🎙️ Podcast Link 🎙️

Most academics and researchers in a university context will engage in some sort of work with industry, government or public organisations at some stage in their career. However, how this is done can vary hugely: the experiences of a biotechnologist engaging with industry in the agriculture sector can be worlds apart from that of a computer scientist engaging with the technology sector.

One of the key variations is in the volatility of the field you’re working in – are the companies, and the people you’re interacting with, typically still there a decade later, or does everything change every 6 months? In this video, I’m focus on a bunch of practical advice on how to effectively generate and process leads in rapidly moving and volatile industries, so that this sort of activity becomes a fulfilling positive addition to your career, instead of a traumatising drain on it! In particular, I cover three key concepts: that this enterprise is very much a numbers game, that effective filtering and referrals are key, and explain the role of timelines and uncertainty.

Please reshare if useful 🙏

🕒 Timestamps are as follows:

📌 (0:00) Introduction to Effective Engagement
📌 (0:20) The Training Situation
📌 (0:33) Experiences Vary Hugely Based on Sector
📌 (0:53) Stable Versus Volatile Sectors
📌 (1:23) Video Overview – Practical Advice for Engagement
📌 (1:39) Three Key Concepts
📌 (1:52) Key Concept: It’s A Numbers Game
📌 (2:30) Maximizing Only Credible Leads
📌 (2:40) Doing It Yourself Doesn’t Scale
📌 (2:59) Two Key Solutions for the Scaling Challenge
📌 (3:13) Working With Your Industry Engagement Leads
📌 (4:17) Co-Opting Your Colleagues
📌 (5:02) Key Concept: Lead Filtering
📌 (5:14) Don’t Exhaust Yourself For the Wrong Opportunity
📌 (5:40) Filtering by Expertise Fit
📌 (5:49) Three Fit Types: Not Suitable, Competent, Perfect
📌 (6:12) Perfect Fit Projects Provide More Capacity Margin
📌 (6:31) There Typically Aren’t Enough Perfect Fit Projects
📌 (6:43) Limited Timelines Can Change Your Filter
📌 (7:18) Filtering Based on the Development Stage
📌 (7:29) Three Stages of Development
📌 (7:32) Early Stage Conceptual Ideas
📌 (8:16) Well Developed Ideas With a Detailed Plan
📌 (8:51) Joining Existing Projects
📌 (9:18) Do Due Diligence on Existing Opportunities
📌 (9:37) Your Appetite May Be Different to Others
📌 (9:52) Idea Stage Often Determines Input Level
📌 (10:06) Timing: Engagement Can Pay Off Much Later
📌 (10:58) An Increased Reputational Focus On Prior Work
📌 (11:23) You Can’t Force One Opportunity to Be Successful
📌 (12:11) You Can Successfully Engage In Fast Moving Fields

Full Video Notes

• Most academics and researchers in a university context will engage in some sort of work with industry, government or public organisations at some stage in their career. For some, their career will indeed be defined by this work; for others, it will be a smaller but still significant component of what they do on a day to day basis.
• Many in this situation will never receive any significant formal training on how to do this well, and instead will rely on mentoring of more experience peers and on picking it up on the job. 
• One of the issues with learning from peers is that the experience of interacting with industry varies immensely depending on the type of area you work in. The experiences of a biotechnologist engaging with industry in the agriculture sector can be worlds apart from that of a computer scientist engaging with the technology sector. One of the key variations is in the volatility of the field you’re working in – are the companies, and the people you’re interacting with, typically still there a decade later, or does everything change every 6 months? Typically these two scenarios are also related to a similar concept of whether there are a small number of big, long term players in the area, or whether there are also lots of smaller players that pop up overnight, and often disappear just as quickly.
• In this video, I’m going to focus on a bunch of practical advice on how to effectively generate and process leads in rapidly moving and volatile industries, so that this sort of activity becomes a fulfilling positive addition to your career, instead of a traumatising drain on it! In particular, I’m going to cover three key concepts: that this enterprise is very much a numbers game, that effective filtering and referrals are key, and explain the role of timelines and uncertainty.
• The first key concept to grasp is that in these fast moving volatile sectors, it’s very much a numbers game. Unlike those sectors where you can take your time to develop a deep professional relationship with a single company and a single person within that company, because they’ll likely be around for years, you can’t afford to that in sectors where there’s a non-trivial likelihood that one or both of that company and that person won’t be there next week. You want to smooth out the volatility by making sure your early stage engagement is with as large a variety of credible industry partners as possible. Obviously don’t take this too far – every initial contact or interaction should be with someone that, as best you can determine, has a non-zero chance of leading to something more concrete.
• This concept then leads to a few pragmatic considerations. The first is that if this engagement is entirely reliant on you, then your efforts won’t scale, because there are only so many hours in the week, and you want to sleep, attend to all your other responsibilities, and spend time with your family and friends.
• Luckily there are solutions to this scaling issue. Two of the most effective are to work with industry engagement experts at your organisation, and to enlist colleagues to multiply your exposure.
• The first is somewhat university dependent, but many unis have professional staff who are not traditional academics, but rather whose primary purpose is to engage with industry. Even though they often will not necessarily have your level of deep technical expertise, you can work with them so they have a good intuitive understanding of what you do, which can then be highlighted by them as appropriate in the hundreds of industry engagements they do each year. The great part about this is once they know what you do, all that subsequent engagement costs you no time. When a lead is deemed promising after the initial engagement or discussion, they can bring you into the more detailed conversation, with you knowing due to their pre-work that the lead is already a promising one. Good industry engagement leads will be far more efficient at this initial contact than you because that is one of the primary activities that they do all the time, rather than something you squeeze in between numerous other activities.
• Co-opting your colleagues is another version of this strategy. Your colleagues – often in the hundreds or thousands – will also be having their own interactions with industry and government. In these meetings it can often become clear that they are not the perfect fit for the opportunity, but rather that you are – but only if your colleague knows what you do! So take the time to talk to your colleagues – not just in your own group or even university, but more broadly, even globally. You will also regularly get the chance to return the favour, when you realise an industry conversation you’re having would be better directed to them. The system as a whole becomes more efficient, and everyone benefits!
• Once you’re into the groove where you, your industry engagement reps and other colleagues are regularly having those interactions with industry or government, the next step is efficient filtering.
• For early career academics it can be tempting to do everything to land the first industry or government project opportunity that comes your way, but that is a recipe for disaster. Unless you have plenty of spare capacity, there are a few simple filtering steps you’ll want to take to maximize the chances of fruitful outcomes, where a more substantive relationship with an industry partner does develop.
• The first is expertise fit – you will encounter a range of opportunities where your capability and skillset fit vary widely. You can simplify this into three categories: opportunities where it’s self-evident you’re completely unsuited: opportunities where you are technically competent and capable of doing it but no more effective than a large body of your peers would be; and opportunities where the fit is so good that it’s hard to imagine a better person for it, either globally or at least in your city or country.
• The advantage of only taking projects in this last “near perfect fit” category is that you’ll not be challenged as much by the technical components of the project – which is a great help when other things go wrong such as staffing turnover, budget changes and changing goals. Unfortunately, the percentage of opportunities that fall into this perfect fit category will be small, so you’ll want to consider investigating some of the “reasonable fit” categories as well. 
• One exception to this is when you are on a limited timing runway, and must generate some meaningful industry connections in a short period of time (e.g. you’re under pressure at work or a promotion is contingent on doing so). In this situation, you may want to be more flexible in what you take on – but in doing so, you should plan to allocate extra capacity to the role, because you’ll need it when you’re working in a less-than-ideal topic area fit for yourself. 
• And, of course, make sure that your perception of what benefits this activity will provide for you is actually correct!
• Another key filtering process you or your colleagues can apply here is to evaluate the stage of thinking the idea has progressed to within the organisation talking to you. Again, it helps to simplify this into three categories.
• The first is where some individual in the company, often junior or middle ranked but sometimes a C-Level executive, has unilaterally developed an interest in something and wants to talk to you about it. Whilst you should avoid being too snobbish, these opportunities rarely *immediately* turn into any meaningful opportunity. They can sometimes turn into an opportunity in the longer term, but be aware you may be used as a free advocate for the idea as this individual embarks on the sometimes quite long campaign to champion the idea internally in their organisation. Go into this sort of deal with open eyes and a realistic idea of the effort you’ll need to put in and the likely outcomes.
• The second category of development is one where the organisation has clearly been working on the idea internally for a while and it has progressed well beyond the brainstorming stage into a more fleshed out concept, with some sort of plan, and some sort of idea for how you would fit into that plan. At this stage, the primary imperative for you is to determine whether it’s a good fit for you, and whether the organisation has an accurate perception of what you would bring to the table. If not – you can correct it – and then see whether the collaboration still makes sense.
• The third stage of development is where the idea has been fully fleshed out, there’s a detailed plan in place, and an existing research collaborator has dropped out – so they’re looking for a replacement. Another scenario similar to this is where the first phase of a project was completed with another organisation, which has then dropped out for the subsequent phases. Many good opportunities can come your way in this manner – but always do a bit of due diligence on the circumstances under which the previous partner dropped out. Two particular things to watch out for are: any evidence of a toxic or soured relationship, and; a former research partner who’s decided that the opportunity is not sufficiently appealing. The latter case doesn’t necessarily kill the opportunity for you – you likely have a different bar for what you’d accept. Conversely, opportunities that another person might take may not be sufficiently appealing for you.
• Early stage ideas generally provide more space for you to help develop the idea but often have a longer timeline to getting going, whilst later stage ideas will often get going quicker but will provide you with less opportunity to shape them.
• Another key concept I’ll cover here is one around timing. In all fields but especially volatile ones, many promising opportunities will suddenly stop due to a huge range of factors: the organisation closing, a company being acquired and changing direction, the key personnel you’re interacting with leaving, having health or personal issues to deal with and much more. This can be frustrating and seem like you’ve wasted a lot of effort – but over the medium and long term many of these opportunities will return in a different form. A key contact may end up at another company doing similar work and resume the conversation with you there. A separate opportunity may arise with a different organisation, and the due diligence and planning you did for the missed former opportunity can help you fast track a proposal for the new one.
• This also relates to a concept around reputation and profile building. In slow moving industries, you might work with the same key people for a decade or more, with whom you have a deep and trusting relationship. In fast moving fields, relationships will be shorter and more fleeting, so more of your reputation will come from what you did with other organisations historically, and via word of mouth.
• Finally, it pays to remember through all of this that you can’t, no matter how much work you put in, guarantee that any specific individual lead, no matter how promising, will eventuate into a concrete opportunity. This is especially a trap for those early in your career, who don’t always have the spare capacity and career runway to pour huge amounts of effort into developing a single relationship with a  company or government department, only for it to evaporate overnight. This doesn’t mean you can’t be passionate and excited about investigating these opportunities even in volatile fields, but try to keep the bigger picture in mind: you will successfully develop these relationships in the aggregate, but any one particular one can never be guaranteed, or relied on to last indefinitely.
• This video has focused on the specific scenario of industry and government engagement in fast moving, volatile sectors, where organisations and the people who work at them emerge and disappear regularly, and where a slow and steady relationship building approach with only one or two partners is unlikely to be productive. The good news is that you can be highly effective even in dynamic environments like this: it just takes the right approach.