“We need to move from talking shops, to doing shops”
On 17 June 2025, TechNext held the Sustainability hub event at the Energy Central in Blyth, Northumberland I saw this model of a ship showing how coal transported by wagons from local mines dropped coal into awaiting ships via wooden staithes was a reminder of the region’s long history of shipping coal around the world, and forming the backbone of the Industrial era.
The region’s move from coal, to wind, heat and other renewables was the focus of this Sustainability event with multiple talks and discussions around three main reoccurring topics or themes:
- A state of play: What it is, where we are, where we are going
- Discussions of ambition, vision, growth
- What it all means for locals, businesses and the region
Who benefits?
A lot of the discussion focused on what big ambitions are in play, who the big players they (investors) want to attract; but I wondered — where is the local business owner or soloprenuer or artisans, or wood-workers, metal workers or upcoming small startup software developers in this journey? Do they get to be part of this?
I was struck by a presentation showing how to qualify for grants immediately ruled out any business who didn’t have 1M turnover, or a headcount over 20/25, or hadn’t been in businesses for more than 2-3 years. I wondered, who is this talking to? It certainly doesn’t sound like it’s talking to this region, or even Blyth, a town that has had economic decline for years, if not decades?
How do we get the cash? And when do the invoices get cut?
Charlie Hoult, a local entreprenuer, and one other person raised this far more succinctly than I did in my notebook; they wanted to know – “where is the cash, how does a local business owner or entrepreneur get this cash, the grants and when do invoices get cut?”
I think this discussion underscored a few points and questions, such as:
- Who gets to invited to eat at the table?
- Where are the deals? Where are opportunities? Where might we find them?
- How might we translate real business challenges that offshore renewables have to companies, businesses in other sectors that might not clearly understand what these challenges are?
- How do local businesses get involved?
- Are deals being cut with companies investing in the region (ie: manufacturing, supply chain, offshore and renewables) to ensure that supply chains must source locally first? And if not, how does a local business owner benefit in this investment?
- What efforts are being made to reduce barriers to entry? Reduced paperwork? Nobody likes filling in forms, especially endless tender applications that take weeks, months when the business world is increasingly faster and faster.
Okay, so now on to my critiques of the event.
Jam tomorrow
I felt a lot of the discussions were jam tomorrow. Projects yet to be realised, money yet to be finalised, a lot of growth ambitions. Talks of skills shortages with schools and educational pipelines that won’t be filled for 5,8,10 years.
Presentations need to be shorter, and get to the point
I’m going to be blunt here. I felt there were too many presentations that never got to the point, or had any call to action; or felt like academic lectures.
Please – speakers, review your presentation and ask hard questions of your deck — “who is this presentation for?”, “What is the call to action; what am I asking the audience to do about it”? “What is the urgency”? “How do I get involved?”, etc. And … can I reduce the number of bullet points (ideally zero!)?
3 Suggestions
I thought I’d finish on 3 specific ideas on how to make these events more valuable.
- Connections wall – I didn’t know who was attending, what their challenges were, or what help they can offer. So, my suggestion is simple. Have a wall at the event that says (We do X, We need Y). It can be physical, tactile (on the day).
- Labels for what the person is there for. A simple way to identify who is there for information, networking, deal-making, or just attending.
- Have more ‘doing’ shops and talking shops — A mini workshop or design sprint – I like activities over talking. We had 1 workshop on heat networks, which was fun; I’d like to see more of these. I’m aware not everybody likes workshops (they can feel like homework). I’m also interested in what does legacy ideas look like from these events?
My take-aways
My 3 take-aways from this event are categorised into 3 buckets:
- Dealflow – Where are the deals, what are the opportunities, challenges that the offshore renewable industry has, how might we (locals, solo-prenuers and big business) get involved, what does this dealflow look like, how might we reduce barriers, shake more hands, and get deals done, quicker and faster?
- Ideaflow – Where are the ideas? How are they being captured? How might startups, business owners, students, locals, unemployed, and all those in between get involved? what does idea legacy and agency look like? Who owns and champions these ideas?
- Actionflow – Speed. How might we move faster, a sense of urgency in not just our talks, but in our actions, in our deals – how might we talk today, and get deals done tomorrow? What does speed look like for the North East? Can we balance “move fast, break things” with sober, reflective, long-term chess moves that sustainability deserves?
Let’s start a discussion – what take-aways did you get from this event, and how might events like this be framed, to make them more valuable to you?