Six months after my change

So, it’s been about six months after I made my (probably biggest professional) change. In December 2009, I left BT to join Cambridge University as a senior researcher. Making a move from the corporate to the academic world seemed like a big step to me.

When it comes to the details, not much seemed to have changed. My (content) work is still the same. Projects stayed the same, including my role in them. I worry about deadlines for deliverables and content to be done in time. I have to organize my own contributions and those of others.

But there are many things that did change. No worries anymore about strategy and vision rounds (how can one worry about that, anyways?). No ‘business unit’ facing discussions. And the ‘performance management’ at universities is certainly different 😉 The atmosphere at the university is very different and conducive to high quality research. That did change my work life quite much. My worries relate to content, deadlines for papers (I finally get to write papers again, have to get more into it still) and getting my new research associate up to speed. It is not related to funding rounds and re-organizations. No corporate messages of survival. It changed my level of relaxation. A good change it seems.

Do I like academia? It is far too early to tell, I would say. So far, I love it, given the changes described above. But I need to see how much I will miss the ‘corporate engagement’, if one can miss this at all. One good thing about corporate engagement is that I can engage much wider with corporations due to my academic position. No more ‘political acting’, like not engaging with your competitor at a certain level. It is nice to engage with companies I hadn’t talked to before.

So we will see what the change will bring in the coming months and years. But it has been a very good change so far.