Silicon Roundabout – Shoreditch tax haven creates start ups, growth and innovation

Occasionally I pick up a copy of the FT Weekend – there’s normally something in it that is thought provoking. This week it was the article on Silicon Roundabout that got me thinking. As software & web developers we like to keep an eye on what’s going on around the UK and the globe with regard techy stuff so we’d caught the Roundabout story before – particularly when David Cameron climbed aboard the roundabout in November in an attempt to take some credit.  

For those that don’t know Silicon Roundabout is the name being rather incorrectly tagged onto an area around Shoreditch, London that has seen growth in the number of techy companies starting up (eg Tweetdeck). On the face of it cheap (all things are relative) accomodation seems to be the driver for the cluster – though there is another important factor that I’ll get to eventually. The Roundabout emerged with no apparent government intervention – it just sort of happened. New Start’s setting up in apparent serendipity in the same area.

If you read the latest article you’ll see that the word “hype” is used. That word helped me read the article with more interest than normal – it seemed to suggest a level of honesty and openness that is seldom the case in blatent PR pieces. We’ve sort of been here before haven’t we – Silicon Glen (when will we see your likes again) and Silicon Fen (is it still being called that?) prime examples.

Sadly though we are talking about London – a City that seldom needs any hype to generate interest. So why use the word “hype”  and why the need for the kiss of death “Silicon X” tag? Doing the google thing to find out a bit more reveals that the start ups that find themselves on the roundabout have concerns about the lack of funding. Sounds familiar. Scottish tech start ups have long complained about a lack of funding – but here are our Cockney (is Shoreditch cockney?) friends lamenting the same. Hmmm.

A  look at Techhub (just down from the A5201/A501 circle) reveals partners including Google. The Techhub partner page is quite funny – the normal list of supporters with a paragraph for each until you get to Google – it simply says Google, no explanatory text. Now thats being famous! Techhub is a cheap hot desk facility – a couple of hundred quid a month gets you in and mixing with other techy types. In London I’m guessing that’s pretty unique.

So we’ve had Valleys, Glens and Fens, but now we have a Roundabout – makes me wonder what next… car park, cul de sac, traffic island?  A case of ever decreasing circles? I hope not.

But what of Scotland – do we have a Silicon Roundabout or Silicon Traffic Island we can create hype about? I’m not sure - but we do have the odd cluster here and there. I think there is one near the Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow, there’s Appleton Tower in Edinburgh, and a few creative types hanging around Leith Docks, and I’d better not forget the Games thing in Dundee. Not bad – and thankfully none of them tagged “Silicon X”. We’re based in Stirling – clearly the epicentre of Silicon Bridge (copyright 2011 me, with thanks to William Wallace copyright 1297).

Hmmm Silicon Bridge – suddenly the Silicon prefix sounds ok – gather round everybody lets get Dave C and Alex S to jump on the Silicon Bridge bandwagon.

But just one last thing as the repeats of Colombo keep saying… and it’s rather important. Geographically sensitive Mrs O points out that Shoreditch is just outside the London Congestion Charge zone (though Techhub appears to be within it). I’ve no idea how many of these Start Up’s are outside the Charging Zone – but could it be a coincidence that Shoreditch is in a traffc Tax haven? And if it’s more than a coincidence that something as banal as a Congestion charge has made a difference  what does that tell us about the importance of taxes? In a few months the next Scottish Government will have the power to alter taxes – based on the Shoreditch example dropping taxes could have a significant and positive impact on the Scottish business start up rate and resultant economic growth.

If a tax charge on traffic near Shoreditch creates “Silicon Roundabout” surely lower taxes in Scotland would create “Silicon Scotland”. Now that would be a prefix worth having – however inappropriate to the type of businesses created.

Lets give tax cutting a bash – seems to have worked in Shoreditch. Surely it would work in Scotland.

Links:

FT Silicon Roundabout article

Dave Cameron gets aboard the roundabout

Thee economist take on Silicon Roundabout and Dave C

Doug Richard and the word union – Entrepreneurs get a voice?

Depsite knowing all the good that has been done by them the word “Union”, or more correctly “Trade Union”, is one that causes me some anxiety. And to my surprise I find myself having to deal with that anxiety when I hear Doug Richard (School for Start Ups and late of the dreadful Dragons Den) using the word – a union for entrepreneurs, surely not.

I would have been 12 when the 3 day week was in place – I can remember reading the newspaper to find out when our electricity would be switched off that evening. All in an attempt by the government to conserve/manage coal stocks while the miners were on strike in 1974. It was a pretty ugly period – my dad was on short time – things were tough. The UK was on it’s knees and it’s population seriously fragmented. I think that is where I started to get a bit jumpy about the word union (rights and wrongs of the industrial action set aside).

And then there was the the time as a software developer on contract that I was obliged to join the Union but not allowed to attend the regular union meetings. I chose not to make a fuss. And for what is was worth – at that time it was clear the employees needed some decent union support due to impending redundanices. Fair play.

So Doug Richard and the word union – whats all that about? I once met Doug at a University of Glasgow meeting to discuss the option of adding a Scottish dimension to Venture Navigator. He was interested/kind enough to ask about our software development business and at no point sounded like a Unionist. He didn’t once suggest that I was expoliting the proletariat or that all property was theft, - so union – whats all that about? 

The Entrepreneurs Union is all about lobbying support for that part of the economy that does a helluva lot to create jobs and to deliver innovation. It’s an attempt by Doug and some other influential folks to get the entrepreneur thing further up the UK government agenda.

Fair enough – I kinda get that, see my ramble on getting in the game from the other day.

You can register interest on the Entrepreneur Union site at present – I think it goes properly live tomorrow - a social network (what another one) to help young businesses and entrepreneurs get the voice they need. I’ve registered my interest – quite a step for someone who didn’t have a good word to say in London a week or so back when the Tube was on strike. But it seems we all need a union, even business folk – could the last one out switch off the lights!

The University of Edinburgh are in the game – are you?

I’m probably being a bit over sensitive but I’m getting a bit “cheesed” off with our political and esteemed thought leaders. And for “cheesed” you can replace some of the letters with “p” and “i” if you don’t mind some of that good ol’ cussing stuff.

So what’s bugging me? Well it’s all the chatter about how the private sector will lead us out of the recession, the talk of the millions of hard working SME companies in the UK, the praise that the Small Business commmunity is the backbone of the economy, the newly declared faith that innovation is the way forward and the confirmation that it is nimble small businesses that will deliver innovative new products and services. Like I said – maybe there isn’t as much of this chatter as I fear – maybe I’m a bit over sensitive to it.

I don’t have a problem with the statements – I whole heartedly agree with all of them. The problem I have is with who are saying them. I’ve read (clearly read too many) articles from politicians and commentators on how the private sector must/will lead the way out of the sorry mess we are in as an economy. Cheers guys, I’m sure it’s well meant – but why not join in and get an innovative, private business going?

The point that seems to be missed in all the chatter, rhetoric and analysis is that private business has no choice – it has to get on with it. It has to work hard, grow, work hard, be innovative, work hard, be creative, work hard, take risks, work hard - it has no choice, it never has had the choice. So when cheerleaders suddenly appear on the sideliness cheering on the private and SME sector I have to wonder why and whether the other league games that day have all been postponed. 

Rather than standing on the sidelines cheering I’d like the leaders and commentators to get in the game, to kick the ball, to defend the back post, to dive in the penalty box if required.

Well that’s simply impossible, isn’t it? How can people who are not in the private sector get involved? The public sector and the government don’t do business – do they?

Need an example to show what the public sector can actually do? Well look at Edinburgh Univeristy – a 600 year old institution as tied to history and inescapable inertia as any UK institution could be – but it’s in the game (maybe not in a Terry Butcher, blood covered, mad sort of way – but it’s in the game). And if they can get a kick at the ball then what’s stopping everyone else. What’s stopping you?

Informatics have been running a serious of business coaching events that bring auld and new heids together to share business experience and to offer advice to one another. Think about that… a University acting as the facilitator for business to talk to business. That’s rather good, a bit like walking onto the park and saying “need a player?”.

The events combine classroom workshops led by Ken Morse (do the Google thing) with an evening session where invited guests talk to the particpants and assist with “pitch” coaching. The beauty of this is that the guests and the attendees could be easily interchanged - many of the attendees already run successful businesses, many/all of the guests are still working hard at making their current business successful.

The sessions (for the best part) are ego less examples of one to one discussions and support. I’ve been along as a guest a couple of times – I come away refreshed and enthused that a culture of sharing business experience (Knowledge Transfer even) is emerging thanks to the efforts of an academic institution. That’s noteworthy and it shows that those that cheer from the sidelines don’t need to – they need to get a strip on and join in.

So if your reading this and suspect you’re one of those cheering on the private sector from the sidelines get you boots on – the good news is that  it’s 5 million a side, no need to ask for a game, just join in. You don’t need to be an Archie Gemmil or Terry Butcher – you just need to get in the game. 

Browsers are all up in the air – Adobe Air!

Normally I’m an Internet Explorer user – ok – I know – Firefox is faster, safer better. Or if not Firefox then it must be Chrome or Safari or whatever the latest “best ever” browser is.

Today I needed to nip into Firefox to check a piece of functionality (we are web design guys doing DNN development after all). It’s been a while since I’d been “in” Firefox and because the Foxy little fella has more point releases than a wild fox has chickens I needed to download the latest version. That went well enough so into the bargain I downloaded the latest Flash stuff as well.

And then I went back to IE…. aarrrrgghh. My Adds On were no longer enabled, so it was no longer working correctly. Clearly something in the installation had switched them off. The IE help was useless and pointed me in the wrong direction. Eventually I found where the Adds On had been turned off – not where IE claimed of course. Took 20 minutes to find the correct option.

So where am I going with this? Well look… all these better than ever browsers are great but they are creating a huge amount of work because they all have huge ego’s. Each one demands that it knows better than the other and will decide that it’s the default browser, or what the correct and safe internet settings are. Each has its own way of interpreting CSS and what is allowed and what is not. Even latest versions from each browser have improvements that cause problems (IE 8 a case in point). It’s all getting out of hand.

For clients of web design and web development companies it can’t be fun, it must seem needlessly complicated. In my opinion the range and variety of differing interpretations and the related limitations is causing web development times to increase. It doesn’t matter whether its DNN, Joomla, Droopal, PHP or Microsft.Net the discrepancies and differences between browsers is slowing application development times down. Not cool. 

Look at Adobe Air though. In addition to DNN we are also Adobe Air Developers, and find the world that Adobe Air applications live in to be blissfully isolated from the need to be compatible with other browsers. Ok it has its limitations, but look at the benefits – cross platform with no need to worry about the latest new kid browser on the block or the latest version browser not being compatible with the previous. Bliss. Air Development isn’t quite as rich a development environment as say Microsoft.Net and DNN but the benefit is the controlled environment it lives in.

I can’t help but think that the range of browsers and their compatibility issues is likely to get much worse before it gets better and that isn’t good for anyone. Wouldn’t the world be wonderful if we only had one browser to worry about… or did the Microsoft anti-trust legal case make sure that that can never be the case. Pity.

Cover Flow and the $625mn dollar Apple interface patent fight

Unlike the USA it is difficult (impossible?) to file a software patent in the UK. The UK patent office likes patents to have some form of physical impact – that’s my layman summary BTW. Any UK IP Lawyer wanting to correctly define the UK position please comment below – it would be welcome (but keep it simple please).

The recent $625mn award to Prof David Gelernter on the grounds that Apple breached (knowingly) his patent related to their Cover Flow interface is creating a bit of a stir. There is a decent review of the judgement here (on the fastycompany web site).

A look round a few tech sites to see comments finds that the views of the web vary significantly. Some opinion sees the Professor as a sort of evil genius set on undermining the world of innovation, while other opinion see’s Apple as a corporate thief stealing other peoples ideas and riding rough shod over patents. 

As software developers we’ve filed for patent twice over the years, both times in the USA - we even went the whole hog with one and got it granted. Sadly I don’t ever see us benefiting to the tune of $625mn though – maybe we should have concentrated on cute GUI’s instead.

To be honest I’m not sure why Cover Flow was ever patentable – if you put half a dozen creative artists in a room and said we want “pretty” I can’t see it taking that long to come up with – or am I starting to sound like the UK patent office? 

And there in lies at least part of the problem. Apple bought Cover Flow – see the Wiki Entry - a while back and even got patent protection, but it seems they were still breaching the Prof’s patents. 

Cover Flow is really nice – innovative even. But is it worthy of a patent? In the USA clearly it is, and in the USA (as opposed to the UK) it means that someone might just get very, very rich. 

So should we encourage the UK patent office to patent sofware? Despite our years in the software business world continually trying to be innovative I’m really not sure that we should.

Self Service phone charger – a thing of genius at Premier Inn

I’m always intrigued with new self service offerings. That comes from the days when as ATM software developers we couldn’t pass an ATM without checking what make it was and the software it was running. The business models changed dramatically back in 99/2000 when ATM sur-charging came into prominence and into the UK. There was a gold rush of activity and a land grab for good sites as ATM operators came out the woodwork to deploy low cost, revenue sharing machines. Ultimately the market got saturated and revenues for some proved hard to get – so the market contracted… a lot.

Fast forward a few years and we are still software developers – typically DNN developers on the Microsoft .Net platform – but the self service world we now inhabit is in the web design self service world not the real one. But I am still a sucker for self service machines – take the one I’ve been using in a Premier Inn – it’s for charging your mobile phone.

I had to do a double take on it – at first I thought it was a reception lockable safe for wallets and passports – but eventually I spotted that the attractor screen on top was telling me to charge up my ipod or iphone or nokia or samsung. My first thought was how on earth it could make money or generate any meaningful return. £1 for 30 minutes of charge. You need a lot of charging to cover the costs I suspect.

But you know what – it is a thing of near genius. I had forgotten my iphone charger, and given that it seems to be discharging faster than ever, the self service charging machine was a god send. London without the maps on my iPhone is a tricky place for me and Mrs O to navigate.

But horror of horror – the next day the machine wasn’t working – catastrophe and one that showed how quickly new self service technology can become essential to the forgetful traveller. And then with some help from the reception desk it transpires the machine was working – it was only the attractor screen that had packed up – phew.

But what about that attractor screen? We all think we are imune to advertising – but it worked very successfully on me (I’ve spent £3 so far). But when that screen isn’t working how quickly will revenues fall?

Scotsoft Dinner – are we jumping the hurdles in the right direction

When you hit a hurdle it falls over but it will normally allow you to continue on your chosen path. Kris Akabusi knows that given his achievements in the sport. Try and negotiate them from the wrong direction and you’ll come a cropper – as David Hemery demonstrated back in the 70’s or was it Roger Black (do the Google thing for me). So what on earth has that got to do with the Scotsoft annual dinner from Scotland IS?

Well medal winning hurdler Kris Akabusi was the invited speaker who raised the energy in the room significantly when handing out the cheques for a grand to the best R&D students coming out of the Scottish Universities. None of the normal hand shakes from Kris – high fives and pumped fists the order of the day instead. I liked that – we can be a dour bunch us Scotchies (myself especially). I wish all Award Dinners did the high five thing.

I went to an Awards dinner for lawyers once where the winners were booed, honest… their competitors actually booed (at £350 per hour of course).

KA’s motivational address to the 8 student winners will have left a positive impression on their ambitions – I have no doubt about that. It did on me and I’m sure it helped the audience as well.

Although the Scotsoft dinner has been awarding student achievement for many years I sense a shift in attitudes in the academic world to what the award is all about. Take for instance the winner from Edinburgh University – he wants to get some experience and then set up a business. And consider the activities in Informatics Ventures at Edinburgh, thanks to the energy laden Andrew Mitchell, a rather compelling looking eco-system of young kids, old heads and funders is emerging. And consider Edinburgh Napier University (my kind hosts for the evening, cheers Bill) who have embraced a two way engagement model with business as they grasp the nettle of academic relevance. A shift, a very welcome and important shift in academic circles.

But… you knew there was a but coming didn’t you.

As Kris did his motivational – “you are the world” speech to the student winners I couldn’t help but consider where their best interests were served. I’d been at the e-club at Edinburgh University a few weeks earlier where Ann Winblad spoke about her VC activities related to smart software ideas in the States – and yes the grass is greener (she brought some with her to prove that). So should our best students buy a seat on the first flight to San Fran with their new found wealth rather than use it to pay off the student loan we have forced upon them (shame on us by the way – a public disgrace).

So what happens next to our winners – well consider the comment from the chap from Tomorrow Ventures over from the States, he’s looking for better value deals than he can find in the Valley. Interesting. Could this be a trend?

Typically VCs will only invest within an hour or so from their office – so is this the start of a trend? Or could it be a warning signal to the Scottish investment community that we are sitting on some pretty clever potential that needs to be funded. With no huge home grown software success to point at the Scottish investment community are naturally reluctant to put significant weight behind software. That may prove to be a mistake – but I don’t see a simple solution.

Ultimately to get the sector in Scotland really moving we need a big software success – a really big one – to help the investment community here realise the latent software opportunities all around. Otherwise we might find ourselves to be more of a David Hemery than a Kris Akabusi when it comes to negotiating our business hurdles.

ps if someone can find out whether it was Hemery or Black that jumped the hurdlee the wrong way and fell on his backside I will be eternally grateful. Well…. maybe not eternally.

Intranet or forgetanet – doh!

It’s funny when you suddenly remember that you haven’t taken your own advice… well if not funny… then really annoying. Certainly one of the two. Doing the web design and web development thing we regularly encourage clients to keep their website up to date. It’s all the normal advice you expect folks like us to give… keep your news alive, review your SEO, make sure any new products or services get promoted on the site asap.

Errmmm…. well… we kinda forgot about that last one. We’d been steadily seeing an increase in the number of businesses and clients looking for intranet software systems and had been busying ourselves doing the proposals, dealing with the objections, all that sales stuff and then doing it. A case of too busy or maybe being too lazy but we kinda forgot to update our own website with the intranet software info. Doh!

Updating the site with the info has been a doddle – but its been frustrating. I’m an impatient sort of character at times (ok all the time) and the thing that has driven me nuts is that it should have been months ago and its all my fault. No one to blame other than me that we’ve been keeping what we have been up to a secret. Summer seems the likeliest thing to blame.

So if you have been busily generating income from something that isn’t promoted on your site  take some advice from someone who doesnt take their own advice – get your site updated… how else will other prospects find out!

My propensity to offer advice is matched only by my ability to ignore it!

IBM fail to inspire me at Chamber event – so What Would Google Do?

I’ve got a problem. I’ve been reading “What Would Google Do” by Jeff Jarvis – so right now my head is full of contrary thinking, counter intuition and openness. And thats where my problem undoubtedly lies.

Last night The Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce held a dinner where Dr Graham Spittle, VP of UK Software at IBM, was the speaker. I’ve said before that I like heading along to these types of events to get re-energised or to find a nugget for a strategy or a plan. Generally I do find something to hang on to and given that IBM are among the worlds thought leaders I was looking for the same. It was an interesting presentation but it didn’t inspire me – though I’m sure I was in the minority.

I suspect that Dr Graham deliberately delivered a very safe presentation, ie not too technical, given the audience which probably consisted of more non techies than techies, that obviously made sense. But the disappointment for me was the lack of tangible examples of where the world is going with IBM and any cutting insight. I was looking for my nugget – and it didn’t come. Innovation is undoubtedly at the core of IBM – but I couldn’t see how they harnessed that effectively or how they rewarded it – maybe in 45 minutes or so that’s an impossible task.

IBM had just completed a worldwide study of what their customers wanted – but I suspect that the findings couldn’t easily be shared, so the 5 summary bullet points were rather high level – maybe a feature of corporate policy. But remember I’ve been reading WWGD so I am now in a hopelessly delusional state regarding openness.

Last week I had to do a similar wee talk to my BNI Chapter and to be honest I suspect my presentation (at the risk of taking flack) was much more relevant to the audience. You can see my Pub Quiz approach to the internet on The Web Wise Business Channel on YouTube. The stats and questions are largely from the video Did You Know (search YouTube) and for all I know are undoubtedly far from accurate – but they made the subject relevant (I hope) to a largely non technical audience.

The night itself, like all Chamber events in Edinburgh, was very good, and the talk perfectly acceptable and undoubtedly interesting to the vast majority. As it turned out in the end I did come away inspired thanks to my new best table mate Phil Wedgwood of Lumison who explained about the growth at Lumison (our co-locate supplier) and the move to server virtualisation. So thanks to Phil for providing the night’s inspiration and also for the word of the night “tenacity” – yip tenacious behaviour – that’s What Google Would Do.

As I said at the start my head is full of Google nonsense thanks to Jeff Jarvis – so please don’t worry – I’ll be fine in a day or two. And life will return to normal.

Hairspray – with panto bits for the Mums and Dads

I seem to be in London a lot more that I have been for some time and not just for business – I also seem to be there socially a lot as well.

Last trip down I decided to head along to a show with Mrs O. I picked Hairspray – not as popular a choice as I hoped it would have been – serves me right for trying to choose something that I thought she would like.

However, nonetheless we went along. It was all very 100 miles an hour and all very bright and loud. Certainly demanded attention. All in all – pretty decent – even Mrs O said she enjoyed it (though she might just have been being polite).

The only bit that seemed completely phoney (as opposed to phoney – after all it is a musical) was the bit where mum and dad cuddle up and “adlib”. It was like watching the worst of panto material performed by the worst of x TV personality Panto actors.