ON FRIDAY 15th JUNE 2012?Ray Duffill, the Editor of HU12 Online, was privileged to be present at the Yorkshire International Business Convention?at The Spa, Bridlington, as a guest of KC. Here he gives his personal view of the key messages emanating from the event:?
A long day started at 7:30am at the Bridlington Spa with breakfast networking amongst the hundreds of delegates present. The event commenced officially at 9:30am with an amazing line up of inspirational speakers. Below I outline some key messages I picked up and absorbed from each, and my thoughts:
Steve Cram, Athlete:?Steve highlighted the essential infrastructure that?s necessary to produce?Olympic?and world champions. In his generation Steve said that there was a ?lack of a system to make us good at sport?. Since 1997, with the help of the National Lottery in particular, a whole infrastructure of support has now built up to nurture new talent. While there is still a long way to go in ensuring that talent is recognised in the first place, the supportive system to assist and nurturing talent has improved enormously over the last 15 years.
Steve asked how many pole-vaulters there were in the audience. When nobody put their hands up he quizzed ?How do you know?? The potential to be a champion in something is inherent within us all, but it has to be spotted early enough. Opportunities to try new things at school and through youth clubs could spark an interest that can transform a young person?s life. Now if only, at 9 years old, someone had given me that pole, basketball or clarinet ? where might I have been today?
Michael Portillo, TV personality and ?former future Prime Minister?:?The latter self-deprecating description was the one that Michael used to describe his past political ambitions. ?My political future is behind me!? he said in a presentation that was very funny. He described the point when his political career ended in 1997 with the loss of his Parliamentary seat: ?What the media now calls a Portillo Moment?, I call it ?Eating s##t in public!??
Despite saying that he is now in the entertainment business he still holds quite radical right-wing views which both startle and make one think! The propping up of failing banks is wrong, he argued, and we should not guarantee to save them. He also argued that deposits in banks should not be safeguarded either: When safeguards are in place, then no responsibility is taken by the banks concerned or by savers/investors. ?We should not encourage bad behaviour in this way, he argued, we should not let the casino banks gamble our money!
Kevin Keegan, Football personality:?During his speech, Kevin also mentioned the banks but couldn?t understand why some football fans thought he was a Banker? Yes ? in another speech filled with humour, Kevin?s main focal point was about recognising and valuing our?SPAs ? Special Person Appearances. SPAs are the people who enter your life and ?inspire you in some way. Some of Kevin?s SPAs are household names to the rest of us, but probably the most important are those in his early career who gave him his first opportunities. After being turned down by Jimmy Hill to play for Coventry, the young Kevin played instead for his work?s team reserves at Peglers Brassworks. Kevin fondly remembers the manager of that team, Bob Nellist, who first ??believed in me!?
SPAs are essential in all our lives ? but when we are successful or do accumulate valuable experience, then it?s important we share that learning with others. By sharing our experience we can become SPAs to others.
Mary Portas, Retail consultant:?Mary Portas??presentation to YIBC is probably the most important for readers of HU12 Online and we will return to the tenets of her speech in future articles. Mary possibly challenged thinking more than any other of the speakers during the day ? she certainly generated the most discussion amongst my colleagues on the journey home.
Mary described the ?displacement of place? that had blighted our high streets and town centres. We have all become ?passive consumers? and this has led to economic decline which in turn has seen the?disintegration of social capital. Manufacturing going overseas, the internet, out-of-town supermarkets and poor retailing generally, had all contributed towards this decline, according to Mary. She also criticised the short-termism of some local authorities for taking the immediate community benefits offered by some out-of-town developers without thinking through the long-term effects on town centres and customer choice.
Mary thinks our town centres and high streets can be saved. It?s not just those areas fortunate to get ?100k from the Government that can do this ? but it?s all those areas that are able to come together, plan together and act together to make a difference. The creation of town teams, neighbourhood plans and the Government?s ?localism? agenda could all be catalysts for change.
Will Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic consultant: Wow! Will?s presentation was about space ships, space ports, carbon composite carrier transports and journeys into space! All my boyhood Sci-Fi dreams are being brought into reality by Virgin Galactic and its plans for commercial space flight and travel. And just to prove that this is really happening, the carbon composite carrier transport, the most fuel-efficient jet in the world, which will carry the space ships and release them at the edge of the planet?s atmosphere? is being flown in public for the first time at the Farnborough Air Show in July! Wow!
Eerily, lightning struck The Spa during Will?s speech and knocked out the Power Point presentation! I wonder whether someone was watching? and trying to communicate? Someone out there?
Kevin Walsh, KC, Chief Executive: Kevin described how it is our children ?- the 3-year olds who are more screen literate than page literate ? who are now?defining our future.
Kevin said that we are in a new ICE age (Information, Communication and Entertainment). Whereas the old ice age glaciers took years to move, the pace of change in the digital ICE age is so rapid that the jobs our children will be doing haven?t even been invented yet! He described how a Tsunami of data had transformed the world. Twenty households in 2012 can now generate more data traffic than the entire internet did in 2008!
In many ways Kevin?s speech was perhaps quietly the most exciting. It reminded us that the future is being shaped now ? and we can play a part in that. And unlike previous generations we will see the results of that ?shaping? taking place in front of our own eyes. Defining the future is a much more immediate affair!
Rory Bremner, Comedian and entertainer: ?Rory just made me laugh! What more can I say.
Paul Sewell, MC: I?ll sum up this article with a quote from Paul with another key and noble message we should all take to heart: ??leave prejudice behind, act with one voice??
My sincere thanks to KC for sponsoring me to attend this event. It was a privilege to be there! A truly inspiring event!
Ray Duffill
Posted from Bridlington, England, United Kingdom.
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