TCBL HANDBOOKS
ADVISORS’ GUIDE 2019 EDITION
Co-funded by Horizon 2020
TCBL 646133 – HANDBOOK RELEASED AS ANNEX I TO D2.8 (TASK 2.3) 30 June 2019
INTRODUCTION This Guidebook presents an updated definition of the role of Advisors in TCBL,1 the means for becoming an Advisor, and the main services they offer. Advisors play an important role in the TCBL ecosystem in that they provide the human connection between the open-ended research agendas of the TCBL Business Labs, ongoing Innovation Projects, and the range of TCBL Business Services on the one hand, and the specific needs of TCBL Associates and the T&C industry in general on the other. This document particularly describes the mechanism for becoming an Advisor, which is based on an objective system of points assigned for the different activities the role entails, and the two main services involving Advisors: an e-Shop for consultancy services to TCBL Associates and the TCBL Protocol, where Advisors play a central role in the accreditation process for assigning the TCBL label to Labs and Associates. This Guidebook is intended for three main types of reader: • • •
Current, potential and future Advisors interested in better understanding their role and how they can make the best use of the opportunities that TCBL offers them. Advisors currently part of the EU project partnership interested in how this role might shape their continued participation after EU funding. TCBL Labs and Associates interested in who will validate their membership and in offering possible consultancy services.
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The first edition of this Guidebook was published in November 2017 and is available at: https://issuu.com/tcbl/docs/associate_20advisors_20guide?e=30434928/55266271 The second 2018 edition was published in June 2018 and is available at: https://issuu.com/tcbl/docs/advisors_guide_2018
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1.
WHAT ARE ADVISORS AND WHAT DO THEY DO?
While interaction in TCBL is generally carried out among companies and institutions, there is also a very strong role for individual expertise, embodied in the TCBL Advisor. Advisors can be acting as professional consultants, working for one of the EU Foundation’s Founding Members or involved in another TCBL Foundation role such as a Lab, Associate or Service Provider. The main difference is that an Advisor puts his or her personal knowledge and experience to work. All Advisors adhere to the common TCBL principles as applied to the Advisor role: TCBL Principle
Advisors
curiosity
TCBL Advisors engage in innovation research and support others in doing so.
viability
Advisor activities need to support the business viability of clients as a key objective.
durability
Advisors shall always highlight the environmental implications of what they propose to businesses.
multiplicity
Advisors are open to multi-disciplinary interaction and the exchange of multiple viewpoints.
openness
Advisors are open to collaboration with others for joint publications, research projects, etc.
respect
Advisors respect authors’ rights and always cite the source of ideas.
responsibility
Advisors provide dependable services to businesses, aware of the business implications of their consultancy.
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2. BECOMING (AND STAYING) A TCBL ADVISOR SELECTION P ROCEDURE The selection of TCBL Advisors is based on empirical evidence of actions related to the Advisor role: participation at a conference session, helping to set up a Lab, coordinating a Zine special issue, development of an Innovation Project, etc. We agree on a merit-based system for assigning points to each of above actions – points which remain valid for a given period of time – such that for a given period, the label of Advisor is assigned to those having earned the highest scores.2 The selection criteria are divided into two equally weighted sections: contributions to the TCBL knowledge activities and participation in TCBL innovation services and activities. CONTRIBUTION TO TCBL K NOWLEDGE ACTIVITIES This is core to the activity of Advisors in TCBL, and is divided into three areas, each with equal weighting: •
• •
Participation in #TCBL, including the scientific committee or hosting organisation or participation as a speaker or coordinator in one of the main sessions, i.e. Talk, Live, Jam, etc. Contribution to the production of TCBL Guidebooks, authoring or co-authoring one or more guides, case studies, etc. Contribution to the TCBL Zine, with the editorial board, contributing to a special edition Call for Papers or as a published issue as a Guest Editor, active Editorial Board member, or author of one or more articles.
PARTICIPATION IN TCBL INNOVATION SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES This is the also central to the activity of Advisors, applying their expertise to the benefit of innovation processes. This is also divided into three areas, each with an equal weighting. • • •
Contribution to Business Labs, by coordinating or creating a Lab or through active participation in Lab Projects and Services. Support to the participation of TCBL Associates in Innovation Projects. Engagement in activities related to the TCBL Business Services and the engagement of Service Providers with the TCBL Ltd service company.
LISTING OF TCBL ADVISORS 2019 Applying the point system using the above criteria to all of those involved in one or more of the above activities, we generated a list of the 30 top-scoring Advisors in June 2018. This listing will constitute the baseline for the future selection of those who will appear in the two services described in the following section. Those external to the TCBL project partnership are indicated with an asterisk. Name Athanase Contargyris Besnik Mehmeti Bill Macbeth
City/Region Athens Prato Huddersfield
MS EL IT UK
Description Business development, textiles Textile industry Textile innovation
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For managing the TCBL Protocol, Advisors must in addition belong to a Founding Member of the TCBL Foundation.
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Advisors Guide – 2019 Edition TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs
Name Caterina Ailiesei Cecilia Raspanti Corrado de Castro Danièle Clutier Darko Fercej Dieter Stellmach Filippo Guarini* Fiori Zafeiropoulòou* Francesca Rulli* Francesco Bolli* Francesco Molinari Frédérique Thureau Fridolin Wild George Tsiakiris* Ista Boszhard Jesse Marsh Kerstin Junge Lorena Vidas Luca Leonardi Maria Adele Cipolla Michele Osella Paolo Guarnieri Richard Axe Ruth Farrell Silvia Pavlidou Takis Lybereas Wouter de Roy van Zuidewijn
City/Region Iasi Amsterdam Prato Paris Maribor Stuttgart Prato Athens Prato Prato Massa Paris Oxford Athens Amsterdam Palermo London Prato Palermo Palermo Turin Prato Huddersfield Huddersfield Athens Athens Amsterdam
MS RO NL IT FR SI DE IT EL IT IT IT FR UK EL NL IT UK IT IT SI IT IT UK UK EL EL NL
Description Garment production Innovation labs Supply chain management Fashion markets and marketing Innovation pilots Knowledge management, Industry 4.0 Textile museum management Social fashion enterprise Eco-sustainable Production Heritage communication Industrial innovation policy Fashion markets and marketing Advanced technologies Silk production Innovation labs Innovation management Evaluation Project management Innovation management Independent designers-producers Business and value modelling Eco-sustainable Production Textile innovation Textile innovation Materials characteristics Clothing industry Matchmaking technologies
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4.
TCBL ADVISOR SERVICES
The TCBL Advisor plays a double role in the TCBL ecosystem: through a professional consultancy service to TCBL Associates and as the main evaluator for the TCBL Protocol managing accreditation of TCBL Labs and Associates.
ADVISORS’ E-SHOP The Advisors’ e-Shop, currently in the testing phase, will be structured as a group of ‘products’ – one-hour Skype consultancy conversations on specific topics – under a single Advisor with his or her profile. The Advisors selected according to the point system described in the previous section will all eligible to offer their services through this portal. In addition, the point-based profile – e.g. being knowledgeable in certain areas, having worked on a given innovation project, etc. – can used to tag the Advisor’s profile in order to make it easier for an Associate to find the kind of advice they may be looking for. This approach has several benefits, as follows: • • •
Associates will be able to find those working in specific areas on their own and able to choose the Advisor best meeting their interests. Advisors will be free to define their services and set their prices, adjusting to the response of the TCBL market. TCBL Ltd will make separate service agreements with Advisors and use income to improve the Advisors’ e-Shop service, without overlapping with the Foundation’s fee system.
Following the testing phase for the Advisors’ e-Shop service, an updated version of this Guidebook will be produced to help Advisors structure their service offer in the best way as well as making the user experience of the Advisors’ e-Shop more coherent.
THE TCBL PROTOCOL The second role for TCBL Advisors, having a non-profit nature and directly linked to the core mission of the TCBL Foundation, is within the accreditation procedure through which a given Lab or Associate obtains and maintains the TCBL label. The TCBL Protocol has the following main features: • •
•
The monitoring team is composed of an Advisor nominated by the Foundation, a Local Mentor (where relevant) and two Peer Labs or Associates. Accreditation is based on a self-assessment by the aspiring Lab or Associate, while monitoring of compliance is based on a risk assessment system applied by the mentoring team. The selection and operations of members of the monitoring team are structured so as to a) ensure transparency, b) open up to local and peer-based knowledge of a company’s practices for better or worse, and c) allow for the TCBL community to listen and learn from individual members.
These and other aspects of the TCBL Protocol are described in further detail in a separate Guidebook.3
3
Available at: https://issuu.com/tcbl/docs/the_tcbl_protocol
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Advisors Guide – 2019 Edition TCBL Handbooks Textile & Clothing Business Labs
DOCUMENT INFORMATION REVISION HISTORY This document is Annex I to TCBL Deliverable 2.5, “Achievements and Perspectives in Knowledge Exchange (with special focus on Scouting and Issue Tracking) – Version 2”. Author: Jesse Marsh (Prato), This Annex is also written by Jesse Marsh. REVISION Version 1 Version 2
DATE
AUTHOR
15.07.2019 21.07.2019
Jesse Marsh Jesse Marsh
ORGANISATION
DESCRIPTION
Prato Prato
First draft for review Final version incorporating reviewers’ comments.
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise. Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made through appropriate citation, quotation or both.
COPYRIGHT This work is licensed by the TCBL Consortium under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, 2015-2016. For details, see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ The TCBL Consortium, consisting of: Municipality of Prato (PRATO) Italy; German Institutes for Textile and Fiber Research - Center for Management Research (DITF) Germany; LINKS Foundation (LINKS) Italy; Skillaware (SKILL) Italy; Oxford Brookes University (OBU) UK; imec (IMEC) Belgium; Tavistock Institute (TAVI) UK; Materials Industrial Research & Technology Center S.A. (MIRTEC) Greece; Waag Society (WAAG) Netherlands; Huddersfield & District Textile Training Company Ltd (TCOE) UK; eZavod (eZAVOD) Slovenia; Consorzio Arca (ARCA) Italy; Unioncamere del Veneto (UCV) Italy; Hellenic Clothing Industry Association (HCIA) Greece; Sanjotec - Centro Empresarial e Tecnológico (SANJO) Portugal; Reginnova NE (Reginnova) Romania, Centexbel (CTB) Belgium, Institut Français de la Mode (IFM) France, IAAC (FabTextiles) Spain, Cleviria (Cleviria) Italy, and Sqetch (Sqetch) Netherlands.
DISCLAIMER All information included in this document is subject to change without notice. The Members of the TCBL Consortium make no warranty of any kind with regard to this document, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The Members of the TCBL Consortium shall not be held liable for errors contained herein or direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing, performance, or use of this material.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The TCBL project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme for research, technology development, and innovation under Grant Agreement n. 646133.
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