PhD Journey: Week 8

Conference

I was thinking last week about how to build my academic network, and this week offered one opportuntity that I really enjoyed and which seemed effective. I attended an EEUK event in London all about Entrepreneurial Ecosystems, and whilst the talks were interesting the best thing for me was the chance to meet people working in the field, hear what they think, and ask if they are willing to talk to me more formally as part of my research.

It was a nice reminded of how nice people can be — most couldn’t have been more generous with their time and expertise. A few things to remember:

• It feels like a pain, but get out to these events and be nice to people
• Don’t sell, just try to help
• Don’t be shy about telling people if you are looking for something in particular
• Contribute!

It’s a nice post-covid reminder that the more I do, the harder I work, the luckier I get (as the phrase says)

Making time for family

Because I was going away for a couple of days and leaving my wife to look after the dog, it was nice to spend some time focussing on family as well. It is already very obvious that it will be easy to get swamped with studying, academic work and consultancy, and I can see some of my colleagues struggling to keep their head above water. Making time for friends, family, holidays, fun is the way to stop this happening — I’ve done my 60 and 70 hour weeks, I’m not interested in going back to that. In my opinion people who do that aren’t praiseworthy, I’m more inclined to admire the people who say “nope, not doing that, I’m going for a walk with my wife and the dog. Sorry”!