The Importance of Clustering and How To Do It

Earlier this year I got an invite to a reception at Buckingham Palace as part of the UK Tech Clusters. The discussions around clustering tend to range from the aspirational (let’s working together to teach everyone in the country how to code) to very practical (if we have shared workspaces as part of our remit, … Continue reading “The Importance of Clustering and How To Do It”

Earlier this year I got an invite to a reception at Buckingham Palace as part of the UK Tech Clusters. The discussions around clustering tend to range from the aspirational (let’s working together to teach everyone in the country how to code) to very practical (if we have shared workspaces as part of our remit, why not provide passes to each other). But there needs to be more than this.

I am never a fan of intervention where it is unneeded but I am a fan of creating contrivances which lead to repeated behaviours. Digital Circle has never had the resource to create these contrivances but I think that economic development responsibilities (which lie primarily with DETI, InvestNI and the new SuperCouncils but also, in line with the programme for government, with every government department, agency and ALB), are something that needs intervention in order to be habit-forming.

Interventions do not need to be large but they need to be repeated.

But why are these things important?

The first thing that I would say is that it starts to create economies of scale. The more people sign up to your focused programmes, the more benefits they will bring. No-one likes to present to an almost empty room. Your indigenous SMEs will need people to talk to.

You also start to create networks of scale. This means the companies in the area start to lean on each other for work, for shared projects, for new bids for work. You have to build your indigenous companies until they are something to talk about.

Lastly you start to build reputation of scale. It’s easy to say that the Game of Thrones television series has brought attention to Northern Ireland but equally The Shore, Good Vibrations and The Fall have, perhaps to a lesser extent, created buzz. And this is why foreign direct investment companies are then attracted – they come for the work but through hiring and acqui-hiring, they gain a foothold and an investment in the region.

I was at DETI today and the topic of NORTEL came up. When NORTEL failed, it was at the height (or, depending on your perspective, the lows) of the Internet bubble bursting. But it had been a shrewd investment in retrospect as it ushered in a new software industry in Northern Ireland which led to new start-ups in cyber security, in mobile apps, in fin-tech and in health technology. It was a genuinely excellent investment as these start-ups are all indigenous and sometimes (like Wombat and NYSE Euronext) they lead to something bigger. (Thanks to Eoin McFadden in the Innovation Policy unit for the intelligence and foresight as well as the coffee!)

We’re busy using the power of our clusters to educate kids in coding and design, in 3D modelling and creating interactive experiences because we see that as being the future for a small-population knowledge economy. The difficulty in standing and competing on a global stage can be defeated with smart working, with market trend analysis and with working together to create something bigger.

That’s what clusters are for.

There’s Digital Hubs and digital hubs.

There is an inevitability of a concentration on the digital knowledge economy for Northern Ireland. We have a thriving group of developers and designers in Belfast, a huge amount of ambition in the North West and a heap of activity building in the Southern and Western counties of the province. Last week I went to … Continue reading “There’s Digital Hubs and digital hubs.”

There is an inevitability of a concentration on the digital knowledge economy for Northern Ireland. We have a thriving group of developers and designers in Belfast, a huge amount of ambition in the North West and a heap of activity building in the Southern and Western counties of the province.

Last week I went to the Digital Hub along with Momentum, Belfast City Council, InvestNI and representatives from DCAL and OFMDFM.

We heard the spiel about how it brought some regeneration to the area, that they still have a considerable subvention from the government after 10 years (less than €2m a year, but overall investment has been around €30m since inception and may not include transferred assets).

I also spoke to some of the guys in some of the businesses. They said they wish the Hub was one mile closer to the city centre, that the reason they use bikes and public transport is because they don’t want to bring their cars to that area of town and even the big lads feel a little concerned leaving the Hub with a laptop.

It re-iterates my belief that a city centre location for a Belfast Hub is essential. Not least because Davy Sims put together a map of Digital Media companies in Northern Ireland back in February of 2010 and discovered most were within a square mile in the city centre.


View Belfast Media Square Mile in a larger map

I don’t think we want a straight property play like the Hub in Dublin. We’re a small region with a big ambition so we have to think much more strategically about what goes where. We also need to be 100% joined up. I think I have the support of the Digital Circle steering group in my opinions and in my vision for a digital hub-type infrastructure in Northern Ireland. It’s a big plan, an ambitious plan, even an audacious plan and if it delivers, it will bring the concept to the province as a whole rather than just to a small region.

Steal the Future; Change the World

My friends Rory and Anita at The Creativity Hub are pretty much the nicest people I know. That’s not entirely surprising considering the work they do in creativity and conflict resolution. I know Rory from a few years ago when he was working in the rehabilitation of prisoners (from our unique political ‘situation’) and I … Continue reading “Steal the Future; Change the World”

My friends Rory and Anita at The Creativity Hub are pretty much the nicest people I know. That’s not entirely surprising considering the work they do in creativity and conflict resolution. I know Rory from a few years ago when he was working in the rehabilitation of prisoners (from our unique political ‘situation’) and I was very glad to re-acquaint myself with him not long after the start of this job – both for work and socially.

Rory introduced me to the concept of “Advanced Civilisation” (which he said is also available on the Internet as Beachhead). It’s something I had used for my creative writing but I had not really considered using it for work-related purposes. I do find now that I use it a lot – that imagination figures heavily in how I want to enact change in the world around me. The secret to achieving things lies in the discovery of great people, not in the funding programmes that are available.

This weekend we will complete the proposal document for StartVI year two and we will be looking for 6 great start-up ideas. We have a much more cohesive programme planned for the 2011 intake, more mentors and a better idea of what can be achieved now that we’ve shown it can work.

I’m also proposing the founding of a new co-working, research based technology centre in Belfast. And a solution to improving the quality of software engineering in Northern Ireland – comprising of a industry-tailored education programme and a community focused technology freeschool. Of course I alone am not qualified to do all of this. That’s why I’ve been looking for great people to help change the world; to steal the future; to get there earlier.

All of this to create a hub of 21st Century Enlightenment.

Amazing companies are built on free.

I caught a comment on Twitter recently that “a company built on free would be a pretty shitty company”. The author has since deleted that tweet, presumably because some of the best companies are built on free. Brands like Gillette ($43B), Google ($185B), Apple ($205B) all leveraged ‘free’ in some form. King Gillette gave away … Continue reading “Amazing companies are built on free.”

I caught a comment on Twitter recently that “a company built on free would be a pretty shitty company”. The author has since deleted that tweet, presumably because some of the best companies are built on free.

Brands like Gillette ($43B), Google ($185B), Apple ($205B) all leveraged ‘free’ in some form. King Gillette gave away his razors and sold the blades a hundred years ago. Google gives away ‘freemium’ access to their apps and services. The foundation of Apple’s amazing operating system is open source and given away for free and they’ve created and given away a world-class web browser engine, WebKit, which is being used free of charge by Nokia, RIM and Google in mobile products that are competing directly with Apple.

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary celebrates the notion of free (paying for flights using anciliary revenue – in-flight meals, bag checks, hotel and car bookings, internet and games):
“The other airlines are asking how they can put up fares. We are asking how we could get rid of them.”

Amazing companies are built on free. 20th Century companies were built on the notion of scarcity. They focussed on the shipping of real goods, the transportation of atoms. The scarcity was real. With the exception of High Fructose Corn Syrup, we have a scarcity of many items because duplicating items means duplicating costs. But there’s no scarcity of bits. Bits are the lingua franca of the Internet and we have an abundance of them. Bits enable ‘virtual goods’ to be duplicated endlessly. The cost of duplication is zero so you’re left with the initial cost of creation which, when amortised over the potential millions of recipients, drives the individual cost towards zero.

Now the economics of scarcity keep some people in power – this is the essence of the haves and have-nots. But in a future where the real currency, the currency of bits, is something that is abundant, even more abundant than the air, how can these people retain their power? They can’t obviously and what’s worse, they don’t understand it and it scares the shit out of them.

The scarcity/abundance economics are the reason we’re setting up StartVI. In Belfast there is an artificial scarcity of office space (with over 1.26 million square feet of empty office space in Belfast). The scarcity is created by pricing the office space beyond the means of the businesses which could make use of them. It seems utterly insane that we’re talking about a scarcity of empty space. So, we’re removing the essence of that scarcity. And we;re providing more than empty space. Desk space in StartVI is free. Internet access is free. Light and heat are free. And we’re filling the empty space with people: hopeful entrepreneurs, wise business advisors, savvy investors. And they’re giving their time for free.

To build for tomorrow, we have to plan today.

The Economist: Nokia tries to reinvent itself: ASK Finns about their national character and chances are the word sisu will come up. It is an amalgam of steadfastness and diligence, but also courage, recklessness and fierce tenacity. “It takes sisu to stand at the door when the bear is on the other side,” a folk … Continue reading “To build for tomorrow, we have to plan today.”

The Economist: Nokia tries to reinvent itself:

ASK Finns about their national character and chances are the word sisu will come up. It is an amalgam of steadfastness and diligence, but also courage, recklessness and fierce tenacity. “It takes sisu to stand at the door when the bear is on the other side,” a folk saying goes.

We have this feeling. We have it. We likely don’t have a word for it. And that’s a damn shame.

We need something to change. Northern Ireland will always have difficulties because we lack the environment we need to excel. Part of this is historical, part of it is just the way our culture is built. We have the talent, we have the brains, we just lack part of the execution. We will never have the same number of angels and funds as Silicon Valley. So we have to make better use of what we have. We will never get the massive DoD contracts that Israel secured so we’re going to need to find other ways to make our mark. We need to have the foresight to prepare for the future, the charisma to make friendships that will last and the heart to build it. Not for our own gain but for the gain of tomorrow. Well, starting from today, the first week of January 2010, we’re going to change that.

We’re going to start an incubator.
We’re going to start building a fund.
And we’re going to do it in Belfast.

So I’m looking for a word in Irish to express something. To express the passion about how I choose to spend my free time. There’s some candidates here – and the front-runner so far in bold.

dream brionglóid
sight radharc
To hell with you! Go hIfreann leat!
friendship cairdeas
The big race An rás mór
connection, bond ceangal
feat, achievment gaisce
nerve, courage, morale, heart misneach

Workplace 2010

Workplace 2010 is an initiative within the Civil Service. I recently met with Mark Bennett, who works for the Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP) and is specifically charged with OpenDataNI along with a team of talented anarchists within the walls of the Civil Service. Mark took the time to show me around Clare House … Continue reading “Workplace 2010”

Workplace 2010 is an initiative within the Civil Service. I recently met with Mark Bennett, who works for the Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP) and is specifically charged with OpenDataNI along with a team of talented anarchists within the walls of the Civil Service. Mark took the time to show me around Clare House which is the home of the DFP (as well as other departments including the Strategic Investment Board).

I took a short video:

This shows some of the facilities, including the circular meeting rooms, a glimpse of some of the ‘standing room’ for visitors as well as the copious amounts of hot-desking space and collaboration areas. This, a booth not dissimilar to that found in a restaurant, was my favourite:

IMG_0639

A booth with ethernet, power and a monitor. Plenty of room to spread out or work with someone. Perfick!

Did I mention the entire place was flooded with WiFi? (BTOpenZone so not perfect but still, progress, and from somewhere you would not expect).

Creative Industries Innovation Fund Workshop – Thursday 29th Jan

Today I posted a quick note about a workshop being held in the OhYeah building (with special thanks to OhYeah and NoMoreArt for helping pull it together). The event itself was conceived during an OpenCoffeeMorning conversation between myself and Marty Neill of NoMoreArt – as he puts it, democracy without bureaucracy. The workshop is designed … Continue reading “Creative Industries Innovation Fund Workshop – Thursday 29th Jan”

Today I posted a quick note about a workshop being held in the OhYeah building (with special thanks to OhYeah and NoMoreArt for helping pull it together). The event itself was conceived during an OpenCoffeeMorning conversation between myself and Marty Neill of NoMoreArt – as he puts it, democracy without bureaucracy.

The workshop is designed to help those in the “creative industries” find the time to fill in the forms for the Creative Industries Innovation Fund. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about this Fund and extolled it’s virtues and I hear a lot of the same story – it’s something they’ll get around to.

Well, time is up. The closing date for this first call is Thursday the 5th of February and if you miss this one it’s months until the next. And the best reason in the world to hold a workshop is to help people focus the mind. Ideally we’re aiming for a largish group of people all focussed on filling in their forms and getting the paperwork out of the way.

There will be two sessions: one from 11 am to 1 pm and the second from 4:30 pm to 6 pm. The content for both is the same and it straddles part of lunch and just after work so that people from all walks of life can make some time to come in and at least get the forms.

The workshop itself is not about guidance – it’s not about trying to ensure success – it’s about getting the forms in on time, because if they’re not in then you’ve got no chance. I have invited representatives from the Arts Council (who are managing the fund), NIMIC and NIScreen (who are especially relevant to the digital content industry) and the Digital Circle Steering Group – hopefully an individual might be able to talk to these representatives and maybe get some guidance or inspiration from people who have experience with this sort of thing.

It’s meant to be collaborative, it’s meant to be a learning experience and it’s meant to be a shared social experience. At the most basic level it’s a heap of forms and pens and desks and chairs. What’s more is that it’ll be a collection of people who all have something creative inside them which they feel is deserving of public funding in order to have it realised.

There’s a form for registry – just to help us get an idea of how many people will turn up so I’d appreciate it if people could register beforehand. The format will be informal and it will be about completing forms.

CoWorkingBelfast has a home at last…

I was very happy to see Andy post this on Twitter just a few minutes ago as we’d been sitting on it for so long, working out numbers and trying to figure out how to pay for things. The Good: The rent and rates are affordable and the room itself is great for the purposes. … Continue reading “CoWorkingBelfast has a home at last…”

I was very happy to see Andy post this on Twitter just a few minutes ago as we’d been sitting on it for so long, working out numbers and trying to figure out how to pay for things.

The Good: The rent and rates are affordable and the room itself is great for the purposes. The café below is also not bad and the food seems pretty healthy. The room itself is very nice, has heaps of natural light and is in a popular part of the city. I think the atmosphere in the room will be very enjoyable for dynamic, ‘agile’ companies. It’s not going to suit everyone – and that’s fine – CoWorking isn’t meant for everyone.

The Bad: We’re realistic. This is a temporary home – it’s going to take us a couple of years to build to the point where we have enough people and momentum to take CWB to the ‘next level’. The vision for CoWorkingBelfast has always been ‘an entire building’ so we’ll start here and see where we go. There’s no parking though – which is a pain and an expense but that’s going to bite you anywhere in the city. You should be using public transport anyway.

The Ugly: We’ve still got a heap of paperwork to do and we could do with a reasonable solicitor to help us through some of the muddle. Nightmare. Anyone got much experience with non-profits and want me to owe them a favour?

Digital Mentors…

I put together a Digital Circle post on the Digital Mentor project. Claire White writes: All people need is access and time. This is a big ‘all’. Unpicking this, use of social media is a luxury. Access to basic equipment is enough for basic interaction, but the technology you have dictates whether you can access … Continue reading “Digital Mentors…”

I put together a Digital Circle post on the Digital Mentor project.

Claire White writes:

All people need is access and time. This is a big ‘all’. Unpicking this, use of social media is a luxury. Access to basic equipment is enough for basic interaction, but the technology you have dictates whether you can access features like broadband. When internet access has a price, time becomes limited. Your ability to have an ambient awareness of the passing world depends if you are near a screen much of the time, for example in a job that is both computer-based and where access to social sites has not been blocked.

This is core to some of the thoughts being CoWorkingBelfast and the funding we applied for.

More on Co-Working

Andy and I viewed a great location today for Co-Working. We’ll likely post photos over the next day or so but right now we’re wanting to know who will be interested in taking a space. It really is time to put your chips on the table. I’ve also posted a little update on the Digital … Continue reading “More on Co-Working”

Andy and I viewed a great location today for Co-Working. We’ll likely post photos over the next day or so but right now we’re wanting to know who will be interested in taking a space. It really is time to put your chips on the table. I’ve also posted a little update on the Digital Circle blog and sent this message onto the OpenCoffee mailing list.

I reckon we can fit 20 people in there which brings the rent down considerably per person – down to £100 per month which is incredibly good. The venue isn’t perfect but nothing other than a custom venue will be and I think it’s important that we put our foot down, stand up and be counted.

At the Digital Island Meetup last Thursday it was argued that the reason broadband in the Republic of Ireland is so poor is that it has yet to be proved by broadband faster than 512 Kbps is needed. The point was made by the panel that unless people get faster connections, that’s impossible to prove – like deciding to build roads after everyone decides they need a car. This is why it’s important to show that it’s time for Belfast to have some sort of Digital Hub – that the people needing it are here waiting.

I have, with the help of BCC, applied for some funding under the Creative Industries Innovation Fund for computer equipment and desking but we don’t have to wait for that in order to get started.

[UPDATE: Andy posted his own blog entry which includes an excellent photo]

Who is interested? Seriously.