This week I was up in Birmingham for a conference. The HE Transformation Expo was a new event, and I was on a panel session entitled: Is Your Estate Working for You? Deploying Smart Campus Capabilities at Scale to Meet Efficiency Objectives.

We had a good session and an excellent discussion.

The event was at the NEC was part of a larger schools and academies show. This was much more a trade exhibition than a traditional conference, well it was described as an Expo. The sessions I watched were well attended, with standing room only. There was the challenge of delivering and listening to sessions against the noise of the event itself, but headphones were provided.

I did have some interesting conversations, as well as listening to some good sessions. The need for collaboration was across many of the sessions, the challenge of how you deliver on that aspiration was also there too.

Unfortunately I had some online meetings I needed to attend, and there wasn’t really any space at the Expo for such a meeting. I had planned to take the call in the speaker lounge, alas the lounge was just a fenced off area within the hall with tables, chairs and some really bad coffee. There were no other suitable spaces within the NEC, so I had to head back to my hotel for the call. Usually I try and avoid having meetings whilst at a conference, but sometimes this isn’t always possible.

I was lucky in that the cold weather didn’t impact on my travel arrangements however really felt that winter was now upon us.

Spent time planning for next week, I am attending a GÉANT workshop in Amsterdam.