Archived press release

Date Published: 26/10/09

Collaborate or perish

October 2009 saw the quiet tranquillity of Ettington Chase shattered by the arrival of this years dynamic and informative IT Conference.  The Theme for Making a difference in difficult times and whilst that is a tough subject the whole conference was both incredibly useful and uplifting at the same time.  Big thanks have to go to the conference organisers and their incredible energy - Bob Darby, Sarah Winmill, Stuart McSkimming, Ray Titcombe, Brian Scurfield, Elly Stimpson-Duffy and latterly Noojie Begum.

The opening workshop hosted by Robina Chatham covered how to operate both politically and with principle in a senior management position.  For those of you who have never seen Robina talk, you really are missing out. 

The two days of conference covered case studies from VSO / Christian Aid, Oxfam and Practical Action all of which were complimentary to each other and a helpful insight into the real world.   Action: there will be a number of new initiatives coming to collaborate, we will post them up on the website.  If you are interested please get in touch.

The show was opened by Ed Granger-Happ from Nethope, an organisation that we really need to work closely with and share benefit. It is always good to see boat-mad Mark Hallam from RNLI and his view on FD and IS being together was a peek into how the dark side operates.  We had sessions from Chris Tiernan and Dave Aron which looked at what needs to change in our organisations in order survive a recession and to increase the maturity of our operations.  Z/Yen's Leo and Ian did an impassioned plea to get us to get our data in!  

Futurologist, Peter Cochrane inspired and scared us with his view on technology innovation including Nano Technology and Robotics and we were introduced to the monsters that are Generation Y (or is that WHY?).  Caroline Stuart brought us back to Oracle practicality in how they became lean mean fighting machines.  Finally we were excited, informed and entertained by the dynamo that is Deena Gornick on how we handle relationship and keeping the curiosity in our lives.

All in all an amazing conference and the big message is Collaborate or else.