Hutton: the future in Belfast MUST be flexible

We’ll be coming back to the Creating a Good Economy conference several times over the next few days… Between Alan, Geoff and Ivor we’ve a shed load of content to share. There was lots of good stuff.

Two things stand out: one Arlene’s insistence that the late arrival of the programme for government would have an negliable effect on confidence in Northern Ireland; and two Will Hutton, for many years the imaginative genius behind the Work Foundation, bluff call to start focusing on meeting the demands of the future, rather than regretting the economic deficits of the past…

To do that, he says, we have to get more flexibility into our working practices, not least to promote the kind of innovation Belfast and Ulster was once famous for. In a post industrial small, smart companies that seek out overseas markets (the ones who still have Dollar reserves enough to still be spending and growing)

If the state won’t (or can’t) and FDI is a longer term project then we have to find it for ourselves in the way we work…

Via Geoff, here’s his slideshow:

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