Six months after graduating from the Saltire Fellowship I'm still excessively busy doing really interesting things. I'm using what I learned on the programme every day, but I wish I had the space in my head to remember every word at all times... I find myself sitting in meetings thinking "What would Les say about this?", and "What would Anirudh do now?". Les and Anirudh were two of our principle professors at Babson and have very different styles (even if they disagree on very little). I'm not claiming I can predict what they would say, but just thinking about it forces me to looks at problems in completely different ways.
On Friday I'll be meeting a group of the 2010 fellows at their induction session in Edinburgh. I'm really looking forward to meeting them - based on what I saw at the assessment centre they are another excellent group. There is no doubt that their skills are much needed - I could find things to keep a few more fellows busy right now... I worked harder than I have ever worked before on my fellowship year and I still wish I had the capacity to have taken more from it, so the one piece of advice I can offer to the next cohort is to take as much advantage as you can from every moment you can (without actually burning yourself out). When you get out afterwards you will value every lesson you learned, and however much you learn you will wish you had managed more.
Last week I was out in LA with ATEEDA at a trade show where we were running a booth. I had done a lot of the work to prepare for this developing a lot of new marketing materials (in conjunction with our CEO) it was really rewarding to see how well a lot of it worked. I love working for ATEEDA because as well as the traditional Scottish engineering excellence behind the scense the team have a real focus on how it is seen externally by customers and collaborators that is unusual in a company at this stage.
In the next few weeks I am going to be involved in license negotiations, funding negotiations, judging a pitching competition and speaking at an RSE dinner. I will be planning a marketing campaign, organising quantitative market research and working with at least 4 different entrepreneurs. I am going to need my wits about me, but it will be as exhilarating as it is exhausting.
It's great to see the progress the other 2009 fellows are making too - just last weekend I was helping out Paul by taking photos of his "Tea, cupcakes and delights" emporium "Cup" for his forthcoming website. The place was bustling the whole time I was there, and the food and cakes were delicious. I don't know his plans, but given the level of talent and ambition that Paul has on his side, don't be surprised if you see a Cup on a high street near you sometime soon - wherever in the world you are reading this from!
One final thought for today, that came up in conversation chatting with my wife at the weekend. Being apart for 7 months last year was pretty hard at times, and must have been even harder for the fellows (and thier partners) that had children at home. In spite of that, I think all of our relationships survived the year, and there have been a pretty good number of engagements amongst those not already married since we got back to the UK. I'm not quite sure what this means. Perhaps those who signed up for the challenge had confidence in their relationships, determination not to compromise them, or just plain good luck. Relationships were an obvious concern at the outset and although of course we all had difficult time, it seems there are mostly happy outcomes. Hopefully that is a good sign for the 2010 fellows too!