Last week I was on holiday. Well
that's what it said in my calendar anyway. Monday I worked from home in the
morning before attending the University Management Team monthly meeting in the afternoon.
Tuesday and Wednesday I spent at the wonderful
Stanley House Hotel. If you live
in the North West and you want somewhere to get married, have a fabulous meal or
even sip a superb G&T, Stanley House is the place for you. Apart from the
G&T element, I however, wasn’t really in the market for anything else. I
was there with 21 of my University colleagues.
Yes I know how to have a great
holiday. It's all about sharing. Seriously, I was happy (although W wasn't) to forgo
2 days of my annual leave to work with my colleagues because we were doing
something quite unique in my experience. The 2 days were aimed at getting to
the final first draft of our Business Case for the establishment and
development of the University of Salford's first 4 Industry Collaboration Zones
(ICZ). The creation of our ICZs is the University's single strategic priority.The aim
of ICZs is to unite staff, students, industry and communities in a
multi-disciplinary, technology enabled environment in the pursuit of the shared
goals of knowledge, learning and innovation.
What made the development of the
Business Case different was not that their creation will bring about culture
change, but establishing the ICZs will require completely new philosophies of practice, different
pedagogies and new ways of working that fundamentally re-aligns and re-defines
all our activity. In my MBA days I would describe this as a 'paradigm shift', these
days as 'positively disruptive' - being part of the team making this happen was
very exciting. In a week that saw the World Technology Universities Network
being launched, I read about much change promised through the development of new technologies.
Such technologies underpin the
knowledge based economy created through high-quality research and a graduate workforce
equipped with a range of new skills. Indeed I saw this in action with my
colleagues who were able to use their lap-tops, tablets and phones to
effortlessly exchange information, working drafts and to do so with people in the
room as well as colleagues geographically distant. A number of my colleagues appeared
to be working just using their mobile phones! And last week saw several phone
stories – there was Samsung’s Galaxy phone with its exploding battery, and of
course the launch of the Apple iPhone 7. Priced at £599, I doubt if I will be
getting one despite the fantastic advertisement (
see here).
Partly there is something about
an organisation that spends £170 making a phone that they sell for £599, (which
is how they made £36.5 billion in profit last year) - that and allegations of child labour being involved in the manufacture of the batteries
they use. But I guess it's also partly because I don't know what such a phone is truly capable of
and I am not sure I would use most of the technology that’s now available. I do use my phone for taking photos, sending
and receiving emails, texts and phone calls, but I don't play music or games on
it, and if I need to know the time or directions to where I want to go, I will
ask a policeman.
I understand there are a growing
number of apps that can run even when your phone or tablet is off-line, and
although I must confess to not knowing quite how that will change the world, I
am assured by colleagues who do know, that it will. Going slightly against the
trend in technological innovation, last week the UK NHS CEO, Simon Stevens
appearing at the Health Expo 2016 extolling the benefits of wearable technology
to improve access to health care, a theme echoed by the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt. He wants us to increasingly use NHS approved apps to both
consult on health problems (bye bye long waits at your GP or A+E) and to update
your personal health record - so welcome to Huxley's Brave New World!
Huxley's book of the same title was first
published in 1932 and is set in the world of 2540. For younger readers who have
not read it, it's a challenging view into the future – a future where technology
has made sex a recreational rather than reproductive activity, learning occurs at
night (when we are asleep) and society is
'controlled' through sophisticated mass psychological conditioning. People live
in perfect health until they are 60 (which is when they die) but that's not a
problem either. Hmm, yes I didn't really understand it either when I first read
the book in 1970. I'm just grateful, that like Tuesday and Wednesday last week,
I have such a great group of colleagues to help me find the way to create a different future!
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