It’s been a while since I blogged and it’s entirely because of keeping confidences.
Last week was the culmination of a lot of planning, a lot of thinking. Some of it started the previous week, when John Hartnett of the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) had a meeting with InvestNI, QUB, the University of Ulster and, at my insistence, Momentum and Digital Circle. But part of it started 90 days previous, when David Kirk asked me to participate in putting together a document which would form the framework of what we thought needed to happen in Northern Ireland’s technology landscape. Even more relevantly, it started back in February this year when we had the audacity to travel to Cupertino and make a pitch to Apple Inc about the talent and innovation available in Northern Ireland. All of this, from pitch to pitch, has made great dividends for Northern Ireland.
Fail Fast, Fail Often
For my part, at a meeting last Thursday with John Hartnett and John Gilmore, both of the ITLG, I pitched for Digital Circle and my pitch was simple. I want an onion skin approach to involvement with our cousins in the ITLG. I want to start by getting them to take notice of the companies in the digital content and software sector. I want to ask their help in identifying real world opportunities and, in many cases, we want them to help us to fail fast and fail often. This will be the first groundswell of culture change in Northern Ireland which regards failures as something to be despised (and only marginally less palatable than successes).
Get Involved
I also want them to use their experience and presence to advise those ideas which survive the fail test and nurture them. This can be as shallow or as deep as required. In truth, I would hope this would range from a couple of hours a month spent on Skype giving out advice to face-to-face visits in order to secure a small amount of equity. And if things worked out and the people involved liked each other, the individuals would have opportunity to become intimately involved with the company, joining the board, investing, becoming a de-facto salesman for the company as they move in their circles.
This isn’t going to happen overnight, but it ties well into some of the things we came up with in the document I contributed to which has become known as “NISW”. I’m putting a lot of effort into this, even outside of the day job, because it’s the way forward for the sector and, to be honest, in 18 months I’ll be looking for a job and I’ll want a process like this in place already for whatever I do next.
As for the confidences – I’m yet to see an announcement so I can’t say anything at all about them. But what I can say is that I am looking to meet up with the smartest folk in the province, with the best ideas and the biggest vision. And I’ll put them in touch with the first layer of the onion and we’ll see if we can create something amazing?
After everything that happened this week, I’m pumped. I may not be as knowledgeable or experienced as everyone else, but I’m ready to start tearing shit up, I’ve already got a lot of ideas.
I’m glad you’re inspired! I just wish there were fewer secrets 🙂
Suffice to say we have been given an opportunity, one we won’t waste.
So, what has actually happened? Are we sure it wasn’t just a stream of psycho-babble, buzz-word, ‘blue-sky thinking’, self-aggrandising nonsense which has amounted to virtually nothing other than yet more breathless online outpourings?
Apart from relationships built, companies becoming investor ready and some of them securing finance?
Some of it is commercially sensitive, you understand.