A Fishing Trip?

Can early stage businesses gain useful knowledge and successfully grow their organisation by interacting with a virtual network of ‘experts’ and the wider business community? Will these entrepreneurs be able to ask for advice in public and will the ‘experts’ be willing to share their knowledge freely in an open forum? These are just a …

The Ingenuity Business Network – what’s in it for the University?

The Ingenuity breakfast events have been running for some years now, originally established as part of the funded Ingenuity Programme. When the funding for that programme came to an end, the University decided to continue to support the network which might make you wonder why – just what is in it for the University? Naturally, …

Seven Ways to Fix the World

Speaker: Chris Barnatt, Futurologist and Associate Professor of Computing and Future Studies, Nottingham University Business School  “Some scientist, somewhere, will solve the problem.” That’s the message that Chris Barnatt was most definitely not giving at this presentation for the Ingenuity Business Network. Instead he focused on seven ways that individuals, businesses large and small, and …

It’s good to talk… even to academics

I spend a lot of my time visiting businesses from all sectors, everything from commercial archaeologists through to manufacturers of major household brands and taking in some big industrial players along the way.   As a result, I see a lot of different businesses that each has its own issues. Of late I’ve seen a common …

Ingenious or Irrelevant?

Can alliances between small and medium sized businesses (SME’s) and higher education institutions (HEI’s) really add value to both parties or are their worlds so far apart they are irrelevant to each other? Over the last decade, staff at the University of Nottingham and many other UK HEI’s have progressively developed their skills, capabilities and …

Beyond Bricks and Mortar Boards

Universities and the future of regional economic development  Post by Francine Pickering, Ingenuity “The major challenge facing policymakers is how to return the economy to growth. A key government aim is to ‘rebalance the economy’ to be less reliant on public sector jobs, the financial services industry and the Greater South East. Universities have an …

Business Risk for Small and Medium-sized Businesses

Ingenuity Knowledge Exchange event – 7 March 2012 Speakers: Professor Stephen Diacon, Nottingham University Business School and Margaret Burrell, Contract Clarity Post by Francine Pickering, Ingenuity Risk. What does it mean to your business? That’s the first question you need to ask, according to Professor Stephen Diacon, because, since there is no standard definition, if …