Business Skills for Life Scientists Workshop
June 18, 2008 9:22 am NewsI took a welcome time out from examination activities yesterday and attended a workshop on business skills tailored specifically for life scientists. With all the exam work piling up around me, I began to wonder if I had signed up early last month in a moment of sleep deprived madness when the jetlag was at its worst.
On reflection it was perhaps rather an inspired move. The morning session yesterday was very stimulating in helping to clarify the difference between and feature and a benefit. Personally speaking, it would appear that day-to-day scientific practice tends to focus on features and the benefits come as a bit of an after thought when trying to justify what we do. Having learnt this lesson, I realize I need to re-orientate some of my thinking.
The workshop then moved on to business models. At first this was a bit of a challenge, but once you got into the idea of basically “sell anything and everything” then ideas started to flow. On that point, perhaps I should get some merchandizing going for my blog. T-shirt or baseball cap anybody?
The first part of the afternoon session was about business development funding sources and the latter half devoted to intellectual property in a “Who wants to be a millionaire?” style format. It was good to experience it on the receiving end before considering whether or not to try it in one of my own classes. At this point I should disclose that I had previously taken a British Computer Society module in Professional Issues, so I had a reasonable handle on most of the topics. However, I still can’t get my head round software patents in the US. That reminds me, I must try and get round to taking the BCS exams.
Overall it was a stimulating and thought provoking workshop and has given me the confidence go on and explore a few possibilities…
June 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
That was exactly my experience of our training weekend with Patrick and Kevin and co.
There is such a huge divide between the way academics and biotech scientists work and I think that there is so much that they could learn from one another. (Much like immunologists and Microbiologists but that’s another grumble)