A Golden Opportunity: The AUTM Annual Meeting
Fresh off of a stint as an Olympic volunteer on the slopes of Sochi (no kidding), I am excited to return to American soil to seize yet another golden opportunity—the AUTM Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
In the shadow of the Golden Gate will gather the world’s best in university technology transfer to demonstrate and showcase leading trends and practices with the community. It is a once a year opportunity to mingle with peers and truly witness the best that our unique profession has to offer.
Following the Olympic analogy, I find that you can generally score points in two ways to insure that your place on this year’s podium:
- Technical (The education): The best examples of leading trends in university-industry practices, IP and licensing, research agreements, and technology transfer operations are just through that door. You should use these brief insights into the practices of others to help shape the evolution of your own technology transfer operation into a medal recipient. Especially trendy this year will be the words “crowdfunding”, “open innovation”, “patent trolls”, and “AIA”
- Style (The Networking): This is the wildcard. You should make yourself the most open version of you, as possible. Say hi to everyone, carve out ten minutes for people with common interests, follow-up after conference or at an evening reception or the “reception after the reception”. It’s a contact sport, so get out there and meet new people
I will also make five, bold predictions for this year’s AUTM Annual Meeting:
- The rubber chicken at lunch and the breakfast rolls will somehow taste better
- Someone will lose their lunch to a hungry seagull
- The Texas Hold’em champion will be someone with less than five years experience in technology transfer
- The place for “random” encounters will be The Starbucks in The Marriott lobby
- Someone will find a way to force a reopen of Alcatraz, likely a result of a group of AUTMers trip to The Tonga Room tiki bar.
LET’S MEET UP
I know many of you, but would like to know you all. Please schedule some time to sit down with me or my partner, Lisa Rooney, to discuss professional needs and opportunities.
You can reach us both through the fancy-dancy AUTM Connect system, or contact us the old fashioned way via email at glen@vortechsgroup.com and lisa@vortechsgroup.com, respectively
