Wednesday, May 13, 2009

YSTN Event at the York Railway Museum


After a full day of marking, I head in the evening to York, to the Railway Museum. Not for the trains this time, but for a presentation hosted by the Yorkshire
Science and Technology Network. Michael Ryan (yes, the one from Ryanair) gives a presentation about innovation. Well, I am slightly skeptical if removing reclinable seats or charging for visits to the loo can be considered to be "innovation" - in my view, innovation is supposed to be positive, forward-thinking, bringing progress and improvement, not hardship..., but I guess someone's innovation sometimes is someone else's reduction in progress (meaning reduction in comfort in this case). The next innovation may then be that passengers have to carry their luggage themselves to the airplane, or maybe they have all together to pull the plane from the gate onto the runway... there is still plenty of opportunity for "innovation".

But the event was enjoyable, because of good networking opportunities. An interesting audience there, lots of people with entrepreneurial interests. And of course, being surrounded by steam trains (unfortunately just standing still) is simply unbeatable!

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