At last, after seven years of trying, the CyberNorth Cyber Security Innovation Centre is underway. OK, it doesn’t quite look like it was originally envisaged, it is a lot smaller, a lot cheaper yet much more portable and flexible. A lot has changed in the last seven years. It is also much more doable and provides a model for rinse and repeat. Robert the Bruce would be proud of me and the team.
Trying to run it across two centres may well have been a mistake yet after a lot of diary shuffling the first workshop kicked off Salvus House in Durham. As with all events, you are never quite sure who is going to turn up. We’d had a couple of people who either had to change their plans or moved locations as well as a couple of late additions and in the end my head was spinning. I crossed my fingers and hoped that enough would turn up to make it all worthwhile. As usual, I need not have worried as more than the expected number had made it, despite the parking problems and, with the presenters the room was full.
Within a few minutes of kicking off there was a buzz about the room, with people interacting both with the presenters and perhaps more importantly with each other. Being part of the community is so important to what we are trying to do.
The workshops covered three areas on day one under a general topic of ‘Product’. The idea was not to sort out the issues that the candidates would face when setting up their businesses but rather to make everyone aware of the things they need to think about. Looking back, there is so much that I wish I had been told when setting off.
We started off with a workshop on value proposition and business model canvas. Some of the candidates had fairly fixed ideas of what they wanted to do while others were right at the beginning. The exercise helped them to get their ideas straight or have a rethink about their approach. After lunch we got to think about marketing, our approach to taking products to market and raising awareness of the business. To round off the day we had a session on ensuring you think about security for your enterprise. This is vitally important for all businesses but when you are working in that sector it should have an even greater focus.
Workshop 1 was a great success and we are going to repeat it all again in a couple of weeks for those who either couldn’t make it the first time or who would like to revisit some of the issues raised. Only eleven more sessions to go.
A huge thanks goes to everyone who was there, especially the presenters, Ian, Thea and Andrew.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 