A Blog of Her Own

Well, it seems I spent most of my afternoon meeting with people and missing the sessions. This is OK, because my entire reason for coming was so that I could meet people - thus, it was a successful conference.

I did sneak into two sessions very late. One was on Engaging Local Business and I really just caught the very end of the last of the panelists, Stephanie from The Business Link.

She agrees that you can build relationships through technology, in her case videoconferencing. I actually came in while she was listing things we need to know when using VC - VC etiquette as it were. Like how to turn on ‘mute’ and when; the importance of ignoring the camera and becoming comfortable using the technology; other stuff.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions - if you don’t understand terminology, then ask. You’ll find you’re not the only one confused. And it makes the technical people think about the technology and how to explain it. My comment - it makes us techies look for better ways to explain and it makes us learn/understand the technology better. Teach others is often the best way to learn yourself.

The last session I attended was about virtual clusters. I missed the panelist who explained what was meant by a cluster; it’s characteristics, what makes one virtual, etc. I did make it in time to see the slide with examples on it. It seems that for the definition being used by the researchers, clusters included supply-chain integration (so everyone involved in a supply chain is a cluster). Apparantly this idea comes from Porter (of 5-forces fame) and at least one of the audience members thinks we should move back to an older definition of ‘cluster’ to mean a collection of peers; peers sharing information about a similar industry (but not direct competitors). He spoke of clusters forming in a highly specialized farming machinery industry where manufacturers of pea pickers would share information (cluster) with blueberry picker manufacturers, etc. So, the broad industry is the same and a cluster of ‘excellence’ may form, but they’re not directly competing with each other (which frees them to actually collaborate). Some of the other examples of clustering that is already happening included academic libraries and researchers. Not surprising there, really.

And so, the conference is over and there were ideas sparked. But mostly there were questions raised. It was disappointing to hear so many people asking why should they pay so much for SuperNet - What does it give you beyond Internet? And Internet is so much cheaper. There still has not been the right message communicated to municipal offices and community members about what SuperNet really is, what it really means. I know this conference was an attempt to do that (while also sharing some academic research). But we’re still not managing to share the right message. Sigh.