It was really good to be back with the UK Cyber Cluster Collaboration, not that I’d ever really been away. The pan-cluster meeting at Leicester was the first time I had met with everyone since stepping down as a director. Despite the long drive it was well worth attending. As an aside, I don’t know how I used to do so much driving. It used to be a regular thing for me but eight hours in one day is just too much now.
I had trouble finding a parking space and arrived just as things were getting underway. A few things have changed since my last visit, there are 17 clusters now for example and it was a packed room that I walked into, with many new faces.
There were a lot of smiles and nods from the people I knew and, for some reason, the parable of the Prodigal Son came to mind. I don’t know why, as my time as a director of UKC3 was one of financial prudence and process rather than being rashly or wastefully extravagant. I was never prodigal though you can only stretch a metaphor so far. My reception, however, was warm.
After opening comments from Linda and Ben, two of the remaining five directors, we got down to the meat of the day. Led by Annabel, coincidently the chair of CyberNorth who is doing some consultancy for UKC3, we broke into workshops to talk about our value proposition: what one is; what ours are; how we can make them more relevant to our target clients. That in itself led to a healthy discussion about who we are aiming our services at. All of the clusters are commercially lead yet many have a very strong academic involvement as well.
All of the clusters are trying to do something similar yet all have their differences in the way that they are set up, their specific areas of focus and the makeup of their members. All are at different stages of development, some fairly well established and others right at the beginning, yet all of us have things that we can learn.
The sessions were really useful and showed the strength in depth that UKC3 and the clusters have. The whole idea behind the movement is one of cooperation and collaboration, both were in abundance that day. I took copious notes and came away with a few ideas to get working on.
I’m looking forward to the next pan-cluster event, which we are pushing to be in our own region.
Just in case you were worried, no fattened calves were killed before or during the event.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 