With the conference just a couple of days away, their Business Development Director Terry Hulbert spoke to one of our key plenary speakers, Bernie Folan, and asked her what organisational restructure she anticipates companies responding to meet the demands of the born-digital community will make.
This is an extract from the interview. You can read the full article on the Semantico blog.
"I don’t think there is one right or optimal structure, so I’ll talk instead about qualities. I think looking out and making real time for learning about the world of research is vital and I’m coming around to thinking that the only way to make it happen in busy working lives is to build in that time in some formal way. I like the thinking behind Google’s 20% time although I wouldn’t suggest it’s the only way and read recently that it is dying out as work levels increase. Nevertheless some research has shown we are most creative when at rest or play.
I think it’s important to have the right people in the right roles so the innovators are not stuck in reports and spreadsheets whilst the detail people are not trying to come up with the next big thing. However, I think there should be some simple mechanism for gathering ideas from all employees. We all live in the world and whether we do it within a university or not, we are all learners.
Organisations need to be agile too. Do we really still need all of those people over there whilst we are hiring over here? Matching skills to roles and getting the numbers right overall as business changes are important and mean that companies need to invest in and develop strong leadership and prioritise honest, open discussion and brave decision-making over short-term comfort."
The ALPSP International Conference and Awards starts on Wednesday 11 September at The Belfry, near Birmingham. Follow the action via the Twitter hashtag #alpsp13 and bookmark this blog for updates.
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