Ready Player One.
In 2018, this was one of my favourite films and a great book. It holds a synergy with an old time favourite of mine Tron. Both films use technology to create new worlds for the characters to be immersed in as an alternative reality.
Too often as we look at the amazing technology from artificial intelligence, voice-activated devices and virtual worlds and we are blind to the imagination and creativity of the people behind them.
Our unit (ITPI) helps to deliver digital innovation products and sometimes you just don’t know what kind of skills you are going to need. But if you can get the right people, then it does not really matter.
For a number of years, I have strongly believed that our students should have a substantial influence on the way we deliver innovative services in our University. However, you cannot just choose a random student and expect them to flourish without the right environment and cultivation, and that is where I see my role.
To begin, we recruit from our student populace, the people who are our customers, which give us a real insight into our customer’s needs. If we make a mistake then the people who develop our products and services can help put this right they co-produce on our service as they sit alongside our full-time members of staff as equals.
Ok our full-time members, some of whom were past students working for us, may have more knowledge and technical experience — but that is balanced by the respect they have to our student employees and their insight and new ideas. As an innovation unit you know that there is a tension between knowledge and creativity, you need some knowledge to come up with the building blocks for the concepts you blend together to create new ideas. However, if your knowledge of an area is too strong, the glue that holds those concepts together is hard to break apart — this is where, in a creative process, our students can offer real value. The other key component that allows this is having a diverse team, cultivating ideas by having different cultures, backgrounds, skills and experiences.
This gives us a unique perspective on our digital delivery, but this does not come easily. It does take a lot of hard work to cultivate, from mentoring and coaching — through to celebrating the team’s efforts. But nothing worth doing is going to be easy, nor when I reflect do I feel that this should be any different regardless of the make-up of the team.
Putting to one side the successful deliveries, and there have been quite a lot, and focusing on the real output here, we are developing for the future. Our investment in our students means that not only do they come out with a great degree, but they have also had 2–3 years of valuable work experience, getting them ready for the next step in their career. I feel honoured that some of those students, decided to continue working full time inside the team, where they continue to evolve and help shape the unit’s future.
That is the real output of our unit, investing in people making them ready for whatever their future holds.
