We’ve just attended the Yorkshire Business Show where Sheffield Hallam University had a stand. Hallam have a division known as Design Futures which competes directly with every private sector Design businesses in the region; specifically we compete with them as we are both suppliers of Innovation Vouchers in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
We had an ‘interesting’ debate about the role of universities competing with the private sector and it dawned on us; the words Innovation and Research are used in the same context in the public sector but not, necessarily in the private.
Research, to us, is the exploration into the unknown where outcomes are not necessarily defined and unsure. Innovation, to us, is the APPLICATION of Research (specifically the commercial application which maybe for personal profit or the wider good). This differential could also describe the difference between the public and private sector too. Universities are centres of excellence for Research but we would argue that Universities are not great Innovators. Innovation comes from the private sector who understands the commercial opportunity of research; this was the basis of the debate.
Without wanting to be too political, it is the private sector that creates the wealth of a nation through the commercial exploitation of research, wealth which includes the highly skilled jobs the Government is keen to see created. Unfortunately, though, because the public sector misunderstands the difference between Research and Innovation, the boundaries between the role of a University and the private sector get fuzzy.
Fortunately this is not the case with Sheffield University. We have a project with Sheffield University where they are doing the fundamental research and Fripp Design + Research are developing the commercial application. This partnership works well (which was recognised when the Wellcome Trust gave us £ ½ Million funding to realise the opportunity).
We maybe a lone voice; however the political classes need to understand and be educated about the differences between Research and Innovation; otherwise we might all end up working for Universities…perish the thought!
Don’t you just hate Spam…but at least we can filter it out!
However we’re getting hit a lot with a type of Spam; let me explain.
As a design company, we recognise there are far too many graduates chasing far too few jobs (although we’re doing our bit; we’ve just taken on a new employee to join the sales team and we are about to announce a new Engineering design vacancy). This has resulted in a lot of job applications from Design graduates; the majority of whom seem to treat job applications as Spam!
We’re fed up of sending rejection letters simply because we know that graduates are sending out block emails to every man and his dog; putting in no thought and effort explaining why they would be good to join Fripp Design and Research (at least we take the effort to respond and explain the reasons for the rejection…but I guess this comes down to our attitude to attention to detail!).
We’ve blogged about this before but it is worth restating, a key part of any Designer’s job is doing thorough research; understanding the value of the proposed design and how this translates in customer benefits. So why is it that most Graduates, who contact us, do not even have any idea who we are, what we are about, translating this into benefits they would bring to us and our customers.
Someone needs to develop a graduate application spam filter…we’d be first in line to buy it!
Fripp Design and Research are pleased to announce that we have been accepted as Approved MAS Specialists by Yorkshire Fund Managers in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
This is in recognition of the emphasis we put on innovation in all aspect of business; including manufacturing.
Even if you are not in the Yorkshire and Humber region, get in touch to find out how we use Innovation to give our clents that competitive advantage.
At 11:00 am today we will observe a minute silence to rememeber all those who have lost their lives to allow companies, like us, to use technologies, such as blogging, to exercise our freedom of speech and expression.
We we’re down at the Design Council a couple of weeks ago; it was one of those ‘Indian Summer’ days in London (at least it seemed to us coming from north of the Watford Gap!). For those of you who have never been to the Design Council, their offices are in a Victorian Building (thick solid walls) and are full of computers, all generating a fair few kilojoules of heat.
And would you believe it, they had the central heating on…full blast!!! What also amused us was, the presentation room, where we met had the air conditioning on full blast too!
We were under the impression that the Design Council are great proponents of sustainable design and designing to minimise the impact on the Environment; it certainly didn’t seem to be the case when we were there…or maybe they really did feel cold and put the air conditioning on to make us, from the north, feel at home!
Just received a news piece entitled “Sir Alan blasts small business owners”; the thrust of his argument being ‘don’t blame the banks for SME failures; blame the businesses for not being financially viable in the first place’. According to Sir Alan “…of the companies he has spoken to in his new government role, there were good reasons why banks had not lent them money in 85% of cases. He said: “The moaners are bust. They are bust and they don’t need the bank – they need an insolvency practitioner.”
We have to agree with him (in principle…not sure about the 85% number though). From day one we have always funded our business through cash flow. We do have an overdraft, but use it on very rare occasions. We’re in the process of buying our own manufacturing unit and have had no problem securing bank funding.
It would be interesting to know what sectors the 85% come from. We suspect many of them will be ‘life style’ businesses which are great when economies are booming; but when things get tough, those little luxuries in life are the first to get cut…its why our IP is focused on solving practical problems; not sexy but definitely recession proof…sweet to us!
We’ve been around long enough to be in fear when Microsoft launch a new operating system…forget Halloween; fright night has to be Windows 7!
We’re just overcoming the frustrations of Vista (and before anyone says “you should use a Mac”; our business is Product/Industrial design; rather than graphic/animation…unfortunately the software we use is PC derived!) and are now faced with the same headaches all over again.
But why change what isn’t broken? Windows XP is very stable (finally!) and does everything a business needs. Why put us through the purgatory of a new operating system simply for the sake of a few consumer gizmos? I know many corporates refused to move to Vista and they had the clout to tell Microsoft; shame about us SMEs!
Treat Microsoft like a good bottle of wine; the longer you leave it, the better it gets.
Footnote: another trend is that every odd release of Windows (Windows, Window 3, Windows XP) have been ‘OK’ whereas every even release has been *!%$£! (Windows 2, Windows 98, windows Vista)…does this bode well for Microsoft?
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