As many of you are aware, I spend a fair bit of time trying to debunk the myth of the so-called Digital Native. Here’s a link to a blogpost in the new Tech publication, The Kernel.

A busy week all round with the launch of the School of Management’s new Research Centre for Strategic Innovation on Thursday evening. About 40 people turned out overall to hear a panel consisting of John Bessant, Gerard George and Sally Jane Norman – leading academics in the field, talk about the opportunities and challenges of the new innovation landscape. Looking forward to a stream of events in the coming year – I’ll be keeping you posted!

Yes, it’s that time of year, and this will be the first full year for our School in the newly-formed Faculty of Art, Business and Law at Southampton. I’m kicking off the new academic year with an informal lunch to get some interdisciplinary groups working on the creative industries and digital media. This builds on last year’s series of talks on commercialisation in various spheres from Profs. Tony Wasserman, Scott Shane and Charles Davis from the US/Canada. I have links from two of these lectures/workshops, which I’ve posted before, but it’s useful to see them together 

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I’ve spent the last 3 years as Director of PG Studies in the School of Management, which has kept me pretty busy given the range of programmes that I oversee as far as educational developments are concerned. As my tenure for this role is now coming to an end, it’s time to look ahead to a new focus. To that end, I’ve been working with colleagues to develop a Research Centre for Strategic Innovation. It’s early days yet, and we launch formally on the 10 November – the publicity for that will be on the website soon. Very excited about generating energy for my field and developing some of the great connections I’ve made across the university since 2004.

We held the second talk of this series in the School of Management today. A great talk from Scott Shane on University Spin-Offs and Wealth Creation. This guy really knows his stuff!

Visited Barcelona this week to take part in the Creative Regions in Europe conference. Good to meet old colleagues and new friends, hear critique of Creative Cities concept, but plenty of successes too. The slides are below.

I had an excellent trip to London this week to what might seem like two quite disparate events. Firstly, a workshop/forum organised by the Maritime Innovation Leadership Council held at the Institute for Marine Engineering, Science and Technology. Secondly, to hear one of my research collaborators, Professor Sally Jane Norman give a lecture on the sense of place in theatre to Sussex alumni at the Royal Society for the Arts. This lecture was of course re;ated to her new post as Director of the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts on the Falmer campus. Connection between the two? Well the MILC initiative is clearly aimed at developing economic business benefits from (in part) better understanding of the supply chain (or wider, value networks) in the complex maritime ecosystem in the UK – sound plan for UK plc. Place and theatre? The sense of seeing things differently, making new connections — the very stuff of disruptive innovation and the re-shaping of entrepreneurial landscapes. The sense of wonder that arises from that wider sense of potential disjuncture is the very lifeblood of innovation, stimulating, thinkers, inventors, engineers and designers to create radically new pmaterials, systems, services. I saw it with great clarity. A good day.

I had a great time earlier this month thanks to the hospitality of Tony Emmerson, Head of Science at the English College in Prague . i gave a talk on Science Entrepreneurship to a group of around 20 students studying for their Baccalaureat. I really enjoyed the questions at the end – very bright, polite students who were a credit to the College and to Tony. All in all, a great stay, and I was introduced to some great pubs and the famous Reduta jazz club too where Bill Clinton and Vaclav Havel famously bonded over saxophone playing. Thanks again Tony.

A slightly belated note to say how much I enjoyed my time with Creative Industries colleagues at INESC in Porto – some great incubation work going on out there. Here’s my presentation – looking forward to continuing this theme in near future.

The Shooting Star, Bevois Valley, Southampton hosted Southampton’s first one-day barcamp, organised by Chris Gutteridge and Chris Philips.  I didn’t get there until lunchtime, but once I read there was free chili I was roused out of my weekend torpor!  Good buzzing atmosphere when I got there, good mix of folk from local universities, IBM and elsewhere.  I gave a Lightning Talk to kick around some ideas as to how to mobilise open data for students.  Friendly atmosphere, looking forward to next year!