Introduction
We expect that before too long the government will announce a gentle, staged releasing of the lockdown. As a result, over the last few weeks, we’ve been working on four key post-lockdown areas which we can adapt and change as government advice develops.
Developing new business opportunities for members in a post-lockdown world
Accelerating the use of our non-terrestrial facilities
Adapting and reconfiguring our physical facilities
Putting safety and security at the forefront of all we do
We’ll be working with members to get feedback and to work with you on the practicalities around the detail, but we’d like to give a flavour of what you can look forward to in advance of us speaking to you.
As with all upgrades, and improvements over the years, none of the new facilities, technology, or member arrangements come at any additional costs for existing members.
New studio facilities
Real ‘virtual’ backgrounds
New safety features
New paint!
1. Developing new business opportunities for members in a post-lockdown world.
The last few weeks have given us little certainty other than the fact that :
Demand for digital adoption by traditional organisations has accelerated in unprecedented ways.
Business development techniques for tech businesses have changed for ever.
For those selling technical services and products to non-technical people it suddenly got lot harder to do!
Our business development support over the last few weeks has focussed on equipping people with the skills and expertise to react to a whole new way of doing business development and talent sourcing. The message has been don’t panic, don’t slow down, but put in place some simple things to keep going. Our focus is now shifting from “Reacting To” to “Emerging From” as we move to a different way of working and accelerate out of lockdown.
Commercial Relationship Development
We’ve started new partnerships during the lockdown and we’ve run those in different ways. One example is our new work with Boots where we’re trialling whole new ways of bringing tech expertise and talent to work with larger organisations. Our work has been on how we break down every single barrier that’s been put in place through lockdown and make it as easy as possible for Boots to access products, services, talent and expertise they never knew they needed, and C4DI members access to opportunities that it would normally take years of business development to find. We’re going to be taking all we learn from this process and applying it to other corporate programmes with each of our corporate partners. We’d love you all to be part of that.Sourcing Talent
As we’ve moved a lot of our events online, many of you may have noticed some new names and faces on the sessions. In moving our events online we’ve been able to attract new members and partners, and so overnight the C4DI membership has grown from those in Hull and our corporate partner offices, to specialists and companies across Europe. This will provide talent to help our growing businesses as well as fill gaps in tech areas we’ve been historically weak in where we are seeing demand from traditional industry.Business Advice
Our networks through our partner organisations and Barclays have meant that through lockdown, members have taken part in accelerator programmes and accessed mentors, advisors, niche specialist professional services at a quality and pace and convenience that has unblocked problems and accelerated their businesses. These new programmes are open to all members. David Summerbell can help work with you to access people to help you scale your business, to some of the more fundamental ones that help you take your first steps with business structuring.Access To Finance
It’s fair to say that this area is very fluid at the moment, because the government is unclear how it supports and intervenes in a very diverse tech sector. We’ve been working with our partners at https://uktechclustergroup.com to feed in to government ways in which the community can be best supported and will post more on that when it becomes clear. What has also surprised us is how a number of local angels have been in touch to ask about investment or co-investment opportunities and who are now actively talking to those seeking funding.
2. Accelerate The Use Of Our Non-terrestrial Facilities
Lockdown has forced us to re-think how we do events, how we create networking opportunities, how we re-think all the day-to-day interactions we take for granted, and how we remain reactive to a world that changes rapidly. What started as a way of trying to support members and trying to carry out business-as-usual has developed into a platform that has enabled us reach opportunities at a distance and scale we’ve not been able to previously do, attract talent at a scale we’ve been unable to do previously and move at a pace that we’d previously been unable to do.
With this in mind we should also recognise that we now have a non-terrestrial C4DI community, it makes no sense to demolish this just because we are returning to the next normal. Even if none of the new initiatives had been successful, there are no guarantees that a future lockdown will not be called.
As a result all events will be available online and we will be blending both our physical and online events so people can join in whatever way suits them either because they are keen to work from home, or because they are not physically based locally. The same goes for all our support services, business development opportunities and more.
In order to facilitate that, we are building some additional capability within the building.
New Webinar & Broadcast Facilities
The theatre was actually never designed to be a theatre, but was always intended to be a tv studio. The sound proofing, technical kit connectivity and presentation facilities therefore lend themselves to those looking to produce broadcast quality online events. We are investing in new tech and software so people have a plug&play way of using that. (Thanks to Paul and the team at Good2Learn for letting us borrow some kit whilst we trialled different setups).
New Conferencing Facilities
Our meeting rooms also lend themselves to being great places for online meetings and workshops and so they are being reconfigured with that as a focus in the short term.
Whether you’re connecting to new opportunities on the other side of the world or just blending your remove and in-house teams, we want to make that as seamless as possible for you. You won’t need a Zoom virtual background - we’ve got the real thing!
3. Adapt and reconfigure our physical facilities for a changing set of requirements
We have lots of exciting physical things to look forward to with new building development...
The development of the new buildings has continued and there are some amazing plans for the welcome area. Have a sneak preview at the fantastic plans below from our friends at Chameleon.
Whether it’s for the new buildings or the current buildings, all our members use the physical facilities in very different ways. Some have offices, some just use the coworking space, others just the meeting rooms, and now others, just remotely.
We’ve used the lockdown to catch up on some decorating this week!
For those members who like to use the coworking space, we’ve been looking at usage patterns pre-lockdown and believe with a bit of re-jigging that for those who use the space a lot we can move you to what is effectively your own dedicated fixed-desk… even branded up with your own logo! For those using the space less frequently, we think there’s a way of giving you the same experience for but with a deep clean between users.
For those who just use our meeting rooms, the timing, usage of that will all be tweaked as will the furniture and configuration of that - all of which will help you run blended physical/virtual meetings.
All this will be done to help with cleaning and cleansing which will help keep us all safe.
Personalised workstation branding for coworking space that have been designed by nFire.
Please speak to Tina if you are interested in a personalised version!
For those larger company members who use the space for workshops and off-site days, we’ll be working with you to facilitate changes in usage as members of your teams will need to present, facilitiate, or collaborate with people remotely as well as those just on site. This will go hand-in-hand with any corporate guidance you have around off-site meetings.
4. Putting safety and security at the forefront of all we do
We are installing regular sanitisation stations throughout the building.
We’ve got some members working on all sorts of tech from digital signage to IoT projects to manage distancing and room utilisation, but at the heart of that are some basic behavioural changes we’ll need to start to make.
All of this is underpinned by a commitment to safety and security, ensuring that all members of our community feel safe and comfortable and we put in place physical measures to ensure that.
Some simple things like one-way corridors will help keep us safe.
As a community we will ensure that members feel comfortable and encouraged to wear face masks if they feel it appropriate; wear protective gloves if they feel it appropriate; sanitise hands at any time if they feel it appropriate; maintain social distancing at any time they feel it appropriate.
From one-way corridors, to single-use lift to changing the layouts of communal areas and use of door handles we’ve got some simple things we want to put in place.
Michelle has been missing everyone, and can’t wait to show off her tan!
A different approach to cleaning scheduling and timing is all being worked on as well, all of which will be lead by the fantastic Michelle.
What happens next?
We’ve hoped to give a flavour of what we’ve been working on, but we’ll be approaching you for feedback on the detail behind all that to refine it and get your ideas and thoughts.
To help people adjust to that we’ll be running virtual tours and programmes to help on-board you with a new way of using the physical space.