How You Can Make A Side Project Work
A side project is work that sits away from your main source of income, but it can link to eveything you do.
I am embracing a project called Park Life On Tour. Let me explain how it works and how a side project can be valuable for you.
I share a lot on social media about my work, personal life, and the communities I am involved in. I’ve posted a lot about the happenings at the Dorset Innovation Park and Defence BattleLab under the tag of Park Life.
This has all taken off now with a life of its own via D3IP and I wanted to turn my attention and efforts to something else, but something still connected.
That’s how Park Life on Tour was born.
Innovation is frequently discussed in business centres, government strategy documents, university papers, and by politicians and business leaders as a way to propel the country forward.
So, what is innovation? Well, that is the question I want to take on the road when I visit innovation centres, science parks and business clusters around the UK. I want to share their answers and I want to ask across a spectrum of sectors, as no doubt there will be similarities but also nuances and differences.
How is innovation supported is also an important question to ask. UK Gov cannot throw that to UK Plc and stand back.
I wanted to challenge myself with content creation. It will be a lo-fi project, just me and a phone, but I want to improve my editing, add B-roll, and maybe create a snazzy intro and outro.
From the visit I will also post to the dedicated blog I have created, otherwise it might get lost into the stream of my LinkedIn posts. That should build neatly into a block of work to refer back to.
I haven’t been in academia for a long time, but part of me believes that there could be an opportunity to collaborate with a university on a paper, to write a document that I could share, and who knows, there might even be a book in it. We should have confidence that these possibilities are open to us and that we are good enough.
In my mind I had this down as a 12-month project. There is a cost to this in terms of my time away from the business, the travel and hotel costs. There are plenty of places I can visit, and in fact one business operates over 30 in the UK and Ireland.
I am doing this for the business as well. I want us to be part of the bigger story. I want to introduce another aspect to the business, so that clients and potential clients can see that we offer much more than just one service. I also want us to learn from others and for others to be able to share and learn from us.
For those who are familiar with the content marketing mindset, this is about discussing yourself without directly talking about yourself. By highlighting others, some of that attention will naturally be reflected back to you. However, the intention behind this approach is genuine — it’s about sharing, learning, supporting, and being part of the larger narrative.
It can be said that innovation comes from collaboration within a diverse ecosystem, then innovation centres should also collaborate with a diverse pool of innovation centres as well, right?
The country faces long-term challenges in areas such as economic recovery from Covid-19, Health, National Safety, and Cybersecurity for example. R&D spend has been put forward by the current Government that went from £14bn in 2021 to £15.5bn in 2022. Hopefully any change in Government will continue the trend.
I’m really excited about this side project because it challenges my capabilities and gives me a chance to be curious again by stepping out of my own business and into someone else’s. As part of the project, I will be traveling up and down the country, which will also allow me to blog about the EV charging infrastructure, adding another aspect to the side project.
Success comes from the energy and willingness you bring to the table. It’s the effort you put in, the skills you refine, and the ability to experiment and innovate that encourages others to join in. Ultimately, it all contributes to the overall business effort.
