A Day in the Life of Barclays Eagle Labs
Bournemouth is one of nine Barclays Eagle Labs across the country, from Jersey to Salford. Just over a year after its launch, we spent a day there finding out what goes on in the buzzing environment of a Lab … and how to make an animatronic dragon.
It’s 10am and Harry Baker, Eagle Lab Manager, and Sharon Jones, Lab Technician, are bracing themselves for the arrival of a group of teenagers from Bournemouth and Poole College. Tables in the communal workspace area are pushed together and pens and notebooks readied. Sharon makes sure the VR headset – not officially part of the training but very likely to be picked up by the students in their breaks – is in working order.
“It’s about what we can give”
The students take their seats. There are 14 of them aged between 16 and 18 – six girls and eight boys, dressed smartly in suits – all studying towards a BTEC diploma in business. Diane Trott, a business relationship manager, talks them through an A-Z of starting a business. They discuss intellectual property, finance, using social media and web advertising. Then it’s on to branding and logo design with Sharon, who shows the students a range of innovative business cards. They look at the Barclays Eagle logo and how it has changed over time to become a simplified silhouette. “Something that makes people look more than once is really important,” says Sharon. “You want to create something that will be instantly recognisable as yours. Sadly, the Apple icon is taken!”
This is the students’ second visit to the lab. They first visited at the start of their course in September and will come again to pitch their business plans to a Dragons’ Den-style panel later in the year.
