Public Sector Show 2013

I’m never really sure whether or not I enjoy going to trade shows and exhibitions.  They are usually a long way away and it can be touch and go how good they are.  My measurement of success of such events is usually how long it takes me from the start to wish I hadn’t bothered.  My record is about twenty minutes and fortunately I had an open return ticket.

So you can imagine that it was with some trepidation that I got on the 5:25 train from Newcastle and headed towards the bright lights of London town in order to visit this year’s Public Sector Show at the Design Centre .  Something on the agenda must have caught my eye when I booked my slot several months ago and I was hoping that it would live up to my expectations.  There was certainly a well organised series of seminars to look forward to and I selected three that I would like to attend.

We (I was travelling with a colleague) arrived in time for the first seminar to find a packed hall, full of trade stands and bristling with fellow public sector colleagues.  My first session was on ‘Innovating to be smarter in public service’ by Jack Sallabank from Nesta.  He talked about the power of cross pollination,  getting people with different backgrounds and experiences to look at the same role to help drive improvement.  He gave as an example that nurses and  hotel managers might have similar skills and could learn from each other, though I would argue they have different objectives (one is to fill beds and the other is to empty them?)  He also described the Formula 1 pit stop protocol and how this was used to improve the transfer of critical patients from the operating theatre in a leading hospital. 

The second subject for discussion was ‘Collaborative Government and the Digital Society’ delivered by a combined effort including a speaker from the Go On UK campaign.  This turned out not to be the presentation I had expected and was more about mobile applications  than government collaboration but the @Go_On_UK stuff is always worthwhile listening to. The task ahead for the UK to become number 1 in digital skills is enormous when as many as a quarter of the adult population doesn’t have the basic online abilities that are so necessary in today’s world.   For me the highlight of this seminar was to be reminded that you need humans to unlock the power of technology (very profound).

After a walk around the stalls to chat with some suppliers and nab some free stuff (the TNT truck was probably the best) I attended the last session on ‘Open Data and Transparency’ by Paul Maltby (@_OpenP) from the Cabinet Office.  This was by far the best presentation filled with meaningful slides, useful links and enthusiastic delivery.  The opportunity to set public sector data free is an enormously exciting area to be involved in.  After all, data is power.

So was it worthwhile or not?  Well, we managed to stay until 15:30 when we had to leave to get the return train anyway and so it passed my ‘wish I hadn’t bothered’ test.  The trade stands were interesting though not all of the areas were up my street and the seminars that I attended were informative and thought provoking.  It was disappointing however, that I was advised that there was no wireless yet there were a handful of public access connections available and the use of social media was a poorly missed opportunity.

I’ll put this one down as an ‘enjoy’ and might well be there next year.