train down.  I had been invited to join the TIC Branding discussions at Sebastian’s offices, so caught a cab to ensure not being too late.  I joined the merry throng and tried to catch up with the rather circular discussion that was going on.  I still feel we are slightly out of our depth with this subject and try too hard to control what appears to me to be an uncontrollable process.  We had some preliminary data on the freedom of use of our preferred name for the TICs, but the interpretation of this data seemed to be all over the place.  Is it a generic name and so we are free to use it?  Or does the extensive use of the name by others preclude us from using it?  I think our branding advisors were telling us that the name is not the most important part of the brand and we need to articulate the values and use the name to encapsulate them.  Since they still think their time with Healthcare Man, Energy Man and Development Man has shown them what the values actually are, they seem more in control that we do!  I left feeling that we do not have a firm grasp of the aim or the process, but I hope I’m wrong.

I caught the tube back to Tracy Island to rendezvous with MD and meet up with Richard Tyler.  We had a good start to the conversation, with Richard very much in “receive” mode.  We talked about the evolution of the organisation, the recruitment of business people (answering his challenge that we didn’t understand small businesses with a combination of “some of us have been there” and “the alternative is civil servants”), the shortening of timescales for all our processes (but balanced with a “this is public money, there must be checks and balances”) and the broadening of tools (allowing us the chance to introduce centres and grant for research and development in the right context).  That led cleanly into a discussion of the TechCity LaunchPad as the right competition process for the right community at the right time (as had been the evil genius that is the MD’s plan).  FL arrived as we were talking about KTPs and got caught by the “so, you’re cutting the budget for these?  I‘ve heard this from university vice-chancellors!” approach.  All three of us tried to unpack Richards question to find the source or intended endpoint, but I am not sure we were successful. At this point the customer services of Tracy Island let us down with the non-appearance of lunch, so we took Richard down to the canteen to impress him with the austerity of a modern government department.  It was during this part of the discussion that we managed to get him to understand that we don’t make specific funding decisions – they are made by peer group assessors.  We’ll have to go back sometime and clean up the scales that fell from his eyes!

Next came a short telephone meeting on a proposal from the Royal Institution to work with them on their idea for a science and technology, online television channel, with us adding the content that is our case study portfolio to theirs.  What I discovered is a disconnect between what I think we have decided at the Executioners meetings and what gets down to the people who have to deliver the goods.  FL’s famous “the case studies of the projects I am most proud of and mention all the time” has apparently never been propagated, so it is really no wonder they don’t exist!  With respect to the RI proposal, they are worried about balancing resource, but I persist in the belief that this is just about adding our pre-built content to ours, and I discovered we were already considering adding video to the website, so I am not sure what the problem is.

I quickly caught up with Transport Man to discuss the final planning stages for the Mid Term Review of the Low Carbon Innovation Platform (due at the Executioners Meeting on 30^th June!) and then the major stakeholder meeting about the auto-aero RGF bid.  Bizarrely, the aerospace dudes were all in Paris for some event or other (a parking competition for Airbus 380’s seems to have one of the entertainments!) so once again, it was an exclusively automotive affair (okay, so I am beginning to get suspicious!).  At this point I realised that the auto guys have been explain it all wrong and that what the companies are proposing is an equivalent of “launch aid” with repayable loans to purchase capital equipment ahead of pretty certain orders.  I will need to check with Cyrus that we are still interested.  This revelation did make me worry if the auto dudes actually knew what was going on!

Then it was one of those telephone conversations that drag you down to the pit of despair.  Yes, it was a NaREC teleconference. About halfway through we realised that all of us had part of the required data set and that FL was with Philip Rutnam, so we decided that information sharing and not decision making was the order of the day.  Still, a depressing way to end a day!

The next morning, Jools had conspired with MD to fit in a telephone interview with the Professional Engineer to follow up last weeks Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Event, and so I met up with MD at Inn the Park – half way between my hotel and my first meeting – I am beginning to like these al fresco interviews I seem to have fallen into the habit of taking , but suspect it will pale in winter!!

Then it was onto what billed itself in my diary as “Review of Executive Team Development Training (lunch included)” in the Whitworth Room at the IMechE.  We talked about objectives, resolving the various approaches we had all taken in lieu of a common approach, and the post Away-Day teams, where we had actually agreed to work in a consistent and planned manner.  I cannot bring myself to say it was one of our most productive days, but we did nail some important and outstanding issues, and life can’t be all fun!

We all split up for the evening (probably best for all concerned) and my event was the Forum for the Future 15^th Birthday Party.  Held at the Coin Street Centre, the social housing enterprise that is also responsible for the renovation of the OXO Tower.  It is amazing to me how few of the people we know ever turn up at Forum events – the exception this time being Peter Jones!  I was introduced by Jonathan to a man who thought we ought to produce data showing that the extrapolation of current policies and attitudes would result in the destruction of the human race by 2050.  He was old enough to remember the similar predictions when I was at university that, if proven correct, would have meant we would already be in an energy starved and feral community, but he wasn’t having any of this “people are creative and technology helps” propaganda so I fell back on the “you get more flies with honey than vinegar” approach that motivated people more by hope that fear.  Jonathan was chuckling and afterwards told me he had tried both of the same tactics – and with as little success!    I walked back to the hotel and met up with FL and Strategy Man for a beer and setting the world to rights session.

The next day I woke early and read the instructions for the meeting I was attending – only to discover that it actually started 45 minutes later than advertised but that breakfast was available.  Since I was in a hotel and had a free breakfast, I ate it and walked across a mildly sunny London and sat in Covent Garden for a while – until the two disreputable drinkers for the night before turned up to disturb my reverie!  As we sat a bit longer Philip Rycroft turned up as well!!

Eventually we decided that we could face the extra coffee rush and entered the Design Council – which had been extensively remodelled to fit the 150 people (although getting rid of half the staff did make the room easy to find).  Much hugging and air kissing followed until we were told to sit down.  I had a nice chat with Deyan about working more with the Design Museum to publicise the link between design and technology – and possibly major on our Design Options programme.  Looking around the room, it was obvious that the great and the good in and about the design world had thought it important to take part in what was effectively a relaunch of the Design Council.  And the speaker line up reinforced this impression.  After a characteristically “take-no-prisoners” introduction by Michael (now Lord) Bichard, Ralf Speth (CEO of JLR) talked about the importance of integrating design into all activities and David Willetts talked about how the government was responsible for all the good things in life, one of which was design.  Interestingly, although JLR have had a significantly large amount of our support and David is our Minister, we didn’t get a mention.  FL started to look grumpy, although he did point out that Ralf had stolen his idea of using an iPad as a speech prompter.  Actually, everyone was just sitting through all this pre-amble because they wanted to hear Jonny Ive talk about design and how Apple make truck loads of money out of using it correctly – integrated into the overall process rather than added on at the end!  David Kester (looking particularly natty in a pale blue Paul Smith suit) interviewed him to draw out the main points – that Apple don’t set out to make money, they set out to make the coolest products they can imagine (products they would like to buy), that the physicality of the product is as important as the look and that the whole system is difficult to imagine, implement and sell, but it sticks people to the products!  There was a significant discussion on the poor education of design in the UK – making it separate from other “industrial” subjects was widely seen to be wrong – and once again, the integration aspect came through strongly.  Then it was coffee.  After the break, the chief designers of Landrover and Jaguar took the stage to describe the Evoque and the CX-75.  Because FL and I had seen them last summer and had the more rounded story about how the available technology had influenced the design, we were a bit miffed that this time the story started with design and forgot most of the technology (already the integration aspect seemed to have been forgotten).  Next up was Navetas (see – http://www.navetas.com/) the evolution of Intelligent Sustainable Energy, an Oxford spin-out. I wasn’t sure but I think we supported them at some point.  This time, the ministerial speaker was Mark Prisk, who gave what looked like a mostly off the cuff response and answered questions on several subjects including TICs (the question was from Nick Leon and was mostly about why Design London can’t be funded as a TIC!).  The next section was about buildings and infrastructure and was kicked off by Jim Eyre with a series of pictures of good and bad architecture – with an interesting thesis about form needing to follow function, fashion and (for real impact) imagination!

At this point, Mat Hunter and I had to sneak out, so we missed Kevin McLoud and Andrew Altman (presumably talking about their latest television programme and the Olympic Park opportunities?).  We headed down to the Home Office for the rather inconveniently timed meeting of the Forum for Innovation in Crime Prevention – itself the linear descendant of the Design and Technology Alliance.  After the usual first time committee stuff, we got down to a list of “priorities” that had been generated by the Minister and Home Office officials (front of mind isn’t in it!).  It rapidly emerged that the police had a different list of priorities and that even some officials felt the need to add to what was obviously a less than fully consulted list.  The leader of CAST (see last week) outlined the capabilities of his group, a man from the Cabinet Office Behavioural Unit (what!) talked about controlling social behaviours and Bernie Rickinson from the IoM and Materials KYN talked about metal theft.  He made the mistake of including data, so metal theft went to the top of the priority list – despite the fact that no-one had done the cost of the secondary impact (the signalling wire gets stolen and has to be replaced, but how do you estimate the cost of the travel disruption?).  They were circling cyber crime and before Nigel Shadbolt snatched control for the putative Institute of Web Science, I volunteered to lead the task force on mobile finance crime, deviously inveigling Mat Hunter as a co-worker.  Students of history will realise that this gives us the ability to resurrect the “hot products” work we did a year or so ago, link it into the Digital Services and Financial Services work and general make sure the Home Office tell us the size of the market.  I could just anticipate the warm feelings of gratitude emanating from Digital Man and Development Man when I tell them!  At this point, Andy Baker from SOCA came up with his synthetic drug problem again and Jaee from the Home Office introduced binge drinking, the latter of which was not on the priority list but, nevertheless, got onto it.  Mat and I made our excuses and left with John Dodds!

Arriving back at the Deign Council, we caught the end of what sounded like a serious rant by Michael Bichard about how no government has ever treated the opportunity to use procurement to drive design (or innovation?) but instead paid lip service to the idea.   John Sorrell, who was chairing, looked a little pained that the chair of chairs was attacking one of the chairs (him) but otherwise I couldn’t hear any summing up but instead there was another coffee break.

The final session was Dave Rowan (of Wired) interviewing Reshma Sohoni (of Seedcamp) and Sherry Coutu (of the world).  There had been some twitter traffic in the morning about the lack of woman designers, so Sherry was wearing a very nice Caroline Charles (see – http://www.carolinecharles.co.uk/) coat to make a point.  To be frank, the discussion was a little bizarre, because they mainly talked about financing small digital companies and mentioned very little about design per se.  They did, however, “big up” the whole Tech City enterprise a lot – using much of the branding language we are learning from Michael and Sebastian.  The schmoozing period was well lubricated and Obi-Wan and I reflected on how much better the event had been than anything we had ever done in terms of the quality of the audience and speakers to influence the public sector – it even trumped NESTA, who seem to have lost their pulling power of late.  We therefore bearded the Jester, accusing him of walking past the opportunity to emphasise joined up government and the links between design and technology, whereupon he offered to go joint on the next Summit in November.  Rats!

Friday was a Swindon day, and started with an unusually uncomfortable drive down in an old Defender, because my car had developed an interesting and baleful orange warning light on the way from the station on Thursday evening.  My first teleconference was cancelled at the last moment, but I got a chance to spend 20 minutes in the Innovate Steering Group, where we went over what felt like the same questions as usual, but with an extra person. That’s what I call progress.  The morning was mostly full of interviews for the ICT/Digital posts.  Zoe and Will had found 2 good people.  The first had trained as barrister but become a fast track civil servant and ended up in UKTI specifying “going global” from the functionality perspective.  The second trained as a computer scientist and ended up as a BT Futurologist.  The afternoon was a “operations” Executioner Meeting, so we started with a PAF – for Design Options – went through why there had been some questions, resolved those questions and approved it for implementation.  Then we went through the scorecards, focussing on the issues that “kept us awake at night”, the main ones always seem to be aspects of TICs, and resourcing.  Lastly, we went through the finances.  We are still struggling to understand how much of our offer to the outside world is still needed so that we can plan to invest more in the future instead of holding it back in case the invoices come in one day.  At this point FL made his excuses and left the meeting so we thought about the risk register and compared goals, methodologies and teams for the “improvement teams” spawned by the Away Day.  Given that these were all subjects agreed by the whole organisation were important, it is as vital that we treat the subjects with the rigour they deserve and look hard at why they are seen as important subjects.  They are so cross-cutting and go to the heart of what we are trying to achieve, so the fact that we planned to take 15 minutes to discuss them and ended up taking 75 is either a sign that we are taking them seriously or that we cannot manage a coherent goals-oriented discussion on a Friday afternoon.  Who knows?